They all stare at him, the small thing. Anticipation for an answer obvious upon drawn faces, the Being taking a short, microsecond long pause as he formulates the answer. “I have no such comparable properties.”

Madeline spots the contradiction in the statement. “You say that, after you wade through like a thousand rounds of incoming. That’s something cool, but you got any guns?”

One emotion surging through, a mixture of regret and pain; birthed from a revelation eons prior. The ships are there again, an extermination underway in the blinding power of rage and vengeance. He stands beneath it all once more, a memory drawn through him like a blade cutting through flesh.

The reaction is long enough to be detected within human insight, Alto speaking up with quiet, barely audible words. “We should not ask such questions.”

Ar is back in the world, returning a gaze towards the Five.

All in agreement with the augmented boy, the eye contact from humans suddenly pulled away as the Being’s ocular sensors connect with each of theirs.

There is something more behind the lifelessness of the monster, an insight of humanity catching the imperfections of the fallen divine. Something to implicate the entirety of their world, so dangerous its answer refuses to be known towards five strangers, five heroes and villains gathered by fate alone.

Judge Murphy begins the next topic. “So what’s our entry vector?”

An inquiry mercifully segmenting a new task to be executed, the Being speaking his own answer to them. “There are one hundred twenty six entry points to the primary manufacturing facility scattered throughout the city structure; six within a half mile radius of this location.”

Madeline makes her humble request. “Can we please not go through the sewers? I don’t wanna get an infection and die after we’re done.”

“Specify.” Samuel blinks at her words.

“If you wanna get somewhere underground, you probably need to go through the sewer systems.” The woman answers with experience. “Not fun.”

The scan penetrates deep into the world, information whispered into his ears as he listens to the structural integrity of the bedrock beneath their feet. Routes calculated, the sprawling network of tunnels interconnected via drainage pumps, ancient cable bundles, and pipes of unknown quantities.

He finds the location, amongst the rubble of a previous civilization. A censorship created as the flow of power distorts reality itself, the manufacturing facility currently in the throes of its final purpose.

Multiple entry points across the city, a majority currently in the midst of gunfire and death. He hears their screams, their prayers, their cries; of soldiers smothered by the crowd, the passionate dying in crusades, and parents wailing the deaths of children.

The fortress turns upon itself, humanity’s destruction heralded by its own crafted creation.

One route found within the allocated search criteria, only a three mile distance between current positions.

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The Being speaks with retrieved information. “I’ve discovered the nearest route within the confines of your request. This route contains no known waste water exit points.”

“Perfect!” Madeline claps. “We’re doing a casual nine mile descent into the depths of the catacombs of March, what could go wrong?”

Samuel answers her without emotion. “Dungeon exploration is generally considered with the risks of asphyxiation via toxic gasses, collapses resulting in burial and suffocation, and rarely unknown mechan…”

The woman interrupts him, mostly for her own sanity. “That was a rhetorical question.”

Judge Murphy continues to plan out the operation. “We’re going to need gear to do this thing. A nine mile underground descent will take… several days at least.”

Madeline asks the question, an ethnicity foreign within the southlandic homeland. “Is hiking like an actual hobby in the Southlands? Don’t think there’s gonna be much mountaineering gear around here.”

“The chosen route has been selected for efficiency, climbing equipment won’t be necessary.” The Being informs. “The journey is estimated to take eight hours on foot.”

“We’ll plan for four days.” Judge Murphy coldly corrects for the group. “We’ll need to purchase supplies; food, water, and climbing gear in case.”

Samuel does the math, augmentation within neurons easily adding numbers alongside physiological variables. “We will require a minimum of eighty five thousand calories and one hundred sixty seven gallons of water.”

It makes the correction. “You may remove me from the calculation: I don’t require sustenance for this exertion period.”

The perfect mind recalculates, inefficient but effective. “We will require a minimum of seventy six thousand calories and one hundred thirty two liters of water.”

Madeline rubs her hands together innocently, an expensive arcane device required well over their current budget. “So… anyone got a water compressor?”

“We do.” Samantha announces. “We do not have in our possession seventy six thousand calories.”

The woman sighs at the measurement of life, a coin purse already heavy at her hips. “How much is that going to run us? Like forty dollars?”

Alto Carrin counts the numbers, his own short time in March providing the expense. “One daily survival ration here in March is around a dollar and a half now.”

She groans as a monetary mind already objects to the mounting costs. “So assuming a buck and a half, for each of us for four days…”

“And me.” Samuel adds coldly with his augmented status.

“Alright, in that case…” Eyes glazing over as she thinks, a solution unacceptable. “That’s gonna be almost seventy federal dollars, and that’s not including the climbing gear FUCK.”

A mouthwatering amount in a world of hunger, enough food to feed ten men for days left to four humans and one mage paid for at a premium price.

“I don’t have a lot left.” Madeline reaches into the carrying purse, fishing forth the assorted array of currency.

A long pause as they all watch her, a gaze resting upon the observers. Voice a bark, an order given as the financial burden is demanded to the rest. “Come on, everyone pay up! We're splitting the cost on this!”

Laminated bills signed with the seven bars of the Federation, humanity’s power contained within the denominations of ones, twos, fives, and one crisp ten dollar note. Coins minted with untarnishable brass, five sided shapes with holes strung through each clattering onto the table in their own mixed denominations. Half dollars, quarters and pennies in a chaotic mess formed into a pile at the side of the table.

A total count of fiat money by observa augmentation and fast minds returning a short thirty seven federal dollars, the missing remainder required in the form of Frontier currencies.

Brass rounds stacked together, bullets arriving with mixed calibers taken from a broken, dying world. Petite 9mm parabellum alongside full power 5.56x54 rifle cartridges, spare shotgun shells and one huge 12.7mm heavy anti-armor round brought forth into the world in a smattering mix of disposable, shootable, lethal income.

No standardized pricing, the world itself providing the backbone of the economic exchange of rounds. A savage system of barter and betrayal, the universal mechanism of destruction eternally in demand beneath dead divines.

Around fifty loose dollars produced, they all take a moment to recount the numbers once more.