“Thorn might be in danger. Someone needs to go help him.” I said, standing up and activating Okeria’s communication device. “Okeria. There’s a human with the guards.”

Silence for a few seconds, but it was accompanied by the crackling of static. Okeria had heard me, he was just too stunned to speak.

{You’re sure? A hundred percent, no chances for anything ta be wrong sure?} He demanded, his voice deadly serious.

I nodded, sure that Okeria was specifically watching me now. “Look and listen for yourself. You’ve heard me say some of those things before.”

{I have. Drown me, it had ta be a human. How’d they get here?} Okeria muttered, more to himself than to me. {Okay. Thorn might be in danger, and the human could be a good chunk of the reason Scalovera’s as confident as he is now. Just in case they’ve got some kinda core that lets ‘em control people from other species, I’m gonna ask ya ta go help Thorn.}

That was what I’d planned on, but having Okeria mirror my worries only set them aflame. “I’m going to go help Thorn. Make sure Ambus doesn’t die.”

“She won’t.” Jun assured me, the worry in my voice the only thing she needed to hear to know how bad things were. “Be careful. Just because you don’t recognize them, doesn’t mean they didn’t change.”

I looked down at my own blue and white armor and grimly agreed. “Good point. I’ll keep my guard up.”

The roofs flew by under my feet as I sprinted away, waiting for the static to inform me that Okeria was listening again. I consulted my map a handful of times to make sure I was going in the right direction, sneaking glances back at the human chosen leading the guards to… whatever they were going to do. I doubted it was what Okeria had overheard, especially if he hadn’t known there was another human here.

Static. {I just told Thorn what ta expect. You’re on your way?}

“I am.” I confirmed. “Where’d you get your information from? One of the three that were down there with us?”

{Gloriosa. But she didn’t get it firsthand, and told me as much when she delivered it. It don’t surprise me that regular Staura can’t identify a human when they see one.} Okeria said bitterly, then paused. {If they didn’t see a human, then how’d they miss someone in that gaudy huge armor?}

Good question. One that I didn’t have an answer to. “You said they could have a core that lets them control Staura for some reason. That could include making them see different things, right?”

{True. Drown me, that’s true.} Okeria cursed in frustration. {All of our info could be wrong now. Abyss take me, I gotta go through everything again now. Change of plans. You and Thorn don’t talk ta the guards; isolate the human and find out what their core does. Even if it means pullin’ it from their chest.}

I pushed off one roof, summoned my weapon as a spear, and swiped at the empty space under my feet. A long slash of petals appeared in sync with my floodpetal-scales activating, and I pushed off of it to give myself another boost. Four more slashes were enough to carry me to the next set of roofs, but I was worried now. If all the info was given from clouded eyes, Thorn could be in terrible danger.

By the time my feet touched down outside of Rainbow Basin, my worries had risen to a fever pitch. Thorn had stopped responding to Okeria’s check-ins a dozen minutes ago, and Okeria’s surveillance had been destroyed by something. The man seemed truly worried for Thorn’s safety, which only served to set my nerves ablaze.

Thorn’s core let him make any non-living material sprout a spike of that same material. He only needed to touch a part of the material that was connected, and he could make it sprout anywhere that continuous material was, up to a certain distance. And he’d been warned by Okeria about what was coming. The combination of those two things should’ve let him dispatch pretty much anyone who tried to get close to him, so something else had to have happened. I doubted it was mind control, since I’d left the other human about half an hour behind, but I knew Scalovera had taken hostages.

“That’s gotta be it.” I huffed. My legs burned as I pushed them to their limits. The water-veined flora around Rainbow Basin was barely an obstacle to me, but the cliff I had to climb to get to Thorn was. I stared at it for a split second to catch my breath, then slashed at the wall with my spear. The physical slashes were a lot more useful for mobility than I’d ever expected, but I was starting to run my battery into dangerous territories. If I had to fight Thorn, the human, and all the guards, I’d be beyond screwed.

{Okay, I see ya on the wall now. I’m sending your drone up to check on what’s goin’ on, so I won’t have eyes on ya.} Okeria informed me, panic accelerating his words into a slight blur. {I’ve almost got the teleportation anchors ready, but they don’t work nearly as good outside the hazards. It’ll take at least five minutes for them ta work after ya activate ‘em, and ya can’t move too much or they’ll lose their lock. Keep that in mind, and please try ta bring Thorn back in one piece.}

I dug my spear into the wall, jumped back in a flourishing spin, and caught myself on a near ring of petal-scales. If I wasn’t completely covered in armor, I would’ve reached up to brush the sweat from my eyes.

“I will.”

{Thank you, Sebastian. But… if it’s between ya and him…} Static. Quiet. A decision Okeria truly did not want to make. {Make… make sure ya come back alive, okay?}

I hated the emotion in Okeria’s voice. I’d heard it in my own far too many times in my old life, when I had to make decisions that truly had no good outcome. Instead of answering I just stared up, where there were absolutely no signs of a clash or a struggle, until the static went away. I didn’t know Thorn personally. Hell, I didn’t even know what he looked like under his armor. But the thought of him dying pointlessly, for some idiotic power grab while there were so many worse things brewing on the horizon…

I gnashed my teeth and pushed off my ring, tumbling through the air and creating a flurry of slashes as I went. Then I pushed oil into my equipment. The number of staying slashes increased by half, and they glimmered with an oily sheen. It had cost less battery to summon and dismiss slashes than to try and manipulate them, but now I didn’t have the time to worry about myself. I summoned a recovery blessing from my inventory, shoved it into //ENDLESS for increased effects, and activated everything it had stored up.

//Recovery Blessing activated: Recovery increased by 45. 67.5 Battery restored. Duration: 11.25 minutes.

//Scorched Bloodcoral Concoction activated: Speed and Power increased by 22.5, then again by 22.5%. Duration: 22.5 minutes.

//Blessing of the Leech Tyrant activated: Consumer’s battery and speed are increased by 11.25 for 22.5 seconds whenever they come in contact with an enemy who has both of those stats. The enemy’s internal battery is then drained by 11.25. Duration: 2.7 hours.

//Blessing of Overflowing Current activated: Hypersensitivity, extreme fine motor control, increased neural activity, and flesh-armor connection increased. Consumes 50 battery per minute while active. Duration: 42.75 minutes.

The strength gained from all my consumables was a shock to my system, and one that reminded me that //ENDLESS was a lot more powerful than I gave it credit for. Even compared to some of my newer creations that had higher core mastery requirements. If I could find some consumables like Poe had made for us in my last life…

I shook my head as the Bloodcoral Concoction seared away all of my useless thoughts. The desire to protect Thorn came on strong, but another desire eclipsed it in its intensity.

The other human. I wanted to know how they’d gotten here. How far they’d had to travel. How our people were doing. If the human Embodimens were doing as Endra was, or if they were playing by the rules. This person was my ticket to knowledge.

But they worked for the enemy. And I might’ve considered them to be misguided, or even under false pretenses, but the things they said…

My slashes carried me upwards, launching me over the edge and into a roll that kept my momentum going strong. I had to put the possibility that they were friendly out of my mind. This was a person that had lived for years before the reset. If they were still this horrible even after all that, then they weren’t someone I wanted to associate with.

I needed their information. Whether they gave it willingly, or if they’d only spit it out after I beat them within an inch of their third life was the million dollar question.

Nothing seemed out of place. The ground was untouched, none of the trees had so much as a cracked branch, and there was no sign of a struggle. I sucked in a deep breath and slowly took in the scenery, trying to make sense of whatever the hell had happened here. Because it didn’t look like it was violent.

Then I spotted it. A small, glittering piece of metal that looked like it had been crushed by a boot. And no footprints around it to prove that hypothesis. I pulled my slashes in tight and gingerly stepped over to it, my nerves on the edge of snapping at the most minute sound. Nothing happened. The piece of metal sparked when I got close, a nearly invisible connection of electricity that snapped between the thing Okeria had connected to me .

Still images flashed over my visor, subtitled in simple English. The translation worked this time.

A picture of Thorn standing above the cliff, looking down as he held his hand to his neck. The subtitles read: “No, Okeria, I don’t see anyone coming. You’re sure Sebastian saw what he saw?”

It flashed to the next one. Thorn standing against one of the trees, with a spike growing out unnaturally where a branch might’ve been. “Alright. If things go to the abyss, I’ll leave him something for a trail. Don’t ask me what it is, just in case someone who can hear you is leaking us to Scalovera. Don’t even tell Sebastian that I’m leaving him something; he’ll see.”

The next image flashed, and now Thorn wasn’t alone. He stood next to a skinny suit of armor with colours reminiscent of a mango that hadn’t gone fully ripe, its joints accentuated by half-moons of shining metal. The subtitles were in a different colour this time, perhaps to show that it wasn’t Thorn who was speaking. “Hello, Thorn in my side.”

It seemed more time had passed between that image and the one I saw next. It showed Thorn and the armored figure in what looked like a pose ready to fight. “Scalovera. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be this easy. What kind of mind control do you have over my guards?”

This time, only the subtitles changed. “Oh, poor simple Thorn. The same thing I now have over you. I have someone on my side who can instantly wipe all significance from any Staura with a single thought. Your family are my hostages. You are my hostage.”

Another image overtook my visor, this time pulled away slightly from the scene. Thorn stood there with hatred in his body language, hand pressed to the part of the tree he’d forced to sprout a spike. “Fine. I don’t care about my significance, but if you hurt a single petal on any of my family, I’ll kill you myself.”

“As long as you comply, no harm will come to them. And only for that long. Give me your hand. Any of Okeria’s tech must be destroyed.” Scalovera’s subtitles read.

The final image flashed over my mind, of a small pinprick of light that was about to be closed by Thorn’s foot. “I know your function can’t travel through rock. What makes you think it’ll go through armor?”

“Experience.”