“...Grovey? Grovey!”

“Don’t tell me he…”

“No, his thoughts tell me that he’s just resting.”

“Makes sense. He’s been through a lot, after all. Actually, why weren’t you two here helping him? We’re paying you and Darriel good money for your services, y’know!”

“Wah!? Grovey told us to leave! Really.”

“It’s true.”

A chaotic array of voices raised Grovalt from his deep slumber. His muscles ached, his head felt like it had been bashed in with a brick, and his eyelids felt like sandpaper. This argument, whatever it was about, didn’t help matters in the slightest. A soft hand shook his shoulder.

“Grovalt? You alright?”

“That was certainly something. After all that, you still managed to quell the flames ravaging the city, and even make it snow! I couldn’t have done it better myself!”

He opened his eyes. Knelt down directly in front of him was Ceres, wearing a worried look. Her heterochromia was a dazzling sight; it had only just caught Grovalt’s eye. Her wispy, verdant hair was dirty and unkempt, alluding to whatever trial she had fought her way through atop the now-erased spire. Everyone else, even Darriel, were crowded around him. Some looked down at him with the same worried expression, while others gazed upwards in wonder. His vision followed suit.

What Nakir had said was true. From the dreary, dusklit clouds, snow had begun to settle on the ruined streets. The flakes sparkled as they drifted downwards. To make a beautiful contrast, the phoenix’s fluttering embers also remained. They slowly made their way upwards, gathering where the Imperium had once stood. A large, burnt pit remained at its base, and the exuberant pillar of butterflies flowed up into the sky just as their creator had.

A brief thought flashed in his mind; that even though he and Graves weren’t good for anything but violence, their conflict had helped to create such a miraculous sight. It made him sad, but it also made him smile.

But something else woke him completely. As he sat up, he finally noticed the snowflakes settling on his bare skin. The sheer cold of the desolate city in the air. The briskness against his body. The world around him. He could feel it. He could really, truly feel it again. At first, he didn’t know how to react. It wasn’t until a crimson butterfly landed on his arm that the blistering heat of it pierced his neurons and convinced him that it was real. Frantically, he grabbed Ceres’s human hand. He felt her warmth. She was there. They were all there, for him. And all at once, with his survival settling in, and his friends at his side showing their care for him in their own way, and the resurrection of his sense of touch, tears began pouring down his face. He was ashamed. It was unsightly for a grown man to be crying in the middle of the street, especially when surrounded by people much younger than him.

“It’s okay, Grovalt. It’s us. It’s over.” Ceres gave him the same weary hug she had given Nakir before Arkiel’s departure. His tears were freezing as they fell upon her shoulder, but she paid it no mind. She was already used to the cold.

After some time had passed, and Grovalt had recovered, the group gathered again to deliberate.

Zenzi extended her hand to give Nakir and Darriel the floor.

Clearing their throats, they recounted the events that transpired within the tower and atop its pinnacle.

“Mhm,” Lumi said. “I know you asked Zenzi to send us here to keep us safe, but… that didn’t work out so well.”

“How’d you get out in time? And what about the officials?” Grovalt asked.

“That is quite simple, my friend. They all rode atop my back. I’m much larger than I appear,” Nakir stated proudly.

“And me and Zen took care of ‘em. Naturally~” Maxra stepped to the side to reveal Venza, who scowled at the group with her arms and legs tied up. “Don’t be that way, hun. We already knew who the better fighter was. We proved it time and time again in the past. You did well, though. Lasted longer than I thought.”

Zenzi grinned creepily. “I trapped that annoying squid in a psychic lock when everything started crumbling. Your old boss did the rest.”

“Then that leaves…” Grovalt pondered, searching for Esternn and Zandos. They were nowhere to be found, and Graves’s silenced axe was gone with them.

“Hmm?” Lumi looked at him questioningly.

“Ah, nothing. Just thinking that maybe it's best to leave some stones unturned. But… what do we do now? The Sorceress and your sister weren’t in the tower after all, and Arkiel never told you where they were.”

Rook was about to chime in when Venza beat him to it. She spoke abashedly, and a defeated tone dripped from her words. “...You beat me fair and square, Max. So, I guess I’ll do all of you a favor. Nia’s in the bottom layer. If you go in the tunnels, she’s all the way down there, and then some. I’m not entirely sure what she was doing… but she took all the Academy students down there.”

Everyone met Ceres’s determined gaze. Without another word, they knew their next objective. With nowhere left to run, Nia and Asteria had to be there. Wherever it might take them, they had to follow her down, deep below the surface.

“Great!” Maxra replied with a mischievous grin. “Then you can come with us.”

Venza's jaw dropped. “What? No. I don't even know how she-”

“Wasn't giving you a choice, Venza. You're coming with us whether you like it or not. We need to have a little chat, anyway.”

As everyone prepared and Venza despaired, Darriel gathered Lumi and Rook to his side. He accepted a hefty pouch from Zenzi, then turned to Ceres. He wore a stern expression. “Well, we’ll bid you all adieu. I wish you all the luck in the world, little girl.” He turned to Grovalt. “I’m… sorry we didn’t do more for you. Back then. I wish I could do more now, but the contract specifically-”

Grovalt waved his worries away. “We understand, Darriel. As much as we’d like all of you to help us again… we can’t expect you to risk your lives for no pay. A merc’s a merc.”

Rook politely shook hands with everyone, and Lumi gave them a crushing hug. Tears welled up in the blonde girl’s eyes, but she fought them back.

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“The next time we meet, it’ll be at the bar for some drinks and cards. Assuming the bar’s not destroyed…” Darriel’s rocky face finally softened as he let out a raucous laugh.

Lumi gave Grovalt another killer hug, and the trio left the Ravens just as quickly as they had joined them. As their backs faded into the gathering snowflakes, Grovalt realized one person wasn’t accounted for. At last, he spied Fatalinya across the plaza. The column of butterflies painted her in a solemn color. As he neared her, he saw what she was doing.

Together with a group of civilians in tattered clothes, they filled in the last of many large holes they had dug in the little soil the city had to offer. Several of them, ones fully filled in, featured the same gray coats the Resistance had worn earlier that day. They had been laid across them to honor the dead.

Though Grovalt had decided to stand next to her hunched form, he didn’t know what to say. There really wasn’t anything to say. He could tell her to keep going. To stay hopeful. But all of those words would feel empty. There truly wasn’t anything he could say to her that would soothe her mind. Even so, she stood up and took a couple steps backward to stand next to him.

“...We managed to find and bury who we could. It’s not everyone, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Fatalinya, I…”

She shook her head. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay. But we have to make do with what we have left. That’s what Graves taught us. I was so busy looking for someone to blame… someone to kill… that I didn’t even pay attention to the people right next to me. We should’ve…”

Fatalinya looked up at the pillar of embers, reaching up into the darkening sky. Night was descending, and as it did, the snowfall began to stop.

Grovalt lightly patted her left shoulder. Her right arm, still broken, lay in a makeshift cast made out of bedding material. “He gave Aza another chance, when there wasn’t one. Even if you’re all that’s left of the Tyranny Resistance, that means their will still burns true. There have to be more people willing to follow you, and together, you can carry out his wish. Rebuild Aza from the ground up.”

Fatalinya chuckled sadly. “Y’know… for someone so cold, you really are an optimist.”

Grovalt smiled, gazing back at Ceres. She and Nakir were bickering about something, as usual, but they were laughing all the same. “I wasn’t always like this. I had a… shift recently. With some help, of course. I really can’t do anything by myself.”

“Nobody can.”

Once he’d spent a bit more time in silence before the graves, Grovalt finally returned to join the others. With an onyx dive of faith, Nakir, with everyone in tow, descended into the remnants of the Imperium; the great abyss illuminated only by the few butterflies that had wandered into it.

The harsh, warm wind rushed past all of Nakir’s passengers, blowing their hair straight backward. They held on for dear life as they sped straight for the very bottom of the burnt-out pit. The stifling, black walls and broken structures eventually gave way to age-old tunnels and piping. Unpowered electric machinery lined every inch of the place. Finally, the bottom came into view. Nakir raised his mighty wings, catching the air, and slowed down their descent to safely land.

“It appears Imagon didn’t lie about one thing, at least. Aza was built atop Technicist ruins.” Raum looked all around, scanning the quiet machinery from underneath his messy, auburn bangs.

“Aw, man.” Maxra jumped off Nakir, grumpily groping at her hair. “We really need to put some kinda glass window on this guy. One quick flight and my hair’s already messed up.”

“I think we ought to worry about our circumstances at the moment.” Raum pointed down a nearby tunnel. “Seems we’ll have to traverse the rest of the way on foot.”

Everyone else groaned in dismay.

“Wait,” Ceres chimed. “What’s that?”

Farther into the structures, nearly obscured by centuries of neglect and tarnished fixtures, was a short train of sorts on its side. It seemed like it’d fallen off the tracks leading into the tunnel many years ago. It, too, was without power.

“Nakir, can you flip this thing back over?”

With a nod, the dragon reached his claws down in between the metal flooring and the train, and lifted it with great strength. Afterwards, he carefully put it back in-line with the rusted tracks on the floor.

With Raum and Zenzi, the greatest minds within the group, they eventually made their way inside the train. It was accented with a faded black and blue duality, and much of it had been constructed using black steel plating, much like the tower that once stood hundreds of feet above them. After more deliberation, Zenzi found some kind of power outlet near the front seat. It was hand shaped, most likely made for one’s palm to be pressed into it.

Raum’s face lit up with an excitement he rarely showed. “Ah… I see. I’d imagine this is a secondary mode of energizing the cart, enabling it to move without the entire system being operational using magical energy. How ingenious.”

Everyone else turned to Nakir in silent waiting.

“Hm? What is everyone staring at? Do I have something on my face?”

Ceres plopped down on a nearby seat in the train, exhaustion draining the color from her face. She sighed. “You’re the only one here with some magical energy left, dummy.”

Nakir transformed into his human form, scrambled into the train, and gazed wearily at the palm pad.

“What’s the matter? It won’t bite. I think,” Zenzi teased. An amused smile stretched across her face, with the rest of it being hidden by her long, black hair.

“What if it hurts? What if it really hurts? What if it kills me…?”

His patience long gone, Grovalt grabbed the dragon’s hand and shoved it into the outlet. As he did, he and Nakir felt a jolt unlike anything they had ever felt before, and in an instant, they were drained of any energy they had conserved up to that point. The pale warrior, who had already been both sleep deprived and emotionally tested to the extreme recently, immediately toppled over onto the train floor like a ragdoll. He was out like a light, snoring loudly. His hair stood on end, and the faint smell of something burnt filled the train.

Venza, hands still tied and also sitting on one of the train seats, looked down at the supposed savior of Aza in astonishment. If she had truly lost to a group like this, then what did that make her? She shuddered at the thought.

After a short while, the Technicist train came to a rumbling start. The rails sparked to life, fiery bits flying off of them as they became electrified.

With Zenzi operating the train, Raum trying to guide the Ravens to their goal, and Grovalt once again unconscious on the floor, the group flew down the rails through the ancient, winding tunnels. Ceres and Nakir fell asleep next to each other on the seats, the young girl’s head resting on the old dragon’s shoulder.

Ominous structures flew past the window. The true magnitude of the abyss showed itself after nearly an hour. The Technicist underground wasn’t relegated to just a network of shoddy tunnels, but an entire city structure long forsaken to time. It was as they exited the final tunnel in the system when they saw it. A colossal, hollowed out portion with Technicist facilities in the far distance lining its edge. Countless, spiraling rails stretched across the depths and into it. The rails began to screech and spark, waking the Ravens that had taken the time to rest. As the rail they were on descended, it followed the rocky spiral in a perfect, wayward circle down into the abyss. Blinding darkness flooded the train, and then they saw it. At the end of the line, deep, deep below, was a single twinkling light in the shape of a rectangle. It sat amidst the very bottom of everything, a single star in the vast ocean of space. It was lonely and maddening. Direct yet confusing. Beautiful yet terrifying.

And thus, the rail came to its end. The train stopped, and everyone left its metallic husk. Before them, in a plateau entrenched in that same utter darkness, was a door. An impossible door. A door with no connecting wall. As they moved, it followed. As if to beckon them closer, like a siren calling to a doomed sailor, it emanated sounds only they could hear. Ceres heard Asteria’s dire voice. Grovalt heard Inara’s calming whisper. Nakir heard Arkiel’s scornful remarks. Raum heard falling sand and distant screams. Maxra and Venza heard the shearing of flesh. Zenzi heard the wailing of a lost, forgotten child. Though none could hear them all, together they weaved a song of humanity. Birth and death. Resonant chimes that pulled at the heart and mind.

Great jagged claw marks scarred the front of the door. At its bottom was a gathering of wood splinters and metal pieces. The noise was unfathomable. A great deal of new noises joined the terrible choir. They peered down at the steel doorknob. Ceres slowly reached out to grab it. The faint aroma of lilies filled her lungs. She turned it until she could no longer, and pushed it open, a realm of light to greet her.