"Did you save us, miss?" Erica was jolted out of her thoughts by a little girl, no more than five years of age, approaching her from the square. As Erica turned to face her, the girl gasped and stepped back. Erica's confusion rapidly turned to self-consciousness as she put a hand up to her scarred cheek. The child stood transfixed until a name was called out from a little further back.

"Bella, come here!" The little girl ran back into her mother's arms. As the mother picked up her child, she regarded Erica with apologetic eyes. "I'm sorry, she didn't mean anything by it. She's young, and hasn't seen such a scar before."

"It's fine," Erica said absently, hand still on her face, acutely aware of the dried blood covering her left side and waist.

"Thank you for saving us, truly. Those monsters were rounding everyone up for I don't want to know what, and you've kept us from that fate," the mother said.

"It's what we do. Someone has to keep the Diezens at bay."

"You're hurt! Wait here, there's a doctor-"

"It's alright," Erica started to reach for the mother, removing her hand from her face, before stopping herself, "It's... alright. Damon already saw to my injuries."

"Oh." The mother nodded, processing gods-know-what. 

"What happened to your face?" The child asked with grave concern.

"Bella!" Her mother chided.

"It's okay," Erica said to the mother, before addressing Bella, "A Diezen hurt me a while ago. The wound didn't have a chance to heal properly, so now I have this scar."

"Oh," Bella seemed to turn the concept over in her head for a bit, leaving the three in an awkward silence. Other people from the square were filtering past now, and as one passed between Erica and the mother with her child, the mother seemed to remember something.

"Oh right, we have to find daddy!" she said, then turned to Bella, "Let's go find him, okay?"

"Okay," Bella answered, still looking at Erica's face.

"Be safe," Erica wished the pair of them as they set off toward the buildings. She watched as they disappeared in the growing throng of people. She sincerely hoped they'd find Bella's father.

After some time watching people go by, Erica noticed that the group to her left were parting to let something through. An Altean truck meandered into the square, loaded with tan mechans looking around. One's eye display seemingly locked onto Erica and the mechan gave a salute. She awkwardly waved in return, watching it round left and into the main body of the square. It came to an abrupt stop with a squeal of its brakes, the noisiest Erica had ever heard one of the Army's trucks. The mechans disembarked and dispersed, heading in groups of three to the captured cultists, still stuck fast in their encasement of earth and stone. The mechans proceeded to free the cultists from the shaped prisons before swiftly disarming them and binding them in shackles. Most of the city folk had already left for their homes, but those who had remained looked on with a mixture of contempt, fear, and sorrow. The mechans led the bound cultists to the transport bed of the truck and seated on the benches there.

Two more trucks of mechans rolled in and followed suit. Some of these new arrivals were also detaining cultists, while the others were hovering over the fallen Diezen mechans. Erica watched as a pair of Altean mechans stood over the Diezen closest to her. One produced a handle from a holster on its waist. The handle was connected by a rubber-coated life vine cable to a boxy charge mounted on the small of its back. It aimed the open end of the handle at the Diezen on the ground, and with the press of a button a surge of maiga formed out of the handle. It was plainly visible, unlike the ambient maiga Erica had to focus a little to see, a cyan beam that penetrated the metal torso of the Diezen. It made an angry buzzing as the Altean mechan swiftly carved a wide circle into the Diezen's chest before deactivating the beam, leaving behind a glowing ring of metal. The mechan's partner then crouched down, extracting the disc that was carved out and then roughly rooting around the inside of the Diezen's torso.

"Standard part of our cleanup protocol," Damon said as he approached Erica from the street behind her, "We don't want to risk any Diezen corruption making it into the hands of regular people, so we make a point of destroying their maiga harnesses, charges, and any more... profane, items or enhancements they may have."

Erica thought for a moment, debating what to ask when she settled on, "What's the thing they used to cut into the Diezen?"

"An energy blade. The maiga required to sustain operating one is immense, so they are used sparingly."

"How long can that one stay on for?"

Damon looked at the charge on the mechan's back, "That charge can last roughly nine seconds before it runs out. While they make excellent weapons, energy blades can't be used for long, so we limit their use as much as possible."

That made sense. Erica briefly wondered what something like that would do to a person before shaking the idea out of her head. An armoured car identical to the one that brought her from Zellas to the Altean headquarters creaked to a halt next to them. 

"As for you and me," Damon continued, "this incident needs to be brought to the attention of Bladefell's leadership. Normally I would simply send a report over, but since this is your first time engaging in Army business I would like us to visit Dirkland personally. Learning how to deal with the nations of the world is something you'll have to tackle eventually."

"Dirkland. Bladefell's capital." Erica confirmed, more to herself than to Damon. Knowing the name of the city was one thing, but she had never gone there, let alone seen it outside of sketches in her school books when she was little.

"Yes, Dirkland. We'll take this car to the Invictus, which we will pilot across the sea, avoiding the polar region, to another base on ridgeward Bladefell. From there we will take another armoured car to Dirkland."

"Ridgeward, as in toward Dy'As Ridge? Sorry, I haven't traveled enough to have really memorized that versus pointward..."

"You have it right. Now hop in," Damon opened the rear passenger door of the armoured car, "We have another lengthy voyage ahead of us."

"I need to change and wash up when we get to the next base," Erica demanded as she took a seat, "I could also use some actual rest, I'm exhausted."

Damon closed her door and moved around the car to sit in the front passenger seat. "Rest will have to wait until we're in Dirkland, though I can't have you going there bloodied and tattered. You'll be able to clean yourself up once we've finished the Invictus' portion of the trip."

Erica sighed, shuffling in her seat to confirm it was indeed as uncomfortable as she remembered. Essentially a metal bench in the back intended to house mechans with no need for padded seats, it would be difficult to relax on this. The car turned around and crawled through the streets heading to Watersteel's gates, the mechan driver having to halt repeatedly as people continued to move about, trying to assess damage or find familiar faces. Erica closes her eyes and tries to wind down as the car rocked side to side going over some uneven sections of cobbled street. The ride only got bumpier after they left the walls of Watersteel behind and the road turned to dirt.

"Don't get too comfortable, can't have you falling asleep when piloting the Invictus," Damon chided.

"No threat of that," Erica replied dryly, "These seats suck as much as the benches on the back of the trucks."

Damon offered no further comment. They rocked along in relative silence until there was a quiet crack that heralded the slow stop of the car. Damon muttered something under his breath and got out of the car. Erica opened her eyes and saw Damon open the hood. Curiosity got the better of her and she stepped out of the car herself and walked to the front. What she saw confused her. There were six flat stone rings standing in sequence, spaced two inches apart, each recessed into a steel housing that covered two lower sides of the rings. The rings were one and a half inches thick, four inches wide, and a foot and a half across, with symbols Erica didn't recognize carved into the wider flat surfaces. Each side of the housings held a small charge, and it was one of these that Damon pulled from the second ring from the front and examined.

"Blew that charge, where are the replacements..." Damon strode to the front passenger seat and rummaged around a compartment there, returning with a supposedly fresh charge.

"What am I looking at?" Erica asked, "I've never seen anything like this."

"This is a maiga harness array," Damon said as if it were the most obvious thing on Tarsis as he plugged the charge back in.

"Maiga harness... array. Okay, so there are smaller versions of one of these rings in each of our mechans?"

"Correct."

"What are these symbols? I'm guessing they're not there for show."

"Those are characters of the old tongue, Dunturan. These runes allow the rings to do rudimentary shaping, what we'd call charging, automatically. The rings spin and draw in maiga to be used in the rest of the system."

"And the charges?"

"A jump-start reserve of maiga to force the rings to start spinning from rest when the system is activated. They are also the first element recharged by the harness, so any leak in them will result in a leak of the system, eventually leading the harness to be unable to sustain itself. In theory a well maintained harness is capable of running indefinitely with no other input, though the reality of the Altean Army makes it difficult to do preventative maintenance and we get situations like this, where one of a dozen charges cracks and leads the vehicle to a halt."

"Unlimited energy," Erica marveled, "Why haven't I heard of these before? Or seen them for that matter?"

"Because while they can generate energy indefinitely, they don't have the massive output that would be required to power everything. In fact, they have a low power output since a good amount of what is absorbed goes back into keeping the ring of the harness spinning. Professional chargers would also be out of work if maiga harnesses replaced charges entirely. Finally, they require knowledge of Dunturan, advanced metallurgy, and steady hands or shaping to make, all rather expensive if done by mortal workers. I'm certain the Diezens have forced survivors in Bellhold to manufacture these for them, while we use mechan labour to produce harnesses. But they are simply of niche use outside of mechans so that they aren't tied to charges entirely. Any other questions?"

Erica stood thinking for a moment before saying, "Could I see how it works? I could tell I've broke these in Diezens before, but I didn't know I was breaking these stone rings."

Damon sighed, but stepped back and ordered the mechan driver to start the car. A switch was flipped and the rings slowly spooled up, gaining speed as they went. Erica attuned her senses to the flow of maiga, and could feel, almost see, maiga being pulled into the harnesses as their rings were spinning fast enough she couldn't make out the runes carved in them. She could feel the maiga leaking out of the motors of the car's wheels as more maiga was pulled into the car's system than it could store.

"Are we good to go? We have a lot of ground to cover." Damon was nearly tapping his foot with impatience.

"Yeah, spinny rocks make the car go, got it," Erica said before returning to her seat. Damon closed the hood of the car and sat down. They then lurched forward as the car put its excess power to use and ferried them to where the Invictus had been set down. They rumbled down the roads past where they had seen the atrocities committed by the Diezens, past the now ruined villages and smoking fields. Erica tried not to look too closely as they went, focusing on resting instead. The inner flow of maiga started to settle without use, even being slightly syphoned off by the maiga harness array in the front of the car. Erica was unsuccessful in truly resting, being bounced around on the uncomfortable metal bench for the hour they were driving. 

The car creaked to a halt. Damon and Erica got out and approached the landed Invictus. Its mechan crew were standing guard, E4 pulse carbines in hand. On seeing the generals, they wordlessly returned to the craft, taking turns climbing the rope ladders on the sides. Damon and Erica followed suit, climbing onto the deck of the craft.

"I'll take the first shift piloting, try to unwind a bit and be ready to take over in three hours," Damon instructed.

Erica nodded, going below deck to read by lamplight. The bass thrum of the rumble drives erupted to life and the Invictus drifted into motion. The next eight hours were uneventful, if noisy. Erica took her shift piloting the Invictus before handing the wheel back to Damon, racing across the ocean until they made landfall on ridgeward Bladefell. The trees were different here to those in the pointward region, Erica noticed as she emerged from the hold. The majority of them were various types of evergreen, with needles instead of leaves. They continued inland a short while, following a dirt road until they came upon a familiar set of stone walls; an Altean outpost, surrounded by shaped stone identical to the fallen outpost Erica had first seen after landing on Bladefell earlier. The Invictus landed a distance from the walls and powered down. Damon and Erica disembarked and walked up to the gate, which was already opening to allow them entry. The rumble drives of the Invictus boomed back to life as the mechan crew took over and piloted the skiff back out to sea.

"Where are they going?" Erica asked.

"Back to its hangar in Flamehaven. We'll need it ready to go for future operations," Damon said.

"Isn't that more than three hours out? Mechans can't charge things themselves, won't the Invictus crash into the ocean?"

"If they were to make a straight line from here to the hangar, then yes, the Invictus would lose power and drop like a rock. However, they'll be running along the shore, stopping to recharge twice. Trucks with full charge banks will replenish them and let the Invictus get where it needs to go."

That satisfied Erica's curiosity. She turned her attention to the interior of the outpost. It wasn't very large, housing a handful of buildings of varying sizes. The buildings inside were blocks of shaped gray stone rising from the ground with rounded corners. On the right was a longer building attached to the wall with three wooden doors, each with a placard on it. Ahead was the largest building, with two doors facing them and room to move around its entirety. Another building, this time on the left, was somewhere between the other two in size, attached to the wall again with two more doors. 

"Most of our outposts share this layout, or have one similar to it." Damon then pointed to the doors, starting on the far left, "That's the base's maiga harness array, followed by mechan barracks. The large building is living amenities, with the kitchen and dining area on the left and bathrooms on the right. Showers and laundry are at the back. On the right are our rooms."

"I have a room here?" Erica asked, surprised.

"Shortly after you joined, I had to commission rooms and furnishings for you at most of the bases. Normally I would shape the building extensions myself, but I had my hands full, so had to petition sympathetic shapers to do a little freelance work. There's also clothes in a dresser and a bed at each base with a room. It's not much, but enough to get some rest."

"I've come to expect sparse accommodations from the Army," Erica said, though she was practically giddy to get the bloody clothes off of her and wash off the past twenty-four hours.

"Take some time to familiarize yourself with the layout, it'll become familiar before long. I'll leave you to your preparations." Damon walked back out of the base, conversing with the mechans who were stationed here.

Erica resisted the urge to run toward the bedrooms, settling on a brisk walk to them instead. Each placard had a name, with Damon's on the left, Joshua's on the middle, and hers on the right. Trying the handle and finding the door unlocked, she entered her room and looked around. It was small, four meters on each wall, with a switch by the door that turned on the light hanging from the ceiling. A simple wooden bed and dresser were the only items in the room. Stone hooks protruded from the wall behind the door, with a new longcoat hanging from one. Erica looked at the shredded right sleeve of her coat and thought of the blood stains on her left side. She felt a pang of sadness over having to get rid of her first coat, but necessity demanded it be sacrificed. She took it off and hung her old coat next to the new one. She hung her satchel next to that, then opened the drawers. She found an identical full set of clothes to what she was wearing. Everything was in her size, which she was glad for. 

Piling her clothes in her arms, she exited the room and went to take a shower. Entering the bathroom, she found a plain toilet, sink, and mirror. The shower was in a stall in the back of the room, with a rack with towels and soap just outside it. She stripped off the clothes she'd been stuck in through some of the most horrific sights she'd seen and moved to enter the shower, arrested by the sight of herself in the mirror. Her deep blueish prosthetic arm stood out starkly against her fair skin. The scar on her cheek demanded to be seen, then her eyes wandered to the left side of her midriff, where new scars from The Black Apostle had recently formed as well. The wounds she'd sustained since waking to her shaper abilities. She'd surely earn more, in time.

Shaking off the thought, she removed the matrix maigum from her neck, setting it with her new clothes as she turned on the shower. She scrubbed herself clean, accidentally yanking her hair with her prosthetic a couple of times in the process. She took her time, relishing the warmth of the water and it heating the rest of the stall. Her thoughts turned to the events leading up to their departure from Watersteel. All the death and destruction they found, all the fighting they had to do. All the lives upended and scarred. Erica spent quite some time not moving, just contemplating what she had seen, and conflating it with Copperwood. The Diezen playbook was becoming all too plain to see between the two tragedies; sowing terror and confusion before and during their slaughter. 

She slammed her left fist against the inner wall of the shower stall. She wanted to feel the pain of the impact, to snap herself out of the dark spiral of her mind. The echo of falling water centered her as she turned her focus to now, to the future. They were to travel to Dirkland after she was done here. She'd never been anywhere near a city of that size. She was a little nervous, not just because of the city itself, but because they'd be explaining themselves to the city's, no, the country's officials.

Turning off the shower, Erica's feet slapped against the stone floor as she exited the stall and grabbed a towel. She dried herself off, only now wondering if the water would pose problems for the arm's internals. After exercising her full range of motion with the arm, she concluded that fear to be unfounded. Finishing with the towel, she got dressed. A light blue long sleeved shirt, slightly baggy black pants, and black combat boots were once more adorning her form. She clasped her matrix maigum around her neck, then strode out with the towel and old clothes in hand. 

After discarding what she was holding in the laundry room, Erica made her way to the kitchen. There was a stove in the corner with cupboards and drawers surrounding it. A round wooden table with three plain chairs sitting at right angles to one another was against the wall in front of the door. Rummaging around the room's storage, she was disappointed to find it fully stocked with rations and other non-perishable foodstuffs. There was some essential cookware in one of the drawers, giving Erica hope that she could try to prepare something warm instead of the dry and lukewarm rations she'd been subsiding off of for the past weeks. Then she remembered Damon's words on how rest would have to wait until they reached Dirkland, and she resigned herself to grab some ration bars to stuff in her satchel, picking the ones that looked the least offensive. She then returned to her room, donned her coat and satchel, stuffed the ration bars in there, and walked to the entrance of the base. The gates were still wide open, with Damon conversing with a mechan standing next to another armoured car.

"I take it you're prepared to continue?" Damon asked upon Erica's approach.

"As ready as I'll ever be, nothing like hours on a hard metal bench to make you relax..." she said, eyeing the car's back seats warily.

"I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Come now, we need to make haste."

Erica wasn't sure what he meant by 'pleasantly surprised', but didn't sense any sarcasm or ill will from him. When she opened the back door of the car, she was greeted by the sight of pillows lining the bench. Bed pillows, not suited for seating, but cushioning nonetheless.

"What do you think?" Damon asked from the front passenger seat, practically beaming at her.

"It's... an improvement," Erica admitted, "not the pillows you'd usually use for a chair, but they'll work. I think."

"There are specific pillows for chairs and beds?" Damon asked, genuinely perplexed.

"... Yes? Different densities, different shapes, different softness. Either way, thank you for trying to fix my discomfort issue. How did you get these on such short notice?"

"I requisitioned these prior to us boarding the Invictus, there was plenty of time to collect the pillows and drive back here from a nearby town before we made landfall."

Erica climbed into the car, uncertainly reclining into the pillows that were laid across the bench. It wasn't the worst thing she'd ever sat on now, though she didn't know how well the pillows would hold their shape after hours on the road. She tucked a pillow behind her back and another one behind her head. Closing her eyes, she said, "Okay, let's go."

With that, the car set off for the city of Dirkland.