Lan'ti watched his sister drop the feathers that were normally a cute elf. As they fell far too quickly towards the ground, he shook his head in wonder. It was times like this when he wondered why his sister looked up to him. Sure, he was the older brother and their mother's heir, but what did he have that compared to her?

He was going to rule Izel; she was headed towards the Maze, whether or not she knew it yet. At least, that was what Los'en said, and Lan knew better than to bet against his uncle. According to Los'en, his sister was equally convinced, and Lan couldn't think of a time when his mother was wrong about something like that. It wasn't the first time she'd predicted someone from Izel heading to the Maze based on the team they ended up with; if the team stayed together, she was always right. Always.

Ci'an was a Night Owl and her team was equally impressive; none of them was ready to stop moving forward, and with the interest of their Patron, Lan'ti was pretty sure that Ci'an was more likely to hold them back than anyone else was. That was insane; Lan'ti knew what being called a Hunter with the Registry meant, and he knew he didn't deserve it anymore. He was ready to settle down; oh, he'd get his second upgrade before he took a Profession, but he was content with what he'd gained other than that.

Ci'an still deserved it, and she'd built a team that could take her to the top. While his team splintered as they faced a future that didn't lead them all to the same places, her team was only growing closer together. Whether she conquered the Maze or not, there were going to be songs about her. There already was one, in fact. It didn't name names, but that didn't mean Uncle Los'en wasn't gleeful as he shared it with everyone.

A flicker of movement close to Lan'ti pulled him back to the area around himself. There were three of them, all running towards the entrance. They'd hooked around behind the two sword-wielding apparition killers, which meant they were for his team to deal with.

Lan'ti stepped forward, ducked, and punched towards the fragile legs of the lead ruins apparition. The shockwave of his Spirit Power extended far past his hand and smashed into the joint. He couldn't quite break bones at that distance, but he could forcibly trip the skeletal sheep; the rams were a bit harder but it usually still worked.

Both of the two ruins apparitions following the one Lan tripped tried to dodge the skidding pile of bones in front of themselves. One of them managed to swerve far enough to start running again; all he'd managed there was slowing it down, but that was enough for someone else to handle it. Probably Azalea; his team's archer was more competent than she liked to act, and she was certainly capable of stopping one ruins apparition at a time.

The second trailing ruins apparition set a hoof on one of the fallen apparition's ribs. It skidded sideways and sent the slower apparition tumbling, to land just on the other side of the one Lan'ti hit. It was enveloped in one of Xin'ri's nets before it made it back to its feet.

The one he'd hit tried to get up and failed. That was lucky; he must have hit right to break the joint. That was far harder than it seemed on an "animal" that didn't have any fleshy bits; it meant he'd at least chipped the bones. As long as no more charged towards them immediately, that was the one they'd kill first.

Lan'ti looked up and into the distance. He expected to see another group bearing down on them after slipping past the swordsman, but the ruins apparitions seemed to be milling about like … well, like sheep. A little farther away, in the dim distance, Lan saw the reason why: he could see the bone remnant's tail rather than its head. Its attention was on a figure with glowing wings that had to be Sophia. The figure stepped forward and the wings seemed to wrap around the bone remnant, smothering it in colorful light.

Lan'ti shook his head. She was following the primary plan, the one Ci'an and Dav preferred. He'd expected to be chasing a bony monster that fled from her strangely deadly magical strikes, not slowly picking his way through a series of smaller fights with ruins apparitions while she handled the bone remnant on her own. Sure, the swordsman was on his way to her, but that didn't mean she wasn't doing the hard part right now.

One of the ruins apparitions near Lan froze in place. Lan'ti sighed and shook his head. That was Ci'an's doing; it meant she was confident enough in Sophia that she was helping her brother instead. He'd take it, but it was honestly a little dispiriting. It said just how powerful she'd gotten that his little sister, two years younger than he was, was only two levels below him and probably still more powerful. It was a good thing that he didn't want the power she was earning.

Lanti punched towards the ruins apparition his sister froze. This time, he could take his time and do it right, so that they'd have as long as they needed to come back and clean it up. Once he was done, Ci'an moved on to another skeletal sheep, then another as Lan'ti disabled each one.

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It was good to work with his sister for once. It wasn't an experience he'd get very often. Lan'ti was certain she'd reach the second upgrade before he did. That would likely have been true even without the Wisps she'd gained from her team's strike against the Broken Lord, but as it was, Lan'ti expected she'd reach for the next upgrade soon after winter ended. She had the Wisps for it; it was simply a matter of time.

He hoped she'd keep it quiet. He trusted the people who were here, but they weren't all followers of the Tower. Surely that was something Los'en had talked to her about on their way here?

Maybe it was something he should mention to her. The ruins might give enough to justify a level; it all depended on what was here. Whether or not there was anything here, though, leveling after they returned to Izel would be safe enough. He'd have to get Ci'an and her team to move to the Aurora compound, but that should be simple enough. The Registry clearly wasn't safe.

Lan'ti made and discarded plans as he made his way through the sea of ruins apparitions with his sister, flanked by the rest of his team. They slowly made their way towards where Sophia wrapped the bone remnant in her wings, but before they got there, the bone remnant was nothing more than dust and Sophia's wings were gone.

She was wrapped in the arms of one of the two iterations of the swordsman. Weirdly, Lan'ti was pretty sure Sophia was not the one being reassured; she seemed fine. Instead, Dav seemed to be reminding himself that Sophia wasn't hurt.

The plan to kill the bone remnant went off without a hitch. Lan'ti was grateful for that much; it meant that all of the other plans he'd made to deal with the consequences of something going wrong could be discarded for now. It was a necessary beginning, but it was only the beginning.

All they did that day was destroy the ones they'd immobilized. More ruins apparitions waited for them farther out, but without the bone remnant, they'd be easy enough to kill. Lan'ti estimated that another two days would be enough to handle the ones he could see, but they still hadn't found the walls of the farm. If it was as wide as the level above, he thought it would probably the closer to a tenday before they made their way through everything.

He wasn't about to push so hard that anyone got seriously hurt or ran out of resources. The chances of another bone remnant were slim; in the songs, there was never more than one and that mostly matched the expedition records he'd read through as he prepared for this expedition. That didn't mean it couldn't happen; there was exactly one case he'd found where it did happen, and it was possible that some of the records that ended with the expedition leaving were the result of a surprise like a second bone remnant. If there was a second one, it would probably have a different specialty, but that didn't mean it was any weaker.

"There are more disturbances. Larger ones, and they're closer. They're strangely fast, as well." The words broke a silence that had stretched for the scout's entire lifetime and more.

The scout turned towards her creator. The guards couldn't question and therefore wouldn't ask, but she was made with the curiosity they lacked. "Should I investigate?"

She had to wait for an answer. The scout expected that; her creator had stressed itself to its limit to create a scout and two guards. It had very little energy left, so it conserved what it could. That meant it thought slowly and made decisions even slower.

It was hours later when the creator spoke, well before the scout thought a reply would come. The words were slow, spaced out over minutes, but they were exactly what the scout hoped for. "Yes. Hide and search, do not be seen. Return and tell me what manner of monster makes its way into the old places. If you must, let the guards fight for you while you run, but always, return. I must know."

The scout nodded, turned, and left. She did not have to say anything for the guards to follow; they knew their duty. It was what they were made for.

It was surprisingly difficult to make their way up through the dark remnants of an ancient era. Doors often didn't work and exactly none of the old levitation shafts were functional. Even if they were, the scout would have used them only to get closer, but as it was, they had to use the stairs. Some of the stairs were fine, but others were unusable and had to be avoided. It wasn't usually a problem with the stairs themselves; instead, it was the old barricades that blocked them. It was faster to go around and find an open route than to try to clamber over a deliberate blockage.

She had the old blueprint, but that was only so much help when the installation was not the way it was originally built. It did make it easier to find other stairs, at least.

It made the scout wonder why the blockades were there. They'd clearly been blocked from below, so there must have been something up there in the past that was bad. It would have been nice to know what it was, but her creator hadn't mentioned it at all. That probably meant her creator didn't know, but it was also possible that her creator didn't want her to assume the new disturbance was the same thing.

Or maybe her creator had warned her and she just hadn't made the connection between the monster and the barricades. That was possible too. She had been told about several monsters that had attacked over the past several centuries. It was the reason for the barricades that the scout didn't understand.

Once they were a couple of levels up from the room where the scout woke, they began to run into skeletal abominations. Those had been mentioned by her creator. Fortunately, they were easy to sneak past; they were made of the same mana that was used in the creation of the scour and the guards. Hers was purer and more directed, but it was still close enough that the abominations didn't immediately strike at her.

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