Anticipating Zef’s cautious demeanor, Zel willed her Tablet to send a message:

“I’ve resolved the issue. Red is no longer hostile. Do not engage.”

A mighty grumble issued from Zel’s stomach the moment she stood up, prompting her to store the empty bottle away and retrieve two others; a larger and smaller one, the former containing a Viriditas-based elixir and the latter Rubedo. She mixed the latter into the former, creating a basic Vitae elixir just as she’d done back at the amphitheater, which she downed in one go, grimacing all the way. As the sound of the others’ return grew nearer, Red walked past Zel to return to her dragonfly, turning around once she passed to ask one last question: “Regardless of my identity, I remain a Pateirian agent. Why, then, do I not sense a fraction of the animosity that you so proudly display at every turn towards others like me?”

Before answering Zel finished her drink, briefly shivering at the mouthfeel as she dropped the two bottles into her Tablet’s already-open Fog vortex.

“By the end of the Blue Moon War, I didn’t hate Ubul, either. From what I know of you as Lady Karmesin, you’ve acted against the interests of the Occupationist faction, protecting Ikesians from your own countrymen and undermining Pateirian institutions wherever you’ve gone. Your existence just doesn’t coincide with the reasons I hate the Empire you so fervently claim to serve. Hell, you don’t even act the part the way you did back then; you seek to kill me because you promised to do so, not because I…”

Zel raised her hands, making a mocking quoting gesture.

“...”Courted death” or some other horseshit excuse based on maintaining “face”.”

That concept: Face. It was among the reasons Zelsys despised Pateiria so deeply, and why she found no hatred for Red in her current state. She had become able to discern whether one believed in “face” just by talking to them for a short while, even without the concept itself ever being brought up. It was a rancid sort of underlying dishonesty that suffused everything a person said, how they talked. That rancidness wasn’t there with Red, not anymore.

It certainly wasn’t present in her surprisingly timid followup question: “That may be true, but do you not seek the Empire’s downfall nonetheless?”

“The downfall of the Empire as it exists now, yes. Certainly, Xiān Dì has to die, as do the sycophants that enable his expansionist rule, but that doesn’t mean I seek to exterminate every last Pateirian, to pointlessly conquer as he has done, or to inflict undue suffering upon the little people of Pateiria. If they themselves choose to die in an effort to halt me, they’ll have forfeited their lives, but at the end of the day, my true goal is to see the Empire as it is dissolved so that a new regime may rise in its place… And Xiān Dì’s obnoxious face paraded around on a pike, of course,” Zel explained, glancing over at Red with a slight, yet insufferably smug grin on her face, knowing that such flagrant mention of the Emperor’s real name would elicit a violent outburst in someone with a burning loyalty for the man. She derived tremendous enjoyment from the mantis’ brief attempt at falsified rage, one which fell to the wayside when she noticed just how close the others were now, rushing to close her cloak, flip her hood up, and retrieve her mask from Fog Storage to put it back on. She continued as this went on, finishing her point: “...Thus, I don’t have a reason to hate you more than I do to hate Governor Estoras; you both being foreigners and both technically being occupiers isn’t enough to elicit my hatred.”

“I… Suppose that makes sense,” the Lady in Red conceded, her voice once more distorted and deepened by her mask. She returned to her vehicle just in time for the others to come within immediate eyeshot, returning the Subcore into its slot. Zefaris drove in Jorfr’s wake, holding Pentacle and an enchanted coin in one hand while steering with the other. One could clearly see the rusty-orange of Victor’s hair and the golden-hemmed red of his hood whipping behind her as he held on for dear life. The two Sturmgandrs came to a halt just short of twenty meters from Red’s dragonfly, Zefaris keeping her gun pointed squarely at the back of the mantis’ head as Zel reunited with her own motorbike, seating herself behind Zefaris while Victor switched over to ride alongside Jorfr.

Her voice full of distrust, Zefaris questioned: “Mind explaining that message of yours?”

“It seems we have the same intentions at the Meat Market. She sort of just…” Zel explained, running her thumb across her neck. The line where it had been cut was still there, outlined by a thin border of bloody-raw scar tissue. “Gave up trying to fight me after I made it obvious it was a waste of time.”

The blonde glanced at the newly-expanded scar, then up at Zel’s face.

“You held back, didn’t you.”

“I was curious. Besides, she’s-” Zel began, only to be cut off.

“I don’t care if she’s functionally a different person, or that Alcerys’s weird dead god thought the same as you, it’s just all too convenient,” Zef rebuked, turning her gaze towards Jorfr. Just three simple gestures were enough to convey that she wanted him to ride behind Red just in case she tried something funny. Meanwhile, Zel rode her bike out in front of the mantis, briefly slowing as she passed her to make it clear it was indeed a measure of caution.

Thus they rode off down that old forest road, their machine steeds howling as the sun set and only the glow of the Sturmgandrs’ lightgems and the Subcore remained to illuminate the path. The two further illusory dead-ends in their path put up no resistance to Zef’s unerring gaze, and within the span of less than twenty minutes, the cliff-face which was to be their destination already loomed above the horizon. Shattered aqueducts and other such broken edifices of the Three Kings Era towered above the treeline, obelisks and defaced statues competing with the greenery for the spotlight, whilst the cliff-face itself took up center stage; the temple had been carved into the solid stone itself, a three-floor superstructure with a tremendous alcove a hundred meters tall as the centerpiece. It was nearly empty, one of the arms of the statue which had once filled it now reaching up towards the heavens off to the west. Two holes were to be found in the stone within the alcove, right behind where the monument’s eyes would’ve been, doubtlessly so that they might be lit up with tremendous lightgems. No guards met them at the entryway, for it was concealed with yet another illusion right betwixt the statue’s legs; the only things left of that imperious figure in its original form.

They disembarked their vehicles some distance from that doorway, concealing them within the treeline and approaching on-foot. To reveal the entryway the code-phrase invitation had to be spoken. Near-nonsensical as it was, at its utterance the illusion faded and the doorway came into plain view, a looming blackstone bulwark as wide as the road and thrice as tall. It rose up ever so slowly, revealing an interior just as desolate as the exterior, the gate manned by two Grekurians, both of them surprisingly alert where Zel had expected either locust-men or parasitized servants. As they entered and the doors began to close behind them, she noticed the metal plates on both their left temples and the fact both their left eyes were closed.

“Just like one of Victor’s would-be kidnappers…” she thought. One of the guards remained, while the other beckoned the group to follow, leading them through these defaced halls of ruler-worship and into what must’ve at one point been the main cathedral, or an analogue thereof. Zel instinctively scanned the sprawling chamber the moment it came into view. A rectangular floor layout; four exits, including the one through which they’d entered just now, each in one corner of the chamber. Another exit, an upward stairway, was right across the room, with two others located in the two other corners, right behind an elevated podium, upon which an armored auctioneer’s booth had been set up, with a projector displaying a blown-up version of whatever was contained within a compartment below for all the would-be buyers to see clearly. Right now, the object being projected was a clock ticking downwards. Alongside the booth, four cages filled space atop the podium. Ancient stone pulpits filled most of the floor space, filled with worshipers anew, just of a different faith than intended; most had, wisely, dressed inconspicuously and masked themselves, but there were several recognizable faces, noblemen from Arches to a man, each and every one an ally or member of the Occupationist faction. Zel only recognized them in passing, Red’s bubbling, seething vitriol at seeing them here was palpable. A number of guards lined the outer perimeter of the room and surrounded the auctioneer’s booth as well as the archways at the back, two of them wearing mechanized plate armor emblazoned with Pateirian sigils: Second-model tank suits. Zel wasn’t surprised to see them here, not after the stolen Third-model test unit, but it amused her nevertheless, to see Pateirians making such ready use of the very technology that had turned the War of Fog into an embarrassment for the Empire.

The chamber had a vaulted, albeit not very high ceiling, much of the imagery that had been carved into the stone itself now stripped off or defaced, only resilient blackstone now remaining. It depicted an immense humanoid being built, a singular figure shaping its bones. There, with many eyes darting towards them before darting away, they were met with a revolting old hag of a woman, a hooked nose dominating her wrinkled, liver spot-riddled features while a pair of probing eyes as black as coals darted about from behind a deep, perpetually furrowed brow.

“Ah, Lady Zelsys, is it not? I see that you’ve made good use of our trusted accompaniment policy!” she said with a disingenuous, hollow warmth to her words. Her eyes drifted to Red, an evil glow alighting in them, “And Lady Karmesin, as well! I trust that you’ve come to ensure our establishment is run to imperial standards, yes?”

Red gave a curt nod, but did not speak. The woman’s revolting gaze shifted to Victor, then back to Zelsys. “Why is he-” she slipped up, stopping herself just in time for Zel to pick up where she left off.

“I bought him directly from the good Ser Burgghusen. Take it up with him when his convoy gets here,” Zel lied. The miasma of human fear and suffering combined with greed that filled this place was palpable; it stuck inside her nose and coated her sinuses, it made her stomach churn and bile rise to her throat. She turned to the squirrely-looking woman, for the first time in months having to fight to keep herself under control as she asked: “I wish to speak with the good Knight-captain. Is he here?”

She visibly hesitated, but her resolve crumpled like a stale crouton under Zel's barely-restrained stare.

“Y-yes madam, but ah… I am afraid he might not wish to receive visitors at this moment, as he is in a private business negotiation at the moment. Shall I go up to the third floor to inform him of your presence?”

“Do so immediately,” she hissed through a smile of gritted teeth.

The crone got the hint, and after feverishly nodding, she rushed off up the staircase. There was their way up. A suspiciously short time passed before there came a beastly grumbling from above and the crone returned, visibly out of breath, as if she’d ran for her life.

“Th-the knight captain shall see you after the auction,” she sighed. “I… Trust that this is agreeable?”

Zel nodded.

It wouldn’t be long either way.

Nowhere in her heart did she intend to actually sit through the auction, even if she was quite confident that Von Wickten was none the wiser as to her intentions with him; the off-chance that he had caught on and that he might try to escape was not an acceptable risk.

“Ah, however… I would truly prefer to see the knight captain right now,” she hissed through a false smile again, placing her hand on the crone’s shoulder just as she turned to leave. She squeezed just hard enough to cause pain, but not hard enough for it to be obvious she was doing it intentionally, gesturing at Victor with her other hand. “See, the reason I bought him and brought him here in advance was as a gift of friendship for the good knight captain, knowing his proclivities.”

She could feel the murder flare in Victor’s eyes, but was relieved to find he had read the situation and put on a timid facade. The crone scurried off back up the stairs, once again, the four of them waited. Jorfr pulled out his Tablet, which he had had the good judgment to take with him this time, idly swiping through it on the outside, when in reality, he was preparing to pull his hammer out of Fog Storage. Meanwhile, Zefaris had made her way into the midst of the pulpits and sat down at the outermost edge of one, turning her gaze towards the auctioneer’s booth, fully dilating her right eye and barely, just barely, opening the left; in truth she was observing the entirety of the room, committing to memory the faces of the unmasked and many of the masked, too, able to discern identifying facial markers through their fanciful and oft ineffective masks. They were already dead to a man by Zel’s reckoning, their lives forfeited the moment they had gone out of their way to obtain entry to this revolting place. Certainly, there was the tiny chance that someone known to neither the Bureau nor anyone in the Newman Sect had independently worked to enter this place and undermine it from within, but such a person would have the opportunity to reveal themselves when the violence began… Albeit not much time to do so.

Zel felt her Tablet buzz with a mnemonic message, one whose contents were equally reassuring and unsurprising. Of those Zefaris recognized, most were aligned with the Occupationist faction; not by an overwhelming majority, but that wasn’t an issue. Beasts were beasts, regardless of what political beliefs they claimed to espouse.

There came another earth-shaking rumble from overhead, and like clockwork, the crone soon returned. “The ah, the knight captain has agreed to see you now - but only you, alongside the gift here,” she croaked. Every fiber of Zel’s being wanted to just punch through the woman’s head right then and there, but she saw an opportunity in this; she would play along for now, get into the midst of this filth, and then set off her companions down here with a simple aetherwave transmission. Red was the wild card, here, but the good Lady Karmesin solved the problem by demanding: “I shall go as well. As you already guessed, I have come to ensure that this establishment is being run to imperial standards - such assurances include back-of-house operations, so to speak.”

“I understand your concern, but-” the crone began with a building sense of veiled threat in her voice, but the Lady in Red didn’t relent.

“No buts. The Duke knows I am here and I act as his representative, do you understand? You would be courting death if you were to refuse me, and trust me in this: I am both able and willing to act as the Duke’s executioner, unlike the knight captain,” the Lady in Red seethed, her presence bearing down not only on the crone but on the entirety of the room as well. As far as Zel could tell, she wasn’t lying either - merely twisting the truth to serve her ends. The crone had already shrank back, feverishly waving away the two guards which had the wherewithal to approach the Lady in Red.

And so, the party split for the time being, with Zel, Victor, and Red following the crone’s lead. Ascending the stairs, they were met with a smaller chamber half-filled by some half-dozen Dragon Knights, two of them with their own captives in tow. A blackstone door waited at the other end, opening into a short, enclosed hallway with another door at the other end, not unlike the airlocks of a Dungeon. Beyond this point, there came another chamber, the unmistakable stench of locust-kind flooding the nostrils upon the door’s opening. It was a chamber with a vaulted ceiling and a fountain in the middle, dried out and now operated by a new contraption puttering away as it fruitlessly pumped the fetid water through a soiled filter. The leg-trunks of a smashed-down statue poked up from the top of the installation, pieces of the statue itself still lying about in the room’s corners, the whole dismal scene lit by a number of lightgems in iron and brass stands, those which had been embedded in the walls long gone. Numerous red-armored locusts occupied this room, four of them stood guard at either door, wielding heavy sabers of Kargarian make, clad in restyled Second-model tank suits. Their eyes, from humanlike to beady to composite, all converged on Zelsys, and the tension rising from second to second could be felt by all present; mandibles clicked, antennae whipped about, hands reached for blades and pistols.

It was at that moment that Zelsys sent the mnemonic signal, knowing violence would be unavoidable from this point forward, for one simple reason: If there was one thing that could not be concealed from a locust, it was the pheromone-scent of his own dead brethren. Locusts released the stench upon death, and it didn’t just stick to a person, it seeped into their skin and hair and clothing, sticking around for days unless purged with special alchemical soaps and hot water.

She couldn’t help grinning, knowing full well that, of all people, Red was the most aware of this fact. A mere glance exchanged was enough for the two women to spring into action, both whipping around to strike down the armored locust to their side. Zel’s fist smashed into an iron helmet, the force reverberating through its wearer just long enough for her to draw in a breath, burn it, and begin Engine Breathing. In the same motion she pulled her arm back, and burning a lungful, smashed her fist right into the locust’s temple. The helm caved in with the sound of a gong, and the massacre began in earnest. The locust to Red’s left had already crumpled to the ground, his head landing in his lap, while Victor wisely took up a defensive position with his broken spear in one hand while he formed one of those weird bone-rockets in the other’s palm.

Victor could scarcely perceive what had just happened, the slaughter was truly unseen. One moment they’d been walking with Lady Karmesin, and the next, the two of them just… Started killing, like that. It was like there was no difference between normal existence and deadly combat for the two of them; something beyond Victor’s ability to process mentally. That hook-nosed woman, the crone, tried grabbing at him when she realized what was happening, only for Zelsys to dash across the room and kick her right into a wall, her skull smashing against the wall with enough force to break it.

The woman’s skin sloughed off and butterfly-like wings unfurled as she emitted a chattering cackle, remaining affixed to the wall. Vic let off his just-finished Devil’s Tooth at the crone, the projectile drilling into her spine and pinning her to the wall like an oversized entomologist’s display. An opportunistic locust-mutant tried to get at him, but Victor reached out and grasped the bones of another dead bugman at his feet, marshaling every ounce of his sway to rip the corpse’s ribs out through its back. His would-be assailant skewered his feet on this makeshift spike trap, leaving Victor with the time to build up power and blast the bug with Bonefire.

Chitin, flesh, and bone alike gave like rotten wood under Zel’s refined violence, locusts that would’ve once been legitimate opponents now so far below her that she found time and mental energy to keep an eye on Victor just in case he got cornered. To her relief, he didn’t. In a half-minute’s span, the room was cleared out, Red Locusts splattered across the walls and floor, one of the armored ones having had the dubious fortune of surviving a disabling blow. Zel foisted him up with one hand, finding the emergency release latch on his helmet and undoing it before she ripped it off his head, taking one of his mandibles with it.

“The door. Open it,” she commanded, nodding at the blackstone bulwark which the locust had once guarded. He emitted a malicious cackle and uttered something in Pateirian, forming a gesture with his fingers. The door came alive and began to rise, prompting Zelsys to drop the locust and erase his head with a stomp.

The very first thing to draw Zel’s attention when the door rose above her eyeline was the fact only two figures were present in the spacious inner sanctum, despite its ancient stone having been furnished to accommodate several dozen people. Von Wickten, still clad in his armor, but somehow wrong. She couldn’t quite tell from where she stood, but there was a subtle twitchiness to his movements, one unlike that which he could develop from the massive doses of Noon Dust he doubtlessly consumed. He stood at the foot of a tremendous spherical gemstone, easily as tall as he was and nearly too big to have fit through the sanctum door, an unearthly light issuing from and into him.

A huge, segmented frame of brass-encased machinery stood against the left-hand wall, black cables snaking from its sides across the floor towards some sort of jury-rigged techno-abomination, the bloated frame of a Locust Queen looming over it, being the upper half of a horribly mutated woman atop an armored insectoid lower half, egg sacs jiggling about on its underside while six massive legs held it aloft. Six human figures were arrayed around the technological altar, their right hands held up while the Locust Queen waved about a staff whose head was a ring with four smaller, jade rings jangling about its length.

Two of the figures had slotted their right hands into the device, while the third did the deed just as the scene came into view. The fourth, fifth, and sixth followed all at once at the sight of Zel’s intrusion, rushing to finish whatever they had started; it was at the moment of the sixth’s arm entering the machine that an unholy whirring started up and all six fell to their knees, their heads whipping back as baleful green light erupted from their eyes and mouths. The Queen slotted her staff into the contraption’s center, howling an invocation in words transcending language: “I am the gate, the key, the path! OPEN!”

The Fog Gate came alive right then, and as Von Wickten pushed the massive gemstone past its precipice, the gate’s living batteries began to burn out in brief flashes of iridescence, one after the other.

“So it was you who stole the Dragon’s Fifth Eye,” Red sneered as she stepped into the chamber in Zel’s wake.

As if being sucked in, the so-called Fifth Eye rolled on into the gate far faster than an object of its size had any right to. This all transpired in the span of the very first seconds after the sanctum doors had opened, and only now did both the Locust Queen and Von Wickten turn their full attention to the intruders... And yet, still they did not discern hostile intent.

"Ah, Newman, the soon-to-be Number Seven, and even the good Lady Karmesin!" the knight captain exclaimed, walking past the queen and the powderized corpses at her feet, leaning to glance past the trio and into the chamber behind them. "Did ah... Did our former employees overstep any boundaries? It is no issue if they courted death, though I trust I need not say that recompense equal to the cost of their replacement is only to be expected, yes?"