Shadow Slave

Sunny found the Rhino without any problem, since it was parked near the military barracks. Getting the Corrupted Devil's needle through the main hatch had turned out harder than he had expected, so he ended up climbing to the APC's roof and lowering it through the upper hatch there.

Eventually, though, he found himself inside the dark, silent interior of the slumbering machine. It was a bit weird to see the Rhino so empty... but not unpleasantly so. With the whole APC to himself, Sunny felt as though he could relax and took off the mask of the confident commander that he was forced to wear in front of most people these days.

"Ah... that damned thing is so heavy!"

He dragged the needle to the armory, dropped it on the floor, and returned to the lounge area to take a quick shower. Then, feeling fresh and rejuvenated - if a bit sleepy - he summoned the Endless Spring, plopped down on a couch, and put his feet up, using the Shadow Chair as a footstool.

Sunny took a sip of cool water, then carefully unpacked the sandwich and took a bite.

The sandwich, indeed, had been made with love. It was truly tasty.

Mentally thanking the generous refugee, Sunny enjoyed his meal in peace. It was going to be his last opportunity to rest tonight, so he made sure to chew as slowly as he could.

Very soon, however, the sandwich was gone, and it was time to get to work. Sunny closed his eyes, sighed, and walked to the rear section of the vehicle. There, a small pile of Memories lay on the holographic table of the command suite. Sunny summoned a few more, dropped them into the pile, and counted everything. A small grimace appeared on his face.

Sunny had not only been keeping watch on the wall the past few days. After reaching Falcon Scott, which had become the hub of everything in the Antarctic Center, he had been very busy spending all of his contribution points, as well.

Getting good Memories was hard, but luckily, he was once again going for quantity over quality. Additionally, Sunny had no reason to stick to the official channels - receiving anything through the army requisition system was a tough and slow process, especially with the network being down most of the time, so he just traded his points directly to the Awakened soldiers for the Memories that were useless to them.

He had even hired a few Sleepers from the caravan to be his errand boys, which made the whole process faster.

'...Not fast enough, though.'

Sunny departed the pile of Memories alone, cleared some space on the table, and summoned two weapons. One of them was his old and loyal tachi, the Midnight Shard,

tapestry of ethereal strings hidden inside them was vast and mind-numbingly complicated. He could already feel a hint

something that he had never done before... a few

wanted to recreate an Ascended enchantment, which were much, much more expansive and complex than the

basic elements, then

he had done on many occasions before, but only in the most rudimentary

two steps were already hard enough, but it was the last one that had turned unexpectedly troublesome. As Sunny had discovered out, not all materials had the capacity to sustain powerful enchantments. They would simply disintegrate under strain,

to create a powerful Memory... hence the needle of a Corrupted Devil.

wasn't really sure if the needle was good enough

at the same time wove essence threads of his own - he was going to

the two Memories, with only the fingers of his four hands moving in

call. Sunny

on the screen. She was chewing on a piece of roasted monster meat, seemingly very hungry or in a

How... ah... is your side project

at her

go better if I was not distracted by unexpected calls in the middle of

last piece of the roasted meat, wiped the juice off her lips, and

why do you need them? That's a crazy amount of contribution points to waste on a

grinned from the corner

giving