Back inside the great hall, the King and Arryn's party are interrupted by one of the gate guards who approaches Erathos and hands him a small piece of paper. “My King, the Kuzaru forces have been spotted. They are less than two days away,” Erathos says as he approaches the King, his hands slowly rolling the small piece of paper.

  “Faster than I expected…” The King places his hand on his chin as he takes a seat. “I'll stay for another day. I'll speak with the troops and wait for Cage and Elizabeth to return.” The King's eyes look across the room as he pans over Arryn's party. “I'll make sure they are safe, I promise you,” he says as he looks at Arryn.

  “Right,” says Arryn as he shakes his head.

  “And we'll make sure Erathos is safe as well.” Arryn stands up as he clenches his fist.

  “Oh, my young prince, you are protecting more than Erathos right now. You are protecting our history, your history. So I'll take your word for it.” The King stands up and approaches Arryn. “This was given to me by your father. I never expected to give it back to your tribe under these circumstances, but this is where we are.” The King approaches Arryn as his hand slowly lowers the dagger made out of phoenix core, the hilt made out of a hard material that resembled onyx ore, the carvings filled with gold that shined at the slightest glance of light.

  “If I may.” Chak approaches and grabs the King's hand. “Place it against your forehead and bow as you present it. That is the traditional way of handing down a phoenix blade.” Chak holds his own blade over his head.

  “I do recall Arn doing something like that,” says the King as he brings the dagger up to his forehead. As he did, the phoenix core started to shine brightly, filling the room with a red hue combined with the gold reflection coming from the hilt.

  “Woah,” the young travelers of the group respond.

  “Now, as you bow, say ‘May the sun shine on you,’” says Chak as he bows himself, the King following along. “And you bow too, Arryn, and respond, ‘May the sun shine on you always, my lord.’” He holds Arryn's head slightly forward.

  “Ok,” says Arryn under his breath.

  “May the sun shine on you,” says the King as he tilts his head forward and down.

  “May the sun shine on you always, my lord.”

  The King holds the dagger forward as Arryn's hand slowly reaches up for it. As he holds it, the blade's edge starts to shine a dark red while the rest of the crystal keeps its regular see-through pigmentation.

  “Now you've claimed that blade,” Chak says as he sheathes his own dagger.

  “Your father's blade,” says the King.

  “Not quite, my lord,” says Chak as he sits back. “My King's blade has long been lost. That blade belonged to our other companion who perished, your uncle, Arryn.” Chak puts his hand on Arryn's shoulder.

  “My uncle?” Arryn looks at the blade.

  “Rin was his name,” Chak says. “I can tell you more about him on the way to the old capital, if you'd like.” Chak looks at Arryn, who turns and nods in agreement.

  “I'd like that,” he says as he ties the scabbard around his waist.

  “I wish we had more time to talk, but time is something we are running short on,” says the King as he takes a step back. “I've requested a carriage with food, water, and some magitech equipment for your travels.” He slowly approaches the main gate. “Come, we all must leave at once.”

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  The group gathers their items and follows the King to the metal carriage. “It'll be safe for those of you that can't combat. I also requested some stasis cloths and healix potions. Mind you, they are limited. Use these items as a last resort.” He shows the group the side compartments of the carriage. Tok approaches slowly.

  “These are cool. How many do we have?” Tok asks as he starts looking over the small metal containers. He notices the containers have two buttons on the side and what seems to be a small inhaling area.

  “Don't!” the King says as he sees the young man pressing the sides of one of the containers.

  “Woah!” Tok says as his face gets covered by a cloud of red smoke. “How does it work?!”

  “Well, you had six potions before. You now have five,” the King says as Tok approaches another one of the magitech items.

  “THAT'S A STAVE. DO NOT TOUCH!” The King yells as Tok reaches for it. Tik and Arryn run toward Tok and tackle him just as his fingers touch the stave.

  “I am so sorry, my lord. Tok has this thing for magitech equipment. He's the one that kept all of the underground equipment going for the last five years. He likes to tinker a lot…” Arryn says as he holds Tok to the ground.

  “Mmm…” The King looks around and focuses on Tok. “He is capable of fixing magitech equipment, you say?” He crosses his arms. “Young man, where did you learn to deal with magitech?” He walks past Arryn and kneels down to talk to Tok.

  “My family needed the cloths for Chak and they were too expensive, so I started messing with them when I was younger. Some of the items we found had notes written on them. I just studied them,” Tok says, his words muttered and low on breath as Arryn holds him down.

  “You just studied them?!” The King yells as he starts to laugh. “He just studied them!” The King holds his stomach, unable to stop laughing, as if the words that just came out of Tok's mouth had been a joke. “He just fucking studied them. BAHAHAHA!” He points toward one of the guards and waves him over. “Get him a fire kit and a mixing kit. Place them inside the transport at once.” He signals the guard.

  “What are you waiting for?” he says as the guard just stands there.

  “My lord, we are very limited on those right now, and if war is imminent we can't really spare them, especially not to give them to some kid to play with,” the soldier murmurs, his words heavy with clear fear.

  “To play with?” The King looks at Arryn and waves him over with his hand. “Stand up,” he says to Tok as he pulls his arm up. He walks over to the healix potion that Tok had used. “Fix it,” he says, tossing the potion to Tok. “Fix it. Show them.”

  Tok looks around as the potion lands at his feet. “He can't fix that. He's never even seen one of those before,” the soldier responds, holding his ground.

  “Well…” Tok grabs the container and reaches into his pouch. “Most magitech equipment follows the same rule. All of it is governed by its core. So to fix it, or restart it, all you really need to do is find the core and work backwards from there. Maybe a metal isn't touching it properly, or perhaps one of the red things that light up isn't lighting up.” Tok keeps searching through his pouch.

  “This fucking kid,” the King says, still laughing. “The red things that light up. The magic sensors, kid.” The King approaches Tok. “Need one of these?” The King offers a small rod with a very small phoenix core at its tip.

  “YES!” Tok responds, grabbing it from his hand. “Sorry. May I?” Tok shies away from the tool.

  “Yes, it's yours,” the King says, a smile crossing his face as he sees Tok's reaction.

  “Mine?! But this sonic driver is like new. Are you sure?!” Tok says, slowly taking the tool.

  “Yes, very sure,” says the King.

  And as Tok grabs it, within seconds he breaks open the potion chassis, looks at it for a moment, then says, “Ah! Here it is.” He moves the container around in his hand. “See, it was the shiny thing.” Tok grabs the sonic driver, and a small pulse begins to emanate from the tip of the equipment. He moves it slowly around the chassis and then closes the container. “There! It's not full, but it still has some energy.” Tok holds up the healix potion and offers it to the guard standing beside him. “Here.”

  The guard looks at him, perplexed.

  “A magitech genius. You guys had a magitech fucking genius in the sewers. The gods must really love you all.” The King approaches the guard and starts to clap. “Now hurry and do as you're told.” He grabs the potion from the soldier's hand and places it back in the carriage. “Yes… yes, my lord,” the guard responds, muttering as he walks back inside the castle, soon returning with two containers which he places inside the carriage.

  The King approaches the party. “Well, now you don't have to worry about any of your equipment going bad.” He looks back at Tok, who has already opened both containers. “There's enough equipment here to experiment with too!” Tok closes both containers, sealed with a magitech lock, passing his newly acquired tool around the edges until both are shut completely. “Well, shall we leave?” He jumps inside the carriage.

  ---

  A day had passed since the party departed from Machia. The sun shone bright upon their journey, casting its rays across their path. The red light reflecting off Arryn's dagger danced around the trees and the ground as he held it up and looked into it.

  “This belonged to my uncle?” He moved the dagger around, rotating it as the red glimmer bounced across his face and filled his eyes.

  “It did,” Chak said, sitting in the carriage. He looked at Arryn as he played with the dagger, the sight reminding him of the journeys he had taken with Arn, Mai, and Rin. He chuckled softly before redirecting his eyes back to Arryn. “Your father was devastated when Rin died.”

  Arryn turns around. “How did he die?”

  Chak shakes his head. “I don't want to talk about that. At least not now. I'm sorry, son.” Chak takes hold of the horse's reins. “We weren't even the ones who retrieved his blade. They were returned to us by one of the old king's messengers.” He holds the reins back, slowing the horses slightly. “Your father thought giving them to the young prince would help bring our people and the kingdom closer to peace…” Chak rests his arm against his leg, his eyes never leaving Arryn.

  “Did it help?” Arryn kept focusing on the reflection in the dagger, pointing it upward. As he did, the light of the sun blurred his vision.

  “No.” Chak looked down for a second, then brought his gaze back up, and within that second he looked away. Arryn disappeared.

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