Chapter 114

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* John opens a portal to the Astral plan to let Alyssa meet her parents.
* The Kirrix are having a civil war causing them to fire on one another, resulting in the deaths of the 3,000 Karron colonists who were abducted.
* Tom Walker has been missing for days. Mason Newmont tells Beth Andrews he's been transferred from the Bridge crew.

## Notes

### Miscellaneous

* John opens a portal to the Astral plan to let Alyssa meet her parents.
	+ John worked with Edraele to exhaust his guide, letting him enter the Astral Plane without being constantly dragged back into his body.
	+ He tried tapping Jade directly for energy, rather than channeling it through Alyssa, to try to prevent either of them from being drained to power another portal.
		- When they connected and started transferring energy, John accidentally reorganized their connections. Now they are directly connected, so Jade can transfer him energy, just like Alyssa and Edraele can. Now Jade is like a Matriarch.
	+ John shaped astral matter, forming a huge astral construct using his strength of will and energy Jade was supplying him. However, the fortress ended up looking sinister with glossy black walls.
		- This was because John was trying to focus on making it as resiliant as possible, so it had the black metal used in a Progenitor ship.
	+ Monsters attacked the fortress, then the ancient leviathan hijacked John's leylines that connected him to the deep Astral.
	+ John tried to end that connection to no avail, even when he tried to break his connections between himself, Jade, and Alyssa.
	+ John tried to kill himself to save Jade and Alyssa, but he was talked out of it.
	+ The monster's psychic attacks left John feeling sickened and unable to move.
	+ John sent a burst of energy back down the leyline to the creature, making it experience the feeling of love and intimacy, allowing them to escape while the creature was disgusted.
	+ New pieces of information learned:
		- The Leviathan sent minions to attach John and surrounded his fortress in the mists. If you enclose someone in the Astral like that, you can drag them into your own subplane. However, it didn't do that to John.
		- That's because its primary goal was to open a portal into the Material Plane, and it can't do that from wherever its pocket plane resides.
		- It can't open a portal itself, because it needs someone to ancher an inter-dimensional portal.
		- It's connected to the Progenitors somehow, and Mael'nerak must have known about it.
* As the team heads to Kirrix space to find the abducted Karron colonists, they encounter two Kirrix ships that had destroyed one another, which also ended the lives of the 3,000 colonists.
* Beth Andrews looked for Tom Walker because she hadn't seen him in days. When she asked Mason, Mason Newmont, her ex-boyfriend and Tom's friend, he angrily informs her Tom was transferred off the Bridge crew.

### Minor Characters

* Beth Andrews: Lieutenant. In the past, turned down Mason Newmont's proposal because she was in love with his best friend, Tom Walker.
* Mason Newmont: Commander. Angry over his father's reputation being smeared.
* Tom Walker: Commander. Missing for days. Transferred from the Bridge crew.
* Lilyana: Maliri Fleet Commander.
* Almari: Maliri Assassin.
* Niskera: Trankaran Queen.
* Thandrun: Trankaran Fleet Warden.
* Kelli
* Perl
* Tony