The ride was surprisingly comfortable . Either the ground was smooth, or there was some kind of magic in action. Virria was sitting on the right-hand seat, looking over the countryside and sorting out her thoughts.

  The last quarter an hour was absolutely eye-opening. After she calmed down she took the time to look around the contraption. The glass windows all around her provided enough visibility outside so that she wasn't stressed out much.

  They were moving quite fast across a gravel road, swooshing past fences and trees along the way. As she grew bored of the surroundings, Virria focused back on Aragami behind the wheel. He was focusing in front of him, with one hand on the wheel and the other on the stick in the middle of the cabin. He'd move the stick from time to time, making the land around them change speed as they passed by.

  The scenery changed about five minutes into the ride when a tall grass blocked the view to the left. It was green, thick, and Virria got the feeling it was planted in rows? Why else could she see neat alleyways through it?

  They slowed down and turned away from the crop, heading into the fenced area. There was now a small slope toward a forest of pine trees.

  “I thought this is a different world. Why are there trees from mine?” She mumbles, wondering about the implications. Their ride ended a short while later when Aragami gradually stopped the construct. The noise from the front ceased and both of them exited.

  Aragami made a beeline to the back, while Virria inspected her surroundings again. She climbed up the slope, trying to get a better look at the forest, but stopped herself just as she reached the top.

  There was a strip of land in front of her, about nine meters wide, reaching as far to each side as she could see, made of a black material with some sort of white markings. She grabbed a stick from the ground and carefully reached out to touch it. When there was no reaction, she threw the stick in the middle of the patch and observed for a second, before gathering up her courage and stepping there herself.

  The surface was rough and firm, yet surprisingly warm. She spent a couple of minutes inspecting it, before running across it to check out the woods. As soon as she entered the shade, she instantly felt relieved. Familiar trees all around her swayed in the gentle breeze, the undergrowth scratched her scales, and the breeze brought her unknown smells of a foreign place

  “If I didn't know any better I’d say I got lost in the woods around Illbeck…” She closed her eyes and reminisced about her youth, before a loud banging noise from behind her interrupted her thoughts.

  She reluctantly crawled out and across the black surface to see what was going on.

  Aragami was standing in a wide stance next to a pole that he hammered into the tough ground with a heavy-looking hammer. As she looked, he raised the hammer high above his head and swung it fast downwards, hitting the top of the pole and driving it into the ground.

  It got old quite quickly, so Virria decided to explore the area a bit more. She was just studying how the woodland next to the black thing was cut down when she heard it. A low hum, as well as a noise similar to Aragami’s construct. She carefully walked over to Aragami, now looking in the direction the noise was coming from, when she spotted the thing coming from one end of the black surface.

  It was a construct similar to the one Aragami drove out here, but it seemed more…pretty? It was dark green with black details from the front, with two predatory eyes, glowing with white light, and several blue and red lights blinking at her in rapid succession. She could see there was some sort of metal thing in the front, looking menacing and outlining the edge between gaps.

  It stopped above them, the lights still blinking. Its side was the same, green and black with the pattern she saw Aragami wear when she first saw him. It blended with the background quite well, but the Pine trunks outlined it even more.

  Two compartments opened and two adults exited, making their way to Aragami who stopped hammering and was wiping his brow nonchalantly.

  “Good day sir.” Said one of the adults, waving to Aragami. The other adult circled to Aragami’s construct and was doing something, but Aragami didn’t seem to mind.

  “Good day officer.” Aragami nodded and smiled. “Is there anything I can help with?”

  “Yes, actually. We detected some activity from around the road and came to check. Could you tell me what you did before we came here?” The ‘officer’ smiled in return and tapped his wrist. Virria got startled, as a blue light emerged from the place the ‘officer’ tapped and formed into a small circle in midair.

  ‘Magic?’ She thought out of reflex, before dismissing the thought. ‘No. I would notice some Mana overflow. Unless…that thing on their wrist is an artifact.’

  “Certainly.” Aragami nodded again. “I came out here from our family ranch down the road to fix the fence, since it got torn overnight. As you can see, I just hammered in new posts and I was about to apply tension to the wires as you came by.”

  “Do you have some sort of ID on you?” The adult asked politely.

  “Sure do.” Aragami nodded and pulled a flat leather pouch from his pants. He dug around, before pulling out a thin blue plate and showing it to the ‘officer’. “The car is registered in my father’s name, but the address should be identical.”

  The other green-clothed man came back and whispered something into his colleagues ear before walking back to their construct. The first one nodded to himself before returning the plaque to Aragami.

  “Everything checks out. I am sorry for bothering you, but we have to be a little bit careful here on the frontiers, y'know.” He chuckled. “We’ve had some problems with smugglers recently, so if you find something unusual, please make sure to notify us.”

  “Sure will. If either us or our cameras see anything we’ll make sure to report it.” Aragami nodded as he stuffed the pouch back into a pocket.

  ‘I guess smugglers are bound to be everywhere…’ Virria sighed as she watched the man in green climb back up to their construct. ‘At least it seems like they are doing something to prevent them from settling in.’

  She watched as the construct came to life and drove away, the hum vanishing off into the distance together with the metal beast it powered.

  “They increased patrols…” Aragami muttered to himself, looking into the air above. “It seems they are getting rowdy again…Black Angels” He shrugged before returning to the wired fence. Virria watched him work for a minute, before the area around her started to shatter once again.

  “The end of a memory, huh?” She sat down and pondered as the world around her shattered into tiny shards once more.

  “That was…enlightening.” She muttered, mulling over her knowledge so far. “So they live in pretty standard looking houses, albeit with things I’ve never seen before…And they are big into constructs and artifacts? Plus they live in family groups and other beasts? That explains the Hounds, I guess. She chuckled. Who would think something so absurd to her was commonplace to Aragami…Not to mention those constructs were at…what did they call it? Frontiers?

  That got her wondering. “If that house and those constructs were at the frontiers, how would the main cities look?

  And before she could form another thought, the memory fragments moved again, forming another window of white light in front of her.

  Virria stared at it for a while, scared of what lurked behind it. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know.

  “I think getting to know more about Aragami takes precedence before his kind’s architecture.” She laughed and focused again, this time trying to think of ways his people fought. She’d seen him back in the forest using a blade, but those memories were not exactly sharp due to her tired state.

  She glanced in front of her again, expecting the formation of a new window.

  She was not disappointed, as another crimson window assembled in front of her. The shocking part was that the white window remained, nd was now blinking with a faint pink glow. She scanned the red window as well, seeing it blink white as well. She took a step back, not sure as to what was happening, when both of the windows synchronised, switching colors from white to crimson, opposing one another. They moved toward each other, merging in the middle with a bright flash and a noticeable mana wind picking up and siphoning all the Mana in the air to the now merged windows.

  Virria reached out to feel out her surroundings, noticing the quickly diminishing Mana in the area around her.

  “Give me a break!” She yelled out with a grin. “A fused memory of architecture and war?! Is it my birthday already or what?!” She knew this was the last memory she’d be able to see for now. The Mana would probably run out before the memory ended, but it would still be worth it. She reached out her hand and touched the pinkish surface.

  She found herself in another construct, this time with two rows of seats. She sat in the back seat on the right side, directly behind Aragami. He looked quite similar to how she knew him, but he was dressed in a formal looking black suit. His hair was shorter and flowed across his head nicely. His brother and father were dressed more casually and were teasing Aragami all the way.

  “Don’t worry bro. We are ready to accept your dejected ass when you fail the test.” His brother said with a smirk.

  “You mean IF I mess this up. Not WHEN.” Aragami shot him a venomous glare from the front seat, no doubt immensely regretting not being able to strangle him there and there.

  “I know what I said.” His brother retorted with a smirk, looking out the window as if nothing was going on.

  “Stop it, both of you!” Their father scolded them. “I know you are both nervous, but there is always a second chance.”

  “Dad!” Aragami turned to his now-grinning father with a textbook example of a shocked expression. “That’s it! WHEN I pass the tests I’ll charge you for the use of my services!” He sulked in his seat, his hands crossed across his chest.

  “Oh no! Whatever shall I do?!” His father retorted, his grin growing wider. “”I guess I’ll have to stop poking fun at our surely-soon-to-be-remote-tractor-operator.” His brother laughed out loud in the backseat and even Aragami couldn’t stop the smile forming on his lips. He opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by a loud rumbling noise from outside.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Virria looked out the glass window, looking for the source of the noise, but only saw trees passing by at an alarming speed and a metal railing separating the black surface from before from the green grass beyond.

  “These ships are getting louder and louder!” Aragami’s brother complained loudly as the noise died down.

  “Makes sense. We are near the port, after all.” Aragami’s father smiled and spared a look over his shoulder. “I’d recommend not to look just at the trees, but above as well.”

  Virria, still looking for a large body of water through the trees, stiffened up. She knew that he was talking to Aragami’s brother, but she couldn’t help herself and looked up, over the crowns.

  At first she didn’t see anything, but that soon changed, as a massive metal…thing made itself known with a loud roar. She watched in amazement and horror as the metal ship lifted itself from the ground. She didn’t see any sails or people on its surface. Just a mass of roughly brick-shaped grey metal with wisps of blue flames scorching the ground beyond the tree cover. It had a script she didn’t recognise on the side in pristine white colour with several markings at the end.

  She watched as it rose above the trees, before turning in place away from them, exposing seven massive black cones in the back alight with the same blue light as its bottom. It grew in intensity, before a large flame tongue belched toward them at speeds she didn’t think possible.

  She jumped away from the window in fear, about to pray to the gods for a quick and painless death before realising no-one in the construct even looked worried. And she also learned why. Just as the flames were about to reach them, a massive blue barrier materialised on the edge of the black surface, deflecting the flames up and away from them. She clutched her heart, worried it might jump out of her chest if she let go and tried to calm down by listening in on the conversation. She wished she didn’t.

  “See?” Aragami’s father said with a smug expression. “This is the reason we couldn’t just simply take the plane to The City. Ours’ isn’t rated for the heat of space shuttles taking off.”

  “Isn’t this an older one?” Aragami noted as he looked out. “Small ones like that shouldn’t need so much fuel just to move.”

  “True, but knowing their pilots they either overloaded them or tuned their engines for fun. Kind of like you, when you ‘roll coal’ with the Chevy.”

  “Oh that sounds like fun. And so does drifting with a spaceship.” Aragami grinned at his father’s reply. “Those shields make for a fancy show as well. I know that they replaced the tunnels and honestly they are much nicer, but why couldn’t they put down the shield generators from the start instead of building tunnels, then destroying them and placing shielding?”

  “First off: Those are not spaceships, just the shuttles. Spaceships are much bigger. To the point they can not land on planets without major damage. That’s why they have shuttles to get things up and down.” Aragami’s father explained patiently as another metal monstrosity descended from up above, taking up the now-empty spot.

  “Second: They couldn’t place the generators for the same reason we can not use hovercars. You need enough infrastructure and power in place to rely on them. If you took a hovercar to the farm it would be a useless heap of rare metals taking up space without the ability to lift itself from the ground. You need a lot of electric cables for the engines to get power.”

  “How so?” Aragami questioned, his eyes gleaming with interest. “I knew that hovercars don’t need to refuel, but how do they work then?”

  “Well you see, the electric cables generate an electromagnetic field around them which the engines are able to connect to and adjust to changes…”

  Virria made a conscious effort not to listen to the conversation any longer, since she was afraid her mind couldn’t take it all. Instead she focused on the outside.

  The landscape around her changed quite a bit while she was scared for her life. The trees gave way to tall buildings on both sides, made mostly of glass and a white substance she didn’t recognise. She also saw another construct passing them on the right side. It was dark green, with slick curves and large glass windows. She could see people inside clinking glasses of bubbling liquid and cheering before the whole thing just fell down into the ground.

  She stood up in panic and rushed back to the window to look for where the construct went, and regretted her decision almost immediately. There was no sign of the black surface she discovered in the previous memory, just an empty space as far as two hundred meters below.

  Constructs flew everywhere with no sense of order she could see. There were people in the buildings and on the numerous streets and bridges below her, seemingly unbothered by the hive-like activity of the constructs all around them.

  Large boards shining in bright lights levitated in midair all around with pictures of products, glyphs of writing and numbers written in bright pulsing colours. In between them, constructs with the same color scheme as the one that stopped by Aragami the other day chased after seemingly random constructs with relentless precision, dodging towers and signs with impossible accuracy. She was getting sick only from looking at the mess outside.

  She slowly withdrew from the window, trying to hold her lunch where it belonged and generally just tried not to lose her common sense.

  “Holy shit.” She muttered mostly to herself. “I had a feeling that his culture was different, but to that extent?”

  She tried to come up with something to calm her down when she finally noticed that all three of her companions had their seats turned into the middle and were discussing something easy to understand. She thanked the gods for their blessings and skittered closer to hear what they said.

  “So we will drop you off at the academy to go for the exam, while we will go over to the market to procure some supplies and get more fuel delivered to the farm.” Aragami’s father said, pointing at him.

  “So I will be the one sweating furiously at the exam hall, while you guys will be enjoying yourselves at the market? That hardly sounds fair.” Aragami answered with a smile. “I’m in.”

  “Good. You don’t have a choice in the matter.” His father grinned playfully. “Well. Off you go. Go and break a leg!” With that the door hidden in a side opened up and Aragami stepped out. Virria was not prepared to step out just yet, but the decision was made for her as the doors closed and she fell onto the hard, yet surprisingly warm floor.

  They were on the side of one of the buildings, on a small balcony protruding out about four meters into the air. Virria carefully peered over the edge just to have her stomach protest yet again. She saw a long fall into the abyss, the lower along the towers, the darker it got. She saw hundreds of specks of yellow, white and red lights move down there with vigor of an angry anthill.

  She tore her eyes from the abyss to the sky to see the constructs passing above their heads. From down here, the erratic swarm-like movements she observed above seemed almost organised. There were three main flows, each going to and from a cardinal direction, with close to no constructs flying toward the centre of the giant city.

  Only now, face to face with one of the buildings she realised their true size. The windows were at least six meters tall and reached from floor to the roof of the room. There were no visible supports along the side of the building, making it seem like there are no walls isolating them from the outside world. She inspected the outside just to realise Aragami had already walked into the huge room on the side of the building.

  “Yes, we have you in the system, mister %=/÷*. Here is your participant number. Please wait in the atrium until the next exam in ten minutes. You can choose any seat you want.” The lady behind the counter said with a smile and gestured to the room.

  “Thank you very much.” Aragami smiled in return and went to sit in one of the offered chairs. Virria took this as her cue to explore the area.

  She went off in a random direction to investigate a particularly interesting plant in the corner. The only thing that at least seemed like something she might know.

  Her hopes were shattered almost instantly as she noticed a tiny tube poking out of the soil and spraying water to the stem. She sighed and moved on, not sparing the traitorous plant another glance.

  The furniture was tasteful and quite comfortable to sit on and the staff seemed nice for people twice her height. The room didn’t appear to have an exit other than the one they entered through. She inspected the area and moved forward just to end up in front of Aragami once again.

  Argami spent his time looking into a black slab of some kind, not bothering anyone, so she decided to spend her time observing his kin. During the wait, several others came into the lobby and sat down in their seats. Virria was fascinated by the diversity of his people. There were multiple color combinations of skin, hair, eyes, and in a couple of cases even nails or teeth.

  Finally the wait finally seemed to come to an end as a soft ‘Ding!’ sounded across the hall and everyone looked up to the inner wall. Virria followed their gaze and was surprised to see the central metal wall part in the middle to reveal yet another, smaller room.

  Everyone stood up and entered the brightly lit room and sat on padded benches. Virria started to wonder why she was shown this memory. ‘Shouldn’t it demonstrate how his kind fought?’ She thought as the whole room shuddered. As the door opened again, Virria got a look at a mostly empty room with a couple of small tables and a bunch of adults sitting at the tables.

  She watched with her eyes wide as Aragami…sat down and started taking a theory test.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?!” Virria whispered, but increased her volume as she talked. “Is this what I get for wasting all the Mana to fuse a Memory?! A FUCKING TEST EXA-”

  Her bout of fury got interrupted by a loud explosion somewhere outside. Everyone in the room looked up in confusion until red lights flooded the room, turning the clean and proper room into a sinister nightmare.

  A voice sounded from somewhere above her head together with a wail of some sort of twisted horn. “Caution. Air raid. All civilians please evacuate to the nearest shelter. I repeat. Caution. Air raid. All civilians…” The voice repeated indefinitely, causing more chaos among the present.

  “Get us out of here!” A young voice sounded from across the room, rallying people in support. Chants of ‘Let us out!’ and ‘Basic **/-+ Rights!’ bellowed all around her.

  Virria, stunned beyond words, just stared at the storm brewing around her. How fast did the situation devolve into this?

  An adult stood up onto a table, trying without success to calm down the mass of people in front of him yelling over the bodiless voice. His attempts were met with hostility and insults from the frustrated ‘young’, trying to get into safety.

  And during all this time, it seemed that no-one but Virria and Aragami noticed the whining noise that slowly perforated the room. Both of them slowly moved toward the corner as far away from the noise and were lucky to survive as one of those huge flying ships smashed through the wall, flattening almost everyone in the room before exiting the space on the other end.

  Virria stood with her jaw wide open as they saw the outside world through the enormous hole in the wall. The ‘ship’ had crashed into the building, shearing about a third of the way through the entire building before getting deflected into the pit of the street below.

  Most of the buildings around were burning or outright destroyed by huge pieces of metal raining from the sky like a meteor shower. She watched in horror as molten metal rained from above like some sort of wrathful rain and shattered what glass windows were left.

  “Warning! Structural integrity compromised! Leave the building immediately! Repeat: Warning! Structural…”The bodiless voice changed its monologue before winking out after a couple of repetitions.

  Virria was freaking out. How the hell did it come to this? It was so calm just minutes ago…

  A bright flash drew her attention to the sky and she lost any hope she had of anyone surviving this, as an absolutely humongous ship broke into four parts high above their heads. She watched, full of dread as it fell down toward them. The bright blue shield flickered for a moment before giving up and shattering into millions of tiny pieces and seemingly causing hundreds of simultaneous explosions as far as she could see.

  “Gods above please help us.” Virria muttered a small prayer before she felt as if someone kicked her in the stomach.

  She bent forward, gagging on nothing and preparing to accept her inevitable death as someone tackled her.

  She reflexively lashed out, hammering the assailant with punches, determined to at least take him with her when she heard the words in her mother tongue.

  “Virria! Virria! Thank the Gods you're awake!”

  She stopped herself mid-swing, recognising Nhaerria’s sand-coloured scales with all sorts of trinkets stuffed in between.

  “We thought you wouldn’t wake up!” Nhaerria basically cried in her lap, refusing to stop hugging her. “They told us you bargained with a Law! And…and…that never…never goes well!”

  “I’m fine Nhaerri.” Virria said, gently caressing the other Raakteig’s scales. “I just feel a little drained of Mana. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll be fine, I swear.”

  “A couple of hours?” Nhaerria finally looked her in the eyes. “Virria! You’ve been asleep for four days straight! Do you have any idea when the Guild Master had you carried into here on a stretcher?”

  Before she could really answer, the doors to the room burst open and her whole group rushed in like a tidal wave, exclaiming in relief.

  Virria just smiled and enjoyed the company of her comrades. She was not sure she could ever forget the terror she felt at those final memories, but the company of her friends definitely helped with that.