I recognized the armor immediately as belonging to the man who’d sat opposite Inopsy when we’d talked over Nia’s table. Right after Endra emerged, he’d suddenly appeared. Along with a few more of Endra’s chosen. If I remembered right, he’d wanted to appease Endra. Or… that could’ve been a bold-faced lie as well. How’d he know to come to Walkalong if the war between Addia and Endra was a secret?

Jun growed deep in her throat and pointed her gun at the man. “You.”

“Me.” The man stated. “You’re lucky beyond lucky that Keratily and Inopsy showed up when they did, kids. We had to switch from ‘no survivors’ to ‘damage control’ thanks to them.”

He cracked his knuckles, which should’ve been impossible through his armor, and chuckled grimly. “Now, how long do you think that barrier will last? Because I really don’t have anything better to do for… a few months.”

I grimaced and shot a quick glance over to Mortician that was hidden by my helmet. They were still safe in the petal-scales, but if I had to stay like this for a long time, my battery would eventually die out. And something told me not to let those scales die off.

“It’s really too bad Okeria isn’t more thorough with his searches. Or else he might’ve found out what was going on before it was far too late.” The man laughed with a sort of sick confidence. “I’ll warn you right now; if you try to use this hazard’s escape function, we’ve got the exit surrounded. No mercy for you there–you die the second you leave. But if you come with me willingly, then I’ll let you live until Scalovera says differently.”

“Drown you.” Jun spat. “Drown in the abyss.”

The man mockingly held his hands up and shook them. “Ooh, I’m so terrified of the new recruit. Don’t kid yourself into thinking a few months is enough for anything. Not even if you’ve got whatever kind of freak that is helping you.”

He gestured rudely at me with one hand. “Endra said it was a ‘human’. And that you knew he was one of them. Now, I don’t know what that means at all, but I bet it’d be easy to kill the both of you and write it off as you betraying our species, Juniper. Moricla’s already murdering all the Keratilys back on Sotrien, so why not finish what she’s started?”

Scalovera had been working with Endra’s chosen. The question was; did he know what he was doing, or was he an unknowing puppet to Endra’s machinations? I couldn’t trust anything that came from this man’s mouth, but Okeria could probably find the answer if he was given a few days to work. And… oh God, did that mean Endra knew where we were? And that she was choosing not to attack us for some forsaken reason?

I tried not to let those realizations show through. “So which one are you? And if you’re all on a database, why didn’t Okeria know you were a chosen?”

“Only the gods know why Okeria doesn’t. The database knows all.” The man shrugged helplessly. “Or maybe Okeria isn’t as smart a leader as he thinks he is. Too bad for him Keratily’s gone somewhere, or else maybe he’d stand a chance against Scalovera. She’s probably the strongest non-chosen fighter in this country.”

Non-chosen. This man didn’t know Keratily’s true nature. It didn’t change anything, but that also meant Endra didn’t know about Keratily. And if they didn’t know about Keratily, then they definitely didn’t know about Okeria. I didn’t know how much that mattered now, but it had to mean something. Okeria had told me about his true strength right before we went in. There had to be a reason for that.

“Oh, right, you asked ‘which one’ I was. The name’s Danday Wiltloam.” Danday gestured to himself proudly. Whatever projection of desperation he was exerting nearly doubled with that simple motion. From the way his chest puffed out and his shoulders rose, he took a sadistic glee in seeing Jun and I squirm. “And you’re the one Endra wants gone. I almost forgot about that. So, sorry, but neither of you get to live. It must’ve slipped my mind.”

Danday summoned a simple stool from his inventory and sat just outside of the barrier. I saw it shimmer and flex under his influence, which made me think his claim to hazard clearing wasn’t unsubstantiated. Hell, it was probably greatly undersold. And it meant we didn’t have anywhere near as much time as I’d thought.

{Seb, what are we supposed to do?} Jun crackled through my helmet. {I can see the barrier breaking. We don’t have much time.}

I didn’t have a good answer for her. {I know. There’s a good chance we’ll have to trust that Okeria had a better plan than we did, and an even better reason for not telling us before we came in here.}

Jun tapped her fingers nervously against her gun. {If we’re going to leave anyway, I want to take a few shots at this guy first. He lied to our faces, helped Nia get killed, and got Scalovera power over Rainbow Basin. If we can kill him here, that’s a big win for Okeria and Rainbow Basin.}

And if we didn’t, everything could easily shift in Endra’s favor. Which might or might not also be in Scalovera’s favor.

“Now what’s with all the silence? I thought we could have a real conversation here, and you’re just ignoring me.” Danday leaned forward with his hands on his knees, and something about him changed. His aura diminished, but something else chittered loudly in its place. “I’m giving you a chance to ask me anything you want. And since I’m free from any communication tapping, it’s probably the only time you’d ever get the truth out of any of Endra’s chosen. Whether you choose to believe that or not.”

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That sounded dangerously like someone desperate. I took a step forward, gestured for Jun to ready her shots, and decided to parlay. “How long was Endra planning this?”

Danday shrugged. “No idea. It could be decades, or it could’ve been a spur of the moment kind of thing. Keep going. I can’t stay myself for long with all these bugs in my brain.”

“What the fuck.” I muttered before I could stop myself. “Explain that. Please.”

“You saw Persephonia. Guess what happens when someone’s not strong enough to resist Endra.” Danday said without an ounce of bitterness. “I’ve got a little bit of my own mind since we’re separated by a hazard, but ever since she came down, I’ve been a dead man walking. There’s no saving me, or any of Endra’s other chosen. Some of us, like me, knew what we were getting into. We deserve everything we’re getting.”

“But there are others. Like Nia.” Jun spat. “People Endra tricked or forced into being her chosen.”

Danday chuckled weakly, almost nothing of the imposing man from just moments ago remaining. “More of them than there are of us. And since they don’t know what Endra can do to them, she’s being a lot more surgical with controlling them. But you can’t save them. The second Endra thinks she’s going to die she’ll destroy everything she built just so nobody else can gain from it.”

Shit. I didn’t know how to deal with this. Scalovera was one thing, but knowing that Endra had her fingers tangled up in his strings just made it so much worse. And now we had someone claiming that Endra could do exactly what she did to Nia to any of her chosen, as well as influencing them by putting literal bugs in their bodies… how the fuck were we supposed to fight that?

“What’s Endra’s goal?” I eventually settled on asking. If we could find that out, then maybe we could work towards actually stopping her.

“I have absolutely no idea. But it’s a lot bigger than you, me, or even Rainbow Basin.” Danday shook his head and blew out a frustrated breath. I could swear I heard chittering alongside his voice, and it didn’t stop when he paused. That was fucking terrifying. “For Rainbow Basin, though… it stopped with getting Scalovera in power. We didn’t get any new orders until Dylan died. And even after that, it wasn’t really an order. She told me to help Scalovera get rid of you. Don’t think I’m some martyr who's telling you this out of some kind of twisted responsibility; Endra’s in my head. I won’t be me once I leave this hazard. So I don’t plan on leaving it.”

Danday clenched his fists so hard his armor creaked. He stared down at the ground, and when he next spoke, it was as quiet as a whisper. “I’m not going to apologize. I lived my life doing what I wanted to do, and it’s going to end one way or another. The only question is who gets the experience from doing it.”

“Oh, I’ll take it. Don’t you worry about that.” Jun said coldly. “Now; more questions. Does Scalovera have any way to undo what Dylan did to all those people?”

“Not that I know of. Maybe Keratily would know something, but when someone stops being able to use their interface, they’re pretty much doomed.” Danday confirmed my worst fears with a shake of his head. “But who knows? You might make a miracle happen if you’re lucky enough.”

I shared a look with Jun. For some strange reason, I couldn’t think of that many questions I wanted to ask Danday. I tried to scrape my brain for more of them, but the pure desire to survive drowned out most of my thoughts.

“Can you turn that aura thing you’re doing off?”

Danday shook his head. “It’s not me that’s doing it. It’s the bugs in me. Makes it hard to think, huh? Now imagine that it’s coming from inside of your body, not from across an almost invulnerable barrier.”

He slammed his fingertip into the side of his helmet and ground it in hard. “It’s absolute agony. I can’t think, I can barely hear, and it’s all because of her. Everything she promised me she pulled away at the last second when she got exactly what she wanted; Persephonia’s body. So I’m going to burn everything I can down to the ground when I go. But that means none of the bugs in me can get out of this alive. And it has to look like I went down fighting.”

“Why?” Jun asked pointedly. “If you’re dead, why would it matter?”

“Because Endra gets a message about my final stats when I go.” Danday said bitterly. “If I die with barely any armor damage, or with none of my functions on cooldown, or with a full battery, it’ll look suspicious. No; it has to look like a struggle. So we’re going to have to fight. And I’m not going to go easy on either of you.”

That was more what I expected. {Do you think we can trust that? Or is he just trying to get us to fight him instead of us leaving?}

{...I don’t know if it matters. We knew he was going to attack us if we stayed here, so our choice is still the same.} Jun replied reluctantly. {If we stay and fight, we need to be ready to pull out at any second.}

{Agreed.} I replied with a sigh. {Alright. If you can think of any more questions through this horrible aura, we should ask them now. It doesn’t look like the barrier’s going to hold for much longer.}

The barrier warbled and warped under Danday’s influence, which could have just as easily been Endra’s influence. I summoned the cruel world’s partition and slammed it down at my side, readying myself to fight for my life. We had to make this look like a hard-fought victory, so no matter how strong or weak Danday actually was, it had to go on for a while. Which meant Jun couldn’t just one-shot him if that was a possibility.

“I have one more question.” Jun said through what sounded like clenched teeth.

“Only one more?” Danday asked with disappointment. “Fine. Ask away.”

Jun lowered her gun to point at the floor. “Endra’s all about Endurance. Why’s she sacrificing people then? Doesn’t that go against her nature?”

Danday shook his head and laughed bitterly. “Ah, I can tell you haven’t had many interactions with the Embodiments. They embody all parts of their nature. Good, bad, logical, emotional, and everything else. Then you have to factor in that they’re living beings with their own minds. And all living beings change based on what’s around them.”

“Endra only cares about her. The endurance of one.” Danday spread his hands and rose from his stool. “Everything else is an afterthought at best. I know that now, but I didn’t used to. Come. My control is slipping, and if you want a chance at killing me, you’ll have to do it before Endra can force her influence through me.”