“She has the vigor of a rabid Saberbeast, doesn't she?" Durkhann was sitting close to a fire made using old notes he'd found in the lab they were now in, his lab - close to the amphitheater where he’d fought the Bestial Shell. He was talking to Raelitha who was holding her legs against her chest and looking at Fiannah, covered in yet more improvised bandages and splinters, sleeping soundly. The Cleaver's breathing was still labored. Raelitha nodded.

"The anger of one too," the small translator commented. "She has cursed someone or something out in every room we've been to. Fierce woman." She smiled slightly then moved some loose strands of blonde hair away from Fiannah's eyes. "I wouldn't be breathing if she hadn't protected me until now… Well I wouldn't even be awake, actually, hadn't she found me."

Durkhann looked down into the fire, black hole eyes fixating on the burning parchment. "What a curious knight. She's skilled I suppose, but who in their right mind would challenge three warriors like that? While wounded, no less." He tossed some more parchment into the flame. "It's going to be some time before that hand heals. It's going to be some time before it all heals, frankly."

Raelitha looked at Durkhann's arm. She noticed the new rune, it still had some dried blood and scabs on it. "Communication rune?" She pointed at it.

"Yes. I'm not a diplomat like you, I never needed one." He looked at Fiannah's unconscious form. "I do now. It's going to be easier to explain having attacked her if we can communicate directly." The scholar had a somber tone, even more so than usual. He thought: what sort of barbarian am I? How can I see fit to criticize her for bullheadedness after what I did to her?

Raelitha, still staring at the new rune, responded, "I'm no diplomat, Durkhann-Ye. You know that." She lowered her legs and stretched them. "Fiannah told me she was merely a tool to be used. A tool for butchering. It got me thinking. Who knows how many years ago, that was my situation as well. A tool for the Council."

"A tool…" Durkhann rolled the word inside his mouth, as if analyzing it synesthetically with his tongue. "A tool eh. Couldn't you reduce every member of every body of work to something like that? The Council was a tool for God's will, I was a tool for the Scar's objectives. And most of all, if a single group fit the criteria, the Unlikely Tears were that group. Had… whatever happened to us, not happened, you would have become my apprentice of your own volition. Would that make you a tool for the Scar too? Would it make me a tool for your learning?"

Rae considered the runeweaver's points. "You might not be wrong. Honestly I saw so much more in her even after briefly meeting her." She smiled again. "I vehemently disagree with her assessment of herself; I suppose I've been unfair to myself then, if I were to use the same metric."

Durkhann looked at his apprentice, he saw so little of himself in her. He wasn't so much older than her but had been much more confident in the past - in Larawe. Of course. I was an official council runeweaver wasn’t I? He looked at his left hand. It was shaking. Even now, turns later, he could still feel the strikes of the Bestial Shell. Fiannah was barely holding on, Durkhann was only in slightly better shape.

"What are we going to do next?" Raelitha asked, looking at the fire. "She wanted to take me to the surface, give me a job. I honestly don't hate the idea. Not much point in grieving now, right?" She seemed to be trying as hard as she could to not consider the implications of her and Durkhann's people being extinct. The scientist frowned slightly but couldn’t blame her.

"I have - had - a plan. I was going to destroy the Bestial Shell, then quarter the body of God and bury it in separate containers. After that, I would take my own life and join the Scar, wherever they are." There was no pain, no anger, no sorrow in his voice. He had considered all of this intently while searching the ruins. There was nothing left for him to fight for, or against. "But after seeing you two, as well as Caldor-Ye, who I now know to be her companion, I've given more thought to things. How long has it been since I've given more thought to anything? He considered. "I want to learn. About these 'Exgrunnish' people. About their magic. How do these incantations work? Why is their language so similar to ours in its root? I do have a hypothesis for that last one, though."

Raelitha was still staring at the fire but turned to face him after the last sentence. "Do you think…? This was on my mind too. Do you think they're the descendants of 'those' surface dwellers?" She tapped her fingers rhythmically against her thigh, nervous.

"Indeed. Seems to be the only reasonable explanation to me. I'm not sure though, I suppose there are many other possibilities depending on how long we've been… unavailable." The man replied and continued: "do you remember anything before waking up here?"

She shook her head. "I remember the members of the Scar being sentenced. Then it's all a blur, like an old dream. My next memory after that is Fiannah’s angry face, cursing me out after releasing me." She was blushing and had a slight smile on the corner of her mouth.

"I never took you to be the type," Durkhann said with a hint of a smile as well. "Having an infatuation for a woman like her must be quite the experience." Now he truly smiled, in jest and almost fatherly care, for the first time since Raelitha had seen him again. She blushed even more, her copper cheeks now even redder in hue.

They both nearly jumped when the lady Cleaver piped up. "Please, continue talking about how much of a hot, amazing and charming badass I am. It never gets old." She joked, clearly struggling to talk.

"Curses!" Screamed Durkhann, startled. Raelitha was silent, her cheeks at this point were bright metallic red. Fiannah chuckled. She tried getting up; both laraweians winced seeing her face twist up in pain. The translator gently put her hand on Fiannah's shoulder and made her lie down again.

"You were reckless." Durkhann criticized her without turning away from the fire. "You're lucky I was there to-" Fiannah interrupted him.

"To what? Bitch, our first interaction ended with you punching me and stealing my shit. Speaking of which, where's my shit?" She looked around for her bags, without getting up this time. Even just moving her neck hurt at this point.

Durkhann reached to his left and grabbed the straps of her bags, sliding them towards Fiannah in one motion. "I had just woken up from whatever magic it is that preserved us, and saw a boisterous surface dweller using our runes like a cudgel. I was enraged… I was also impulsive, I admit." He managed to hide most of his shame. Fiannah chuckled again.

"That's rich, man. You're lucky I'm basically a paper weight right now. If I could move my hands you'd be getting at least a mighty flick to the nuts." She flinched from a new wave of pain that crossed her body. "Wait, Rae. Look inside the small bag for a little white device that looks like a… like a crossbow with a big needle in front of it, I guess. Please."

Raelitha perked up and started rummaging for Fiannah's device. After a few seconds she produced the little machine. "Got it, what is this?" She examined the white polymer intently; this looked utterly alien to both Rae and Durkhann.

Fiannah grunted as she turned to face the other woman. "It's a healing salve dispenser. See the gel in my left leg? That grey liquid is held inert by an incantation, then turns into the gel when applied to patch up wounds, absorb toxins or secretions, stop bleedings and immobilize the affected regions. It doesn't instantly heal the injuries, but greatly speeds up the healing process… I need you to squeeze that goop all over my body. Goop me up, baby. Ugh." She immediately regretted that last sentence.

"Uhm…" Raelitha shimmied towards the injured warrior as Durkhann quietly observed. "Isn't this needle gonna hurt you, Fia? It looks really scary." It really does, Durkhann thought.

"Yeah it's all good, just… put my knife in my mouth please." The knife was lying next to Fiannah, so Rae just took it and slowly positioned the handle in a manner that let the Cleaver bite it; Fiannah did so as hard as her remaining strength allowed, and nodded as if to say, 'go ahead'.

Raelitha held the device with both hands to keep her grip as steady as possible. She started with Fiannah's right hand. It was swollen and purple, but Durkhann had set the broken bones to the best of his ability while Fia was unconscious. The translator grimaced and inserted the needle near the base of the wrist, where the fractures ended. Fiannah, biting into the knife handle, grunted in blinding pain.

Raelitha squeezed the trigger and pulled the device back after a dose of the gel filled the gaps between the lady's bones, immobilizing her hand completely. Both laraweians noticed the Cleaver breathing out in relief.

"Go for her shoulder and arm next." Durkhann suggested; those were the places with the deepest cuts from Ganok's flaming sword (as well as nasty burns). Said sword was lying next to Durkhann, who had stolen it after the fight. Raelitha silently nodded.

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Thirty more seconds and Fiannah's left shoulder and arm were also patched up with the gray substance. The Cleaver still seemed exhausted and in pain, but each dose of the healing salve really seemed to make her more comfortable.

In one minute, Raelitha had finished applying the salve to each of Fia's wounds. She slumped back and removed the knife from the blonde woman's mouth. She stared at the vial inside the dispenser. "Less than half left, Fia. You can't keep getting stabbed and cut like that." Fiannah smiled.

"Thanks Rae. Don't worry, I'll be more careful. But I still gotta figure out why those three were down here, and why they were so eager to attack us after I said we wouldn't come with them." Her smile vanished as she thought about the fight, then seemed to remember something and looked at Durkhann. "Hey, I'm guessing you haven't found my friend, right? Dark skin, short hair. Not very tall, refuses to swear…"

Durkhann tossed the last bundle of parchment into the fire and idly commented: "I assume you're referring to Caldor of Anderon-Ye. Though I haven't seen his actual features."

"Yeah that's him but before we go on, what the Torments is with the whole -Ye, -Ya, whatever thing? You called Rae 'Raelitha-Ya', now Anderon-Ye?" Fiannah asked.

It was Raelitha who answered: "they're honorifics. -Yore was used for the Council's Unlikely Tears, their knights. -Ye was used for scholars and professors and -Ya was used for experts in fields of geopolitical significance like diplomats or ambassadors. I'm technically not either of those but Durkhann-Ye and the other members of the Scar insisted on using -Ya for me."

Durkhann sighed, "give yourself some credit. All we did was recognize merit where the council didn't. You are a diplomat, end of story."

Fiannah raised an eyebrow. "You know, I gotta agree with Durkhann on this one. You were the liaison for those uptight dickheads to interact with foreigners, right? You're absolutely a diplomat, Rae." She turned back to the runeweaver. "Uh, anyway, wherever did ya see Caldor? And where is he now?"

Durkhann lowered his head. “This will take some time to explain. Get comfortable.” He chuckled softly at the Cleaver’s death glare. “It started when I saw him wearing an artifact I created. The Bestial Shell. I had been examining God's body, which for some reason still unknown to me was lying in a classroom. I noticed the shell walking towards me and inferred someone was wearing it.”

He continued: “I decided I would kill whoever it was if they didn’t hand the suit over, then I would find a way to destroy it as well as proceed with the plan of disposing of the divine corpse… I was surprised when the voice that escaped it was that of a mild mannered dandy. Your friend took me off guard, if I’m honest.”

Fiannah smiled. “That’s Caldor for ya. He’ll be inconceivably polite to a fire mantis if you let him.”

Durkhann nodded slowly. “For the first time since waking up I actually felt conscious. It was as if I had been in a coma, moving as an embodiment of rage and hatred through the disgraced remains of my home. Meeting Caldor-Ye was a sobering experience.” He looked at Fiannah, then at Raelitha and sighed. “Not that it fixes all the imbecile mistakes I’ve been making, and made, ages ago, before falling victim to the petrification magic.”

“You can just apologize for being a prick and I’ll be cool with it.” Fiannah replied nonchalantly. “I’m still pissed that you stole my shit and kicked my ass, obviously. But fuck I clearly need your help here so the smart thing to do is use you as best as I can.” Durkhann was surprised at Fiannah’s complete honesty and pragmatism.

“Anyway, the Shell took over Caldor’s body, moved him against his will and attacked me. You’re not gonna like this,” he prefaced. “I had to break several of his bones in order to avoid the suit’s offense.” Fiannah looked furious again.

“Damn right I didn’t like it. You’re telling me you hurt my best friend for the grave sin of falling victim to your own creation. What, did you plan on picking up the pieces then carrying him back to the surface once you were done?”

“Fiannah. Are your vocal incantations capable of magical healing?” He asked her, but didn’t wait for her response. “Neither are runes, with one exception. The Bestial Shell. It used God’s magic, the only real healing magic back then, and apparently now as well. Every injury I gave Caldor was reversed by the suit. The point wasn’t actually immobilizing him, it was forcing the Shell to spend its energy reserves fixing him.” The man looked distressed in his report.

Fiannah clicked her tongue. “Right, so you just inflicted excruciating pain upon him but it’s fine since all that god juice fixed him.” She sighed in angry resignation. “Guess I gotta see this thing for myself. I hope Caldor is fine, wherever he is.”

Raelitha was looking between the two. She felt Fiannah’s anger bubbling beneath the surface, but reading Durkhann remained as hard as it had always been. She thought of the early prototypes of the Bestial Shell that she had seen. Then she considered its name and fiendish appearance for a moment. “Durkhann-Ye, why is the armor designed like that? I mean, why Bestial Shell and why the monstrous mask?”

Durkhann licked his lips and swallowed, as if preparing to administer a lecture. "Are you familiar with paracausal entities?" Raelitha thought for a second before responding.

"Yes, but vaguely. As far as we knew, the runes had been developed either by them or inspired by them right? God was a paracausal entity, I think." She looked intrigued.

Durkhann nodded slowly while responding. "Basically, yes. Paracausality is the power of dismantling or changing the basic rule of cause and consequence. To cast magic is to achieve a consequence without its usual cause."

"Like me spending my own energy to summon lightning with that rune?" Fiannah asked, starting to understand.

He continued: "indeed. Runeweavers had believed that the entities were born in much the same way. As if before the birth of sapient life, an unrelated action caused an unprecedented and illogical reaction. Paracausal entities live off of, and manipulate, probability. There is a chance larger than zero that any of us could spontaneously combust here. Paracausality takes the 0.001 and turns it into 100." He saw Fiannah struggling to take her heavy water flask from her bag with her left hand, so he stopped talking for a second while he took it and handed it over to her.

"Thanks," she said, took a big sip of water and handed the flask to Raelitha, who drank some too. Durkhann shook his head when offered. "Keep going, I think I'm starting to understand." Fiannah finally said.

"A large portion of them were called 'paracausal fiends' because their appearances looked like a mixture of multiple animal features." Durkhann said. "Establishing contact with them was considered heresy. Their bestial nature made them the obvious enemies of God in the Council's narrative."

Raelitha interjected: "right, I remember that. I remember talking to the members of the Scar, before the killing of God, and Aekhron-Ye telling me that the fiends didn't really care much about us or even God himself. They were beings of chance and manipulation, pranking people and challenging them for games. Some offered unknown runes in trade for seemingly random objects like a lock of someone's hair or the saliva from a cat. The Council portrayed them as utterly chaotic and malignant beings who followed their own demented set of rules.

The man nodded as she spoke, then added: "something like that, yes. All they had in relation to God was sharing their birth with him, he'd just come out more… presentable - together with some other entities - but those weren't really convenient for the Council so they were written off as fiends regardless. Anyway, this entire preamble is just a setup to explain the Bestial Shell: the alloy it is built on was actually the body of a paracausal fiend I had summoned. Their purpose was to help me decipher the divine runes. I paid them in poetry. Told them that calling my artistic skills subpar would be overrating them but they insisted, saying it was better this way."

"Sounds like this fiend had a crush on you, man. And now I can't wait to see your shitty poetry. Wait, those parchment sheets in the fire aren't poems, are they?" Fiannah joked and then asked.

Durkhann sighed: "they're not. The entity consumed the sheets after reading my work. I didn't understand but I didn't care either, as long as I got their help. They did help a lot, and after a year of working on it, the sphere that became the Shell's paracausal core was mostly done. I needed a tool that would use the energy and the healing runes of that core. My plan was a staff or a mask of some kind. Just something to allow the wielder to heal injuries easily while touching the artifact. I ended up making a mask that emulated my fiend assistant's visage, as a symbol of defiance. Using God's magic for the people; I would gladly become a fiend myself for that."

He swallowed again. He seemed unwilling to keep telling the story, but pushed through it. "I was careless. I didn't realize while working that a fragment of God's will, soul, whatever you want to call it; had remained active. As soon as the mask was ready, fully inscribed with the runes, it took hold of the fiend's mind and body; and melded with them. It filled the gaps in God's soul with the fiend's… that's what the Shell's sapience is essentially, and its body a transmuted form of the fiend's body, plus the mask I made."

Fiannah looked at him with a serious face for the first time in a while. "So the suit's a hybrid of your fiend partner and God. Then basically it's just pissy that you and your friends killed him?"

"Not quite," he replied. "My leading hypothesis is that when the two minds melded, it was neither God nor the fiend anymore, but a third paracausal entity altogether born from the clashing of those two. The Bestial Shell. It seems to call me its creator, and is bent on killing me as revenge for bringing it to life then attempting to put its fire out again." Durkhann's head sagged. "I'm not sure they're wrong to do so."

“Tch.” Lady Fiannah emoted, gritting her teeth. “But you’re still gonna do it, aren’t you? I’ll bet you believe it to be your responsibility to rid the world of the result of your tinkering. Plus your sense of self preservation is too strong to lay down and die like that. Been there.” There was some understanding in her voice. Maybe not approval, but respect at the very least.

Reacting to what she said, Durkhann continued: “yes, that’s it. I brought a being that should not be to life, and it immediately went insane. Much as I’m not eager to do it, I have to fix my own mistakes. If not for Larawe, for my own peace of mind." He looked pensive for a second then asked: "do you think those three have fallen back to the surface?"

Fiannah's hand ached when the other party was mentioned. "No. Knowing them, my best guess is that they're resting like us before going back to tracking me and Caldor. I just hope at least that asshole Ganok died from my lightning."

Raelitha gently reached and held Fiannah's left hand when she saw it twitching after the mention of the event. Fiannah was shocked by how smooth the translator's hand was.

The three people fell silent. No one had anything to say or add, at this point. They just remained there, for however long, staring at the fire. Some time later Fiannah managed to sit up. She slid over to Raelitha and put her left arm around the smaller woman’s back, holding her shoulder. Rae smiled, kissed Fia on the cheek and rested her head on the Cleaver’s chest.

They stayed there in silent comfort, until Fiannah, Raelitha, and finally Durkhann, fell asleep before the fire. Durkhann did so from exhaustion rather than choice, seeing the faces of his dead and bloated companions burnt into his mind’s eye.