Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

The teens and younger kids looked at her with a mix of trepidation and hope, and when she spread her Tranquillity, the stressed and weepy faces eased into serenity. 

“Gather round and follow me,” Yuriko said, even as she removed her bodily restrictions. The Anima reach would be of better use in protecting the children. She surrounded them with golden light, to some gasps and ragged breaths, though those only lasted a moment before her Tranquil Mien soothed their anxieties. 

However, a glance back had her ease up on her Mien—some of them looked like they were about to fall asleep. 

But then, their fear pushed back against the serenity she needed them to hold. Her perception ranged above ground and she wasn't surprised that there were many more skulkers prowling about in the city while the overflow occupied the guardsmen. 

She considered the fallen abductors with pursed lips while part of her fiddled with the right intensity her Mien produced. She thought of bringing the unconscious to the authorities, but they were probably more concerned with the monsters. 

She clicked her tongue when she realised that there was no correct pressure for the kids because they were all at different levels of anxiety. Too high meant the younger kids fell asleep and too low meant the more anxious teens looked like they'd do something foolish.

"Who did this? I demand my bodyguards and butler attend me!" one of the young men screamed in a shrill voice that echoes along the tunnels. 

"It stinks! Mama!" 

Yuriko rolled her eyes. The kids all wore fine clothing, and from their words, were evidently affluent. And spoiled. Or simply afraid and grasping for what they felt they needed to feel secure…

Yuriko blinked in consideration. Yes, she had not thought of that aspect. It didn't lessen the annoyance she felt, however. 

She didn't want to use Charm on them, since that Mien effect had very permanent results. She didn't want to ruin their minds with obsession and lust over her, even if some part of her -the Mishala Mien - relished the attention and adoration. 

If anything, it was probably her Inspiration Mien that would help the most, but it might also agitate them too much. 

Could she…use two different effects at once?

She tentatively tried it out. The Mien had emotional triggers, except for Charm, but how could she balance two different emotions? 

Hmmm…by using her thought strands to focus on each one? She gave it a try, tentatively using one strand of consciousness to focus on Tranquility and another one to focus on Inspiration and the desire to do better and gather themselves. 

It was…both easy and hard. Easily done, but difficult to maintain.  It felt as if two halves of her mind were going in different directions and to the Abyss with the consequences. 

Focusing more strands didn't help at all and only created an imbalance. She'd have to focus an equal amount of strands on each Mien effect, and it wasn't as if more strands improved the efficacy or power. So she only needed one strand each, and she idly wondered if she could activate more than two effects. 

Keeping them balanced took a little bit of getting used to, and it allowed her to pacify the panicky kids while allowing the older ones to channel their aggression. 

Finally, after a long period of focusing—it lasted less than a minute, really, but seemed far longer in her mind—they were finally ready to escape their cellar prison. 

As for what to do with the abductors, Yuriko dragged them along to the surface. She didn't want to kill helpless people, but she didn't want them escaping either. 

The situation above was still more than a bit dangerous, and the number of slimes was just too much. After she cleared the path to the cellar, she hadn't expected the slimes to return so soon. As it were, she showed little mercy as she used her sunblades out of easy sight of the others. 

When they arrived at the enemy safehouse, she half expected the carriages to return, but it was quiet. 

The kids were focused on the task of getting home, and when she asked the one who seemed oldest who they were, he proudly began reciting his lineage. “I am related to the City Councillor, she is my aunt. I will see that you will be well rewarded for helping us.” He blinked at Yuriko, returning to placidity as her Mien pressed down and influenced his Anima. 

“Why aren’t you with guards?” Yuriko asked softly. 

“We were together,” he gestured to the others, “for the day…and then…” He stopped talking and shuddered. “I don’t know what happened…I just…we…just…” He shuddered again and Yuriko pressed Tranquility on his Anima, which caused his eyes to droop for a moment, then he shook his head. 

Yuriko observed him and the others for a long moment and thought that if the boy was related to politics, then this gave her a bit of a clue. But then again, there was no telling how many enemies the current councillor had. 

Her sunblades destroyed the slime monsters even as she spoke with the kids. Once the path was clear, she brought them to the building, then out into the streets. About an hour had passed since the slime overflow began, and the streets were now practically deserted of civilians. The houses around them weren’t barricaded but were probably locked. She could feel the residents huddled inside, some with fingers held ready to cast, others with sidearms. 

Where should she take the kids? And this wasn’t the only cellar she found, and she hadn’t discovered this one until just a while ago. But was it that much of a coincidence that she found the one cellar with abducted kids? 

Grimly, she led the kids towards the central district. Any slimes that came within perception range were snuffed with impunity, and soon, there were none within several blocks of her. She detoured towards one of the cellars she found earlier and saw that it was empty, of weapons, children, or supplies. 

The other two cellars she remembered were also empty of people, but she saw discarded crates and a few disassembled firearms. She only recognised them because of the barrel and trigger, but several pins were missing.

As she approached the central district, she ran across a guardsman squad. The lead patroller had a grim look on his face when he recognised the councillor’s nephew. 

“Mister Yanez…you should head to shelter.” 

“I am,” the boy said placidly, which made the guardsman’s eyebrows rise. 

“He and the others had been abducted and I found them,” Yuriko said. The guardsman looked doubtful, glanced at the kids, then coughed. 

“We will take them to the palace.” 

Yuriko nodded. “See that you do.” She didn’t use her Charm Mien, and slowly eased up on her Tranquillity and Inspiration. The kids started to shudder, and some breathed heavily. The guardsman stared accusingly at her. “I’ve been suppressing their fear so they could get to safety.”

He looked reluctant to leave it at that, but one of his companions said, “Sergeant, the all clear has not been sounded. We should hurry.”

“Yes.” He bowed sharply to Yuriko. “We will go. Thank you for your help.”

They moved to surround the kids, but since there were only ten guards against the dozen kids, the attempt didn’t look quite as impressive as it should have been. As they herded the rescued kids towards the palace, Yuriko debated following behind to ensure their safety but decided to check the other petals first. She flew towards the east petal and noted that the soldiers marching towards the border had split up. A smaller contingent hurried to return to the city, while the rest marched onwards. 

She swept the streets and the sewers, checking any secret room and cellar she could find. It was that easy, honestly, since her perception aura couldn’t barely penetrate the sewer stones. They had been reinforced with runescript weaving after all. She had identified them before as fortification, and self-cleaning, but the latter enchantment had clearly failed since most of the longstrides of tunnels were filthy. 

Hmmm, there was an idea. The tunnel that led to that cellar had been a bit cleaner than the rest, perhaps she should focus on that aspect. 

She spent most of the afternoon checking for any abducted kids, but they might have already moved them because of how long she took. The distraction of the slime overflow didn’t help, and apparently, the Ishodirian army was making aggressive overtures in the Sodden Plains. She only found that out close to evening. One of the soldiers grumbled about missing the fight, the more exciting one, by being forced to return. 

Yes, he was young, barely in his late teens and had obviously not seen any kind of warfare. Fighting against Chaos Fount creatures and overflows was simple compared to fighting against soldiers and Magi. 

Shaking her head at his naivete, Yuriko continued searching until evening. She half expected the agitators to do something more, but the ominous quiet was far more unsettling. She headed back towards the estate. When she arrived, there were guards—footmen, gardeners, and cooks—as well as the maids and butlers waiting just at the gatehouse. 

“What is it?” Yuriko asked as she landed in front of the head butler. 

“Miss…Professor! Lady Juliette and Lady Sofia…were they with you?” 

Yuriko stared at the man for a long moment, then growled, “No, they were not. I didn’t see them in the city.” 

“They…ah, the hour is still early, but…they are not returning any message or sending spells.”

Yuriko nodded. “I will attempt True Connection. The spell connects mind to mind, and will not require them to speak openly.”

Left unsaid was if they had been abducted and bound, they might be unconscious or gagged. Anxiety flooded her heart as she went into the estate and headed to her room. She saw Juan Carlos pacing nervously in the dining room. He looked at her with angry and desperate eyes, but he didn’t say anything. Juliette’s mother was seated by the table, a picture of elegance and poise, but her hands, hidden under the table, were wringing each other. 

Once she had privacy, Yuriko settled into a trance, then half wondered where Ryoko was before she arrived in the dreamscape. The threads binding the two girls to her weren’t as thick as Gwendith’s or Heron’s, of course, but they were more robust than most of the other threads. Almost thicker than her brothers Marron and Rami. 

She spared a look at Kato’s severed thread and wondered how long it would take for the dreamscape’s corrosive mists to erode it to nothingness. She swallowed a lump in her throat and pulled the severed threads closer, half surprised she managed it so easily now. Being close to her dreamscape body wasn’t too good for the thread either as her Radiant energy would scour it away too. She let it go with a sigh.

She delicately touched the nearer thread, which happened to be Sofia’s. Once she managed it, she held it firmly but didn’t squeeze. She pulled her consciousness and the thread back into the physical realm, though it wasn’t visible to the senses without Chaos Sight. She began casting the spell, and while she already managed to convert half of the components to runescript nodes, the rest were a mix of vocal and somatic. 

She’d cast the spell enough times to do it smoothly, and within a minute, she succeeded in the cast. She felt it take hold of the thread, then wove a new connection between the thread and her Anima. It began to send a series of patterns as well as a construct node along the thread. When it reached the other side, the construct node would interpret the signal for the recipient. 

Yuriko pushed away her anxiety and waited for the connection, hoping that Sofia was awake and able to receive the connection. She blinked and nearly laughed when she felt it take hold. 

“Pro–professor?” Sofia’s mental voice reached Yuriko. 

“Where are you?”

“Where…?” The voice was groggy and Yuriko could feel some of Sofia’s emotions bleeding through. Her disciple and student was definitely in distress.

“Where’s Juliette?”

“Here…with me… I…help…”

The connection abruptly cut off, as though a door had been slammed shut. But Yuriko felt the surprise from her student, and the anger. 

No matter, the spell had made Yuriko a bit more sensitive to direction and distance, and she felt that Sofia wasn’t too far away. She wasted no time and jumped out the window, spending only a bit of time to tell the butler that she was going to retrieve her students.