Lucian turns his gaze onto the men waiting for orders. "Go up the stairs, and warn me when they come back."

"Yes, Sir!" the three soldiers in black armor acknowledge. They all move towards different stairs, following the trail of rot.

Russ appears from the shadows and hurls himself at Four. He tries to climb to reach Lucian's face, his claws clinging against the thick armor.

"Is that your dog?" Four questions, incredulous. "What happened to him?"

Ethan knows that Lucian's will is unwavering; being lost, even for so long, would never affect him. If anything, he might have seen the system and his situation as an opportunity. Ethan approaches his mentor. "I guessed you were unable to find your way out of a dungeon."

Lucian gets Russ to stop jumping on him and pets his head with his gauntleted hand. He takes in a deep breath as he absorbs neutral Ether from his surroundings while repelling the dark one. "One of the rewards I got from that dungeon should have allowed me to go back, but it's sealed for now."

"Sealed?" Ethan asks.

"I've tried to break one anyway; it did nothing," Lucian says. He moves his hand into a satchel at his belt and pulls out three return stones.

Dark Ether inhabits the stones, forming intricate, three-dimensional ritual arrays inside. Ethan places a finger over one of the stones and triggers Identification.

Return stone (sealed)

When shattered, this teleportation stone returns you to the location from which you used your last Dungeon stone (only once per Dungeon stone).

A power interferes with this object, sealing its effects.

"That would have been useful," Lucian comments, towering over Ethan as he looks down at the window. "Did you grow taller?"

"A fruit made me evolve into a better human variant; the height came with it," Ethan explains.

"I am going to pretend this is a sound explanation," Lucian quips. He places the stones back into his haver-satchel.

'Were they spawned corrupted, or did the dark Ether invade them after? I need to summon the one I've left in an isolation ritual to see,' Ethan thinks. He turns his head as he hears the fight above finishing. "A strange woman followed me here. She's strong, and I think that while she's also seeking a way out, she's hiding something. I haven't told her we knew each other."

"You think she's following you specifically? What have you been doing since all this started?" Lucian asks.

"A lot. I'm not here by chance; I'm on a job … and I find her timing too convenient." Ethan triggers Predator's Sight and sees Azriah helping to rebuild the fortifications.

"Like the fact that job conveniently brought you where I was?" Lucian asks. He grabs his axe and clips it to his back on a magnetic harness. "Who is the job for?"

"Yeah," Ethan admits. "Kaliathra, the goddess of death and the master of the Realm of Ascension."

"Once again, I'm going to pretend this is logical and not at all the ramblings of a madman," Lucian quips.

"I know, and it's only half of it. The whole explanation, which I cannot get into because otherwise my target will magically know I'm onto him, is even crazier." Ethan orders Russ to hide in his shadow as he senses Azriah coming down. He doesn't want her to see him acting so friendly towards Lucian. "Long story short, several gods don't like me. And she's too good at hiding her aura for me to detect if she entered a pact with one."

Azriah enters the room, her clothes clean from the blood of her victims. She picks up the edges of her cloak and bows, speaking to Lucian in a language unknown to Ethan.

"I deserve no such courtesy," Lucian says. He steps towards her, changing his body language to feign being weary of Ethan. "Thank you for coming to our help."

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Azriah blinks in surprise, straightening herself to stare at Lucian. Her gaze shifts to Ethan, who feigns a lesser but similar questioning look. She schools her expression. "We came from Haven Under after learning of your lateness. Viktor and I were hoping you would know more about the region and how we might escape it. Do you perhaps require assistance to decipher this temple's secrets?"

'Why so formal?' Ethan ponders to himself. He gives a furtive glance at Lucian, who's hiding his struggle at deciphering vocabulary he never heard.

"My underling," Lucian begins, motioning at the man sitting cross-legged at the room's center. "Is trying to converse with a… spirit who revealed that this room is a vault. We got crystals from the towers that are fatal to the undeads and are hoping to find weapons to fight the monsters keeping us from the… water."

"Perhaps you mean the sea, my lord," Azriah says. "The vast body of water at the end of rivers."

'My lord?' Ethan ponders.

"I think so," Lucian confirms. "But this is our last attempt on this travel; if he fails, we'll be returning home."

"What about the undeads?" Ethan asks, nodding at the decomposing piles of flesh. "Aren't they trying to stop you from leaving?"

"They appear each time he talks to the spirit," Lucian explains. He steps towards the stairs leading to his men. "I'll go check on the others. Watch him."

Ethan looks at the center of the room. The man is sitting on a complex ritual carved into the stone. It is different from the altar of the Realm of Ascension but bears some resemblance to it.

Lucian stops on the stairs, far enough to hide from Azriah but close enough to come back down in a moment if necessary.

Azriah gets close to Ethan, feigning to look at the same thing. "There is something weird. I don't think he's a Kandali."

"I don't know much about them," Ethan admits. Neither he nor Maelor read much about these people who live in the Dunharel Desert. The only thing he knows is that Maelor's mother used their name to scare Maelor from staying up. "I did find it weird that you called him 'my lord'."

"In their culture, it's frowned upon to speak other languages. I get that he had to with the locals, but he should have answered my reverence in Kandali." Azriah looks at the stairs, thinking. "And he didn't even react when you questioned him without a hint of deference. Their hierarchy is based on strength, and there are no stories of them acknowledging a foreigner without a duel."

"His men seem to behave as if he were their commander," Ethan deflects. "Maybe he just realized we aren't average humans and gave up the theatrics. Plus, I wouldn't trust too much in stories; they tend to be misleading."

Azriah glances at Ethan with an inquisitive stare. "You refuse to believe anything I told you about myself; why don't you doubt him too?"

"What I know is that he spent months helping and training refugees while searching for a way out. Maybe he's different from other Kandalis, maybe he adapted to his situation, or maybe your stories lied to you." Ethan places himself to put Azriah between himself and Lucian. "You appeared out of nowhere, the day I escaped from the city's illusion. You prompted me to heal Liska, which attracted a monster whose defeat gained you the refugees' favors. And you only revealed, if that wasn't a lie, the sad parts of your reason for being here. So no, I don't trust you. It feels to me as if you fit all too nicely as an opportune, powerful ally."

Azriah's gloved hand tightens around her halberd. "You are the one who hides everything about himself. You claim you still haven't chosen your ascended class, and yet you are strong enough to be at the top of most of Aldoria's forces. Not only that, but you are also skilled in spirituality, something almost no one trains anymore. You are a mage and a fighter with perception abilities I've never seen before. Not to mention you wield Stormshard, which, as far as I know, was lost forever alongside Aranthor Elarion."

'Fuck,' Ethan thinks. He lets none of his surprise show and fakes irritation. "It's a replica."

Azriah tuts. "I'll go talk to their leader. Just try to talk to that spirit when the other guy fails; you might have a better chance. And that would help you gain the refugees' favors."

Ethan stays silent as he watches Azriah walk away. Lucian heard the last part and left his spot to go upstairs but is still too close. Through Predator's Sight, Ethan also hears the few undeads left alive outside collapsing on their own. He calls, "Wait."

Azriah stops and glances back. "What?"

"Can you tell him the undeads that were left are falling apart? I think the attack is over," Ethan says.

Azriah inhales deeply and walks away.

Russ jumps out of Ethan's shadow and begins to follow her, letting out sad whines.

'Down,' Ethan orders, still not wanting Russ to let Azriah know he knows Lucian. He hoped she would let slip some hint about her true motives but only angered her. He ponders for a moment. He's still nowhere near destroying the phylactery, and getting Lucian to help is the safest play. But before that, he needs to know for certain that she isn't an enemy or get rid of her. 'She had an opportunity to attack me but didn't even try; otherwise, Russ would act up. If Lucian was her target, she could have pushed to switch roles to isolate me upstairs. But if what she said is true, why would she hide where she comes from? Unless she thinks I might be from an enemy country or a rival noble faction.'

"We've seen your cartography of the region," Azriah says to Lucian. Her tone returned to her previous deference. "If I may ask, did you make any encouraging progress at finding an escape from these lands?"

Ethan realizes that a slight pressure on his brain lessens the further she goes. It puzzles him, and he climbs the stairs until he notices the feeling coming back. He goes back into the vault room, making it vanish again. 'Is it because she doesn't have a soul? Can I feel that?'

The man in the center gasps for air and falls onto his back. Black veins crawl up his arms and neck, and he crawls away, desperately trying to breathe as hard as he can. He echoes fear and pain, reminding Ethan of his first time feeling the drawback of using life force.

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