Hikari wakes up.
She sits in the grey salt formation.
Her boots feel a bit tight as she bulks up from the power she absorbed.
Her salamander armor adjusts to her size.
Hungry. She munches down on her only pack of rations.
She stands up for a warm-up.
Shoulder rolls followed by some basic drills.
Ten reps of vertical slashes.
The grey salt formation blocks out the mist and the monsters that reside within it, giving her a safe place to rest and train.
She looks in the distance at the raiding town.
The barrier was still up.
The fortified town would not be taken down by a horde of golems and ghouls.
An army was assembling outside for the final push on the ruined city.
Ten reps of squats.
Ten reps of leg raises.
It was a fraction of her usual workout, just a warm-up after a short rest.
She hoisted her empty harvest sack.
She couldn't loot anything while carrying the satchel charges to blow up the trees.
She would just use the gauntlet to absorb the mist crystals into her body.
Time to explore the salt formation before she heads back.
Anything of value she find, she gets to keep.
Though there appears to be nothing but barren rock.
Abandoned tents up ahead.
Safe from the mist, the grey salt formation used to be a staging point for an expedition deeper into the mist.
They abandoned it long ago.
Empty crates. Torn tents.
Cartridges with burnt gunpowder inside.
A few sealed ration packs the size of her fingertips.
She reads the packing date.
Not safe to eat even for her.
Pulse.
She checks the surroundings for anything of value.
There was nothing but a journal in one of the tents.
She opens it.
The pages were in good enough condition not to fall apart as Hikari turned the page.
The writing was messy but legible.
Day one.
Arrived in the trading town. Pretty excited about the new job. Small chance of death, they say. Haven't met anyone complaining about dying yet. Pays triple what I would make if I started farming.
Day two.
The taste of ale and meat pie still in my mouth.
Better fill up as much as I can. The ghouls are not really the problem. Hit one straight in the skull with my revolver.
It didn't die. Had to stab it with my sword caked in that grey salt to bring it down. Starving to death is really the problem when we go deeper. There's no fodder, so we can't use horses. Gotten have enough in the belly to march the distance.
Hikari flips the page with her fingertip.
Day three.
Reached the salt formation. It looks exactly like how it looks on the map. Nothing but grey salt what a surprise. I mean, really nothing but grey salt. Not even ivory berries grow in here. What happened to this place? The history books detail a trading town with a river flowing through it. Its farmlands fed tens of thousands of people. The mist sure flipped a lot of folks' lives upside down. Hope it doesn't one day rise up.
Hikari flips the page.
Day four.
Settled in here quite nicely. The advance party had gone ahead. I'm just switching between standing guard and patrolling the area. The ghouls really do not come in here. Saw a couple of horses wandering past me when I got close to the ledge. Almost sh*t pants.
Day five.
We'll go deeper in a few days once we've piled enough supplies. For now, the hot stew is still coming. Didn't find anything so far. If I find a gold nugget or something, I'd better not write it here. The inspectors flip through people's journals for this kind of thing.
"Interesting read."
She keeps it in her harvest sack.
An old journal like this would be a nice gift to Ria.
Maybe she'll read it with her when she returns.
"Ghouls?"
Her experience in the mist so far was nothing like what the journal says.
There's nothing more the abandoned camp has to offer.
She moves on.
The mist outside was getting back to normal.
She could see the zeppelins holding their positions overhead.
She takes out her lodestone.
Pulse. Pulse.
No response. She's too far away.
She should be getting back soon.
A march around the salt formation while waiting out the remains of that mist surge from the ruined city wouldn't hurt.
More of those camps.
The salt formation was a ripe camping ground for expeditions further into the mist.
She wonders what exactly is out there that caused such a gold rush.
She comes across another journal.
This one was in bad condition.
There was only one legible page.
Getting my shot wound dressed up. Shit had to fight in my pajamas. A raiding party hit our camp last night. They're after the treasures we found. Jokes on them; we found nothing. I shot one of them in the leg. Now, we're going to drag him all the way up the elevator shaft to Moradale, where he'll be spending his next years rotting in prison with my bullet in his leg.
"Not a happy story"
She keeps the journal.
Another camp.
She didn't look too closely at first.
It was different.
The tentage material was a different color.
A corpse.
They decay slowly in the mist.
But they will be nothing but bones after decades.
A familiar crystal in its hand.
"Here goes."
Hikari reaches for it.
A summoning circle out here?
Has the apostle gone mad?
Do we not have anything better to do?
The area has been plundered many times over by past raiding parties.
There are no more monsters to hunt.
No villages and towns to convert.
No treasures that would help our efforts.
Nothing but a bunch of ghouls that even some of our grunts can beat barehanded.
What could be the reason to create a summoning circle here?
Not to mention all those mana crystals that were painstakingly smuggled into Carla.
I thought we were supposed to be focusing all our resources on the titan.
She feels the sting of its mana.
A cultist of Eon.
A proper cloak is sure proof that he was at least one rank higher than the grunts.
Empty chests.
Piles of crystal dust
The remains of used mana crystals.
"These are quite recent."
Markings on the ground.
She follows them.
Another corpse. A musket shot through the back of the skull.
It lay flat on the ground.
A sacrificial dagger in one hand. A
A Eon crystal in the other.
No. No. I didn't want everything to end like this.
They promised I'd see Eon's glory.
They promised that I'd see paradise.
The horrors.
They lied to me.
I'll get out of here.
I stashed food. There is a path out of the mist for when the elevator shaft fails.
It's a long march. But I'll survive.
"Dead"
Hikari reaches the end of the tracks.
The summoning circle lies right ahead.