With a quick glance at the other two Keratilys, I allowed myself to let my guard down. One of them was completely out for the count, and the other was struggling so hard to move that I wasn’t worried. But that would change the second the one deep underground called in reinforcements.

{Annette, I’m done here. Can you move?}

{Yes, I’m done too. Can you take down your shield?}

I called my shield back to my inventory and let the petal-scales I was controlling fall away. The weight of the function disappeared, and I almost let out a sigh of relief.

She wiped off her shoulders as if there was something there then nodded at me. “One more to go. I thought I’d have to help you this time, but I guess you had everything under control.”

“Just because I got lucky with my functions.” I said and summoned a teleportation anchor from my inventory. “We’re going to teleport back to the second crystal’s location and then go from there. Be ready for anything.”

Annette dismissed her ribbons, which had grown slightly less vibrant since the last time I’d seen them. She removed her helmet and downed a vial of healing water, shuddered as it started to work, then equipped it again. Her ribbons came back at full luminosity.

“Ready.”

I spun the anchor around my finger, then flipped it into my palm. A series of sparks flew from the metal as Okeria’s device warmed up, and a small map of Rainbow Basin appeared in my visor with a few teleportation points I could go to. Of the ones I recognized, there was Thorn’s group, all the ones I’d left behind, and another one in the facility with Okeria. Then there were the half-dozen I couldn’t place. But they were active, which meant Okeria hadn’t disabled them just yet, so they were viable too.

Electricity overtook me as I selected my destination. A harsh sensation like static shocks against every part of my skin shocked me into reality at the house hidden in the pipes, along with a few pink-tinged suits of armor occupied by Keratilys. They all turned to look at me, and I could imagine their eyes widening in surprise when Annette appeared a split second after.

“Whoah. I guess I should’ve expected this.” She laughed, then thrust one hand forward. Light exploded from her fingertips, and all the Keratilys staggered away. “That’s that. Lead the way to the next crystal.”

Luminous growths sprouted from each and every Keratily’s visor. But they didn’t look as powerful as the ones I’d seen when I first met Annette. And instead of being purely coloured by her function, these had thin veins of pink snaking up from the Keratily’s visors.

Looks like her function couldn’t hold forever against someone else who dealt with illusions. From the looks of it, though, we’d have a good five minute head start before someone broke their illusion.

“Keratily’s pushing back. Either the woman herself or one of the other ones.” I muttered and made for the exit. A quick activation of blood-oil confirmed there were no other core-bearing entities around us. “Any word from Inopsy?”

Annette stepped out behind me while she shook her head. “Nothing since his last message. But Keratily hasn’t tried killing us herself yet, so that’s good?”

It could be a good sign. Or it could mean she’s planning something. I adjusted my armor and summoned my weapon to my back, then forced as little blood-oil as possible to power it. There was still so much left to do, and I couldn’t run myself ragged at step one.

“Seb? It’s a good sign, right?”

I shrugged. “Could be. C’mon, let’s get this done with. Anything’s better than being in the dark.”

----------------------------------------

The last crystal was, somehow, the least guarded of all of them. I opened a closet door in a specific guard house, and there it was. Nothing guarding it, no surveillance, and no notifications telling me I’d just fallen into Keratily’s mind-control garbage. Annette double and triple checked everything as well and ended up not finding a single thing out of place.

I motioned for her to do her thing and stepped outside to guard her. {Okeria, something looks strange here. It’s completely unguarded, even after we dealt with two groups of her descendants, and it’s in an extremely easy place to attack. Someone with the worst head cold in the world would be able to smell the trap here.}

{Don’t doubt ya, but there’s somethin’ up about everythin’ right now. Keratily’s completely MIA, not just for fightin’ against Inopsy, but from all my surveillance I’ve set up. That kinda stuff ain’t in the realm of possibility for what I know ‘bout her.} Okeria sighed. {It’s almost like the two of ‘em just up and vanished ta somewhere we can’t see or communicate with.}

Oh. OH. {I’m a fucking moron!} I laughed. {Okeria, did you have eyes on Inopsy the moment he disappeared?}

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

{I did. He was lurin’ Keratily away from us, then he… oh, drown me.} Okeria chuckled and made a sound like he’d just slapped his knee. {The bastard took Keratily into a hazard ta keep her away from us. That makes so much sense. Almost like there shouldn’t have even been any other options in consideration.}

{Tunnel vision’s a bitch.} I said and activated my visor to check for Keratilys. None yet. {That’d explain why they’re running around like chickens with their heads cut off–big boss Keratily isn’t there to give orders. And why we haven’t heard a peep from Keratily yet, too, since Inopsy got her into a hazard before Annette could damage the first crystal. Which one did he take her into? The one where we met Acasiana?}

{If you gave me a hundred guesses, I’d say that ninety nine times. And from checkin’ all my logs, it looks like they completely disappeared within a mile of that hazard. Keratily must’ve jammed my communication stuff right before Inopsy could tell us what the plan was. Or…} Okeria paused. {Or he could’ve betrayed us and is talkin’ everythin’ out with her right now. That’s real unlikely, but I ain’t gonna dismiss any possibility until Scalovera, Endra, and Keratily are good and gone.}

{Well, we’re straight fucked if that’s the case. No point in worrying.}

I looked around as the comms crackled to uselessness. If our assumptions were right, then we had a better chance than I thought. Keratily wouldn’t know she was missing anything until she left the hazard, at which point it would be too late to stop it. But that was with the massive caveat of Inopsy managing to keep her occupied for… well… not that much longer, actually.

Once Annette destroyed this crystal, things would change. For everyone that had lived here a long time it would probably be a pretty big difference. And for people like me and Jun, it would be barely anything. We had to hope it was enough to weaken or dissuade Keratily to the point of uselessness or retreat.

Annette grunted in surprise. I turned and activated my visor again, but she was alone in there.

“Still going good? Need help?”

“I don’t know! Maybe?” Annette called back, then appeared in the doorway a second later. “The crystal did something really weird, and I saw something inside of it. I don’t know what it was, but maybe you can make sense of it.”

That sounded ominous. “Alright. Lead the way.”

I followed Annette back to the crystal. All the while she ran her hand along the wall unsteadily, as if she were walking over a thin line and trying to keep from toppling over. I’d never seen her like that before. Not that I’d known her for long enough to get a good sense of her mannerisms, but she’d also warned me that she had a disease that ate away her mind and resulted in the death of one of my friends.

If this and the vision were an early manifestation of that… I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

“Here.” Annette reached out to pat the half-melted crystal, but froze before her fingers touched it. “It happened when I touched that thing sticking out of the center. I’m kind of terrified that I accidentally got myself trapped in Keratily’s crystal hypnosis again.”

There was that, too. I knelt down next to the crystal and studied the small shape that was barely visible even when I knew where to look. It was about a half-inch wide and slightly off-pink from the rest of it. None of my functions could tell me anything about it, and when I tried to identify it, my interface told me that it was under someone else’s control. No doubt it was either a failsafe or a control mechanism.

“We really need someone who can identify this shit.” I murmured as I traced my fingers around the thing. No visions assaulted my mind and no crystal tried to creep up my armor. {Okeria, keep your eyes on us. Can you tell if Annette is under Keratily’s influence right now?}

Okeria’s drone buzzed a little closer, then popped into view. It hovered close to Annette, circling her like a curious bee, then floated away.

{Nope. Unless Keratily got another form of mind manipulation from the one she used an hour ago, Annette’s clean.} He said confidently. {Whatever that chunk of slightly pink-er crystal did ta her ain’t harmful. Well, not harmful in any way I can detect. So maybe it's more harmful than anything else. Take that vote of confidence and make your choice.}

{Thanks for the insight.} I rolled my eyes and gently brushed my fingers against the crystal. Instantly something felt different. Not wrong, or better, but… not right. {Okeria, Annette. Do either of you see anything off about me right now?}

{Nope.}

“No.”

Okay, let’s hope that was a good sign. I turned my head and surveyed the much larger room I now ‘found’ myself in, which was a strange mixture of pink crystal and stark-white… something. Not quite stone, not quite metal, and almost unsullied in how pure it seemed.

“Moricla.” I muttered to myself. “This must be one of her temples. But… why can I see it from here?”

I took one more look around the room, but there was absolutely nothing eye-catching about it. The best comparison I could make was if a typical church had all the pews and religious symbolism removed, but had kept the overall feel of the building. That seemed strange, since I knew pretty much every Stauran god had something unique about their worshippers. Almost like… no. That couldn’t be it.

A glance over my shoulder finally showed what I’d missed. The Keratily family crest carved into the pure white wall in harsh strokes, almost like someone had done it as viciously as possible on purpose. Then I noticed where things were missing. Holes in the floor. Empty chains dangling from the ceiling with half-cut lengths at the bottom. And jagged places on the walls that gave the outlines of something that used to be there.

Just as I was about to take my finger off the pinker crystal, someone turned the corner. A woman in a perfectly white dress with a veil that covered her face from her nose-up, tiny scarred lips, and sunken cheeks. She gasped and scurried up to the platform, then knelt down at it and started muttering what sounded like a prayer.

I just knelt there for a second, overwhelmed by whatever the hell I was seeing. The acolyte finished her prayer, lifted her veil to expose tired, teary eyes, and spoke words that kindled something in me.

“Please, almighty Moricla, we need your help.”