“Also, I know it’s weird that it’s only coming up now, but there is an afterlife, it’s called the Down Below, and you lose all your memories and personality and turn into a… rock with six mouths, or whatever, when you end up there. Also, it’s super foggy as stuff, because all the souls there make it magic for days. Also also, there’s a huge ice pillar in the middle, and Deus put it there because…” Quet glanced over at Horan, the magnified luminosity of her eyes bathing him in green light. “Hey, why did Deus put that there?”

Horan shrugged. “You’ve seen firsthand how much Deus likes making his hidey-holes needlessly over-the-top. Whatever’s in there could be anything from the secret first-ever Primus to a cool rock he found. Might not even have anything inside, actually. He might’ve just done it because he thought it was cool.”

Quet squinted. “…According to the law of ‘What-has-happened-to-our-lives’, there is a non-zero chance that that’s the true hiding place of the Seraphium.”

“You know, that might actually be the case.” Horan looked over at the man who Quet had been infodumping at, who had introduced himself as Jean. “Actually, we haven’t told you about the Seraphium yet.”

“And we never will.” Mark patted Jean on the shoulder. “This is normally easier to wrap your head around when the information is more spread out, trust me.”

“My uncle blew up Istanbul last year!” declared Horan.

Mark glared at the Egyptian. “There’s a fine line at being unhelpful and just messing with someone. And you’re starting to cross it.”

Horan rolled his eye. “What can I say? There’s a lot to bring people up to speed on.”

“So I’ve noticed,” mumbled Jean.

“Well,” said Mark, “you don’t need to worry about this too much. We’re only hiding out in Portland for, I dunno, max fou– three days, since there’s no way an operation like the Servants are going to come here for a chance of finding us, and then we’ll move along once the coast’s clear. We’re temporary guests, is what I’m saying.”

Jean shrugged. “Well, whether you’re guests at all is what we’re going to find out now. Yeah, just to the left here, and…”

The five of them emerged into a sewage processing station, now filled with light and people. The ten-foot-wide channel in the center of the room had been dried up and boarded over with planks of wood, creating more space for scores of neon-colored tents. Christmas lights were hung from hooks buried in the brick ceiling and plugged into a generator in the corner, which created an eclectic rainbow of colors and shadows. Distorted music played quietly yet resolutely from a battered, dented CD player on a bar stool near the middle of the room.

Several dozen people who looked dressed to go camping in the woods milled about the large room, chatting, reading, and hanging laundry from clotheslines strung between tent poles. One person sat in the middle of a circle of gas camping stoves, each of which had a pot filled with simmering masses of several cans’ worth of brown meat.

Horan nudged Mark’s side. “What did you say about people having to be idiots to stay in a place like this?”

Mark shrugged nonchalantly. “Some people are just idiots.”

People began to notice the arrival of the group and stopped what they were doing, gathering around the entrance to the chamber and staring at the new arrivals. Quet in particular.

Quet felt her fingers drumming against the side of her leg. “…He–hey, uh, it’s probably a good idea to not introduce myself while my eyes are glowing and I’m a foot taller than everyone in the room, right?”

“Bit late for that.” Waia stretched her arm out and let the glowing tarmac it was encased in fall to the ground.

Jean cleared his throat. “I’m ba…” He froze for a moment, then turned to look at the four interlopers. “You know what? I don’t think I want to be the guy who bridges the gap between you and us. You’re on your own.” He strolled into the crowd, exchanging curt greetings with the nearby locals and spinning on his heel. He folded his arms and looked at the four expectantly.

Horan nudged Mark again. “So, uh, do you do this or should I?”

Quet raised a hand. “Waia’s… assertive, what if she does i–?”

“No,” said Mark and Waia, in perfect unison.

“…Okay.” Quet shifted into her human form.

One of the locals opposite the four cleared their throat. “So, like, do we just look at each other? It’s been a while since we’ve had new guys, especially ones who can… do that.”

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“It took them fifteen minutes to catch me up,” said Jean. “And they aren’t very good at doing it.”

Horan opened his mouth to speak, but Mark quickly brought his hand up to Horan’s chest. “Very long story made very short, they’re the same… genre of thing that made everyone disappear three years ago.”

“It’s actually four now,” said Horan.

“Whoa, really?”

“And just to be clear,” added Waia, “we aren’t affiliated with the one person who did all that.”

“He sucks,” agreed Quet.

“The Nabbi– No, that’s insensitive– The thing with everyone vanishing was not the first of that type of move he made,” finished Horan.

“Also–” Waia pointed at Mark. “He’s just a guy.”

“To get to the actually important parts,” said Mark, “we’re not here to stay long term. We’re just hiding out down here for a few days, then moving on. We won’t be in your hair any longer than we have to be.”

One of the locals narrowed her eyes and looked Mark up and down, frowning at the weapons stuck in his pants’ waistband. “…Hiding from what, exactly? Might be good to know what trouble you’re bringing down here.”

Mark held his hands out. “Oh, it’s noth–nothing to worry about, really. We came here specifically because there was no way we’d have to–”

“Answer the question.”

“…I…” Mark averted his gaze and chewed his lip.

Waia rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll be candid if this guy won’t be: Pretty much the whole rest of the country’s been taken over by this army-cult called the Servants of something, and they don’t take kindly to our kind. Because of the aforementioned one-of-us-made-all-this-happen thing.”

“Great,” muttered another local. “Now we’ve got magic fugitives running up to us and telling us not to worry about the apocalypse cult that’s right behind them. Guess something had to happen one of these days, eh?”

“Look, it’s… It’s not as bad as it sounds.” Horan stepped forward and did his best to look trustworthy. “As Mark was saying, it’s highly unlikely that the Servants are even going to show up here, radiation topside and all. You haven’t heard from them yet for a good reason.”

“Yeah,” said the dissenter, “the reason is that we haven’t been harboring glowing-eyed shapeshifters until as of right now. We know how the world works by now. It’s always the worst-case scenario.”

“I… Okay, yes.” Horan gave a begrudging nod. “Us being here might be cause enough to venture into your turf, but they’re only here for us. At most, they’ll try to take us away, ask you to sign up, then leave.”

Waia bit back the urge to mention that they would do more than just ask. She decided that the time for candor had passed.

One of the locals glanced at Jean. “Hey, J, you’ve been talking to these guys the longest. What’re your thoughts?”

Jean shrugged. “Well, they’re all very weird, and they waited a pretty long time to mention that they’re being chased by a cult. But I think they’re less dangerous than they say they are.”

“Real glowing review there,” mumbled Mark.

“Well,” said a local, “look at it this way: We’re discussing turning these people away because they might be dangerous, when the whole reason this community exists is because we take in any wanderers. Even if they don’t stay, think of all the things we can learn from people who are actually magic!”

“They really aren’t good explainers,” replied Jean.

“I work better with a whiteboard,” added Quet.

“Okay, look…” Mark took a deep breath. “It’s clear that you don’t really get anything substantial out of this. ‘Cool facts about magic stuff’ isn’t going to get you enough supplies to get to next week. But I’m the only one here who needs to eat, we know how to pull our own weight, and if anything happens with the Servants, we’ll do our best to make things easy on you all. It’s like we aren’t even here.”

“I dunno,” mumbled a few of the locals, or variations upon the statement.

Quet raised a hand again. “Mark just made me realize that it’s probably a good idea to bring it up, so I should probably mention that I have a magic rock that makes infinite pizza.”

The crowd erupted into rabid cheering upon the mention of pizza. Quet was swarmed and, without giving her enough time to react, hoisted up onto two people’s shoulders and paraded around the large room. Quet hugged her legs close to her chest and pulled them into the folds of her cardigan, jaw clenched tightly and fingers drumming a staccato rhythm on her knees as the air was filled with chants of “Real food! Real food!”

Horan tried to reach for Quet over the sea of culinarily deprived humans. “Okay, that– I think she’s done!”

After a few more moments of parading, Quet tipped forward, rolled off the shoulders of the locals, and sprawled onto the floor. Some locals didn’t notice, but several did stop and crowded around her prone form.

It took a few seconds for Quet to get her brain to send the instructions to make words with her mouth. “W… W–w–we done-nuh?”

One of the locals helped a shaking, finger-drumming Quet to her feet. “Okay, it’s pretty safe to say that you just got yourself an in into our community, eh?”

Another local grinned and nodded. “We’ve been waiting for a chance to eat something that didn’t spend four years in a can for… about four years, yeah.”

Quet kept her eyes fixed on her shoes. “Well, tha–that’s convenient, because, um, I–I’ve been looking for a chance to… cook something… for…”

Horan interposed himself between the crowd and Quet, which made her breathe a sigh of relief. “So, does that mean you’ll let us stay?”

The locals began curtly whispering into each other’s ears and nodding in response.

Mark exchanged a look with Waia. “If this is what lets us stay in this hiding place, I’m going to stab something.”

The whispering managed to subside. One of the locals stepped aside, giving Quet and Horan line of sight to the circle of simmering pots. “On one condition, I’d say.”