Magic: The Gathering Edge of Eternities Episode 10 begins with the Seriema drifting toward Infinite Guideline.
Sami and the others see that the Free Company and Monoist fleets have gathered at the massive checkpoint as predicted, but the fighting has already begun. Drifting helplessly into the firefight, Sami waits until they are about 20 minutes from Infinite Guideline before sending out their first distress call to Pinnacle. Next, Alpharael and Haliya reach out to their respective factions, informing them that they have the Endstone in their possession aboard the Seriema.
Moments later, Pinnacle returns their distress call and arranges for them to rendezvous. After safely making it to Infinite Guideline, Sami and Tan exit the ship and meet with Checkmate Mantis, a Eumidian and a commanding officer for Pinnacle.
“She wears black Pinnacle formal attire that’s pinned up to the femurs of her four saltatory legs. Her slender tibia and tarsals are a deep jeweled violet. Raptorial forelegs wait politely folded against her thorax. Her eyes are small, wide-set, and iridescent. She is, by plurality of population, the image of classical beauty in Pinnacle space. Although Sami is not part of that Eumidian plurality, they are still stirred by the sight of her.”
Wasting no time, Sami tells Mantis the truth of their venture, explaining that they were hired to acquire the Endstone and that in doing so, it spurred the ongoing conflict between the factions outside because they want the stone for themselves. Sami goes on to reveal that the factions have “committed terrible crimes against the common weal…” in pursuit of the Endstone, at which point Tan produces a memory crystal containing the Seriema‘s footage from Kavron.
Mantis tells Sami that they need to give the Endstone over to an entity that can properly contain it, and tells them that there is a Drix agent aboard the ship and they have been preparing for their arrival, with intent to take the stone by force if necessary. Before Mantis can continue, the conversation is cut short by the sound of something “very soft, very high” passing through, followed by the room going dark.
“The lights go out. The air pumps stop. The dock plunges into darkness. Emergency lighting flushes the causeway with lobes of deep red and pale violet.”
Turning on their sonar, Sami is able to see that the walls of the docking bay have been pierced by needle-like holes, so “precise they’ve snipped the power and data cilia…” without setting off pressure alarms, and worse yet, something is being pumped into the ship through those holes. One of the mechans accompanying Mantis turns on its light, but what it reveals is something no one is prepared for — Eldrazi.
“It is beautiful. It is a loop. It has no inside or outside. Its mantle is rich with topology—fourfold sphere eversions, triply symmetric immersions like knots of ears, crushed spheres. It flushes pale violet, ultraviolet. It speckles the sight. The atmosphere around it twists warpwise, rushing up and out, a cyclone in wrong dimensions.”
Mantis orders the support mechans to make contact with the alien, but the Eldrazi ignores all attempted forms of communication and charges the group. The mechans open fire, striking the target, but no real damage is dealt, at which point Mantis tells Sami and Tan to run.
Switching perspectives, Alpharael and Haliya drift across the space between the Seriema and the docking bay where the ferries were meant to be, but find that they have been pulled back inside due to the attack on the ship.
With her advanced armor, Haliya is able to see all the tiny holes that punctured Infinite Guideline, and surmises that the Monoists had been the ones behind the attack, but now, something else was using these holes as entry points.
After landing on the ship, the pair realizes that the power to that location is out, and make for the traffic control deck. Once inside the airlock, Alpharael calls out to the ship’s viy and requests a warp ferry to help them escape the attack, but without the proper clearance code, the artificial intelligence denies their request, and after briefly discussing their next move, a voice calls out to Haliya from across the control deck, and the pair turn to find Syr Vondam waiting.
“We can take the Endstone now,” Syr Vondam says. “You and me. And then we’ll make ourselves right with the Sum. Come home, Haliya.”
Read Edge of Eternities Episode 10 in full from Wizards of the Coast.
