Rata of the Lost
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Today's writer is C. A. Wilke. Wilke is a writer on the Chronicles of Tyria team, and you can read his story on our website: Tide of Shadows.
He also hosts his own writing blog: Writerwilke.comYou can find out more about C. A. Wilke on twitter: @WriterWilkeand on facebook: Author Wilke
This story was published for our Summer of Short Stories (2019) event.
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A loud boom shook the floor and walls. Stone dust trickled from the ceiling. The dust speckled across Mikka’s gray arm like powdered sugar. Her wide face scrunched in irritation as she reached up and scratched behind one of her pointed, floppy ears. Why haven’t the security golems taken care of the problem yet?
The warning tone cut through the air, followed by the on-call announcer. “Warning. Rata Novus sensors detect an insect breach...Uh, multiple insect breaches. Please stand by.”
More black and gray specks fell, sprinkling the surface of her console. She brushed them away with a huff. She’d seen a few of these insects before, large things—the smallest of which were the size of a hyena. In her mind, she could hear their clicking and scraping limbs. The thought sent a ripple of nausea through her gut.
“You know, Vorti, if I was in charge of security, I’d have exterminated every last one of those horrible little bug creatures. Well, except for a few samples for studying, of course.”
“Yes, Gate Researcher Mikka.” Behind her, Mikka’s assistant stood in the doorway, peering down the hall. The younger asura leaned back into the room. “Will we—uh, have to evacuate?”
Gate Researcher Mikka tapped a few buttons and increased the power flowing to her experimental gate. She was so close, she could practically taste it. If she could just get the gate’s vibratorium confluence frequency to match her theoretical Eternal Constant, then she could—in essence—make this one gate appear in all space at the same time, allowing her to open a gate to literally anywhere on all of Tyria. And she wouldn’t even need a physical gate on the other end to do it.
But, her assistant’s distractions were becoming irritating. So far she’d chosen to ignore the young asuran girl, but now she realized a different approach might be necessary. Maybe assuaging the child’s fears. “Don’t be ridiculous. Security Chief Gatt may be an idiot, but he’s not that big of an idiot. He understands a threat.”
The younger asura turned, her face wrinkled in confusion. “Isn’t he your...er, partner?”
Partner. Mikka scoffed. Hers and Gatt’s relationship was...complicated. In her mind, she equated it to a power transfer cell that refused to provide a steady stream of energy despite its inner workings appearing to be flawless. Sometimes they worked, and sometimes they just didn’t. Yes, they enjoyed sipping a bottle of Metrican Brandy and discussing the philosophical cogs and mechanisms of the Eternal Alchemy, but they also tended to get into heated arguments that resulted in tools being thrown.
They’d been on the outs though, for nearly a year now. The last thing she needed now was him in her head, distracting her at such a critical point. She had a lot of work to do to get this prototype gate up and working. “I doubt the Rata Novan council would have put him in charge if he couldn’t properly defend the city. Now get back in here and make sure the flux levels are within stabilization parameters.”
Vorti’s head bowed, she shuffled toward the miniature gate on the far wall. “Yes Mikk—I mean Gate Researcher.”
Mikka shook her head. It frustrated her that this current generation of assistants always felt the need to call their superiors by their names instead of titles. If she had ever thought of doing that with Master Tenf… Well, I might still be serving the old goat his wretched cave grub and stone fungus stew. She shivered at the sheer memory of the smell.
The warning tone sounded again. “Security Protocol Red in effect. Hardlight walls are now engaged around the outer perimeter.”
From the corner of her eye, Mikka saw Vorti glance her way, but she just shook her head.
As Vorti spoke, her voice quivered, “Um, ley energy at point-two-four.”
Mikka nodded to herself. “Not bad, not bad. But we need to get it down to point-one-nine for the new crystallization matrix to take effect.”
“Deploy the security golems,” the public address speaker crackled. This time, a hint of panic laced the voice. “Then arm the maintenance golems and send them out!”
Mikka looked up and chewed the corner of her bottom lip. A small part of her worried for Gatt, but she shook her head and shoved it away. It wasn’t as if he was on the front lines. Not to mention, he could certainly handle himself in scrap.
From the corner of her eye, Mikka saw Vorti looking at her.
“Maybe we could—”
“Don’t.” Without looking, Mikka jabbed a finger at her assistant. “Maintain focus. Let security handle the insects. We’ll be fine. I need you to repolarize conduit—uh—342.”
The other asura nodded and grabbed the spanning polarizometer. A faint chirping from the polarizometer filled the air and was drowned out by a deep rumble. More dust fell. Feet pounded on the stone outside the room, followed by the rapid thunk-thunk-thunk of golem feet hurrying after their masters.
Mikka watched as the readings ticked down to just where she wanted. “Good, good. THERE! STOP!”
The chirping vanished and Mikka’s numbers stabilized. Another thump reverberated through the walls and floor, and the lights flickered. But her blood was flowing now, and she was excited.
Mikka rose up from her chair and turned to smile at her assistant. “Excellent work. Now we just need more power. Prepare to tap back into the ley-grid.” Turning back to her console, she noticed the distinct lack of movement and let out a deep sigh.
“What is it, Assistant?”
Feet shuffled on the dusty ground behind Mikka.
“It’s just that...Is this an appropriate time to siphon power from the ley-grid?” Vorti stepped closer and came to stand next to Mikka. “I mean, shouldn’t that power be reserved for the hardlight walls and sentry cannons?”
Something snapped inside Mikka as her excitement morphed into anger. Most of the time, she put up with her assistant’s eccentricities. The Eternal Alchemy knew she wasn’t as bad as the rest of her generation, but it was still a constant challenge. But now...This petulant progeny chooses to question my methods and my expertise? She glared at the younger asura. “Don’t be a dundering charr-for-brains. Do you know the power capabilities of the ley-grid?”
“No, Gate Researcher.”
“Have you completed the mathematics on the cannon and hardlight wall power draw and compared it to this miniscule gate to determine if there’ll even be any effect at all?” Mikka’s voice grew louder as she spoke.
“No.” And Vorti’s voice grew meeker.
“And have you led more than a dozen research teams to the success of creating revolutionary magitech that assisted Master Zinn to build us this fantastic city?”
“No.”
“Good,” Mikka shouted. “Then reconnect the power converter matrix to the ley-grid, before I drag you out there and toss you over the hardlight walls to feed the bugs myself.”
Vorti’s gaze fell to the floor as she turned and headed for the power junction controller. The fact that Mikka herself hadn’t done the calculations she’d just mentioned didn’t matter. She had an innate feeling—a sense—for these things, and she knew what was feasible and what was not. Besides, she wasn’t about to let some runt-of-a-progeny derail her at such a critical point.
Mikka adjusted the cyclings per second to compensate for the shift in power. “Now.”
“Gate Researcher, I—”
“NOW, damn it!” Mikka heard a deep metallic thunk as her assistant flipped the switch. The system hummed to life with a deep tone that quickly ramped up in volume and pitch.
Then the lights went out.
Mikka’s heart jumped. A scream echoed from out in the hallway followed by a few colorful asuran curses. The darkness pressed down on her, threatening to crush her. Master Tenf’s voice echoed in her head, accompanied by his derisive chuckle that always made her feel worse than his words ever could: “I told you, one day you’d be the end of us all.”
Turns out he was right. How long before those monstrous bugs make their way here to my personal lab?
Distant mutterings echoed in from the hall, and the lights flickered back on.
A wave of relief washed over her but was interrupted by the warning tone and another public address. “Hardlight walls are failing. All citizens must find their designated safe zones.”
Mikka sat, stunned. For a second she thought she’d escaped her own doomed fate, but now it was all crashing down on her. Every ridicule or snide comment about her being brash or careless or arrogant… Every critique she’d dismissed as jealous... They were all coming back to haunt her now.
“Gate Researcher?” Vorti asked, her voice a high-pitched vibrato.
The sound of sentry cannons firing echoed down the hall. Mikka turned and looked at her assistant. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” The younger asura’s eyes widened. “You’re giving up?”
Two small explosions rocked the floor, and the sentry cannons went silent. Mikka heard Master Tenf’s voice again, scrambling her thoughts and making it impossible for her to respond to her assistant. To make it worse, she was out of ideas. “I, I just…”
“How do we stop this? Stop these insects?” Vorti shuffled through the random collection of miscellaneous parts, setting a few aside.
Mikka’s mind conjured an image of what was happening across Rata Novus: hordes of giant insects climbing over each other and bursting through the glowing hardlight barriers. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. If the creatures broke through the front line, she doubted Gatt’s security teams or anyone else could stem the tide. Hundreds of asura could die. And she couldn’t see a way past it. Somehow, the collective intellect of Rata Novus had misjudged the threat these bugs posed.
Mikka shook her head as the sound of insect legs clattering and clicking on hard stone filtered in from the corridor. A second later, she heard the strange, sickening bubbling sound that seemed to come from the creatures’ throats.
Vorti’s eyes widened to the size of teacup saucers and her mouth fell open, laying the younger asura’s raw panic out for display. Mikka turned to find the carapace-covered insect head as big as an asura peering into the room from the hall. The insect’s body was massive, nearly twice as tall as a human.
She suddenly found it hard to breathe. Distantly, she heard the public address system. “We lost the outer sectors! Boost the ley-line conduits. Send more power to the barricades!”
Beyond the head, Mikka saw the wide, fanning tail barbed with chitinous spikes. The creature’s face split as its gnarled and jagged maw opened wide, letting loose a horrifying screech into the air. Mikka’s hands flew up to cover her ears, but the piercing wail persisted. When the screech faded, she realized the thing appeared to be angry because it couldn’t fit through the doorway into the room.
At first, she thought maybe they might be safe, but then she heard more clicking pincers and legs and more bubbling insect voices.
A smaller bug, though still nearly as tall as Mikka herself, climbed over the back of the larger insect and paused. With the large, reddish-pink nodule above its face, this one was different. Tiny, blue sparks danced around the nodule as the thing started to shake.
Something heavy slammed into Mikka, knocking her from her chair. Energy sizzled in her wake, and she slammed hard onto the ground. Her heart pounded in her chest. She looked up and found Vorti on top of her. The assistant had saved her. Behind the younger asura, a black scorch mark marred the far wall.
Turning back to the insect, more sparks danced across its face. Its body vibrated again as it prepared to fire another of those energy bolts. This time, Mikka didn’t have someone else to save her.
An oblong, cerulean blob of energy slammed into the side of the zapping insect, knocking it away. The larger insect turned just as several more shots destroyed the creature’s face. With a final, screeching howl, the bug collapsed to the ground in a smoking heap.
A wide head, scratched and bloody, appeared in the doorway. Gatt’s roguish smile split his purple face. “Sorry I’m tardy, did you call for a hero?”
Mikka shook her head and jumped up. “Shut up, you oblivious lout!” Tears streamed down her face as she ran over and wrapped her arms around his neck.
More insect screams filled the air, and the public address system crackled. “Security personnel, proceed to entrances one, two, four, and seven.”
Gatt pulled her arms from his neck and leaned back, a big smile creasing his face. “As much as I like this, we have to go.”
Lost in a fog, Mikka was pulled down the hallway. Along with Gatt, the three additional security enforcers that had stayed out in the hallway to keep watch formed a protective barrier around her and Vorti. Gatt deployed his enforcers, directing Snop to lead several yards ahead as “point,” Preet to stay a few yards behind the group and kept Pidda in the core of the group. Their names, as well as her sense of direction, were lost to the haze of shock and the twisting-turning of the corridors. The distant cannon fire, screams, and chittering insects didn’t help either.
A sliver of clarity slipped through her daze. “Shouldn’t… er, shouldn’t you be coordinating the defenses? I mean…”
Gatt glanced back at her and smiled. “Well, I thought it was important to save one of Rata Novus’s most important minds.”
Mikka smiled back, knowing his line was a bunch of raptor-dung.
The public address crackled again, but this time a much calmer, quieter voice echoed in the halls. “Please report any insect eggs to Rata Novus security immediately.”
The strange disconnect between the chaos all around them and the relaxed, almost bored tone of the prescheduled announcer only made the whole situation more surreal.
Shrugging, Gatt continued, “Besides, Councillor Trunt fired me, so…”
She found it hard not to laugh and despite her overwhelming shock, cracked a smile. “You hated that job.”
“I did.” He grinned back. “But we need to move faster. The Rata is overrun. We have to make it to the gate room before it’s lost too.”
Mikka did her best to pick up her pace, but doubted it was much better. Every step they took, every second that passed, she expected a wave of the disgusting insects to come swarming around the corner and rip them apart. But they didn’t. One or two did appear, but they were the smaller ones, and Gatt’s enforcers splattered them against the stone walls with surprising efficiency.As they made their way, the public address voice returned multiple times. With each announcement, the owner of the voice struggled to maintain composure despite their obviously increasing levels of panic.
Up ahead, Snop skidded to a halt at the corner. His free hand flew up in a balled fist and the rest stopped. The group had stopped at an opening into a larger hall. The ground quickly dropped away, and the path cut to the right toward the gate room.
Mikka’s blood ran cold; she wished she could close her ears. From beyond the corner, she heard the wet chittering and chirping sounds of insects. A lot of them. Every few seconds, the din of insect sounds was punctuated with the scream of a Rata Novan dying horribly.
Snop backed away from the corner until he was next to Gatt. When he spoke, his voice was low and gravelly, and cracked with exhaustion. “No go, sir. Gate room is, uh… there’s thousands of them. Just, so many.”
As if on cue, a nearby Holographic Messenger display blinked to life. A near-life-size projection of an asura appeared in flickering blue light. The warning tone filled the air, then he spoke. “Retreat to the core chambers. Lock down subaccess two, three—”
The image flickered, and crackling static filled the air. “Just lock them all!”
That was it. They were cut off.
Mikka’s heart pounded. If they couldn’t get to the gate room, what chance did they have? Could they survive out in the jungle? She doubted it. Between the smokeskales and the pocket raptors, even Gatt and his crew wouldn’t last long.
Gatt waved his arm and the group huddled in close. “All right, so Plan B. We’re going to have to take our chances outside—”
Vorti shook her head. “Have you lost every one of your scruples? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is up there?”
Snop chuckled. “Dangerous? What do you think our current situation is? A blasted party?”
Mikka’s mind raced, searching for something, anything that would help them. They couldn’t take the road, and the gate was off limits now. Well, that gate is. Her eyebrow arched and she looked up at Gatt.
“Uh oh.” The former security chief leaned his head back. “I know that look.”
“What?”
Gatt pressed his lips into a thin line. “You have an idea. And from how high your left eyebrow raised, it’s probably a really bad one.”
Mikka did her best to stare him down, but he wasn’t wrong. “We need to go back to my lab.”
Everyone looked at her as if she had suddenly had her brain swapped out for a charr’s. Everyone except Vorti. Instead, the assistant nodded. “The prototype gate.”
Mikka nodded back. “Yes. If I can get it working, I can take us anywhere. Even right back to Rata Sum.”
“If?” Pidda asked.
Mikka heard the shaking fear in his voice. She gave the enforcer a withering glare. “Yes, if. It’s our best chance. I was a sparkfly’s hair away from having it up and running when all of…” She waved her arms about. “This, happened.”
Gatt looked between the two female asuras and gave his own nod. “All right then. Let’s get moving.”
Empty halls filled with the echoes of giant bugs and dying asura made their journey back even more terrifying. Mikka’s heart pounded in her chest, and she jumped at every scream. The group came to a stop at the last corner before Mikka’s corridor. As they approached, she saw the enforcer shaking his head. She didn’t need to see around the corner herself, she heard their enemy’s scraping limbs and strange gurgles reverberate off the stone and metal walls.
“Nope. Complete negative, sir.”
Gatt gave the enforcer a nod and snuck up to the edge himself. He gave a quick peek down the adjoining corridor and pulled back. Through the distant look in his eyes, Mikka saw the gears turning.
Finally, he shook his head and turned to the group. “All right. This isn’t good. Looks like the insects are very interested in your equipment. The way is completely cut off. The surface might be our only chance, as slim as it is.”
The trailing enforcer shook his head. “No go. From where we are, there’s no safe path.”
Gatt closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Mikka knew that trick. Every time he did that, it meant he was building up the courage to do something he didn’t want to do. Probably something incredibly stupid.
“Gatt? Whatever you’re thinking, no.”
He gave a chuckle. “There’s no other way.”
Looking around, she started to put the pieces together. The corridor they were in was a branch from her lab’s corridor. She expected the only way to clear a path to her lab was to draw away the insects. That meant someone was going to have to run down the corridor in the other direction with a mountain of bugs hot on their tail.
A lump formed in her throat, and she shook her head. “No, Gatt.”
With one hand, he cupped the side of her face. “It’s okay. I’ll be all right. These things aren’t too smart.”
Mikka’s gut twisted. She’d been so angry with Gatt, that she’d even forgotten how she really felt about him. “No.”
“I have to.” He smiled. “You get in there, get it working and I’ll be right behind you. I’ll loop around through corridor twenty-three and be back in no time.”
“Eh, sounds like a good plan.” Snop hefted up his weapon to inspect it. He leaned over and gave Mikka a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep him safe.”
Gatt reached up and wiped at her cheek. When he pulled his hand away, a tiny drop fell from his finger. She hadn’t even known she was crying.
Gatt gave them a nod and moved to get up, when Mikka launched herself at him. The impact slammed him against the wall, pinning him there. She squeezed him with every ounce of strength she had. “You have ten minutes. You better make it, or I’ll give your ears a proper pulling.”
“I will.”
The public address voice echoed off the walls again. “Why are they swarming at the ley-line accelerators?”
After a few seconds, Gatt pulled her arms from around his neck, put his hands on her arms and kissed her cheek. She blinked through bleary eyes but had to look away. “Okay. Go before I change my mind.”
Mikka felt his hands let go of her. Unable to stop herself, she turned and watched him run down the corridor away from her lab, Snop in tow.
A few yards away, he turned back and fired his gun. A trio of blue energy blobs zipped by. Insects screeched. Then his eyes widened, and he bolted away.
A second later, a horde of scrambling, chittering and clicking insects flooded by. The group pressed themselves against the wall, trying to stay as still and inconspicuous as possible. Mikka had known there would be a lot of them, but what surprised her was that it was like a flood, a tidal wave of writhing chitin and bugflesh.
It took nearly a minute for the last of the creatures to pass by. Once the last of them had passed, Preet took the point position and peeked around the corner again. He pulled back and adjusted the grip on his weapon. “The proximity to your lab is predominantly clear. Just a few left. Is everyone prepared?”
Mikka looked at Vorti and the youngest of the enforcers, Pidda, then turned back to Preet. She swallowed hard and sucked in a deep breath before answering, trying to convince herself she was indeed ready. But she knew if she wasn’t now, she never would be.
“Proceed.”
The two enforcers took the lead as they whipped around the corner and let loose a volley of blue energy blobs. Chittering turned to screeching, and insect burbling turned to thumping corpses. The last insect—one with the reddish nodule over its bug-face—dodged several attacks before letting out a searing bolt of blue lightning. The jagged line of energy sliced through the air and slammed into Pidda’s chest. The young asura, flew back. His body slammed into the stone floor and slid several feet across the ground. When he came to rest, he wasn’t moving.
Preet screamed and fired three blasts into the insect’s face. The creature let out a howling wail then collapsed to the ground. Preet ran up and kicked what was left of the bug’s head.
Mikka climbed over the insect carcasses and stormed into her lab. Her gaze panned across the room, taking in the piles of tools, the miniature gate and more dead bugs. She spotted a few scratches and marks on the ley-line conduit where the bugs were chewing, but everything seemed pretty much as she’d left it.
Pointing at the tiny gate, she shoved a dead insect’s limb off her chair. “Vorti, check the gate. Make sure were still within parameters. Remember, point-one-nine for stabilization. Then open the ley energy flow to get ready.”
Mikka dove headfirst into underlying code of her gate program. So far she’d been working in theoreticals, now she needed real-world specifics. But something in her mind kept nagging at her, something the public address voice had said. She looked up at her console and saw the glowing blue ley-line conduits mounted to the wall. Why are they going after the ley—Oh!“
Wait!” She whipped around and found Vorti with her hand on the ley energy conduit valve. “Stop!”
Vorti froze for a few seconds, then slowly pulled her hand back. “Okay.”
Mikka ran the probability statistics in her head, but no matter how she ran the numbers, the results came up the same. “These creatures… They’re after the ley energy.”
Preet stepped into the room out of the hallway. “So if we turn this on, they’ll come running like we just rang the dinner bell?”
She nodded.
“All right, then,” Preet said. “I guess we better be quick.”
Mikka’s fingers danced over the controls, adjusting, tweaking and finessing the parameters of the code. Dimly, she was aware of the occasional click or blurbles of an insect outside the room, but she shoved that away. She knew if she let herself worry over how close those monstrosities were, she’d never finish the job. The only outside thought she allowed was to keep checking the time. Even though Gatt’s ten-minute-mark had already passed, she still held out hope.
“Bring the magistatic resonance down by a quarter.” She didn’t look to see if Vorti followed her command.
The clicking of chitin echoed from out in the hall, closer than before, and was immediately followed by two blasts from Preet’s weapon. “Um. Researcher?”
Flip this switch. Adjust that. Check this here… “Almost there. We’ll get one chance. It has to be right.”
More clicking and four more shots. “Mikka?”
And this is… yes!
“Got it.” Mikka pointed at the ley energy conduit valve. “Be ready.”
Hopping up from her seat, she ran to the doorway and peeked out the way they’d come. “Any sign of Gatt?” She looked back at Preet.
He looked into her eyes, face drawn and sad. He just shook his head. “If there was any way he could be here, he would. He knew what he was doing.”
All she could do was nod. She’d known too. She’d lied and told herself that she knew he’d make it, but deep down she’d known better. Corridor twenty-three led to the waste treatment department, not back to her lab. And there was no way back out.
She didn’t feel the gut-punch she expected, just the loss and the hole where her heart had been. He was gone, all to save her.
Mikka took a long, slow breath and wiped away the tears running down her cheeks. “Vorti, hit it.”
The valve clicked and the gate machinery hummed to life. Blue lines flowed around the outer edges of the stone gate segments. The tones of the machine ramped up, until they were a high-pitched whine, splitting the air.
“We’ve got company,” Preet said, firing off several shots. “And I think they’re hungry.”
The inside of the gate ring sparked, and the familiar vortex appeared, but this time it shimmered in a rainbow of colors. Vorti stepped over to the gate and put her hand through, then pulled it back. “Seems okay.”
Mikka shook her head at her assistant’s rash testing. Then again, she wasn’t sure there was any other option at this point.
Preet fired a couple more shots. “Where’s it go?”
Mikka approached the gate and reached out, letting her fingers hover an inch from the swirling energies. “Rata Sum. I hope.”
“All right then, what are we waiting for?” Backing away from the doorway, Preet kept his weapon trained on the opening. As the first bug appeared, he blasted it into a smear on the far wall.
“I’ll go first,” Mikka said and stepped through the gate. From the second her skin touched the vortex, she felt the pull. Unlike a regular gate transit, this one was much stronger. The entire universe seemed to rush past her like she was being shot down a tunnel at the speed of light. Then the tunnel flattened out into two planes of reality, one above and one below. Everything was tinted in the same blue as the ley energy conduits.
A bright light appeared in the distance and grew larger. In a single flash of brilliance, everything went white. Mikka closed her eyes and braced against the intense light.
Then she was falling.
Mikka opened her eyes just as the ground rose up to meet her. Her whole body slammed into hard-packed dirt, sending a ripple of pain through her. After a few seconds, she let out a groan and rolled over onto her back.
All around the wind blew and leaves rustled. Mikka shook her head and sat up. It took several seconds of blinking for her eyes to clear enough to see. She found herself sitting just a few inches from a sharp ledge. When she peered over the cliff, all she saw were clouds. She was sitting on a floating island so high up she couldn’t see the ground.
Or maybe there is no ground.
The chunk of ground she had landed on did not appear to be very large, but there was a strange mountain. A few small trees also dotted the tiny landscape. In the distance, she could see ancient, crumbling structures—the kind she’d heard were in old Ascalon. But these looked much older and sat on floating chunks of earth.
Something sparked and fizzled overhead. She looked up and found a small, swirling gate. No, not a gate. Just the gate portal. Energies twisted in the chromatic pattern. Lightning fizzled and popped, then the portal vanished.
The others hadn’t made it. Now she was all alone and lost in this strange place. Still, her mind was having a hard time processing everything.
“Hello,” a female voice said from behind. Mikka’s heart jumped and she turned around. There, standing just a few feet away was another female asura. She wore an orange jumpsuit and her brown ears curled down to frame her face.
Mikka groaned and rubbed a bump on her head. “Where—where am I?”
The female asura smiled. She held her hands out as if presenting the entirety of the world. “Welcome… to the Mists.”