June 11 – Jakarta to Tenochtitlan
Our day of relaxation was interrupted by Zara Coatl's sudden recall to Tenochtitlán for an emergency Aztechnology board meeting. The tone in her voice said everything. These meetings rarely mean good news. I offered to escort her—purely for professional reasons, of course. She paused, weighing something unsaid, then accepted. This could only mean trouble.
Before we left, I pitched Zara a few more ideas for Skyway Elite. With the momentum of Halo’s tour, Skyway could establish itself as a global entertainment and VR giant. It sounded ambitious—even ridiculous—but Zara didn’t dismiss it. Instead, she made a surprising offer: 3% of Skyway B-shares for me, and 1% each for JJ and Evie. A seat on the board wasn’t directly discussed, but with her iron grip on the A-shares, Zara can effectively dictate who gets a seat and who doesn't.
June 12 – The Storm
We boarded a suborbital shuttle for Tenochtitlán. Two hours later, we were stepping out into the sweltering chaos of Aztechnology’s pyramid-shaped arcology headquarters. While Zara attended the meeting, I waited in the antechamber with the other bodyguards. My instincts screamed at me to leave, but I stayed put. If Zara was in trouble, I’d know soon enough.
As Zara’s meeting dragged on, I got worried by the lack of updates from Eclipse. A quick check revealed the horrifying truth: the tour plane had gone dark somewhere over the Philippines. A magical storm had enveloped the islands, cutting off Matrix connectivity. Worse, the plane had crashed in Mindanao. Wizkid managed to tap into Eclipse’s cyberdeck directly via technomancy. The news was grim—several fatalities, multiple injuries—but Halo was alive—a miracle, given the situation.
Slag was among the injured, having lost both cyber-legs. It was bad, but I knew Ares would jump at the chance for a PR stunt. Saeder-Krupp, likewise, was already spinning the crash as proof of their plane’s resilience, but the unspoken threat was clear: mishandle this, and we’d ruin them. They caved instantly, agreeing to provide a new aircraft.
The storm was a nightmare, both literal and figurative. Purple lightning raged, and local authorities were powerless. I reached out to Temoc, Zara’s old bodyguard, still on Vancouver Island. Zara approved, and Temoc was on his way, his team heading to an off-grid military base in Sulawesi to begin a rescue. Victor Kolada again proving to be very useful—and better connected than most.
Managing the situation from Tenochtitlán was already a juggling act, but the storm over the Philippines complicated everything. Halo and the others were streaming their ordeal, even in low resolution, and the strain on the Matrix was immense. For a technomancer, the storm wasn’t just a backdrop; it was an overwhelming force, pulsing with chaotic energy in the digital world. For Wizkid, maintaining the connection felt like trying to surf a tsunami.
Wiz tried something unorthodox—reckless, even. He attempted to siphon energy directly from the storm through his Matrix link, something that shouldn't work by any logical standard. Yet, with so much magical and electromagnetic energy swirling around, logic seemed to take a back seat. The storm responded. A surge of raw energy flooded through the connection, and since Wiz is me, it struck Philip—me—hard.
The zap left me sprawled in Zara’s luxurious antechamber, stunned and woozy. It felt like I’d taken a direct hit from a lightning bolt. The bloodstone amulet, tucked under my shirt, absorbed some of the charge, glowing faintly as it dissipated the worst of the energy. Without it, I might not be writing this now. Zara glanced at me briefly, probably suspecting something magical but too preoccupied with the board meeting to comment. I shook it off as best I could and carried on. There was no time for recovery.
Meanwhile, Wizkid reached out to an old contact: Greyskull, a technomancer I’d recruited for Eldritch Dynamics’ Resonance Initiative. Greyskull wasn’t thrilled to hear from me—he rarely is—but when I explained the situation, he reluctantly agreed to help maintain the Matrix connection to the crash site. Between the two of us, we managed to stabilize the link, though it was tenuous at best.
Then, because Wizkid thrives on chaos, he hacked into the comlink of Dr. Evelyn “Evie” Winters. Not my Evie—this one was an elf, a scientist, and likely a mage. She also happened to be the chief researcher of Eldritch Dynamics’ technomancer project. Why? Part whim, part curiosity, part trying to distract himself from the insanity around us. What he found wasn’t just personal correspondence and mundane project updates.
Dr. Winters was connected to some very high-level Resonance experiments, blending technomancy and arcane disciplines in ways that made even Wizkid’s chaotic brain hurt. It wasn’t clear if she knew about Greyskull or if her work intersected with Zara’s interests, but her name was now on my radar—and not in a good way. While managing the chaos, I noticed something... off. The bloodstone amulet I’d taken from the Lost Continent had been radiating an unnatural warmth since the meeting began. When the board session ended, three bodies—presumably the meeting’s losers—were carried out. As they passed, droplets of blood fell, drawn inexplicably into the stone. My skin crawled. This wasn’t good.
Later, Zara explained the meeting. Tonameyotl, the Serpent of Storms—possibly the origin of Tlāloc—had escaped the Lost Continent. The storm over the Philippines was its doing. The board was in disarray, realizing the Seven weren’t controllable nor simply analogues of Aztec gods. Zara’s faction, ever the minority, had pressed for restraint. For now, it seemed they’d succeeded.
June 13 – Stranded in Mindanao
The survivors on Mindanao were contacted by people from a nearby village. The locals provided food and supplies but lacked the means to evacuate a group so large. The storm persisted, blanketing the area in magical fury. The delay weighed on everyone’s minds, but with Temoc on the way, there was little more to do but wait.
In Tenochtitlán, we met with Luiz, Zara’s trusted ally. A shaman in his fifties, Luiz looked like he’d walked straight out of a 1970s Western. Despite his rugged appearance, he had an easy demeanor and spoke with authority about politics and magic. He was another piece of Zara’s puzzle, one I didn’t fully understand but respected.
The storm was an ominous sign of things to come. Whatever the Seven truly were, they had the power to reshape the world. And while Aztechnology wrestled with its next steps, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Zara’s faction—and by extension, our team—stood precariously close to the center of it all.
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