"Who wants to know what a Guardian Entity really is?"

Dragan grinned as he wiggled the satchel between his fingers, the liquid within audibly sloshing this way and that. His eyes flicked over the different faces of the group, taking in their expressions. He had the floor, it seemed.

With his free hand, he snapped his fingers and pointed at Lily. "How about it? What do you think a Guardian Entity is, as you understand it?"

Lily shrugged. "Uh, a spirit, I guess? Like a ghost or something. Never really thought about it."

"No such thing as ghosts," Dragan shook his head.

"Says the space alien!"

"That's different," Dragan replied, without explaining how that was different. His pointing finger swerved to target Ted instead. "How about you -- what do you think a Guardian Entity is, really?"

Ted seemed to give the question a little more consideration than his supposed superior, one of his fingers idly stroking the head of the sloth-creature on his shoulder as he mulled it over.

"I suppose," he said slowly. "I would best describe them as projections, constructs summoned or sculpted by godsblood."

Not quite, but Dragan would give marks for giving the question a double-digits number of seconds of thought.

"Godsblood," he clarified. "That's the energy that appears before you bring out one of those Guardian Entities, right? The stuff that looks like electricity?"

Ted furrowed his brow. "I think you've lost me. What is electricity, please?"

Dragan snapped his fingers again. "Doesn't matter," he replied. "My point is -- what you call godsblood, we call Aether. It's the stuff we, uh, we space aliens use to do all our crazy shit. We just use it in a different way than you."

"Why's this important?" Lily clearly wasn't having any of this, her arms crossed and her mouth a straight line of explicit displeasure.

Dragan answered the question in a way -- he didn't actually reply to Lily, per se, but he would be getting to her query soon enough anyway. "I'm sure you've seen Ruth summon that armour of hers, right?"

Reluctantly, Lily engaged: "Right. At first, we thought it was a Guardian Entity. So you're saying that's not the case?"

Dragan's grin spread just a bit wider. "Not at all -- you're exactly right. The process Ruth uses to summon her armour is called manifesting, and it's the exact same way you guys summon your Guardian Entities. You've had the Entity recorded in your Aether, and then you pull it out when you need it. The only difference is that Ruth's armour is an object, and the Entities are living organisms."

Bruno put a hand to his chin. "It's just like the Fifth Dead, then, from Taldan. He recorded animals and then manifested them to attack."

"Yeah," Dragan nodded. "Exactly. If that guy had crash-landed here, he'd probably have been top dog within the day."

Over in the corner, Skipper grinned to himself, catching Dragan's eye. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet for the last couple of minutes -- was he getting ready to do something annoying, or just watching the show?

"Sorry if I'm being slow," Ted cut in, pulling Dragan's attention back. "But when you say 'recorded', you mean it in the sense of text being transcribed into a book? Wouldn't that imply, then, that the original text existed before that -- or the original Guardian Entity, in this case?"

Dragan nodded -- and once again wiggled the satchel in his hand. "Yes -- the Guardian Entities are only deployed using Aether. This satchel confirms that."

Bruno's grim expression softened into Serena's easy smile. "I remember that," she whispered conspiratorially, elbowing Lily next to her in the ribs. "Mr. Dragan was trying to get a drink out of the enemy's mouth. He's crazy."

Lily rubbed her side, staring at Serena in confusion. No doubt she still didn't quite understand what was going on with the del Sed switching act. Poor her. Dragan wasn't going to explain any time soon, either -- he could only exposit one thing at a time, after all.

He continued: "Thanks for the reminder, Serena. That's not quite, uh, true -- but thanks anyway. What actually happened is that I managed to snag some venom from one of the Guardian Entities that attacked me back at the Regulator's camp."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "You were doing that while it was trying to kill you? They're right -- you are crazy."

"No, I'm normal. The important thing is that it's been hours, right? Hours. That lady won't have kept her Guardian Entity manifested for this long without interruption. And yet…"

He swirled the satchel around, the sounds of the liquid moving within clearly audible.

"...the venom is still here. Ergo, it's an actual physical object. Ergo, the Guardian Entities are actual physical beings, not something created through Aether. Adjusted through Aether, maybe, to give 'em some wacky abilities -- but the base existed before Aether even got involved."

Skipper pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against, hands in his pockets. The look in his eyes gave Dragan the infuriating feeling that he'd long since been beaten to the punch.

"Pray tell, then, Mr. Hadrien," Skipper said. "What kinda base are we talking about here?"

Dragan took a deep breath, looking over at the two native listeners. "So, to explain this bit, I think I have to go over a little of the background. I don't suppose either of you knows what a Gene Tyrant is?"

The man called Old Owl limped through the forest, leaf-covered hat bobbing up and down as he did so.

At least, Ruth assumed his name was Old Owl -- those were the words she kept hearing her escorts whisper whenever the man spoke. Whatever his name was, he was clearly the leader of this group: this miasma of respect and fear was just like what Rupert Grave had projected.

"You wonder about my name, I think," Old Owl grumbled as he stepped over a root, not turning to face Ruth.

No point pretending. "Yeah, I kinda am."

He chuckled humourlessly. "I am old, and I am like an owl. What else can there be to it?"

Nope. Still didn't make any sense. "How are you like an owl?"

"I watch. An owl watches everything -- and that is my same soul. I watched you through other eyes." Finally, he turned to glance back at her, his single visible eye piercing. "You are strong. This is an obvious thing."

Ruth glanced around uneasily, trying to ignore the half-concealed hostility of her escorts. "What's that mean? You watch through other eyes? Like, with a Guardian Entity or something?"

The eye closed. "No. It is a metaphor. Other people tell me what things I want to know. That you do not understand this is… lamentable."

Grena, walking beside her, put a hand to her mouth in an obvious attempt to suppress a painful chuckle. Ruth felt burning humiliation rush to her cheeks. She'd been dropped out of the sky by a flying ghost barely days ago -- how was she supposed to still believe in metaphors?!

"Well," Ruth scowled, crossing her arms. "Sorry if I'm such a disappointment. Maybe you should just let me go."

"I cannot let you go."

"Why not?"

"You are not my prisoner."

As Old Owl said that, he pushed aside the branch in front of him, sweet sunlight finally flooding in through the gap. His eye opened again as Ruth's adjusted to the sudden incandescence.

"This is where the victory starts," he said, by way of explanation.

The camp Lily Aubrisher's rebels had maintained had been a ramshackle affair, more a gang of unfortunately idealistic kids than an actual resistance. This, however, was an army.

Disciplined-looking figures in similar camouflage to Old Owl and Grena marched through the camp with purpose -- transporting bags of weapons and countless barrels to waiting carriages. The camp itself seemed to be built directly into the trees that formed the forest: Ruth had no doubt she'd have looked over this location entirely if the inhabitants hadn't been in sight. A sneak attack in that situation would have been child's play.

Ruth gulped.

"You said you're the real resistance," she muttered. "What does that mean? I get you're against the Regulators or whatever, but what makes you more real than the other guys?"

Again, Old Owl chuckled humourlessly. "Aubrisher and her children fight newborn war, ours is geriatric. Coren has desired us dead for as long as we have been living. When I began fighting, I was a teenager. Now I am a geriatric too."

"So it's just, uh… it's just a time thing? You've been doing it longer?"

Old Owl stiffly shook his head. "The spider is a patient thing," he said, as if that explained anything. "It is the master of waiting. It spins its webs while the sun goes up and down, and eats plenty when the job is done. We are the spider. We have spread our web." His eye flicked over to Grena for a second. "Spies placed in Coren's society. War carefully, carefully prepared for."

Ruth could believe that, with the number of weapons being moved about. The Regulator's forces were still superior, of course, but this group could probably slaughter Lily's rebels without too much trouble.

Ruth jumped as Old Owl clapped a celebratory hand on her shoulder -- she hadn't even realized he'd been moving until his hand was on her.

"This is a good time," he rumbled, hand pulling back. "Things have become a good time. It is almost time to eat our fill."

"What do you mean?"

They walked further into the encampment, Ruth looking uneasily at the creatures pulling the carriages -- huge blue crustaceans, disk-shaped, mandibles clicking together impatiently as they stomped in place.

Old Owl didn't answer her question straight away -- instead, he followed her gaze to the animals. "Horses surprise you. You haven't seen before?"

Ruth clicked her tongue. "That's, uh… that's a horse?"

The eye flicked over to Grena again, an invisible communication. The woman shrugged, and the eye flicked back.

"Yes," Old Owl said -- rather than elaborate further, he instead hopped back to the previous topic. "You ask why it is a good time now. That is because of what you have done. The Prester and the good lady are within reach. They can be killed as one thing. Two failed killings have opened up a third for success. You have done very well."

Despite everything, Ruth felt the slightest smirk of relief cross her lips. She barely understood what this man was talking about, but this tiny approval helped lift the burden that had been crushing her heart recently -- if only a little.

Still, she had questions. She had nothing but questions.

"The, uh, the good lady? Who's that?" she asked, stopping to lean against a tree -- she couldn't even remember when they'd first started walking, and her legs were made of pain.

A barely visible eyebrow rose up at Ruth's query, and Old Owl reached up to adjust his hat slightly. "You really --"

That was the last straw.

"No!" Ruth shouted suddenly, striking the tree behind her with such force that the bark splintered. "No, I really don't know! So tell me -- explain! I'm sick of everyone here looking at me like I'm an idiot! I am an idiot, but I'm not going to let you assholes treat me like one anymore! I want answers!"

She took a step forward -- and as if on cue, four of Old Owl's comrades stepped in front of him defensively, their bodies entirely covered in leafy cloaks. Ruth's eyes flicked between them: if this ended in a fight, she'd have to watch for tricks like the ones Grena had used. Concealing their bodies like this made it easier for them to take her by surprise, after all.

But in the end, no fight came.

Old Owl simply lifted a hand, and the four guards stepped away, melting into the shadows. The single eye narrowed at Ruth, still stood there with her hands balled into fists. The old man chuckled -- and this time, there was the tiniest hint of actual humour.

"You are really a brave girl," he said. "Very well, then, very well. Follow, and I will tell you the secrets of this world. All of them."