Sorcerer… Cyborg???

Chapter 254: Dying Aemos

The Aemos had become a hive of activity, without Xurha present, there was virtually no chain of command. 

Xurha had ruled the Aemos with an iron fist, and as an Ascendant had been able to issue commands to all the dispersed divisions that were in the ship.

Xurha's personal guards were scouring the bridge, trying to make sense of Xerev's deceased body and the fact that the ship had been flown without them noticing.

Meanwhile, the maintenance division was overwhelmed, alarms ringing all over the enormous ship, sending them scattering in every direction. 

They were losing many of their workers to the spatial cracks that were spreading through the heart of the ship, the brave maintenance workers who had tried to go and find the source of the problem not returning. 

Others rushed down to the bottom of the ship, which had become damaged from its crash landing into the ocean floor, while a few others rushed to repair the stabilization system.

As for the common soldiers, they milled around the ship aimlessly, many in tears, for the Aemos had not suffered such a great loss of life in any of their campaigns so far.

Until now, they had been lucky enough to attack planes where no significant resistance could be mounted against them, but on Eclat, their Ascendant had been pulled into the void, while their great mothership was grounded, having been crashed into the ocean by an unknown saboteur.

As for the saboteur himself, he was currently huddled in a dead end amongst the maze of maintenance tunnels that crisscrossed the inside of the Aemos. 

[I think the Spatial Artifact should return to me soon, the spatial fluctuations coming from the center of the ship are fading.] Kothar said to Silane. He was currently wrapped up in his dark cloak, the hood pulled over his head, and his knees pulled up to his chest, with only a tiny gap for his eyes to peer through into the tunnel ahead.

This was so that any casual passersby wouldn't notice him hiding away in the back of the tunnel, and alert the Aemos that were currently swarming the ship in disarray. Giving the disorganized mess a target to go after would quite probably be the worst thing Kothar could do.

[Once you're out of here safely, Kothar. I think you should find a deep chasm, or some sort of volcano, and throw that artifact down there, and be done with it. That thing has only brought us trouble and danger, and I don't trust it one bit.] Silane's voice was serious, she had never liked the artifact, and the strange goings-on with the enormous Spatial Crystal in the center of the ship had only made that dislike worse.

[You only say that because you don't understand it, Silane. If you could make sense of whatever it's doing, I'm sure you'd be yelling at me to rush into the heart and recover  it right now.] Kothar chuckled as he said that Silane's dislike of all things she didn't understand had always been an issue.

When they had fought all across the Alliance, it had taken many years before she had stopped protesting against Kothar, following his gut instincts.

[Maybe that's true. But tell me, Kothar. How well do you understand it? Didn't you say that you had only scratched the surface of it what it was capable of.] Silane continued, still dead set on Kothar getting rid of the artifact.

[Sure I did, but I meant that as a positive, not a reason to get rid of it altogether. You might not understand what it's doing, but you can't deny that it's made my Spatial Magic increase by leaps and bounds.] Kothar said, thinking on how difficult it had been for him to use the repeated portals to travel through the Aemos, after he had left the Artifact behind in the heart.

{Nothing that helps you so drastically is likely to be without significant risks. And Krieg's definitely isn't going to be the last person who comes after you, just for the artifact.] Silane knew that  Kothar didn't like talking about Krieg, but she was that certain that the Artifact was a negative influence, and was bound to be a danger to Kothar, if not now, then in the future.

Kothar was silent for a few moments, remembering Krieg was always painful, as memories of his betrayal would flash through Kothar's mind. Kothar hadn't spent long with Krieg, but he had respected him, after all  he had been one of Kothar's only real; teachers.

[Okay, so what if I do go and toss the Spatial Artifact off some cliff. I only see two real outcomes, someone comes after me looking for it, and finding that I don't have it, they try torture its location out of me. On the other hand, I toss it, and it returns back to me, just as it has before. And anyway, Silane, without it, I can't travel to other planes, which is definitely a perfect last resort escape route.] Kothar said, clearly a little upset, as memories of Krieg flicked through his mind.

Silane didn't respond for a while, while Kothar had made some good points, she wasn't familiar with being wrong, and even less familiar with admitting it.

After sitting in silence for a long few minutes, it was Kothar who broke the silence.

[The spatial fluctuations are decreasing rapidly, this should be it.] Kothar said, closing his eyes to focus on the spatial mana and space around himself.

The spatial fluctuations faded away, and as they did, Kothar heard a faint groaning noise.

If he had been at the heart of the ship, the noise would have been deafening, and in the heart, some maintenance workers fell to the ground as the sound reverberated through the ship.

Though there were no words or any meaning associated with the noise in particular, it was still clear what it meant.

The mighty living ship, the Aemos, the culmination of the Aemos' technology, was dying.

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