After leaving Haven Under, Azriah and Ethan travel south through the dead forest, avoiding the lairs Four mapped out. Azriah not excelling in stealth, they have to fight several groups of insectoid monsters on their way. But she proves that nothing here has the strength to wound her, much less resist her attacks.

The monsters living on the surface are nothing compared to those who attacked Ethan in the mines. And they are too little of a challenge to increase even Russ' level.

"Why aren't they attacking you?" Azriah asks, cleaving one last giant centipede.

Having figured out these monsters are attracted to vibration, Ethan combined Galewalker and Silent Steps to make himself invisible. He unsummons his blade, dropping the last centipede he killed. "They hear movements with the small hair on their carapace. I use a spell to manipulate air flow around me."

"Couldn't you share?" she asks, taking out a cloth to clean her weapon.

"It's made to move faster. It's not something you want to try out in the middle of a fight." Ethan triggers Predator's Sight to scan the landscape but still doesn't sense human presence.

"Still nothing?" Azriah asks.

"We should be getting close," Ethan answers. By his estimations, Lucian's target should be near; a few kilometers at most. He looks around, trying to find buildings amongst the all-encompassing fog. A peak jutting slightly from it arrests his attention. It seems devoid of corrupted life, only giving off the even coldness of stone.

"It's a temple," Azriah says, looking in the same direction as Ethan. "Maybe that's what he was searching for."

"How –" Ethan cuts himself off with an unintended yawn.

"How do you know?" Ethan asks. He cancels Predator's Sight to search for symbols carved into the stone he wouldn't see with heat overlaid. The fog hides most of it from him, leaving only the jutting, rocky peak.

"I think it belongs to the goddess of death; she doesn't need worshippers to maintain some of her influence." Azriah folds the cloth she used neatly and places it back into one of her satchels.

"And you can feel that?" Ethan asks. He worries she might be able to sense Kaliathra's presence if the goddess scries on him.

"Kind of," Azriah answers. "It's just a feeling I get around sanctified places. Temples, churches, cemeteries, roadside altars, … I know when I'm getting close to one."

"People too?" Ethan asks, moving towards the supposed temple. The ground lowers, plunging them into the dense fog.

"From Paladins, Priests and the like? I know from their Ether before I get the feeling," Azriah answers, following Ethan. "Sometimes I get it from people when they pray, but it doesn't happen with everyone."

After a last leap across a small ravine, Ethan lands on paved stone. It is a short alley, ending on a large, oversized stone door into a circular building. The mortar that once joined the slabs is gone, eaten away by time. The stones are covered in humid dust, and yet there isn't a single patch of mold on them. Nothing lives in this place.

Aziah lands behind Ethan and moves to the edge of the paved alley where lie sloped stones, carved with names, dates, and epitaphs. She moves alongside them, taking her time to read every stone. "Am I seeing things, or is this one born and dead in the future?"

Ethan glances at the tomb she points at. It says whoever is buried there lived forty years in the twelfth century. "Wrong calendar."

"Ho," Azriah says, understanding her mistake. "So how old is this place?"

"Don't know. At least a thousand," Ethan guesses.

The tombs bear insignia of varied complexity, going from a simple kite shield to a crowned and winged skull. The complexity of the insignia equates with the size and ornaments of the tomb, hinting at the dead's status.

"I wonder what it looked like," Azriah muses. She turns around to scan the entire burial alley, stopping as she lays eyes on the stone gate. Now that they are closer, they can see the reliefs carved into the doors. It depicts soldiers in hulking armor, keeping chained gates behind them. These further, carved gates bear faces, sleeping like those on decorated coffins.

Ethan presses his hands against each door and pushes them open. They give way with a sluggish, grinding groan, exhaling a gust of stale air that smells of dust. Beyond lies a wide, circular balcony edging a pit. Two stairs go up and down at opposite sides of the room, and another door lies at the other side. It is left open.

Flat boot prints litter the ground, indicating recent passage. Russ jumps out of Ethan's shadow to sniff them, eclipsing any doubt he had.

Human-sized door frames line the wall, leading to rooms.

"I'll go downstairs. You search this floor?" Azriah asks.

"Sure," Ethan confirms.

Ethan moves along the wall slowly, using Silent Step to hide his presence. Some rooms are empty; others still cradle remnants of what used to be barracks. He stops by the first one he sees; people sleep on the stone beds not long ago. Judging by the traces in the dust, they laid imposing backpacks at the beds' heads. They also slept with their weapons.

Russ comes back, nose twitching as he sniffs the stone beds.

Ethan continues and finds a room that had a door that was breached open. An armory lies behind it, with stone racks and mannequins.

Nine suits of armor are missing from their stands. The imprints left in the dust show that they were taken recently. Weapons are also absent from their racks – mostly swords, spears, and bows, judging by the imprints they left. Vial cabinets are left open and empty, looted of their entire contents.

"I found an arena," Azriah informs from below. "And a door. But it's leading to a pile of rubles."

"Armory here. Looted," Ethan says. He picks one of the spears left on the racks. Its metal shaft and prominent tip make it heavy and would render it unwieldy to a normal human. A faint taint of death Ether lingers in the metal. The armors are much the same; their thickness would tire normal humans in a few steps. They were made for soldiers far stronger than the average guard Ethan encountered.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Should we go up?" Azriah asks, vaulting over the balcony's edge after a jump.

"It doesn't feel like a temple," Ethan comments, coming out of the armory. He stashes the spear into his Inventory. "Or at least it doubled as a garrison."

"Well, it isn't uncommon. Before Aranthor Elarion's reign, most of Seraphel's churches maintained a large number of troops to enforce the laws of their god. But I haven't heard of Kaliathra doing the same." Azriah stops before an altar carved into the wall to inspect a statuette of the goddess of death. "Who would want to be kept safe by people revering death?"

"People who feared for the fate of their souls?" Ethan guesses.

"But that's what people pray to Seraphel for. That the souls of their dead may join him in his realm," Azriah retorts.

"In a land with a sunless sky?" Ethan asks rhetorically.

"We could just be near the poles. Some regions have days and nights that last entire seasons." She seems to think about her theory for a moment. "But then the moons would be at a lower angle."

Ethan pushes open a pair of stone doors at the top of the stairs. "I think we landed on the dark continent."

"The dark continent's sky is like a constant setting sun, not a perpetual night," Azriah retorts. She seems to think about it for a moment. "Only its east coast has been settled on. We could be further inside, but the reason nobody from Aldoria went further is the monsters. I don't think a few oversized bugs is what stopped them."

"I've read the stories too," Ethan confirms, brushing dust off his fingers. His gaze drifts across the faint carvings on the inner walls of the large, circular room. It is opened to a balcony on its south side, giving them a view of the endless mist. "Leviathans that swallowed fleets trying to land further south. Giants made of bleeding wood carrying diseases that melt the flesh of those who stand too close. And mountains of corpses resembling giant beasts like this one."

Azriah stops to look at the mural Ethan nods at.

In the center lies a dragon made of corpses, limbs jutting out like spikes. Its body coils through the entire span of the mural, an immense serpent of flesh with wings of bones and scales made of armor absorbed from its victims.

Around the dragon, the soldiers of this tower advance in disciplined lines. They are emotionless, all wearing their helmets made to resemble Kaliathra's porcelain mask. Banners rise in their midst, bearing her sigil. The stone echoes in Ethan's soul, casting off the terror its sculptor wanted it to represent.

Azriah glances at the other murals. "We could head east until we reached the sea. But we'll meet some of them."

Ethan steps towards the room's center, where lies a large table. It bears hundreds of stone-carved buildings laid out to map a large city. Towers lie at eight locations along its perimeter wall, and one of them is inlaid with emeralds. A massive building, similar to a pyramid but for bridges leading into it and terraces, dominates at the center. A river, made of blue glass, splits the city from west to east, flowing under the central pyramid.

'Lucian would have gone towards the center. If he's searching for weapons or artifacts, they'll be in there,' Ethan thinks. He looks out through the open wall, but the fog hides everything. He begins to move to step outside but is taken by a sudden weakness. His muscles feel fuzzy and his eyes heavy, as if sleeplessness had caught up to him.

"I've been feeling tired too," Azriah comments. She comes to the central table to scan the depicted city. "Usually, I can go for three to four days without sleep. But since I arrived here, I've been forced to rest what would be every night. It only gets worse if you fight it."

Ethan blinks and stretches his eyes, trying to cast off the exhaustion. "I hadn't slept in some time before … last night, so I didn't realize. I think at some point I felt so exhausted I had to go to sleep. How long do we have before that?"

"An hour or two," Azriah answers. "I'll barricade the doors on the middle floor. You set up your ritual."

"Sure," Ethan confirms, holding himself to the table's edge.

"Why didn't you tell me about the forced sleep before we departed?" Ethan asks as Azriah returns. He opened Verse of Power on the edge of the table, around which he centered his anti-dark-Ether ritual.

"I thought you knew; I hoped I was the only one affected. I think a little bit of both," Azriah explains. She takes care not to disturb the ritual as she comes closer.

"If you had been the only one affected, you would have been at my mercy once you were forced to sleep," Ethan comments. He sits down alongside the table; Russ comes out to lie beside him, his maw on Ethan's leg.

"I mean, we fought together; I think I can trust you to not attack me in my sleep," Azriah retorts. She glances at the wires Ethan placed across the opening and the bits of armor he used to make an alarm. She doesn't notice the claymores he hid behind them. She sits alongside the opposite side of the table.

"Again with that?" Ethan asks, turning a page. "What idealist optimist taught you that?"

"My dad," Azriah answers. She shifts her voice to an unnatural, caricatural deepness. "You can only know someone when you've tried to kill them or fought beside them."

The voice she mimics, though in a humoristic manner, tickles Ethan's memory. He feels as if he heard it before but cannot seem to remember when. "It doesn't say anything about trust."

Azriah tilts back her head to look at the ceiling. "It's hard to describe. When we fought together, I felt like you didn't believe this thing could harm you. You have a goal, whatever that is, and that monster was just a small obstacle in your path."

"I still don't see why it would equate to trust," Ethan comments, scribbling a ritual idea.

"You don't do things on emotions or impulses. At least not often," Azriah guesses. "As long as I don't become an obstacle and can keep up with you, I think you'll let me tag along. It feels like my best option to get out of this horrendous place."

Ethan doesn't respond. He finalizes his sketch and pours a sliver of Ether into the paper. It casts a small sphere that absorbs sounds until the Ether burns off the paper.

Azriah yawns. She glances back at Ethan's work before asking, "How were your parents? I mean when you were a child."

"My father was … absent," Ethan begins. She won't be able to track his real identity down; there's no need to risk her detecting a lie. "He was often away on expeditions while I stayed home or at school. He did bring me with him a few times, and those are some of the best memories I have of him before he died. But I'm guessing you're asking because you think you didn't have a normal childhood, princess. I'm sorry, but mine wasn't normal either."

"I'm not a princess," Azriah corrects, almost annoyed. "And your mom?"

Ethan's brow furrows at the question. "Died in labor. You?"

"Sorry," Azriah says. "She never acknowledged that I was hers. It would be a disgrace if she admitted to having a child with another than her husband. So, she gave me to my father, and I've seen her five times in my entire life."

"You need to talk about it?" Ethan offers. He recognizes the tone of someone who has a lot to share and no one to share it with. With nothing else to do, he might as well listen.

"I'm not a princess or a noble, but my mother is. Her entire court knows that I am her daughter, but they, especially her husband, cannot do anything to me or my father, her executioner, until she acknowledges me." Azriah pulls in her halberd closer and spins the spear tip against her finger. "Her husband, my … king, made me his executioner. He uses that to send me on suicide missions to try and get me killed."

Ethan glances at her as she pauses her story. "Your execution escapee?"

"Yes," Azriah confirms. "I already know I won't be coming back alive from this one."

Ethan remains silent for a while, thinking. He shuts his book close and unsummons it. "Are you worried that if you desert, your father will pay for it?"

"They have a way to kill me whenever they want," Azriah reveals. "If I fail, I die. And he won't hesitate or give me a second chance."

"And someone altered the spell that was supposed to take you to your target," Ethan recalls.

"So, you see why I need to leave this place as soon as possible," Azriah confirms. She curls up a little, shy and vulnerable. "Can you promise me something?"

"What?" Ethan asks, feeling the exhaustion taking hold of him.

"If I die, can you make sure to destroy what's left of me?" Azriah asks.

"Sure," Ethan answers with a yawn.

"Promise," Azriah pushes.

"If I know it happened, and if it's in my power, I'll make sure there is nothing left of you." It is what he would do for any member of N.E.S.T.'s hidden side. His eyes grow heavy, and he's dragged down before she can say more. 'The next time I dream, I want to remember that I am dreaming.'

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