In all her years, Valeria had never heard a city be so quiet. Despite how much she valued silence, she found it rather disturbing, but it also lent what was going to happen a solemnity that was hard to ignore. Ten million people, all waiting with bated breath as she and her legion entered their city, the center of their civilization, the heart of their Empire, to accept the submission of their Emperor.

Valeria herself rode in her Ulta suit, the silver and blue monster towering over even the suits of the Tempest Knights accompanying her. MALLs, giants, and smaller arks escorted her, as did foot soldiers seemingly without end, securing the wide avenue stretching from the open desert to the south to the lush bay, and the bridge connecting the city on the edge of this landmass to the island that their Emperor called home.

She could see the palace far ahead of her. It was a gaudy thing, painted in so many colors that it was impossible to discern what the original materials were. The building stretched high into the sky, vaguely pyramidical in shape, with towers and halls rising from a hundred grand terraces all culminating in the palace itself, a garish display of color and wealth that Valeria almost couldn’t bear to look upon.

The rest of the city was designed similarly, with every building that could afford the expense painting itself every possible color, and the citizens dressing in as wide a swathe of the rainbow as their funds allowed. They went as far as to wear bright makeup, men and women both, painting their eyes one color, their cheeks another, their chins a third, and their foreheads a fourth. They seemed to strive to dye every strand of hair another color, too, and paint every brick in the paved road beneath her suit’s feet another color.

It was a testament to the wealth of this city since the thousand other cities of the plane weren’t so visually overwhelming.

‘If nothing else, they can clearly at least produce pigment,’ Valeria thought almost contemptuously. This, as far as she was concerned, tasteless display of color wasn’t the first time the people of this plane had failed to endear themselves to her; their first ‘offence’, such as it was, came the moment her fleet arrived above their plane.

While united under a tenth-tier mage, the people of this plane weren’t Void-farers, with their first recorded contact with an extraplanar people coming when her husband’s merchants and scouts first descended to its surface. This plane hadn’t been populated in the ancient Thunderbird Clan records, so it must have been colonized in the past eighty-thousand years, and then subsequently lost its records of how and when, but figuring that out wasn’t why she was here.

Merchants had made quite a bit of money from trading with these people, buying their pigments for easy-to-produce items like strong steel and exotic foods, and in their trading, had told stories of Leon’s Kingdom. Perhaps it was because of those stories that their Emperor surrendered without a fight, for they hadn’t been ready at all when her fleet arrived. This plane lay at the heart of a cluster that needed to be secured, so she’d brought more than half of all the forces she had under her command. The rest were fanning out to nearby clusters, including one particular plane that had been an ancient Thunderbird Clan colony that had apparently been abandoned in the millennia since its founding.

But she didn’t think about that, at least for now. Instead, she concentrated on the plane’s Emperor, who had submitted himself to her, and her husband by extension, within a day of her arrival.

She pressed forward, no one getting in her way despite the eerie silence. She crossed the bridge without incident and ascended the mountainous palace along an exterior staircase, her Ulta suit hovering several feet above the surface. When she reached the summit, she found a tremendous welcoming party, consisting of the various Princes that ruled the local dynast’s vassals. Given the timetable, they had to have been in the city, which led her to believe that they ruled in absentia, or through something similar to Aeterna’s comm stones, rather than in person.

She noted that all of the Princes were male, while surrounding them were gaudily-adorned women. Everyone wore the same flowing multicolored robes so long that they dragged across the floor in long trains, and both men and women wore white-painted faces with non-runic symbols painted on their cheeks. These symbols were clearly identifiers, as the Princes and their attendant women wore the same symbols, though the Princes’ symbols were more numerous and intricate.

At the far end of the palace summit sat the Emperor himself, the sight of whom lowered Valeria’s opinion of this plane even more than it already had been. Leon, in her mind, was the perfect monarch—strong, humble in most things, prideful where it counted, and concerned himself with the safety and security of his Kingdom. As the living representation and greatest defender of his Kingdom, he always kept himself battle-ready, never afraid to take up the sword to defend his people. He didn’t remove himself from his people, either, frequently traveling out to subordinated cities and holding court in places where his people could see him, and rarely turned down an invitation to head down into Artorion from one of his Tribal vassals—something that Sar, in particular, was fond of doing.

The monarch she now beheld appeared to be Leon’s polar opposite in every way. He was a tenth-tier mage, but his aura wavered far too much as hers, already somewhat dampened by having to emanate from her Ulta suit, washed over the palace summit. Furthermore, despite wearing a polychromatic robe made of silk-like material that shimmered in the light, large enough to use as a company-sized tent, the roundness of his belly was plain to see. The flab in his cheeks, too, was obvious despite his red-painted face, and the gold around his eyes failed to distract from the beadiness of his eyes, made all the more so by his overwhelming corpulence.

The palace summit was open to the air, with a covered pavilion at the far end, and a throne that the rotund Emperor sat upon. Halls on the right and left kept it feeling like a courtyard, even though they served as little more than covered entryways that led back into the depths of the palace. Statues at each corner of the ‘courtyard’ depicted men in prime fighting condition, heavily muscled and armed with long spears and round shields, idealized forms of the guards who were stationed as unobtrusively as they could be around the edges of the summit.

Surrounding the throne were at least two hundred women, all wearing the symbol of the Emperor on their faces. What little Valeria could see of them behind their long robes and heavy cosmetics, all of them were staggeringly beautiful.

She took some pleasure in seeing the portly Emperor jump slightly as her Ulta suit suddenly landed, impacting hard enough to shake the teeth in those standing too close. The Tempest Knights and soldiers who had ascended the palace before her, and those who came in right after her, surged through, pushing everyone aside and giving her plenty of room. She didn’t wait too long before opening the Ulta suit and stepping out into full view.

To make the proper impression, she hadn’t dressed in the high fashion of Artorion, as Elise or Cassandra might have done, but instead wore her armor beneath her suit. Leon had perfectly tailored her armor to her body, having it follow the lines and curves of her body enough to tantalize, but not enough to be revealing, and especially not enough to compromise its defensive value. She wasn’t wearing her helmet, though, letting her face and silver hair, pulled into a loose braid, trail her as she stepped from the Ulta suit.

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Instantly, she felt all eyes upon her, the volume of attention striking her almost physically. The elephantine Emperor was the worst, his tiny eyes widening in wonder as she revealed herself, his gaze oozing over her like grease and giving her an instant desire to bathe. His chubby face wrinkled with an ugly smile, made almost worse with its earnestness—had it been rude, she might’ve been able to justify striking him down and removing such a wart from marring the face of her husband’s Kingdom.

Instead, she didn’t say so much as a word before the Emperor, his belly jiggling, shot from his throne and bound down toward her, excitement writ large across his painted face.

He needed a translator, having not used a Stone of Many Tongues, but the Prince who translated for him said that he warmly welcomed Valeria to the Palace of Delight.

Her face might as well have been carved from stone for how much she reacted to his ‘warm welcome’. The Prince who’d stepped forward as a translator visibly shivered as she turned her eyes upon him, and one of her adjutants came forward as another translator.

“Will you surrender?” she coldly asked, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible. Her question was repeated by her translator.

The round Emperor licked his lips and then nodded. He folded his arms across his chest—at least, as much as was possible—and bent slightly at the waist.

That was enough for her, and she waved at her staff to come forward and get the formalities over with. She wanted as little to do with these people as she could manage…

—

Even hours after leaving that stuffy city, Valeria relished in the clean air of her flag ark, Silent Hail.

“Some men are made to serve,” Admiral Ian of Lancefoot said derisively as the fleet’s leading diplomat finished her summary of the submission of Emperor Liconaeria and the Plane of Endless Beauty.

On some level, Valeria was tempted to push back against his derision, but couldn’t muster the motivation. It was hard not to harshly judge an Emperor who gave up without a fight, even against such overwhelming odds. Of course, it was the ‘right’ choice to make, and resisting would’ve been futile and encouraged harsh reprisals after her fleets and legions won, but…

She sighed and put it out of her mind for the time being.

“What of the other fleets?” she asked. “There’s been time for them to reach their destinations.”

Perella, a Tempest Knight who had come to be a fairly close friend in recent years, stepped forward, acting as her highest-ranked adjutant for this expedition.

“Nearly all have sent word that their planes are uninhabited. Some are dense with ruins…” As she spoke, she activated some projection enchantments and showed some of these planes. Most were fairly standard as far as ruins go—piles of rubble, most largely reclaimed by nature. The complete lack of human life was notable, though, as it should’ve been quite difficult to fully exterminate all human life on a plane, even if a civilization was destroyed.

“And not a man to be found?” one of her legion commanders asked, his face scrunching up in disbelief.

“None that we’ve found,” Perella said.

“‘Nearly’ all,” Valeria said, shifting Perella’s attention back to her as she focused on what she found to be the most important detail. “Should we guess it was the detachment sent to Antaas?”

Perella nodded, though her expression fell slightly. “We haven’t received any word from them thus far, but one missed check-in isn’t unheard of.”

Valeria scowled in her subdued way and leaned forward, taking control of the projection enchantment in the conference room and switching to a map of the local cluster. Thirty planes appeared floating in the Void in a haphazard cloud, none close enough to each other to make travel between them easy. The ‘Plane of Endless Beauty’ was the centermost plane, while Antaas was the plane on one end of the cluster—notably the end of the cluster that the ancient Thunderbird arks would’ve first reached if traveling from the direction of the Great Strand of Atreus. It was on Antaas that the abandoned Thunderbird colony had been located.

“They should’ve arrived by now…” Valeria whispered, her concern rising quickly. She spared the plane below her one quick glare before coming to an easy decision. “Leave the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth detachments here to maintain our presence. We’ll take the rest of the fleet to Antaas and see what has become of our people.”

Her word was final, and not one of the dozens of officers in the room offered any argument. Still, she registered some hesitation among some of them, but didn’t think too much of it. Not yet, anyway…

—

“This is a disaster!” a panicking legion commander exclaimed. “How can we explain this loss?”

“It’s impossible,” a detachment Vice-Admiral said. “To lose so much without even a single warning…”

Valeria registered their words as she stared at the projected surface of Antaas. The colony glowed to draw the eye, but the high towers and wide streets would’ve been enough for her. There wasn’t a soul to be seen anywhere on the plane, and certainly not in the ruined colony below, but what they could see were the two dozen arks of the detachment sent here scattered around the colony, having apparently crashed. It might’ve been believable had there been any sign of fighting, damage to the arks themselves, or if they hadn’t fallen in a perfect circle around the colony, but as it was, it was clear that something happened, something that the detachment had no ability to fight against.

‘Crashed, no sign of damage, no sign of their crews…’

Antaas’ half dozen continents were small and covered in seemingly endless jungle, which had even practically consumed the ruins of the colony. It was even threatening to swallow up the crashed arks, despite how recent their crash was.

“What reports do we have of this place?” she demanded.

Perella, visibly shaken, said, “We’ve gotten close enough to verify that there was no human presence down there, but… there haven’t been any attempted landings yet… Not until this detachment was sent, at least…”

“Something struck down those arks…” Allos, another detachment Vice-Admiral said, his voice quivering. “Something that wasn’t men. We shouldn’t get close. We should abandon this plane and leave it as a grave, undisturbed.”

“How should this be explained, then?” Perella asked.

“Must it be?” Allos asked. “The arks were lost with all hands. What more needs be said?”

“Much,” Valeria said, silencing him. “I will not return to my Royal husband having lost so many arks without even bloodying my glaive. He’d understand if I did, but that is no excuse to be lazy.”

“It’s not being lazy,” Allos insisted. “We are recognizing a threat.”

“Are we?” Valeria asked, her sapphire eyes turning to the Ancestral Hart who commanded the fifth detachment. He flinched slightly, but instead of castigating him, she asked, “What do you see down there that I don’t?”

He frowned and paled slightly as several dozen pairs of eyes focused on him. “I… can’t explain it. Something’s pricking me in places I don’t have words for. I feel… unwelcome…”

“Magically?” Valeria asked. “Or a physical ‘prick’?”

A look of surprise crossed his face, perhaps from her taking his words seriously even as others visibly dismissed him, and he said, “Both. Neither. It’s… something’s down there, and it can see us. And it doesn’t want us to disturb it…”

“Twenty-eight arks are down there, half-buried in mud,” Admiral Ian said. ‘Where are their crews? What happened that caused them to crash? If any of us were among those sent to this plane and now found ourselves down there, we’d want to be found. We’d want our deaths recorded. No one would want to be abandoned.”

Other officers began offering their opinions, but they largely split down the middle, with roughly half advocating for either keeping their distance or abandoning the plane entirely, while the other half argued for further investigation.

Valeria herself was of two minds. She wasn’t getting the same feeling that her Ancestral Hart Vice-Admiral was, but there was certainly something… foreboding about Antaas. The jungle was deep and dark, but not in a way that felt particularly special as far as such things went. The plane was reasonably magic-rich, and she couldn’t identify anything out of the ordinary…

But there was a slight pressure at the edge of her awareness, some spine-tingling feeling that suggested something was watching her, though she couldn’t identify who or what that something was.

It was enough to make her doubt her own senses.

“We need to see what happened,” she decided, her revulsion at this faint feeling prompting her to investigate. “Keep most of the fleet distant. I’ll head down with a small group and see what there is to see. If we don’t return… break this plane entirely. Fire upon it until nothing remains but rock and dust.”

The other officers shouted their acknowledgment, though some clearly wanted to argue. She then dismissed them back to their arks and began to prepare for an excursion to the surface of overgrown Antaas…

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