When we pass through the indigo portal, I let the rest of them through first. Mina, Elise, Emil and Ren in full armor and gear, along with a few toys we cooked up based on stuff Elise and I have scanned or nicked the designs for. Mina drew her construct-slaves into her ring, because apparently just having an army up her sleeve is just an orange light thing. My threat assessment of her has gone
way up and Elise is refusing to let her out of her sight.
Stepping through, I let the portal collapse behind us and pass through the group, the others having stopped to just stare a moment.
Psyche, by all rights, looks like it ought to be dead. It isn't. We've come out at the top of a massive canyon halfway up the cliff face of jagged spires reaching into the sky like daggers. The sky itself is a disturbing
orange-red, causing everything to look bloody. Everything is cast in shades of red. Like just
being here covers you in gore.
The canyon drops down away from us, not formed out of erosion but looking like the land split apart. As though some massive set of hands had broken the face of Psyche like a loaf of bread being split, almost. The canyon's bottom is difficult to estimate. Ring?
The bottom of the canyon extends nearly 20 kilometers below the lithosphere.
Phew. That's really deep. Damn.
On the other side of the canyon the land is flatter but still broken in massive shelves of rock tilted against each other, forming tilted daggers pointing at the sky. Along the flat ends, scraggly looking grass clings in patches to the rock face and at the tips of the spires grows some kind of fungal colony, darkening the tips against the rest of the rock and making them look bloody. I gesture to Emil and Ren and they kick off the ledge, the skids in their boots kicking in.
Form a HUD laid over my vision and give me data on the others position when they're out of line of sight. If you can, keep track of their ammunition and
alert me when they're running low.
We won't let them down.
Good. As we pass down towards the broken plains, Elise and Mina fan out behind me on either side.
"So,
what do you plan to do when we get there, mmm? Confront him aggressively and pick a fight immediately? Have a little chat?"
Mina's tail is lashing side to side behind her. She's flying sideways almost lazily, arms folded under her breasts, her entire body at a 45° angle as she faces me only slightly while flying in formation. It's interesting - I favor armor that's made of high-grade materials I can fabricate, integrated with systems I've scanned from the genkits and a bunch of other sources. Even without the ring I'm still really mobile, able to skid along the air the way Emil and Ren are doing right now. All three of us have the short-duration energy bulwarks we can pull up in front of us. Only lasts a few seconds but they're surprisingly resilient, even if they do nothing against energy-based weapons.
Mina seems to favor something closer to leather armor augmented with magic somehow. I can see runes and spellbindings made directly into it. They're not glowing orange either, so the ring isn't powering them. The only parts the ring is altering are the gold embellishments she's wearing, mostly jewelry. The scelera of her eyes is still black but the iris has changed to match the color of her ring, which is
glowing brightly. An orange sigil is hovering next to the armlet she's wearing on her right bicep.
"I think that depends greatly on what Vera is doing, whether or not she's there. We also have to find him first."
"Usually I'd be more inclined to take our time, recon a little, find out what this place is all about. I'd like to know why the hell there's so much smoke particulate in the air here.
I don't think we have that option this time."
I glance over at Elise. "You think we should just scan openly? He might detect it."
"So?
It's better than running around in circles trying to find some trace of him just to lay an ambush. Besides, we don't even know what he's up to. If he's just sitting around in some fancy castle drinking all day, kicking his door in might be easy."
Mina snorts derisively. "You really think it'll be
that easy? Hi
larious. Trust me, it won't be."
"
Mina,
I wouldn't trust you with a wooden spoon."
Mina nods. "Probably sound advice, since I'd
shove it up your -"
"
Ladies, please. Can we focus? We're here for a reason. You can sort your... differences out later."
Mina and Elise glance at each other, then look away. No, that's probably not over. Something I'm going to have to look out for.
"Emil, Ren. Double back, we're going to try
doing a direct scan."
The two of them loop around, landing on the
construct platform Elise generates as we stop. Ring,
scan for the yellow light of fear. Ignore traces, I want to find the most active source on the planet.
Oh dear. The most concentrated source is a structure about 550 kilometers north-east of this position. A great many people are there and all of them are very, very afraid.
I tilt my head and wince slightly. Mina narrows her eyes a little when I do that, so I wave her off. Ring,
explain what that was, please?
Enough ambient fear is being generated that a sympathetic resonance is building through the indigo light.
Shit. This is like when you turned orange to talk to Mina, isn't it?
Correct. The indigo light, as you demonstrated with Elise earlier, is capable of 'borrowing' other emotional resonances. You simply struggle with it because you have damage to your ability to feel.
I felt that feedback though.
It's probably going to get stronger as we get closer.
Oh.
Great. "Indigo ring thinks that he's that way." I point in the direction the ring specified. "He's terrorizing a huge number of people over there for some reason. Probably something yellow light related."
"Ah, fuck." Mina sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I was hoping he wouldn't do something like that. He gets stronger the more people are afraid of him."
"Oh cool!" Ren laughs. "We're not just going to
kick his ass, but he's superpowered too? Man, I gotta find a souvenir to hang up in my bunk when this is over."