Shadow Slave

The Memory Sunny had created was, of course, a message to Nephis. The [Shadow Bond] that connected them was an innate Ability of his Aspect, and as such, existed outside of the Spell. It did not matter that the convoy was isolated from the Dream Realm... their tenuous link remained active. Sunny knew it because he himself was still able to see Neph's runes, so she should have been able to see his, as well.

'Well, that's done...'

The only question was how soon would Nephis see the message, and how long would it take for her to come up with a response. Sunny suspected that he was going to have to wait for a while.

Morgan's Warbow proved that forgemasters of clan Valor were capable of naming the Memories they created. However, he did not know how high Changing Star's standing in the great clan was at the moment, and if it was possible for her to charge them with forging a specific Memory for her, let alone do it quickly.

In any case, he was sure that she would come up with something. Nephis was a frighteningly resourceful person, when she needed to be.

...Kind of like Sunny himself.

'It won't be fast, though.'

With a sigh, he glanced at Professor Obel and Beth.

"The message is sent. Now, we just need to wait for a response."

The convoy continued its meaningless march. Hour after hour, the small column of vehicles drove through the overflowing darkness, their sense of time and direction slowly disappearing. The dark tunnel was just too eerie, inexorable, and unchanging. Everything there seemed like a strange, foreboding dream.

From time to time, one of the vehicles would break down, forcing them to stop for quick repairs. The Rhino was operating on an advanced spelltech engine, which meant that its fuel was soul essence. Luster was more than capable of keeping the APC moving indefinitely. The military vehicles had primitive spelltech batteries serving as a backup energy source for their hybrid systems, so he was able to help the soldiers, too.

possessed a vast charge capacity, but were going to gel exhausted sooner or later. Although it

the rest of

in the same manner. Sunny spent it on the roof of the Rhino, staring at the entrances to the side passages that would sometimes

their final destination, right about now. With no mountains to climb and no Nightmare Creatures to fight, only the straight road and no obstacles

would translate to the same amount of covered ground in the real world,

sent his message, Nephis finally

runes to check on Neph, and then blinked a couple of

by a lot. There were certainly benefits to being an adopted daughter of a great clan, so she would occasionally receive a Memory or two. It seemed that she was being provided with a constant stream of soul shards, as well, even if their influx had slowed at some point, most likely to hide the fact that Nephis possessed

at all... yeah... I am not regretting my

of the dark tunnel, then at the battered convoy, the desperate people who clung to what little warmth they could find inside the ramshackle vehicles, and

back at the runes, which showed that Nephis had gained fifteen new Memories in the Span

being nurtured by

the names of the

Haunting Eversong, Eager

And six more.

to have been created by the forgemasters

Sunny scoffed.

'...Clever.'

darkness, he read the first letter of each

he ended up with was a

FINDHEARTCUTRUN