I stared at the pellet for a few seconds and sent it away to my inventory. It felt like a consumable, which would most likely mean I could put it inside of endless, but something about it wasn’t quite the same. I couldn’t modify it in any way. And I couldn’t even identify whatever it called itself. The sensation of it falling into my inventory left tingling chirps of static all the way down, striking me in places I didn’t even know I had as the connection to Okeria both strengthened and grew further away at the same time.

“I’m going to need more than one.” I told Okeria. “Even if I put it in endless, I’ll have to remove it when I find the last mythical consumable.”

Okeria tilted his head even as his face lit up with understanding. “That water was another mythical thing for ya, was it? Wasn’t for Juniper or me, and I didn’t bother askin’ Mortician since they haven’t sampled the wares as of yet. Ya know, it’s a little weird how the powerful Staura are puttin’ their faith in ya instead of someone from their own species.”

Jun snorted at that. “Nia and Acasiana have seen exactly what we’re capable of. Seb doesn’t have to be here if he doesn’t want to, but he’s choosing to help all of us. Skies above, both you and I chose him over a lot of our own people, didn’t we?”

“Not sayin’ it was the wrong choice, just pointin’ it out.” Okeria clarified. He grunted and started pacing back and forth while tapping on empty air. I wondered if I’d be able to see his interface after I used one of the pellets, then wondered if it actually mattered. “I’m gettin’ some movement on some sensors that hadn’t picked anythin’ up for a good few days. Could be nothin’, and it could be a trap, but I’m bettin’ that that is Keratily finally makin’ her way back ta one of her not-so-hideouts.”

“Not-so… oh, Moricla’s temple. That’s what you mean.” Jun said and waved her hand through the air. A trail of colour followed her fingers as he tested her barrier function, and she nodded at what she saw. “Am I wrong in thinking that means she doesn’t think she’s in any danger at all? Either from us, Scalovera, Endra, or Inopsy?”

Okeria summoned his helmet and grabbed me by the shoulder. “I’d wager almost anythin’ that yes, that’s what she’s thinkin’. Whether she’s right or not, that’s what we gotta find out. Mortician, ya stay here with Juniper and try ta get some stuff sorted out so that ya come outta here stronger than when ya came in. And Juniper–I’d tell ya ta come with us, but we’re gonna go pay a visit ta someone who ya really don’t wanna see until you’re a whole lot stronger.”

Jun summoned her gun and fell into a cross-legged sitting position in one fluid motion. She leaned down and stared intently at the material, then summoned a silvery needle that Okeria must’ve given her at some point. “You don’t have to tell me. Oh, and did you find that old symbol dictionary I asked you for?”

“Right here.” Okeria tapped the side of his head for emphasis. “How many more empty slots do ya got ready ta fill?”

“One and nine-tenths. And If I reorganize my core, I should get that to two.” Jun said while she began scratching something into the gunmetal. She wiped away the shavings and held it up to get some better light. “I need to get it to a perfect balance of nodes anyway so I can summon any of the barriers I want. Now’s the perfect time to do that.”

A tablet appeared in Okeria’s hands, and after a few quick taps I saw a symbol and a lot of text flash up on it. He tossed it to Jun, who caught it one handed and set it down next to her. Mortician scooched closer, then pulled out their book and started on their own improvements.

“We will protect each other in the case where everything goes horribly wrong. At least until we find a way to run for our lives.” Mortician assured me with a tone far more confident than their choice of words. “If we are successful, we will emerge from this place with a new set of words with which to empower you and Juniper. And if we are not, then we will simply emerge slightly more powerful.”

They shrugged. “Either way, we will be greater than the us you are currently staring at.”

“What they said, but less pessimistic. Now get going.” She waved Okeria and I away with her silver stylus. “The sooner we know if Keratily’s going to be on any side at all, the sooner we can clean Endra and Scalovera out of this place.”

“See you soon.” I said as my clearance concentrated within my palm. I gestured for Okeria to stand back a little and walked toward a random wall, then input my desire to leave the facility. My clearance bent around my command, and when I touched the wall, it split open to reveal the exact same empty-ish room as before. The waiting room, or whatever it was.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

I walked in without waiting to see if Okeria was following me. His footsteps followed quickly after, and when I saw him out of the corner of my eye I closed the portal behind him. “Alright, what’s going on? There’s no way we’re actually going to talk to Keratily right now, so why did we leave Jun and Mortician behind?”

Okeria tapped the wall and motioned for me to open another portal. I just leaned back and spread my palms to show I could wait as long as I needed to.

He sighed and cracked his neck. “You’re right, and I’ve got a feelin’ Jun and Mortician don’t think we’re actually goin’ ta talk ta Keratily. Truth is that they need a little more time ta get their cores in order, and I didn’t want them ta feel like they couldn’t take that time for themselves. So we’re goin’ on a little scoutin’ outin’ ta confirm that it actually was Keratily, and not one of Jun’s distant cousins sneakin’ in ta do our job for us.”

I had a feeling I knew what ‘job’ Okeria was referring to, but I asked anyway. “And what is that job they’d be doing?”

“Why, killin’ or exposin’ Keratily for the monstrous fraud she is. That’s what.” Okeria chuckled. He raised one hand, then slid it toward me. All the nothing that had been there stayed exactly the same. “Oh, right. Eat that little pill I gave ya and stuff it in endless until ya find somethin’ better. I’ll whip up a larger supply when I’m not worried about bein’ ambushed the second we leave this place.”

The pill appeared in my hand, then flowed into a ribbon that joined the other three on my shoulder. A sensation akin to full-body numbness spread from my shoulder, crackling like white noise as an intensely metallic taste scraped across my tongue. I grunted and tried to ignore the strange feelings, but then a simple metal disk slammed onto my interface. Electricity coursed through the disk to create a symbol that looked like a mixture of flames and lighting contained inside of a square battery. That same blue stuff leaked out of the symbol and flowed into my armor, granting me absolutely no benefits except for the strange feeling that someone else was trying to access that electricity.

“Weird. Do you need access now?” I asked.

“Nah, just keep that electricity inside of ya until I actually need it. Juniper and Mortician won’t be able to store it as good as ya can, so don’t tell ‘em ta take the pills beforehand.” Okeria seriously warned me. He waited for me to nod in confirmation, then continued. “Good. If ya try ta take over my interface, I’ll fry ya from the inside out. Now look at this.”

A holographic screen the same colour as Okeria’s electricity suddenly appeared right before my eyes. It wasn’t quite as clear as I’d been expecting, with outlines and general shapes the only things I could make out through the static. I raised an eyebrow at it, then squinted to try and focus on the generally person-shaped blur that I could imagine was walking toward a building-shaped blur.

Not that big of a building-shaped blur, either. I couldn’t make out any specifics, obviously, but if this was the temple of Moricla, then she really wasn’t that revered in Staura society. At least among people who chose where they worshipped–which was to say, not kids. The primary, and from what Jun had told me, near only people that worshipped Keratily’s mother.

I tapped on the figure as if that would somehow make it less blurry. “Is that supposed to be Keratily?”

“Well, lemme show ya this.” Okeria grabbed the screen and swung it around, swiped across it a few times, then turned it back to me. “See how different this is?”

‘Different’ barely described what I now saw. Everything was in perfect focus, the colours were vivid and real, and the building was just as underwhelming as I’d imagined it. The grounds it was on, however, were not. A large sweeping park, with play equipment and other distractions for children spread out over what seemed like a pretty damn huge portion of the city that I somehow hadn’t seen yet. I frowned at it as I tried to remember something like that in the city, but I was drawing a serious blank.

Okeria must’ve seen the confusion in my posture, because he gently patted my shoulder and stepped so he had one arm over my back.

“In case you’re wonderin’, that ain’t on city grounds. It’s about thirty miles away from here in a direction ya ain’t gone yet, and it’s a sort of stop-gap between Rainbow Basin and wherever else anyone’s come from. Kind of a… daycare for parents ta leave their kids when they go out adventurin’ and can’t risk anyone’s lives.”

He pinched the screen and zoomed in to show a blurry figure in the distance. “That’s the source of the blur ya saw earlier. Now I’d bet almost anythin’ that that’s Keratily there, stoppin’ in ta collect herself for a few hours–or days, if we’re lucky. So we’ve got a very small window from now until that blur resolves itself ta work in a Keratily-free Rainbow Basin.”

I nodded in understanding; there was a lot we had to be more careful about if Keratily could be around any corner. Scalovera and Endra’s chosen were an unknown, but Keratily was a very well known monster that could and would kill us if she thought it would get her access to Jun.

“So what’s the plan? Try to free Thorn? Take over Moricla’s temple?” I suggested, though neither of them felt like things we needed to do at the moment. “I know you’ve got something up your sleeve.”

“I do. And it ain’t pretty, but it’s somethin’ that’s gotta be done.” Okeria sighed grimly and gestured once more for me to summon my clearance. “Danday’s gone, that’s for sure, but that don’t mean Endra’s one-hundred percent sure he’s gone. Right now, we’re goin’ ta use what ya just saw ta make her think he betrayed all of her plans. And worm paranoia into the hearts of everyone she’s infected in my drowned city.”