As the professor went back to check on the dehumidifier, Rylan crouched down by the pool to stare at the still intact Hermean spirit prison which now lay at the bottom.

From the side, it kinda looks like a hexagon... So this is what the mark of the Hermeans signifies, huh? It's not a flame at all, it's a trapped spirit.

The ancient civilisation lost some of its shine to Rylan in that moment. Maris didn't owe them anything; they just lured her in then told her to work for her freedom. At least they'd been planning to release her at all, I guess.

[You, ehm, you all right, Boss?] Arphin asked hesitantly, seeming to sense Rylan's mood, either through their connection or just through his body language.

'Yeah, I'm all right, Arphin,' Rylan replied. 'Mostly. Do you... do you think I did the right thing, releasing her?'

[Of course you did, Boss!] Arphin replied, sounding baffled. [She was hurting so bad and you totally saved her!]

'Yeah, but... I may have doomed us all in the process.'

[Right... That part isn't as great,] Arphin agreed. [But you'll think of something, Boss; I know you will!]

Though Rylan was under no illusions that he deserved the sentient blade's total confidence, he still felt a little heartened.

That quickly went away when he glanced over at Tamina, who was leaning back against a nearby wall with her arms folded over her chest. She didn't return his gaze.

"All right," Soren said as he hurried over. "The professor is staying to look over the device a little longer, so I'd like to get a head start and go topside to rendezvous with the rest." When neither of them jumped up to leave, Soren let out a sigh, brushing some unruly locks back with a single hand. "Look, if I'm to smooth things over with the baroness, I really need you two to work with me here."

"Work with you?" Rylan repeated sharply. "You know, the funny thing is, I thought we were working with you. But then it turned out you were lying to us, and were actually working with a bunch of former pirates!"

Soren met his gaze calmly. "Right. I guess we should talk about that first. Thar Tamina, would you give us some privacy, please?"

"Actually, she can stay," Rylan said. "I think she deserves to hear what you have to say as well."

"I'm afraid she can't," Soren replied seriously, before turning to Tamina. "Trust me; the less you know the better."

Tamina took him in for a moment, then nodded. "It's fine, Rylan," she said when he opened his mouth again, her face expressionless. "This smells like politics, and I try to keep my nose out of that stuff. The Talons pay me well, but not that well. I'll go sit in the stairwell."

Rylan watched her leave with a frown. She didn't call me Ry...

"So," Soren said, taking a seat by the pool and starting to remove his fancy runegear boots. "Might as well make yourself comfortable. I'm going to tell you... everything."

"You sure about that?" Rylan asked sarcastically.

Soren shrugged, wiggling his toes a little before he stuck his feet in the water, producing ripples that kept going and bounced off the other edges of the hexagon. "The gull's flown the coop anyway."

Rylan hovered in indecision for a moment, then sat down next to his contentious friend cross-legged, keeping his shoes on like a normal, civilised person. "Fine. Why don't you start by telling me why you lied to my face about finding this place?"

Soren winced. "Right... Look, I'm sorry about that, but I promise I had a good reason."

Rylan's brows rise. "Well? Out with it."

"We'll get to that," Soren promised, keeping his voice low. "It won't make much sense if I don't start at the beginning, so... let's see. Do you remember how Yuel bragged that Isai used to work for the Thorns?"

"Yes?"

"Well, that was a bit of an understatement. Isai was their lead researcher for a good decade or two, until they had a falling out. You see, Isai was pushing for research that would benefit society as a whole, like his prosthetics, but the Thorns were more interested in weaponizing his work and keeping the advancements for themselves."

"About what I'd expect from a 'noble' family," Rylan said dryly.

Soren glanced over at him, his expression serious. "The Thorns really aren't the worst, you know? They do provide excellent prosthetics to people in all walks of life."

"The ones that can afford it, you mean."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Soren scratched the back of his head. "Well... it's true that not everyone can afford a genuine Thorn prosthetic, but if they hadn't pushed the technology to the cutting edge, there wouldn't be any cheaper models available either. Anyway, I digress. Isai left the Thorns to join the up-and-coming Black Sheep, offering to radically redesign their ship. Ryles... all those stories of the Black Sheep miraculously disappearing are actually true! And it's all thanks to him; he turned the Soggy Shepherd into a subnimbus!"

Rylan blinked. "A what?"

"It's a ship capable of sinking down into the cloudsea and coming back up!" Soren continued, gesticulating wildly, his eyes gleaming. "It used deepmetal as ballast. By pouring in mana, they could regulate their weight, allowing them to sink to just below the surface; that's how they always got away!"

After his experience with his anklet, Rylan wasn't the biggest fan of deepmetal, but hearing how the pirate crew used it, he couldn't help but feel like a little kid again, hearing about their clever exploits. "That's genius!"

"I know, right?! Anyway, some years ago, the Thorns reached out to Isai, asking for his help with a project. They negotiated, and came to an agreement. One that involved the pirates going legit."

"Wait, that's how the captain became a Baroness?"

Soren nodded. "I don't know the details, but grandma always said the Thorns have a pretty good bond with the royal family."

"So why'd they need Isai's help?" Rylan asked, unfolding his legs as they were starting to cramp a little. He hesitated a moment, then decided to take his shoes off after all. Soren's toes did look rather comfortable in the water.

"One of their projects—a long-range sensor for mana-fluctuations—had picked up a rhythmic, pulsing signal," Soren continued as Rylan dipped his toes in the cold water. "Moreover, the signal seemed to remain completely constant over time. So they decided to investigate, tracking it to this general area of the cloudsea, where they determined that it was too deep to launch an expedition by rope ladder. Plus, there are apparently no islands nearby whatsoever..."

Rylan swallowed, the guilt in his stomach flaring up.

"So instead, they got into contact with Isai, and hired the Black Sheep to use the Foggy Shepherd to descend. Except the source of the signal was obviously the dehumidifier. So when they tried to sink down here—"

"They crashed!" Rylan exclaimed, his eyes widening. "Because there was no fog!"

Soren petulantly folded his arms over his chest. "Hey, are you telling the story, or am I?"

Rylan shot him an unimpressed look.

Soren cleared his throat. "Too soon for jokes, got it. Anyway, that's exactly right. They flew into the bubble and dropped like a plucked gull. The detector they'd brought was apparently a rather 'finicky' device, and it was irreparably damaged in the crash. So while the professor started working on a way to get the ship fogborne again, the captain started looking for the source of the signal on foot, without much luck. Then we arrived, and the captain decided to confide in me due to my familial ties with the Thorns, and asked for my help to look for it."

"And then you found it thanks to me?" Rylan asked to confirm.

Soren nodded seriously. "Might've taken us weeks to stumble upon that entrance, if it wasn't for you. I swear, Ryles, I would've given you the credit, but I wasn't about to reveal your mysterious connection to Maris. I wanted to keep you out of trouble; both of you."

Rylan narrowed his eyes. "Why would Tamina be in trouble?"

Soren let out a sigh. "Well, that's the thing. The main thing, really. The reason I lied to you, the reason the captain asked me not to confide in you—despite my arguing for it—is that Tamina's under Contract."

Rylan blinked. "Her Contract? What does that have to do with it?"

"The Talons and the Thorns aren't exactly friendly," Soren reminded Rylan. "And there's no way Vidric wouldn't question her about her trip when she miraculously returns. And I can tell you one thing: there is definitely a no-lying-to-the-Talons clause in that Contract. Which is why I cannot stress this enough: you cannot repeat this stuff to her."

Rylan scoffed. "What, because I owe your family?"

"No," Soren replied without an ounce of humour. "Because if Tamina learns too much, the captain will kill her."

Rylan felt his blood run cold. "Are you being serious right now?!"

"Dead serious," Soren stressed. "This mission was supposed to be top-secret. Plus, the captain hates the Talons—they've got some kind of history—otherwise she never would've agreed to go legit and work for the Thorns."

"Then what do we do?!"

"Well, first of all, we keep Tamina in the dark as best we can, so the Captain doesn't get any further ideas about disposing of her."

Rylan stood up and started pacing. "Great Spirits, Soren, you should've warned us!"

"What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, there's stuff you can't know about, so don't go snooping around, you hear?' You think I don't know you better than that?"

Rylan stopped in his tracks, whirling around to face Soren. "Don't you dare shift this onto my shoulders. I thought you trusted me! If you'd just at least clued me in—"

"Of course I trust you personally, but this wasn't about me!" Soren replied just as heatedly. "This was about my family! Tell me, Rylan, what reason have you to keep their secrets, huh? Fog, as far as I know, you might decide to help the Talons just out of spite!"

Rylan opened his mouth to refute that, then deflated. "Well, I wouldn't go that far," he grumbled. "And I would've wanted to keep Tamina safe, at least."

"So did I," Soren said, running his hand through his hair with a sigh. "And I thought that's what I was doing, but I guess I fogged it up."

A silence fell over them for a moment.

Rylan dropped back down next to Soren, feeling rather drained. He glanced over at Tamina, who was leaning against a wall on the other side of the chamber with her eyes closed, seemingly brooding on something. "Do you think... do you think she already knows too much, having found this place?"

Soren hesitated, then slowly shook his head. "If the captain wanted her dead, I think she would've already killed her. Ironically enough, you probably saved her life by setting Maris free. The Thorns almost getting their hands on an ancient spirit with knowledge about Hermean technology isn't half as valuable a secret. And the dehumidifier is pretty much toast too, it seems. I don't think the professor will be able to replicate the device anytime soon."

"Right... So, now what?"

"Well, we're in a real bind," Soren replied after a moment. "We need Aetherium, and fast. The captain and I have been looking for the stuff, but this place is a mess; all the important buildings in the centre are smashed to bits, excavating a single one could take weeks if not months, even if we could spare the manpower."

"So we're fogged."

"Thoroughly."

Soren reached out to pat Rylan's shoulder. Lacking the energy to pull away, Rylan let it happen.

"But we'll find a way," Soren continued. "We've made it this far, haven't we?"

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