Yuriko: Made a new friend. Headed to the planet to test delve. Don't wait up, might take a while.

Gwendith: Sure. Stay safe. Bring your new friend when you come back. Heron got rooms in the Marlin Resort and Suites.

Yuriko: Will do.

She put away her Autotab and stroked Fluffington's head. The tiny pupper licked her hand while peeking over her shoulder. They took the floatway leading to Wall One, though they needed to go to Carina's apartment first so that the green-haired woman could pick up her gear.

"Are you alright with what you have?" Carina asked. "That doesn't look too sturdy and you don't even have a weapon on you."

Yuriko gestured towards her backpack.

"Ah. Expanded? Is it stable?"

"Yes, would it be an issue if it were not?"

"There are areas in the layers that have unstable dimensional energies. It can destabilise expansion containers. What's the ratio of your bag?"

"Five cubic paces."

Carina gave Yuriko an odd look, before muttering under her breath, "You're lucky you're pretty. That's not the ratio…" She studied the backpack and said, "Around one to twelve at least. One to fifteen at most. That's acceptable. One to twenty is when troubles start…"

"Ehehehe," Yuriko chuckled awkwardly and pointed at her hip satchel. "This one has one cubic pace of space inside."

Carina gave her a deadpan look, then shrugged. "We'll avoid danger zones then. Can't be too safe. You can either replace your expansion items later or reinforce them. If you're serious about delving to the ninth, such items become extremely hazardous and are likely to fail."

"Ah."

Carina shrugged. "It's why expeditions are so big. You can't just stuff your supplies in a thousandfold bag and carry everything you need for a year or so."

Well, that puts quite a few things in perspective. Yuriko hadn't been counting on their expansion bags, but she certainly would not have thought to avoid using them. She could work on reinforcing the bags later. Probably after she did some research or asked experienced delvers for some tips.

"How far have you delved?" Yuriko asked.

"The third layer. But that was as part of a large expedition. It lasted for a Season and…" Carina sighed. "We lost a third of our fighters and half our porters when we stepped into a vicious trap."

"What happened?"

Carina shook her head. "I can't really say. I'm under contract to keep things under wraps. For another two years, by my count."

"I see."

The two of them lapsed into silence until they reached Carina's apartment building.

"Do you mind waiting in the lobby? My room's small and there isn't much space to wait in."

"I don't mind. Go ahead."

Yuriko leaned against a pillar while Carina headed up the stairs. She put her backpack on the floor and reached inside for her Arclight Sword. Since she was wearing a variant of her traveller's outfit, she didn't need to change her clothes. Besides, her powered armour was with the luggage Heron brought along. She browsed the local network to glean what information she could get about Shangria.

The Adventurers' Guild had a network information site, so she explored it. There were guidelines, tips and tricks, as well as photos of what to expect. The local, node 626 variant had a stylised map of the landing zone, which was about a couple of longstrides square. It was a slightly hilly region, covered by waist-high grass that grew back when shorn. The rate of recovery was fast, about ten minutes, and there were warnings that clearing too wide a space would induce a monster rampage, or something like that. As for what challenges could be found in the starting zone, well, it looked like a horned rabbit, except it was about a pace long and could cross twenty paces in a single bound. The horn was sharp and strong enough to pierce metal armour with ease. Well, as long as the armour wasn't improved, or made with plain steel.

"Aw…" Yuriko couldn't help but squee in delight when she saw a picture of the horned bunny. It was cute and fluffy enough to rival her Fluffers. The wolf pup must have sensed something since he started growling while she admired the bunny. Yuriko tilted the Autotab to show him, and he bared his teeth in a display of aggression. Since he was in his puppy state, he looked more adorable than scary. Yuriko reached down and ruffled his fur.

"Woof!" he barked in protest as he shook his head to get his fur unfluffed, only to get it even more unruly.

Yuriko simply chuckled and stroked his head, luxuriating in the softness and the feel of his affections through their bond.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Sorry, that took a while!" Carina said as she came down from the stairs. Her casual clothes had been replaced by a battle dress uniform quite reminiscent of what soldiers in Astorian movies wore, sans insignias and patches. She had varied accessories pinned on her belt and a bandolier across her chest, which had several palm-sized plaques on them. She also had a handgun holstered at her side, and a rifle with a bayonet on a sling. A cursory check told her that the rifle didn't carry solid bullets, though the handgun did.

"Plasma Caster?" Yuriko asked.

"A blaster, actually, but it does shoot plasma bolts," Carina answered.

"How is it powered?" Yuriko asked while they walked towards the orbital elevator lobby.

"With this power pack." She slapped the underside of the stock, where a magazine would have been on an Astorian gun. It was a cylindrical device that was about six inches long and was flush against the stock. The weapon was made out of a dull grey composite, and the grip was black. "It has an effective range of a longstride, but I doubt I'll have a clear shot that far away. I can cast support spells to steady my aim, too." She looked at Yuriko's Arclight Sword. "You're a melee specialist?" Her tone was carefully neutral.

"Well, swordswoman," Yuriko admitted, "but I can cast attack spells, too."

"Oh, I guess you and Fluffngton complement each other? Does he fight like wolves in the wild?"

Yuriko and Fluffers exchanged glances, and she shrugged. They hadn't really fought as partners since the pupper's and her strength had too wide a gap.

"You don't know?" Carina asked, more than a bit accusatory.

"We haven't fought together much," Yuriko shrugged. "He's more a friend than anything else. Oh, but Fluffers can fight."

"I guess. Well, horned bunnies aren't exactly hard to fight, if you know what you're doing, and since you're in this station…" She glanced around. "You did go through the rest of the Void Ocean, right? You weren't born here?"

"Yeah. As I said, we just arrived."

"Well, good. It just means you have the basic level to fight on the first layer if you made it this far." Carina shrugged and Sir Blue rolled around.

They reached the orbital elevator access building—it actually said that on the sign—a few minutes later. Then it was about ten minutes filling out paperwork, since it was Yuriko's first time to go through, and apparently, some humanoid monsters could shapeshift and had attempted to get into the rings through the lift before. Which explained why they were stringent on taking photos and applying paperwork to the problem, even if they were laxer here than on the surface…underlayer…one? The first layer was under the protective surface after all, even if the descriptions and pictures showed a perfect sky with Radiant projections and all that.

She had to fork over nearly a thousand credits for an ID, but that was fine. Great, even, since she'd have something to use for the banks. If what she read about Shangria was accurate, it would take Seasons to even get to the ninth layer, maybe years.

Did she need to hurry? Nothing was that urgent…except for her unknown offspring. Yuriko held in a sigh. Children she didn't know about, and hadn't carried with her body. It made her feel odd. Her feelings vacillated on the matter, between indifference and odd protectiveness. Who made them wasn't really that much of a question since there was only one foe that was powerful enough to do it, but she didn't know why he did it. That sort of made the kid, or really, kids, from how the connections split near the middle, innocent. She didn't know where they were, but through both of her anchor points in the dreamscape, they still felt distant, not quite on the same plane.

The connection seemed closer than when she first felt them, or her, at the beginning. So…twins? Urk. She wasn't ready to be a mum, even if Fluffers felt like her kid every now and then, which just went to show how she would be at it. She left him alone most of the time and only brought him along for cuddles.

Was this any of her fault? Nope. There was no misplaced sense of responsibility here…not much anyway, just that…children born from samples of her blood that were transmuted or refined weren't exactly normal, right? She still didn't have a clue why they were made in the first place, considering that she shouldn't even know they existed, she doubted it was any kind of hostage situation or an attempt at leverage. She'd find out, hopefully soonish. They were coming closer, after all.

And by the time she finished ruminating about her kids, the procedures were done, and they took a lift down to the actual orbital elevator. She and Carina boarded a train. It didn't have wheels, but part of its chassis wrapped around a singular rail. The train wasn't connected to it in any way, and was hovering an inch off the metal. The interior had rows of comfortable seats that faced each other. The two of them sat next to the wall and waited for the train to fill up. A few minutes later, it took off, moving fast enough to create shockwaves if there was any air within the elevator.

The acceleration pressed her against her seat, while Carina, in front of her, grunted as she was held in place by her seatbelt. Yuriko grinned, and Carina returned it. Sir Blue was held carefully on the green-haired woman's lap, while Fluffers was being aggressively cuddled.

It took only a few minutes of acceleration for the train to reach peak speed, and a couple of minutes later, it began to decelerate. It wouldn't do to smack into the ground at ultra high speed, right? Yuriko would be fine, but nobody else would be.

She carefully examined every other adventurer—or was it delver?—in the carriage. Unlike what she somewhat expected when she saw the Adventurers' Guild branch on Wall Three, the delvers were not clad in leather, plate or chainmail armour. Neither were they clad in robes or anything of the sort. She was sure their clothes were enchanted for durability…actually, she was sure they were. She could see Carina's outfit had some runescript lines stitched to create bigger runescript patterns, and she was good enough to understand the basic protection pattern. No, almost everyone was clad in a set of clothes that looked like a soldier's battledress uniform, that is: trousers gathered and held tight underneath the knee, combat boots, and a short coat that had long sleeves. Several folded the sleeves up, but just as many kept them down. Weapons included rifles, sideswords, and combat knives. There were at least a couple of dozen… tamed monsters hanging around their partners. Mostly quadrupeds, with a smattering of wisps just like Sir Blue.

Another few minutes later and the train came to a stop. There was a portion of the track that curved so that they were on the right orientation rather than perpendicular, but if not for Yuriko's perception aura, she wouldn't have noticed. Either way, the four of them alighted into a building that was practically a mirror image of the departure point from above. After another hour of going through paperwork and other checks, they finally managed to reach the exit gate. Oddly enough, it was only the two of them that were held up; everyone else on the train pretty much breezed through the line. Probably because it was Yuriko's first time.

"Well, the holdup was most annoying, but I promise this is worth it," Carina said.

Yuriko just nodded. When they walked out of the gate, she finally beheld Shangria's fnode 626 first biome, and it was as beautiful as she expected.

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