Vescrutia: Legacy

The sky trembled above the humid air of Edo.

Not with violence, but with precision—a ripple of sound, whirring through the verdant swamplands where the Antlion hid its brilliance. What followed was a ghostly shimmer that fractured the pink sky in a lattice of runes and glyphs that served as a portal through space.

Through it came a vessel that moved without sound. Its hull pulsed in soft gradients of obsidian and chrome, constructed from living alloys that shimmered like water held in shape by will alone. Thin geometric lines crawled across its surface like veins—recalibrating the ship’s form in real-time.

This was The Harbinger 2.0, and Dr. K’ion Bhu stood alone upon the bridge.

He held no entourage or security detail this time. But upon this aircraft, he didn't one. His hands were clasped comfortably behind his back as he gazed through the panoramic interface at the distant canopies below, where the Antlion lay cloaked beneath the surface.

“Approach vector confirmed,” a synthetic voice whispered. Not mechanical, but calm. Feminine. Familiar. A fragment of the sentient AI Ceros he'd embedded in the aircraft's architecture.

“Descend. Minimal displacement,” Bhu replied, voice serene. “We are guests. And we bring with us good news.”

The last time he descended here, the ship had groaned, hissed, and creaked as it landed. This iteration of the Harbinger barely made a whisper.

As the ship lowered itself, Dr. Bhu pressed a button along his wrist that caused a ceremonial crate to emerge from a pedestal behind him—levitating within a containment field of shimmering gold.

Its edges gleamed with the symbol of Hyperia, and within it: rods of raw Ophidian, refined to stability. Data-crystals, encoded with neural blueprints. And a holographic message intended to relay encoded knowledge for the recipient of the cargo.

Eridin Gamellow.

The Harbinger touched down on a platform of light sculpted from its own hull—no landing gear, no wheels or brakes required.

Bhu exhaled, long and slow.
Not out of fatigue, but reverence.

For centuries, Hyperia had survived by wit, not strength. Exiled from the Nation of Bhalia generations ago, they had suffered as a people of intellect in a world that prized might. Their bodies were fragile, their gifts brought on by neuroanatomical abnormalities that merely enhanced neural activity.

But unlike the majority of Vescrutia, Hyperians were born without the ability to wield Naten. They could not summon fire from their palms, nor command storms from the sky. They were entirely reliant on each other, and on the relentless fire of innovation that burned through their veins.

For eons, it had been barely enough.

They had hidden behind cloaked technology. Bent the knee to tyrants. Scoured the forgotten places of the world for scraps and relics—just to survive.

But today, that era came to an end—

After years of suffering, the work was done; the vision of the AIONS were made into a reality and this was due in no small part to one brilliant Gamellow Engineer. Because of him, and the elusive material known as Ophidian, Hyperia was able to consecrate their ambitions.

And now, Dr. Bhu had returned to the land of Edo, not as a diplomat, but as a peer. Eager to share the boons of their efforts.

The ramp unfurled like silk. Smooth. Seamless. A luminous path extended into the swamp air, stretching forward into a platform that led Bhu to the ground.

Each footfall was silent, measured, and ceremonial. And as the Harbinger cloaked its presence, Bhu stood at the edge of the clearing—awaiting confirmation from the Antlion below.

And from the man who had helped reshape the future.

The heart of the Antlion pulsed deep beneath the soil, a labyrinth of forged metal and humming circuitry. Weeks had passed since the esteemed guest had left their hidden stronghold, leaving behind not just the echoes of conversation but a reinforced resolve. All hands had been tirelessly dedicated to the grand initiative: the meticulously planned Seizing of power from the venerable Owaki clan. To challenge one of Edoan history’s Eldest names was a task of monumental scale, demanding more than mere numbers. What the Owaki lacked in raw, innate power, they compensated for with unparalleled mastery of their crafts and an intimidating arsenal of acquired armaments. A frontal assault would be suicidal, akin to a reckless sprint through a field sown with explosives.

Instead, the resistance had opted for strategic, calculated strikes. Leveraging the unique proficiencies of the Shi 10, they had been steadily eroding the Owaki's foundation, destabilizing their forces and crippling their vital resources. The most impactful successes had been the targeted destruction of the two remaining Owaki farms, severing crucial arteries of their supply chain.

Within the underground fortress, a perpetual symphony played – the persistent hum of whirring machines churning out components, the staccato prattle of digital calculations weaving complex algorithms, a ballad of preparation for a moment that promised to reshape history. At the epicenter of this controlled chaos sat the maestro himself, Eridin Gamallow. His eyes, alight with an almost feverish intensity, darted across a nexus of holographic screens. His fingers danced over hollow graphic data pads, each tap a command resonating with the mechanisms toiling away, calibrating the tools needed to optimize the clan for their audacious endeavor. A fire, ignited by the beacon that was Hyperia and stoked by the conviction born from witnessing Jao's growth and the fearsome power of his anthem, burned brightly within Eridin. He felt a passion that had long lain dormant now fully immolated, certain, more than ever before, that the true time for change had arrived for Edo. But having spoken with Jao and seen his growth for himself, his swift mastery of his anthem and its fearsome evolution, he was certain now, more so than ever before, that the time for change had truly come to Edo

This change would not arrive as a furtive whisper in the dead of night, nor would it be a hidden dagger struck from the shadows. No, revolution would be heralded by the triumphant blast of a horn, broad and resounding, a public celebration of liberation. The dusk had begun to settle on the archaic shinobi ways, the ideologies that had reduced their people to mere murderous tools, penitent demons fit only to be meager servants to other houses. B'halia would not find humanity wanting, not while Eridin drew breath, not while the flame of his hope burned, fueled by the vision of a future he was determined to see realized.

"Eridin."

Xetta’s voice echoed directly in his mind, the Artificial Intelligence bonded to his psyche, seemingly the only entity capable of piercing the veil of his absolute focus when he was in this state.

"Hm? Xetta, daddy's quite busy at the moment." He replied, his fingers never faltering on the data pads.

"Then perhaps you do not wish to know... that Hyperia has returned... with a giant box." She said, her voice a soft suggestion in the landscape of his thoughts.

Immediately, Eridin's head snapped up, his hands freezing their ceaseless typing. "You should've led with that!"

He clapped his hands together, a silent command that caused the myriad holographic screens to shimmer and vanish. "Well, let's not be rude, decontaminate them and let them in!"

He straightened in his seat, tapping his wrist. A small gadget extended, spraying him with a fine mist that caused accumulated grime and filth on his person to instantly dry and crumble away. Before the dust could even settle, a miniature andori cleaning bot zipped in to collect it.

"So...this is it."

Anna, his cousin and trusted assistant, appeared at his side, having just finished calibrating a complex machine nearby. She wiped grease from her fingers with a rag, her eyes holding a visible trepidation, a resistance born from a fear of allowing herself to truly hope. Eridan noticed her apprehension and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

"It is... Come, Anna..." He said, turning away from his command center. His cap, bearing the proud gilded emblem of the ant, the symbol of the Gamallow clan, materialized upon his back.

"Let us greet the future, together." He finished, striding towards the main entry point where Hyperia would arrive.

Anna gripped her rag tightly, anxiety gnawing at her, a silent dare that, hoping, that dreaming of a better world, could shatter her entirely. And yet, as the radiant gilded emblem of her family gleamed on Eridin's back, she felt a spark of courage ignite within her. Everything they had strived for, everything that had been sacrificed, might finally yield fruit – fruit daring enough to utterly change the world they knew. "Perhaps," Anna thought, the word a fragile prayer. Perhaps it truly was time to finally gaze out onto the sun.

The earth stirred.

Slowly, a platform rose from the swamp, conjured by the will of the Antlion’s inner mechanisms, that would lead toward the tunnel's entryway.

Dr. Bhu and his massive golden-encased crate proceeded into the sanctum once more.

The platform of light he stood on faded behind him, replaced by the warm, deep glow of subterranean forges and the subtle swamp water. Upon entrance, Bhu still found himself enamored by the brilliance of the Gamellow's The inner sanctum. Somehow, it even felt different. Burdened by a sense of urgency charging the air.

They too understood the weight of what was coming.

As the metal doors of the tunnel opened up, Eridin stood waiting along the otherside with Anna standing a few paces behind him. She wore the same utility gear, grease still streaked faintly across one cheek. Bhu saw her sharp eyes flicker to the golden crate first, then back to Bhu with a narrowed glance of cautious curiosity.

He couldn't help but smile as he stepped forward, his boots echoing softly on the metallic floor.

“Doctor Eridin,” he said with a respectful nod, his voice warm. “ It’s good to see you again, in good health.”

He paused a moment, taking in the air of the Antlion—the familiar thrum of energy, the chorus of hammers in the distance, the disciplined chaos of invention at work.

“I won’t lie,” he continued, hands clasping behind his back once more. “It feels good to return here. To walk beneath this place again, with the weight of failure no longer pressing at my heels.”

Then, with a faint smile and a slight tilt of his head, he added, “But I’m afraid I cannot stay long. The Harbinger is on a fixed orbital path, and I still have other hands to shake—less welcoming ones, I suspect.”

He finally extended his arm to shake both of their hands before he turned toward the crate, its golden light casting reflections across the metal floor. “Still, I wouldn't be able to entrust this to anyone else. Granted, there aren't too many minds capable of understanding these blueprints.”

Eridin's eye became filled with the gilden glare of the Hyperian content, barely able to contain his enthusiasm. Like a child witnessing for the first time their future, their potential blossoming before them.

"Doctor, yes, I rather like the sound of that..."

Such honorifics were seldom used in his clan; titles outside of the head rarely meant much, being of the Shi 10 aside, of course. It was...promising to be referred to as many that encapsulated the breadth of his contributions.

"As busy as ever, Dr. Bhu, opportunity rarely waits...as you well know."

“I won’t lie,” he continued, hands clasping behind his back once more. “It feels good to return here. To walk beneath this place again, with the weight of failure no longer pressing at my heels.”

"Then...you have succeeded?"

A coy smile for a rather rhetorical question. He was more than sure the good Doctor wouldn't have bothered returning unless he had made good on his promise and delivered to the Gamallows' front door the tools of their revolution, the very instruments of much more than their mere survival. Their ascension. Anna's eyes had been glued to the crate the entire time, her heart thumping just thinking about what lay in wait for them. Restitution... had come. She shook the doctor's hand, a firm grip, her eye contact breaking from the crate only when greeting him.

"Welcome back, Doctor," she said, her voice husky with suppressed excitement. "We are... in your debt."

The others in the Antlion stopped, all productivity ceased for this moment was one that would have been witnessed by them all. The culmination of eons of blood, sweat, and suffering, toiling countless hours, entire family trees were born under this single initiative.

To free their family

He gave a soft, dry chuckle—nothing performative. Just a threadbare laugh that hinted at the sleepless nights, the near-collapse of Hyperia’s laboratories, the quiet panic when a prototype folded in on itself.

“Yes,” he finally said, voice low but steady. “We have succeeded.”

His gaze shifted to Anna and he shook her hand as well; Her eyes burned with the same wonder that once lived in the Hyperian Council’s youngest minds—before hope became a liability. He bowed his head gently to her, not in formality, but in shared relief.

“You owe me nothing,” he said, looking between her and Eridin. “We share the same fire. The same condition. We build because we must. Because the world will not wait, and the heavens do not weep for those who couldn’t keep up.”

He stepped forward again, his voice gaining gravity as the others in the Antlion grew still. He watched their gaze hang on his every syllables.

“Behold.” He gestured toward the ceremonial crate. “The fruit of our labor and key to our Future.”

Dr. Bhu’s hand hovered over a small panel embedded along the side of the ceremonial crate. With a brief press, a soft pulse rippled through the air—subtle and soundless.

Then light bloomed above them.

A holographic projection unfolded, fanning out like a flower in zero gravity. At its core hovered a fully rendered blueprint of thr WMD codenamed AIONS. Nearly fifteen feet tall, molded behind shimmering refractive plating. Ophidian alloy shaped like muscle and bone, yet impossibly fluid. All composed within a humanoid silhouette that shifted moment to moment.

Around the model, glyphs and schematics orbited—targeting systems, amorphous limbs, and data pathways drawn in luminous script that bridged both magic and machine.

Bhu stepped forward, voice steady now—lecturer and craftsman in equal measure.

“These are the Artificially Intelligent Omnipotent Nanobound Sentinels; codenamed AIONS.”

The model pulsed, then shifted, showcasing combat scenarios and applications —

One of them leapt into battle, confronting a trio of combatants whose abilities shifted wildly. One cloaked in flames, one bending light, one moving faster than the eye. The AIONS adapted mid-combat—plates folding, limbs reforming, mirrored skin dispersing kinetic energy and redirecting it into strikes that collapsed space around its fists.

Another took flight to pursue its foe. Its back opening with jagged, fractal wings composed of Ophidian nanites, lifting it effortlessly into the stratosphere, its plating shielding it from arcane frost and radiation alike.

The final example showcased an AION sentinel dissolving entirely into a black stream, phasing through an incoming shockwave and reforming mid-air, its body an armory of unfolding steel. A molten sword emerged from its right limb—alive, glowing, impossibly sharp—cutting through a barrier of reinforced Naten like paper.

Bhu looked back to Eridin and Anna—his voice quiet now. Confessional.

“They’re not just autonomous. They’re aware. Each encounter, every spell they witness, every movement they track—they remember. They learn. Not just from one fight, but from all battles fought by their kin.”

He paused as the holograms painted the room with light and wonder. Immediately overcome with a sense of pride in what they'd accomplished.

“We built them to end that era of fear; To balance a world that punishes the fragile and elevates only the born-powerful.”

His gaze sharpened.

“But without Ophidian… they were unstable. Incomplete. Their bodies couldn’t sustain their minds. Too much adaptation, not enough harmony.”

He took breath, and his gaze found Eridin, and smirked.

“You changed that.”

The projection flickered, returning to the original static model—now slowly revolving, as if waiting.

“Now,” Bhu said, stepping away from the light and letting it belong to Eridin, “Despite their flawless design, I thought it best to allow you and your team to assemble them yourselves—with your own flair. Within this cargo container are a rods of Ophidian nanites, capable of self replication when exposed to a source of Naten.”

He said, removing the wristlet that controlled the holographic panels projecting from the container and he handed it to Eridin.

"These are the tools, but it just didn't feel right not giving you the chance to build your own vision."

The Antlion became a pool of silence as their eyes grew bright with he reflection of the panel's display. The AIONS were even more incredible than Eridin first speculated. The brief overlay of the rough-drafted blueprints presented to him at their initial meeting was impressive enough to say the least.

But this, this mirrored display showcased both the incredible use of Ophidian and the ingenious ingenuity of Hyperia's mind. What they had just witnessed was something revolutionary in the world of technology and magic, a seamless blending of two worlds that by Gamallow's expression, merely explained the existence of the other. Yet to see these parallels intersect in such an uncanny way was like witnessing the dawn of a deity of light scathing away the darkness.

"By the gods..."

As he watched limb reform, shape redefined, light scathe and tendrils red, Eridin's heart grew heavy, his mind weighted, not with sadness, not with the eons of strife and failure. But with the tonnage of what lay before them.

The Future of the Shi

“You changed that.”

The projection flickered, returning to the original static model—now slowly revolving, as if waiting.

“Now,” Bhu said, stepping away from the light and letting it belong to Eridin, “Despite their flawless design, I thought it best to allow you and your team to assemble them yourselves, with your own flair. Within this cargo container are rods of Ophidian nanites, capable of self replication when exposed to a source of Naten.”

He said, removing the wristlet that controlled the holographic panels projecting from the container and he handed it to Eridin.

"These are the tools, but it just didn't feel right not giving you the chance to build your own vision."

The gesture of being handed the device, to Eridin, was the equivalent of being hand a skeleton key, a tool cable of opening any door dismantling any barrier self created or otherwise. Eridin's eyes could not help but swell though try as he might to stave off his emotions the gravity of what he was about to accomplish for his family, for his father who gave his life to save him, his mother who sacrificed everything to teach him all she knew...finally. The research they entrusted to him...would reach it's fruition.

"Mother...father..."

He thought as he gripped the device tightly

"The day...the day dawns anew"

His job, the duty of being a scientist and developer, was often a thankless position, but today it felt like...for the first time in over seven decades he had lived, he could bear witness to it.

No, it was more than that

He would do more than merely witness it

He would craft it, shape the future of his clan with his very hands.

"Dr...."

Eridin said as he slipped the cuff on, its mechanism attuning itself to his form.

"Let us meet on the other side of this war. Perhaps you will show me Hyperia's labs."

He said, existence his hand once more, the gleam of the device blossoming as if signaling the spark of a new age.

Dr. Bhu watched Eridin quietly absorb all that was laid before him.

He gave a slow, deliberate nod, then smiled. “Yes,” he replied softly, his gaze shifting between Eridin and Anna. “The both of you. I would like that very much.”

His voice carried a gentleness, almost reverent, as if agreeing to a vow made long before either of them had the means to fulfill it.

“Until then my friends, I look forward to that day,” He said with a final bow and stepped back, letting the golden light of the crate’s containment field reflect off the tiles of the Antlion’s floor as he turned toward the exit and back toward his ship. As he had mentioned, Doctor Bhu was not here strictly on a whim—he was on a time sensitive schedule.

Still, as he neared the gates of the tunnel, he turned back to gaze upon the Atilian once more—as if it could be the last time he'd shared the same air with Eridin and his people. But he moved forward, ready to embrace his destiny and the path ahead.