Underground
Tidal Hub
Present
Helentine brings her buzzsaw down. The phantom bursts apart in a strange, blazing light.
In the space of a blink, weightlessness sweeps through you, and the turbulent illusion releases you both back into the waking world.
Watch out... [player name]!
The underground current swallows you both in a heartbeat, tumbling you through the dark. Jagged flakes of rusted metal slice shallow cuts across your arms and shoulders.
▆▅▃▅▅▃▅
Your finger works the trigger without pause. Rounds cut through the rushing water, breaking apart phantoms the moment they rise.
Grab on...!
Her hand closes on your arm, and a spray of silver silk fires from her wrist, biting into the dark vault overhead. Together, you ride out the torrent, suspended one behind the other.
▆▅▆▅▅▅▅▅▅▅
Without warning, another massive projection bursts from the flashing light, dissolving the threads in an instant.
The next moment, the world spins into freefall.
Sound grows distant. The world trembles. The red figures in view dissolve into shapeless blurs of color.
Countless blurs surge toward the two of you once more.
Whoosh.
A white light whip cuts through the crimson chaos.
The whip strikes like a serpent, carving sharp, improbable angles through the air. It coils around the projections lunging at you, constricting with the force of steel cables until they rupture into broken streams of liquid.
[player name]! Helentine!
Far off, through your failing sight, a shape too bright to look at vaults toward you.
Then your body drops, caught in the light whip's coil.
Darkness swallows your vision.
That unseen ripple radiating from the Tidal Hub's heart has passed over every corner of Port Podesta.
Under the heavy rain, red phantoms rise from the streets and lanes, congealing into skin and flesh, into faces, one after another, each one distinct.
How... is this possible?
Beneath the phantom veil, Port Podesta begins to mend. The rust recedes. Steel grows smooth again. Paint pushes through the worn primer and returns to the deep green it wore years ago.
The torn and rutted asphalt seals itself. Stones settle back into the cracks. Tar softens and spreads. Decades of tracks and old blood dissolve under the rain, scrubbed clean.
The red phone booth on the street corner, nothing but a rust-eaten frame slumped against a utility pole, flickers back to life. Glass panes reassemble in the window frame. Paint creeps across the iron inch by inch. Then...
Brrrring—
Hello...? It's me... I'm back...
The ringing of a homecoming long overdue echoes across all of Port Podesta.
Buildings knit themselves whole. Streets redraw their lines... The whole network of roads rethreads, and bridges that collapsed decades ago push fresh girders from their wounds.
Out of the mud, in that uncanny light, steps surface one by one. Buildings born in different decades rise together, alive again.
The city is steeped in trembling colors, rich with the glow and ache of the Golden Age. Beyond the rain, an era thought lost is stirring awake.
Move it! Everyone in back, keep up!
Down on the port district docks, another raid has gone their way. Crassus and the workers have intercepted a supply truck heading from the docks into the city.
The truck lies toppled on its side. Workers rush to haul the cargo out.
What's the holdup, Vick? Get moving—
Amid the work, Crassus glances over. Vick and a handful of others are just standing there, with the rain beating down on them.
Boss... look...
Vick turns to Crassus and points through the veil of rain.
▆▅
...?
Through the veil of rain, Crassus watches the old warehouses bleed back into bright, fresh color. The dockworkers' club, torn down years ago, slowly pieces itself back together.
Strange phantoms stand among it all.
▅▆▅, ▅▅.
...
Bring Mom, home.
Vick stares, rooted to the spot. The crate slips from his grip and crashes to the ground.
Hey, Vick... what are you...
Crassus seizes him, but something fierce erupts from Vick's wiry frame. He breaks the grip and strides through the downpour toward the waiting old woman.
Vi—
He opens his mouth to shout Vick's name, but then more of them are moving, a tide of workers rushing toward the phantoms.
On the docks, in the alleys. Dead mothers. Missing husbands. Everyone lost in the Atlantic Calamity...
Across the long years, across the veil of rain, they have all come back.
This... This is impossible...
Crassus gazes at the silhouettes holding each other and weeping in the same downpour. An emotion he cannot name rises in his chest.
When he sees Vick wrapped in his mother's arms, he is certain this must be some absurd dream. He lifts a hand to slap himself awake.
Suddenly, someone takes his hand.
Don't... Crassus.
...?
The small photo frame he had picked up before slips from his grasp again. But this time, Crassus does not rush to retrieve it.
A gentle voice, long absent, sounds at his side. He turns, unable to believe what he is hearing.
La... Larene...
A shrill alarm splits the sky above the conservation area. Inside the command post at Constellia, the three members of Gray Raven have been standing by.
Lee, comm status?
Still down. Ever since that atmospheric spike, everything from Port Podesta has gone dark.
Commandant...
...
Without hesitation, Lucia patches into the highest-level military comms.
This is Gray Raven. We're registering simultaneous anomalies, Punishing Virus concentration and atmospheric systems, both originating from Port Podesta...
We request immediate deployment.
Once Constellia's transport is prepped and we hit cruising altitude, we'll push straight for Port Podesta airspace.
Commandant... Please stay safe. We're coming for you.
From the heights of the Tidal Hub, Tavis watches the city below, a place eroded by time. A few stray raindrops fleck the air.
Dr. Tavis... is this rain everything you hoped for?
At his side, Tavis takes in the changing cityscape. The city is reviving. The dead are coming back. All the miracles he spent a lifetime waiting for are happening now, right in front of him.
Something's wrong...
Seeing the shockwave from the Sefirah halt at Port Podesta's boundary, a look of confusion crosses Tavis' face. He opens his terminal and brings up a holographic display.
The aerial view of the port is replaced by a stream of complex data, real-time readings of the "Understanding" Sefirah. Translation rate, information throughput, coverage radius, projected diffusion speed...
Lithos glances at Tavis, whose attention is entirely absorbed by the screen.
Based on the earlier translation rates, this shouldn't be confined to Port Podesta. The shockwave should be spreading, reaching the mainland, pulling in data from every populated center in its path... then diffusing across the globe.
This miracle was never meant for Port Podesta alone. All those who died in the Atlantic Calamity, who fell to the Punishing Virus...
They deserve to be brought back. All of them, equally.
Cross-referencing the previous experiment parameters against the current readings, Tavis finally pinpoints the issue.
The data of countless dead, translated and extracted from the Red Tide by the Sefirah, is fading at an accelerating rate. Coverage has stopped expanding. The diffusion rate is in steady decline.
Why is the Sefirah's translation rate dropping?
The Sefirah... is resisting me?
...
Lithos cocks his head, his interest drawn toward the Tidal Hub.
He thinks back over the scattered clues he has uncovered across Port Podesta these past days. All of them seem to point toward a single possibility.
...Someone has interfered with the Sefirah.
What? No one else could have gotten close to it. It's only us.
The Ascension-Network's reach is far greater than you realize, Doctor.
...There's another agent in Port Podesta?
Perhaps. I'll deal with them for you. Keep your focus on the plan, Doctor.
I need to figure out what the Sefirah is missing, so the shockwave can resume its expansion.
The problem is much simpler than that, Doctor...
Lithos flicks his fingers and steers the Paper Crane gliding into the shadows of the hub.
If the waves can't reach the shore... why not bring the shore to the sea?
