Getting Key and Rin down proved to be more difficult a task than either Emilia or V had expected. The problem was, they had no idea how the cage the locals were being kept in had been suspended from the ceiling, and the pair had been unconscious when they’d been put inside it.

The exact shape of the cage. The distance between it, Emilia, and V. How it opened and closed. They couldn’t make out the details of the cage, and none of them could figure out how to get it down to even attempt to force it open. Neither Key nor Rin had access to any magic, either—not that they were particularly inclined to use any. Emilia had already vetoed V’s—hopefully joking—suggestion that she let one of her {Blood Needles} loose and simply hope it hit something. Given the height of the cage, Emilia didn’t think either Rin or Key would appreciate being dropped and left to the fate of gravity.

“So… what do we do?” Emilia asked, turning only slightly beseeching eyes on the other visitor. He was the one with the experience in these games and was more likely to have some idea of what they should do now. Unfortunately, the man seemed much too amused by the whole situation and was in no rush to find a solution.

Emilia wasn’t holding it against him. None of them knew what awaited them outside the labyrinth doors—which they had briefly seen back in the heartcore chamber. The Risen Guard could be waiting for them, or whoever had sponsored V or Cade, neither of whom were likely to be too happy about their Harbinger Candidates being taken from them.

V had already told Key, through a mix of screaming and Rin half-heartedly translating for them, that he had no intention of returning to the Valoren family, who Taoran had been associated with. Key had looked equal parts enthusiastic and queasy at the prospect of sniping candidates from another family. Rin hadn’t known the full details, but she had whispered theories into Emilia about how she didn’t believe it was forbidden to take candidates from another family, but it was frowned upon.

Or, at least, that was how it had seemed during the last visitation, according to what she had learned during her training. Shortly before the last visitation, the Risen Guard had managed to insert spies into the Enclave families, largely through marriage. Those spies had learned a lot, but one had actually fallen in love with their wife and spilled everything to them, included names of other spies.

In the end, everyone—including the man who had actually loved his wife—had been brutally slaughtered by someone. The Enclave, secretive and non-communicative as it was, had actually sought out the Risen Guard to insist they had nothing to do with, or that if one of their members had killed the spies, they had done it without the permission of the other families.

Regardless, the Enclave had heavily closed their ranks in the decades since, instead moving to work their own spies into the Risen Guard’s ranks, as in the case of Harmony. Apparently, despite all the information the Risen Guard had learned, they had missed the existence of several families, including the Stringers, making their children the perfect pawns for infiltrating the organization.

⸂I do not believe the Stringers particularly liked this plan,⸃ Rin had confided, Emilia quietly translating her words for V while Key was meditating, trying and failing to pull the smallest tendril of energy from his core.

“After we ran into you two, Taoran told me the Stringers are in an odd position. They have lost most of their influence, and now live to serve the Enclave as best they can. He said there were many things they were doing to make amends,” V had told them, Rin nodding along above them as she levelled an unamused look at Key—at least, Emilia thought that’s the sort of look she had been giving the boy. It was a bit challenging to tell from so far away.

“He knew we were with the Stringer family?” Emilia had asked, concern already starting to drag through her. She had peered up at Rin, asking, “Did you tell him?”

Her friend had shaken her head, telling them they had barely talked. ⸂We did not even exchange names. We simply asked if the other had seen our charge, then were forced to travel the same pathway together. It was uncomfortable.⸃

“You aren’t part of the Stringer family?” V had asked, looking between the two of them, a little furrow between his eyebrows and a frown marring his face.

Emilia had hesitated a moment, exchanging a look with Rin. The girl had seemed relatively nervous about the prospect of telling someone about her ties to the Risen Guard, but had told Emilia had she trusted her judgment. It was sweet, and possibly very stupid, given how frequently she made bad decisions.

V had cared for his own Risen Guard babysitter, however—still seemed to mourn and regret his death, as far as Emilia could tell—and she trusted that he wouldn’t care that Rin had been a Risen Guard in training until a few days prior.

Indeed, the man had barely batted an eye, simply nodding and saying that made sense. When asked why he thought that, the other visitor had told them that, if you looked close enough, the Risen Guard all held themselves slightly differently than the rest of the population.

He had shrugged, saying, “I spent years training myself out of being a soldier. I learned how to see the things that betrayed me as one.”

Emilia had nodded in the same knowing way, while also giving V the once over. Once you served, it was almost impossible to get rid of all the little quirks. Your posture was straighter, your movements sure and precise. She had seen soldiers tracking the movement of the aether with their eyes, felt their aether stores flicker when a skill was used too close to them outside of raids.

Worse, she had seen them straight up breakdown inside raids, the noise and monsters dragging them down into a spiral of trauma.

Within battle, it had been clear that the other visitor had been unable to completely shake the training he’d received as a soldier. Outside it, V… existed. It wasn’t that he didn’t have good posture, but it was more relaxed than a soldier’s, more in line with what she had seen in many sub-30s following the war, their already perfect posture and instincts altered into something other by what they had experienced. Relaxed, but poised to snap at the slightest provocation, while simultaneously seeming so lazy they couldn’t possibly be a threat.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Yet, other things about him were certainly not sub-30, his habits and speech speaking more of someone who had spent too much time inside virtual raids. Everything about him seemed to shift from one world to another, one D-Level to another, and she didn’t know what to think of him—where to place him in the little tally of people she knew.

Solider: Yes.

D-Level: Unknown.

Age: Unknown.

Real Name: Unknown.

Trustworthy: Probably.

Observant: Definitely.

“I don’t think locals notice the difference, though,” V had continued telling them, explaining that he had seen Risen Guard’s in plain clothes while with both of his former babysitters. Neither had seemed to notice, despite their posture and movements screaming they were Risen Guards.

“I can’t say they were particularly good undercover operatives,” V had laughed, before having to explain to Rin what undercover operatives were. She hadn’t said anything, but Emilia had the feeling that she had believed the Risen Guard had ceased doing much spying after the last raid.

“They screamed undercover,” V had continued, laughing as he told them a few of the things he had noticed. “My Risen Guard friend and I weren’t around each other long,” he had adding, nodding to Rin, “but I saw a few of his idiosyncrasies in you, as well.”

“I guess if you don’t realize the Risen Guard are working undercover, you don’t look for those things?” Emilia had mused, nervous energy flittering through her. “It wasn’t like Taoran immediately killed Rin for being a Risen Guard—”

⸂Former,⸃ Rin had cut in, her tone sharp and sad and unbending.

“It wasn’t like Taoran killed Rin for being a former Risen Guard,” Emilia had continued, fingers tapping idly over her thighs as they waited for Key to either perform a miracle or give up. She had pulled at the material of her armour, noting the red lines etched over the fatter parts of her. Bored. She had shifted into boredom and started to fidget. Rin had looked annoyed, even so far above, while V barely seemed to notice. “If he were trained to see spies, I would think he would have offed her when they met. I mean, she could have been lying about looking for a charge? Or been a Risen Guard, trying to make a visitor more powerful for whatever reason.”

⸂Indeed,⸃ Rin had agreed. ⸂It would make no sense for him to have let me live if he knew.⸃

An awkward silence had enveloped them, V quietly telling the girl that he would have stepped in, if he were around, to stop Taoran. Rin seemed to believe him, nodding before turning back to Key. Apparently, she had been done waiting for him, and proceeded to kick him, the Enclave boy starting out of his meditative state—which Emilia had to admit, was pretty damn good. Even if he couldn’t hear any of them—his hearing too weak to make out either her or V’s words, while Rin had purposefully only spoken directly to her and V—it was still something, to manage to meditate in such conditions.

⸂Get anywhere?⸃ the other girl had asked, tone implying that she knew full well her co-captive had discovered nothing.

Key’s face had lit up red as he admitted that no, he hadn’t found anything.

Which is how she and V had ended up digging through the remains of the monster, looking for anything that could conceivable get the pair down. They had already examined the room in depth, fingers edging over practically every surface searching for clues.

They had found none, and were now alternating between gagging at the monster’s scent, ransacking its body—currently, they’d only found items that could potentially be helpful in the future, if they had something to store them in, which they didn’t—and waiting for their wounds to heal; unfortunately, the dead monster’s muddy spit was just as hazardous as when it had been alive.

“Fuck,” Emilia spit out as mud stuck to her shins, slipping between the wrapping of her {Blood Armour}. She attempted to wipe it off, the skin of her hands sizzling and burning worse, but at least she could wipe her hands off on her armour or the closest rock. “This sucks. Can’t we just leave you guys up there and promise to come back another day?”

Rin glared down at her. ⸂If I were alone, I would say fine. However, you cannot leave me alone with this man.⸃

⸂Hey!⸃ Key whined, a dramatic frown pulling over his face. ⸂I thought we were friends.⸃

⸂Just because we are friends does not mean I want to spend the next few days alone with you.⸃ The girl’s hard gaze turned to Key as she asked if he really wanted to deal with peeing and pooping in front of her.

Even from so far below, Emilia could see the blood rush out of Key’s face, and she was forced to turn her eyes away from the bickering pair, lest she burst into laughter.

“They’re quite the pair,” V whispered as he came to plop down beside her. He’d rolled up his pants, hoping to spare the ends from becoming more mangled than they already were. As a result, his feet and ankles were charred from the spit, the skin black and most certainly painful.

“You’re good at ignoring that,” Emilia noted, nodding towards his slowly healing injuries.

“Hm? Oh… yeah.” The man looked away, something awkward in his expression, and Emilia expected him to change the subject. Instead, he told her about his experience in the war. “Someone I respect a lot was seriously injured in the war. They…”

V’s words cut off in that way that made her think that he was choosing his words with the specific purpose of obfuscating who he was. “What they went through inspired me to learn how to compartmentalize pain.”

“And how do you do that?” Emilia asked, already sure she wouldn’t like the answer.

The other visitor’s eyes caught hers, pupils blown out in a fascinating, disturbing and impossibly entrancing way. “Do you really want to know, Emilia?”

Emilia was about to open her mouth, about to whisper that she did, that she loved learning and expanding herself—or at least she had, until all those knots that Payton was slowly stripping away had been laced up inside her. She was about to tell him she wouldn’t judge him for practically anything he did—with a few exceptions that would have her sending The Black Knot chasing after him—when she heard something.

“Did you—”

Her words cut off and V’s eyes shot to the door, all soft teasing gone as his hand wrapped around one of the {Blood Needles} Emilia had gifted him. Interestingly, when he used needles she gave him, replacements returned to her. Key had speculated they could learn to get around that quirk of the system if they really wanted to, telling them that several antique blood weapons functioned similarly when lent out. The Enclave had always found ways around it, although they used their cores and the system to do so. Apparently, Rin hadn’t told him about their earlier conversation about core usage and shrinking weapons—which she had most certainly heard.

The two of them tensed, preparing for another monster—or worse, a visitor or local—to appear via the tunnel they had come from. No more sound came, and Emilia was beginning to think that perhaps the same nightmare trap that had gotten them had trapped whatever—whoever—was coming, when a strawberry-blonde girl came stomping into the room.

⸂There you are!⸃ Harmony growled, glaring daggers at Emilia before outright sneering at V. ⸂So, what? Did you abandon my brother just to hook up with this… disgusting thing?⸃