Pellex was in pain. He had experienced a pale shadow of it before, but now he would never confuse that infinitesimal concern with what he was now feeling. Every inch of him was burning in unrelenting pain, nerves searing across his body. His skin felt like it was trying to slough off his bones, and it didn’t seem picky about what went with it. The torture went on forever, every minute, just as seemed like he was about to adjust, it would flare again, tenfold. He tried to think through the pain, tried to remember if he had anything that could help him endure, but [Cogsight] didn’t answer. The pedestal no mere construct, and none of his other skills would detach him from his body. All he could do was focus on what mattered. He had to prevent Julian from being suspicious of him. He needed to free the other prisoners. He needed to escape. He needed to… He needed… He… With a sobbing gasp, he managed to pry his fingers off.

Almost instantly, the pain disappeared, washed away by something from outside of Pellex. A type of power Pellex had only felt once before. Julian hadn’t been lying about that, then. A Facet’s blessing…

“19 seconds. Above average, if not by much. I commend your attitude, though. You chose the hard path with no hesitation, and can skip the lowly bronze of the unblessed.” Julian’s words cut into his relief, and Pellex turned to see the pirate offering a silver pin. Pellex accepted it from Julian, and affixed it to the jacket he had received from the dungeon.

“Now, as it happens, I cannot begin explaining your duties just yet. I have… personal matters, one might call them, to attend to. You should return to the armory, for now.” Julian plucked a key from midair with a snap of green power, and held it out to Pellex, who took it quickly.

“That will unlock the armory. If you require food, simply go to the mess hall.”

“How do I get to those rooms? And what if I run into someone else, did you already inform the other arders about me?”

“You’ll find you know quite well where you need to go. And as for the others, well, you’re wearing a pin. They respect the pin.” And with that, Julian was gone, a green blur fading in his wake. Pellex concentrated, and sure enough, he did know exactly how to get to the armory and mess hall. And anywhere else he needed to go. A perfect map of the complex had been placed in his head, presumably while he was asleep. Pellex was curious who had done it, though. If it was Julian, then that implied either a mage skill that was relatively uncommon or high-tier, or a usage of power. Both would be expensive. But if it hadn’t been Julian, then just how long had he been out? Pellex shook his head and focused. Julian had given him essentially free reign of the facility. Stopping by the armory would be useful, though. And it was best to keep up appearances. For now.

Pellex walked firmly through the halls, ignoring any arders he saw. The first few he’d passed had worried him, but they’d seen the badge and moved aside. With the implanted knowledge of the complex’s layout, it didn’t take long to get to the armory. Pellex unlocked the door and went inside. The room seemed to be untouched, to Pellex’s relief, and he quickly dug the transmitters out of the pile. His unfinished runeneedle was still unwrapped on the workbench, but Pellex moved it aside to work on one of the less-broken cogpistols. He didn’t need it to be clean, he needed it to work, and fortunately this one just needed some minor adjustments on that front.

After a few minutes work, Pellex finished and sent a pulse of thi into the gun’s capacitor. He could feel the response, the soft vibration of the power it now held. He found a holster in the haphazard piles and put it on, securing his cogpistol in it as soon as that was done. Having spent his time working on the cogpistol watching for movement outside the room or any other signs of observation and not seeing anything, he felt safe enough to check the storage rod. The unornamented bronze cylinder was richly layered in dense enchantments, but Pellex could feel those matrices of thi beginning to fray at the edges. The rod had maybe 24 hours in it, so he would have to get to the others without delay.

Pellex got up and considered his options. The mess hall was appealing, but there were still some soup bottles in the rod. Other than working on guns, which wouldn’t help much with what needed to happen, Pellex had nothing to do but try and free the rest of his party. Scribbling a quick note that would hopefully tie up any possible pursuers for a bit, he grabbed his constructs and headed for the prison.

Pellex entered the prison complex the way he had after his initial conversation with Julian, bypassing the guard at the main entrance. The rows of empty cells, with their expensive construct locks and astral electrum doors, unsettled Pellex, but he had to test the plan he had initially come up with after seeing the Messer locks. Confidently, he walked up to one and touched the lock, activating [Cogsight] as he did so.

The unique divination class skill slipped completely past whatever defenses the lock had had, and Pellex stood, once again, in the machine. He wanted to study the place further, but he had no time. He needed to focus. He tapped a gear, and the vision showed him how to open the lock. After repeating the process on a few more doors, Pellex confirmed that they were all the same combination. Hopefully, as escapees, his party would be in this section.

Narrowly avoiding several arder patrols, Pellex took quite a while to find them. He had figured out early on that those cells which contained prisoners had a yellow light on above them, and that had helped him check faster, but still not fast enough. Every time Pellex thought he was about to check the last few, he would find another branch of tunnel. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that the facility was mocking him. But it wasn’t. It was under new management, and Julian certainly didn’t seem the type to spend power so wastefully. As Pellex was debating the likelihoods of actual restructuring, illusory redirection techniques, or just hallucination, he knocked on another cell and called into it.

“Hello?”

“Pellex?” Three different voices called out from nearby cells, bringing Pellex incredible relief.

“I’m getting you guys out, don’t worry,” he said, quickly entering the combinations. In only a few moments, the three prisoners were released, and the party was reunited. Pellex wasted no time. He led them out of the prison quickly and silently, checking for other prisoners on the way out, but not finding anyone. Once out, they entered one of the unfinished chambers off to the side of what Pellex’s mental map told him was an out-of-the-way passage. Tapping the storage rod against the room’s floor, he willed it to dump its contents. Grabbing the core lock for himself, he passed the rest of the loot out to the people who needed it.

“If we’re going to escape, we need to fight Julian. I think he performed a soul merge with the dungeon core, but it’s still independent enough to mess with things like loot tables. If it thinks this stuff can tear it out of Julian, we just have to hope it’s right.”

They clearly had questions, but once they heard it was a soul merge, they knew enough for now. Evwel picked up her unused [Excision] skill lens and turned to Refos.

“Will it work?”

Refos considered, sighed, and nodded.

“I watched it done, once.”

“Then I have to do it.”

Holding the lens over her sternum, Evwel sent a pulse of thi through the glass. A massive crack ripped it in half, and then each of those halves suffered the same fate, on to infinity in an instant. Dissolving into motes of light, the skill lens streamed into Evwel, and a blazing red nimbus flashed around her for a second before disappearing. Glancing off into the air, Evwel presumably looked over the notification.

“It worked.”

Refos nodded. He had integrated his lens back in the dungeon, [Soultouch] not having any potential negative consequences. Ucria picked up her bondstick and tapped it to the core lock Pellex held. It made sense, if what they were trying to do was a reverse of the original process, and Pellex could see no other reason why the dungeon would have sent it. They drank some of Holia’s soup, and discussed plans.

“We need to ambush him. Pin him down long enough to begin the extraction,” Evwel said. “[Excision] seems to be pretty similar to some of my other skills, and I may need to be in contact with him the entire time, or at least within [Soultouch]’s radius.”

“He seems to use ngi, at least for the more powerful skills. He’d have been at his most powerful back in the core room, but if we can, um, prevent him from accessing ngi easily, he’ll be a lot weaker.”

“We need to ambush him, or, barring that, draw him to us. Confront him in a place where we can set at least a few of the rules of engagement.”

Pellex nodded and got up.

“There’s only one option, then.”

The party made their way through the complex, narrowly avoiding arders, and entered the armory. After a few last plans, the others hid, and Pellex got to work, waiting for Julian to arrive.