June 6
I woke up in sickbay around 10 AM, groggy and disoriented after being out for nearly 12 hours. I was attended by Dr. Mara Tuvana, Zara’s spy at the base. She explained she wasn’t really that kind of doctor. Still, when the base’s military medic freaked out over my skin starting to turn into scales, they called her. And for good reason.
Turns out that blast from the stone in Velasquez’s lab did more than just knock me out—it fused the dragon scale I found at PanGen with my flesh, accelerating the transformation Vanya told me is inevitable.
I convinced Mara (and the poor medic) that this was just a natural effect of being a physical adept. Sort of true. Mostly not. Either way, it worked—for now. I wasn’t keen on this becoming common knowledge. Mara didn’t push the issue. She had her own secrets to keep. And the medic looked like he was ready to worship the ground I walk on. Maybe useful for later.
Vanya was waiting for me when I finally got out of sickbay. She should’ve been with Halo, but I wasn’t about to chew her out for it. We both know where her loyalties lie—and it's not with Halo. This is probably as close to affection as Vanya gets.
The models had already left on their expeditions, so we split up. Vanya headed after Halo, while I joined Zara and Slag in their ATV, along with two Aztech guards and a driver. We set off into the unknown—specifically, toward a place Zara was keen on visiting.
During the ride, I had time to think over what Zara had confided in me the day before. She’s working with a minority faction within Aztechnology. They’re opposed to “the majority,” a group she refused to name. The base, she revealed, was a cover for uncovering the true nature of the continent. It wasn’t just any lost land—it was Chicomoztoc, the fabled “land of seven caves,” the supposed origin of the Aztec and other peoples.
Zara’s faction believes “the majority” is looking to find the Aztec gods here and “bring them back.” Her faction? Not so much. They think that resurrecting those ancient gods would be a disaster for the company—and for the world. She’s here to find out if those gods really are waiting to be awoken. If they are, we’re supposed to do something about it. What, exactly, is still up for debate. There’s so much we don’t know, and planning for the unknown is a fool’s game.
Our destination for the day was one of Zara’s “sites of interest”—the Great Rift. It’s a magical tear in the fabric of reality, located in a savannah-like area some distance from camp. As we got closer, we saw a stone stairway seemingly leading from our reality into the rift itself. All of our tech devices started going haywire, so we had the ATV pull back while Zara and I continued on foot.
Commlinks, guns—anything electronic—died within moments. The rift’s magical interference was off the charts. This was the same place where #cutelizard had found the stone that knocked me out yesterday. And now Zara and I were walking straight into it.
The stairway climbed forever toward a golden orb radiating magic. All around us, stars hung in the sky, but the constellations resembled nothing I’d ever seen. It felt like we’d stepped out of time. After what seemed like half an hour, we reached a landing. There, coiled like a serpent, sat a figure—half man, half snake—meditating.
He introduced himself as Akiro, an ancient being from a time before the 5th World. As we talked, he revealed that he’d been expecting someone to come for him. What he didn’t expect was how much time had passed. When I told him this was the 6th World and that millions of years had passed, his shock was palpable.
Akiro was… difficult to read. He named Zara “First Priestess Huitzillin, The Sun-Lord of the War Path” (or something like that). Me? I got the honor of being named her guardian. The alternative, apparently, was naming Zara as some kind of prostitute in the cosmic order of things. We accepted the titles without much fuss.
Then Akiro dropped the bombshell: he wanted us to recover his lost stone. The very stone that had nearly killed me. Why? So he could wake the Sun-god from his slumber.
We got the hell out of there. Neither of us had any intention of returning that stone or waking any gods—ancient or otherwise. This place, Chicomoztoc, had roots in Mesoamerican mythology, but it was clear that the gods Akiro spoke of were not the same as the ones worshipped in Aztlan today. Something much older was at play here.
We made our way back to the ATV, which had retreated to a safe distance. I called Fuzzy and had him bring the Cobra over with fresh commlinks and guns. We weren’t going back into that rift without a plan—and some serious backup.
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