Hao Ren finally found Willy and Master Orrow in one of the inns in the royal city. The two, a noble bastard and a shaggy scholar from a distant city state did not have the rights to live within the royal fortress. When Willy saw Hao Ren and the rest he was shocked, especially when his eyes fell upon Vivian. The young lad immediately sprang to his feet from the chair. “Ice Witch!”
“Oh, even you too?” Vivian smiled. “The people in the city are afraid of me.”
“So you really are the Ice Witch.” Willy shrunk by reflex before carefully looking about. This was a cheap inn, and only had a thin layer of planks to separate the simple room from the corridor outside. He felt that there were countless of people trying to eavesdrop into the conversation here.As he knew he was now speaking to the Ice Witch, the royal knights may have already stood guard over the entry way. “I said that when I first met you… but you did not admit to that… and you never said that this world had a Fire Witch as well.”
Lily scratched her head, slightly embarassed. “Actually, I was just trying to act co…”
“So are you still afraid of the Ice Witch?” Hao Ren asked Willy with a smile. “You see, we do have the ability to let this world fall into an eternal winter. We have fixed the Furnace of the Ancestors, and conversely we could annhilate it as well at a whim.”
“Of course.” Willy admitted honestly. Perhaps he was brave in admitting the fact that he was a coward. “But I don’t think the Ice Witch is an evil person. And frankly, I always though that the Ice Witch was a demon that will lead the world into an eternal winter. My nan had said it before, on the first night of winter, the Ice Witch will come on a chariot of frozen metal from the edge of the world, and blasts cold wind into the Furnace of the Ancestors, and permanently freezing the heart of the world. But you had fixed it together with the Ice Witch. Seems like the legends weren’t real after all.”
“That’s right. The legends aren’t real. It’s just that men did not hold on to the truth, they held on to the drive to pursue the truth.” Hao Ren patted Willy’s shoulder, before pulling out a few photographs from his pocket and passed it to the young man. “We will be leaving soon. These are for you.”
“Wha…” Willy took over the photographs quizzically. He had never seen such exquisite paper before. Firm, smooth, without mold, and the colours were vibrant. On it was a picture that was beautiful beyond words, and was so life-like it felt like magic. “What are these?”
“Pretty ain’t it?”
“Pretty…?” There was still some sense of doubt in Willy’s tone. “They are pretty, but I don’t know what these are.”
“Forest, sea, the deep blue skies, and the stars.” Hao Ren gestured towards the pictures in the photographs. “These were left behind by your ancestors… I found them in the library and printed out some. These pictures were pictures of the world your people had once lived. I’ve met many people on the ark, but it’s a shame that you are the only one that is interested in this. So I’ve giving it to you.”
willy immediately passed the photographs back. “I can’t possibly accept such a valuable item…”
“The fact that you know these are valuable is more than enough.” Hao Ren smiled. “I’m here to say my farewells, and pass on somethings. Now that my job here for now is done, we’ll have to go back. Nolan, prepare transference.”
Willy stepped forward by reflex but the screen of white light that appeared out of nowhere stopped him in his path. Hao Ren stood behind the white light as he looked towards the stunned Master Orrow. “Master, tell this boy’s father when you get back. Willy had led the Witches of Ice and Fire into the Furnace of the Ancestors. His name has been engraved deep within the Furnace. His viceroyalty may be a lifetime work, but his accomplishments will never compare to even the pinky toe of this bastard son of his.”
Master Orrow smiled as he bowed slightly. “I shall request his Majesty to pen this to the viceroy himself, and have the royal seal on it so that it can forever be placed within Hearthfire’s treasure vault.
This old man does have a wicked bone in him too!
The transference beam then disappeared in a flash, and the next moment, Hao Ren and the rest were back onto Petrachelys’ bridge.
Y’lisabet leapt out from her seat to welcome Hao Ren excitedly as she complained about being bored standing by on the ship. Nolan’s holographic projection then appeared not far away. “We have ascertained the ark’s situation.”
Hao Ren patted the petite devil’s head to quieten her down as he turned towards the projection on the control dais.
Deep in space, the ark fleet had been totally taken apart and reconstructed by the unmanned droids. He saw silverly lights all over the ellipsoid arks and the heavy armor at the fore of the arks have been ripped open, exposing a matrix of ancient and complicated electrical circuits and machinery. The new control equipments that were installed by engineering droids glittered like mercury in a dark chamber. Even then, there were other droids whirling about the arks, these droids were checking the control sensitivity of each ark, and the fusion level of the ‘osmotic cores’ against the arks.
While these droids were technically his property, the scene sent a chill down Hao Ren’s spine.
It looked like a swarm of termites gnawing and infesting a giant helpless beast.
“I’ve decoded the ark’s navigation system, and I noticed that they do not have a specific destination. So I have just turned it off altogether, and let the droids use the osmotic core to replace the ships’ ‘nerve system’.” Nolan continued. “I also had performed some emergency repairs and maintenance on a few of the arks. They are now capable of hyper-speed travel to anywhere you want it to go. But don’t push it too hard, these old junk probably cannot survive more than a couple of decelerations.”
“The ship needs to call port soon, and undergo a total overhaul.” the MDT added. “We have found a few planets that are habitable, so partner, where do you want to place them on?”
As the MDT spoke, it pulled out a list of habitable planets within the Plane of Dreams. Hao Ren then started choosing from the list. He shook his head at first as he removed Tannagost from the shortlist. “The atmosphere in Tannagost is poisonous to the ark’s denizens, and that planet is already occupied by the Zomnites… and the Tannaeans may return one day as well… that’s a whole lot of mess, nope.”
“Holletta seems like a good place…” Y’lisabet quipped chirpily.
“Uh no, that place is already occupied.” Hao Ren shook his hand. “And that’s not our land either. Truth be told, these denizens in the arks had regressed too much, and are almost barbaric in nature. Staying out of contact with anyone for the next few generations is probably for the best.”
As he continued, he sighed. “And frankly, if not for the war, the Solenne Gateway have a lot of habitable planets. That place was the testing fields of the Goddess, I could imagine how lively that area would have been back in the days.”
“And there’s nothing but scorched earth now there, even the air is toxic.” Nolan said with a regretful tone before being serious again. “If you are just looking at a place for a port call, Io would do the job.”
“Io?” Hao Ren raised an eyebrow. “But there’s no land there.”
“Those arks don’t need a landmass to land on.” Nolan said as she changed the holographic projection on the control dais. “I’ve found something interesting when I took the ships apart… Their initial design seemed to have taken into account the possibility of landing in the sea. The ship’s life support system have a dedicated water-filtration system, and when landing on a planet that is water-rich, the maintenance system would even work much more efficiently.”
Hao Ren immediately brightened up as he heard that and joined in the discussion. But he was clearly out of Nolan’s league when it come to this, and after straining his eyes he could somewhat make out that the outer hull of the arks have transformation capabilities.
The designers of the arks have probably thought of the possibility of their descendents trying to start over on various types of planets, and they had used all their might and knowledge to create an engineering miracle, and even after ten thousand years, these basic equipments were all intact and in pristine condition!
“But Io is the planet of the Sirens.” Hao Ren frowned after the initial excitement had passed. “And even if the arks can land of the sea, it cannot be floating there forever. There’s no land resources there, and that’ll be no different than being trapped in space.”
“We can figure that out later no?” Lily said as she made a huge shrugging motion. “Now what the ark needs is a breather, pronto. We can let them stop at Io for a moment, and once the arks have been fixed we can move them to another planet. If need be, then go look for the Siren Queen, and let the people of the ark sign a eight hundren year tenancy agreement. After all, your original job was like a procure….”
Hao Ren immediately threw an angry glare at the big-mouthed husky. Lily immediately shrunk back. “Ugh.. I meant… a tenancy middleman…”
