The Swordsman raised the bottle to his mouth, pulled the cork out with his teeth, and took a short swig of the greenish liquid, then put the cork back in. A couple drops of the liquid clung to the stubble of his chin, evaporating into barely-visible wisps of emerald-green Fog as he spoke - slowly, deliberately, calmly. Carefully.

“Now… I won’t ask who you were on the outside, ‘cause it’s frankly better if we don’t know,” he said, gesturing with his sword as punctuation. “I also won’t ask where all your gear is, or why you’ve come to this Exclusion Zone.”

“So you’re the leader, huh?” Zelsys asked, a cocky grin spreading over her face. Even without the context necessary to understand her situation, she couldn’t help but feel amused by the trio.

The Swordsman gave a slow nod, raising the bottle again as he begrudgingly admitted “Only ‘cause I’m the only one with a good enough Aether to distill Viriditas,” swirling it around for punctuation. The inside of the glass fogged up as some of the liquid turned to green Fog and immediately condensed back to liquid, Wire’s right eye twitching towards the bottle as the Swordsman lowered it back down, while he grumbled into his beard. “Viriditas. So that’s what they call it,” she thought.

“That bein’ said, yer clearly in some deep shit if that’s what you’re wearing, look like one o’ the occupiers. So tell me. What can you offer up if we help you get outta here? And trust me, you’ll need our help to get outta here.”

Putting together the context clues as she went, she slowly raised the Tablet. The Swordsman narrowed his eyes as he tried to get a better look at it. He looked into Zelsys’ eyes, back at the tablet, then back at her, blinking a couple times, a mixture of disbelief and faint hope serving to soften his features, if only a bit.

Spliteye and Wire turned to look at him, both confused by the crack in his otherwise calm demeanor. Wire’s confusion was complete and genuine, whereas Spliteye clearly understood something about the situation that Zelsys didn’t, her eye and voice both shuddering as she whispered “This could be our ticket out of this shithole.”

A brief smile crossed the Swordsman’s face, he nodded, and turned to begin walking away, sheathing his sword as he used the bottle to gesture for Zelsys to follow, which she did gladly, albeit cautiously. Spliteye followed closely behind him and Wire just stood there, waiting for Zelsys to catch up, his gun still trained on her. He grew more and more twitchy the closer she got, the muzzle of his rifle noticeably trembling as she passed him. He stood there, waiting to follow until she had caught up with Spliteye. Far enough that he thought he could shoot her in the back faster than she could reach him, if it came to that.

Zelsys noticed Spliteye's gun shake slightly as she approached to walk beside her, the creak of leather gloves betraying an otherwise relaxed posture.