Grim. I waited for a few moments to make sure The End was done talking, then relayed everything it had just told me to my friends. They took it in stride, with Okeria nodding along as if he’d expected everything I’d just told him and Mortician growing more and more horrified as I spoke. Jun was just… quiet.

When I finished, Okeria went to speak up. And was silenced by Jun.

“No, don’t talk yet. This isn’t good.” She muttered under her breath. “We’re working under the assumption that Keratily’s somewhere close to us, if not actually hiding out in Rainbow Basin, and now we have to worry about other Embodiments joining Endra’s crusade. Just one Acasiana won’t be enough.”

Okeria raised an eyebrow. “Ya think I don’t know that? Problem is that we don’t got many other Acasianas ta work with. I’m here, and I can do a whole lot for ya, and maybe Inopsy survived, but that’s it. Thorn, Ambus, and Gloriosa ain’t strong enough ta make a whole world of difference, but they’re strong enough ta tip the scales a little in the best case scenario. We need ta get Thorn back, then we can put out a call for mercs.”

“Fuck no. Endra has Danday’s group completely under her control, so what’s to stop her from having more people all wormed-up?” I cut in. I was not going to risk bringing in someone that could carve us up from the inside-out. “Our best chance is Addia’s group. I know you couldn’t get them to come last time, but maybe they’ll think differently now that more Embodiments broke their agreements?”

“Worth a shot at the very least.” Okeria agreed. “I’ll send some feelers out ta see who might be willin’ ta side with our cause, and I’ll have Gloriosa do some deep research on what hired muscle might not be compromised–if any of our old contacts are still around. Or trustworthy.”

I tapped the side of my helmet in thought and tried to focus on the immediate future. Okeria’s kids were coming over to this world, so we were on a strict time limit to make Rainbow Basin safe enough for them. But that didn’t mean we had to defeat Endra before they came over. All we had to do was oust Scalovera and use him to find which people had been taken over by Endra.

“We have to put the Endra stuff on the backburner for a few weeks. Then it’ll become our entire focus once Rainbow Basin is ours.” I said as much to myself as to my friends. I turned to Okeria and gestured at the ceiling. “If everything goes horribly wrong, and we can’t kill Scalovera by the time your kids cross over, we’ll keep them safe in here. Actually… should we bring the people Dylan mind-wiped down here too? Or is your place secure enough for them?”

“It’s more than secure enough. And I’m not riskin’ putting someone with a very free mind somewhere there’s obvious strangeness goin’ on. Unless somethin’ changes for the much, much worse in the next few days that is.”

Okeria leaned back on nothing and crossed his arms. His stitched-closed eyelids struggled against their cords, and he eventually shook his head with a mighty sigh.

“Juniper, Sebastian, Mortician. If everything goes real wrong, as in nothin’ at all about Rainbow Basin is salvageable wrong, can I ask ya ta take my kids into that Floodforest hazard? Not that I’m plannin’ for things ta go wrong.” He quickly clarified. “It’s just that I don’t really got anywhere else ta fall back on if I end up bitin’ it durin’ all this.”

Well, that was not a good sign. I shared a look with Jun, then with Mortician, and I felt the same sentiment echoed three times over. There was something Okeria was keeping secret from us, and it had to do with what The End had just told me.

Instead of keeping quiet and leaving it be, Jun dragged it out into the open. She wore Okeria down with a lengthy half-conversation half-argument that consisted of Keratily’s name coming up more than a dozen times, and Thraiv’s almost as much. And the centerpiece of it was that Okeria–if he was actually as strong as he’d told us he was–didn’t seem to be in any danger unless someone like Keratily joined in the fight. Even then, I couldn’t see him sacrificing himself for the city. For his kids, maybe, but we’d make sure they were safe before anything else.

Eventually, Okeria held up his hands and chuckled grimly. “Fine, fine, I’ll spill. Not that there’s much ta spill; just that I’m gettin’ a real bad feelin’ about everythin’. It’s almost too coincidental that Keratily’s completely missin’, Endra’s rampin’ up her influence, and Scalovera’s made his play for power about the same time. I don’t like bein’ in the dark, especially not ta this level, and it’s makin’ me antsy. Could be nothin’, or it could be that everything’s connected in a way that don’t make it a grand conspiracy that ends with my head on the ground and Rainbow Basin as the new grounds for Endra’s war.”

“Or this could all be Endra’s backup plan, since her first one didn’t go exactly as she wanted.” I pointed out. “She got Nia, but she didn’t do it clean enough to perfectly pose as her. Which, as Acasiana just showed us, is what she wanted. So now she’s falling back, and using the things she’s had in place for a long-ass time to try and make the best of a bad situation. Hell, now that more Embodiments are fucking around up wherever it is they live, there could be more Staura out there now that actually want to fight back against Endra.”

Jun gestured at me and nodded in agreement. “I agree with him. Maybe you shouldn’t get Gloriosa to look into your old contacts, but powerful people that don’t want to live under an Embodiment’s thumb. I mean, worst comes to worst, we could put out some kind of message that Nia is actually Endra right now. That’d stop that part of her plan dead in its tracks.”

“Yes, do not be so grim–we are all here to help you!” Mortician chimed in chipperly. “And even though The End is not allowed to cross the borders between worlds, that does not mean that its influence is so minimal that it can do nothing! We are sure that there is something else it is in the process of doing to ensure Sebastian and the rest of us survive.”

“And the rest of us, huh?” Okeria whispered. He didn’t seem fully convinced, but when he met my visor with his dead eyes, there was something else behind them. “I guess I still haven’t convinced myself that ya ain’t gonna throw me ta the curb when ya get everythin’ ya want outta me. Old habits die hard, I guess, and it’s what made me distance myself from Persephonia in the first place. And why I was a fairly absentee leader for Rainbow Basin. Huh. Maybe it’s time I stopped screwin’ around.”

He flexed his fingers, then raised one hand as if he were about to twist and pluck an apple from a branch. Electricity crackled in his fingers like a localized lightning storm, them condensed so far down into tiny little pellets of fulminous destruction. Metal bled out from his inventory to close them in, and after inspecting them for any sort of defects, Okeria handed five of them to both Jun and Mortician. And one single one to me.

“That’s my vow. And if ya take ‘em, it means ya trust me with your lives just as much as I’ve decided ta trust ya with my own. And those of my family.” Okeria said with a seriousness that was so unlike him. “Ya eat one of those, and my connection ta ya strengthens tenfold for five minutes. I can essentially use ya like an extension of my own armor–no drone necessary, and at no cost ta ya. That’s why I said I’m best off hangin’ back. Because I can be everywhere at once if need be, but it also means I can do some serious damage ta ya if ya turn against me.”

Jun studied the little pellet of destruction with what I imagined was a frown. “This doesn’t feel like you’re trusting us with anything. More like you’re asking us to trust you with everything. Why?”

“Because we do not give him access to anything of ours. He gives us access to all of his, and then we grant him the ability to manipulate that access.” Mortician explained. They gingerly placed their pellets in their palm, then sent them to their inventory for safekeeping. “It is the equivalent of him granting us access to his interface for the minutes those pellets connect us. He may destroy us if we try to harm him, but it would result in horrific losses for him.”

Okeria nodded at Mortician. “Exactly right, unfortunately. I gotta open myself up for access over such a long range, which means ya could fiddle with me right through that openin’. Remove my armor, disable my functions, and anythin’ else ya could do if ya got hold of my system access. It’s a big risk I’m takin, but… drown me, I want ta take it for once in my life.”

The pellet sat heavier in my hand at Okeria’s explanation. “Did you do this for Nia? Or Thorn, Ambus, and Gloriosa?”

Okeria shook his head. “Didn’t need that kinda trust for them. Now’s different.”