Measured steps were echoing through the dimly lit corridors of the underground facility. The person, steps belonged to, was looking around with keen and certainly not forced curiosity, as if reviewing the work of art.
Facility itself was really interesting at first, giving a sense of security, an impression that you've entered an impregnable fortress that would stand for another thousand years and won't even change a bit. Usually such types of structures were easily affected by moisture, dirt, and mold after a couple of months of disuse, but this one? This looked clean, new, as if built yesterday.
'Hmmm, yes, yes. Interesting.'
If not for the little dust carpet and smell of machinery, oil, gunpowder and spelltech solutions, Lith would think that he walked into a giant sterile surgical department.
'The lights on the walls are white too, just like in hospitals. And everything so neat and tidy. Like in hospitals.'
But it wasn't a hospital. It was a fucking bunker!
A very interesting one, he reminded himself.
And walls were interesting too. Yes.
'If I'll do it for another ten minutes I'll explode.'
Making a turn, he heard another set of not as silent as pursuer wanted steps, somewhere in the back. Awakened girl, who was peeking from behind the corner again, concealed her actions poorly, as if asking to be caught.
And she was the sole reason why he behaved like this, impersonating a very ignorant to stalking and interested in the-hospital-bunker-whatever-the-fuck Master. The stalking started the moment they descended underground and continued till now, and Lith was already about to lose it.
'I need to do something with that.'
He heard somewhere in the past, that black cats brought misfortune. Zeph was certainly a gray one, so it wasn't her fault. More than that, she wasn't even there, when this whole tomfoolery started. But what about black crows? Did the flying black bastard brought a misfortune upon him?
'Maybe.'
Even though he understood perfectly well that the little guy was just helping, and this lot was not his fault, the idea wouldn't go away that easily.
After the meeting near the cliff with the small group of survivors led by Gere, they encountered this flying fellow. The crow, who suddenly could speak, sort of, was clearly an Echo of their commander, who sent it here with initially not so clear purpose.
After cawing at him, the creature started roaming around the convoy in search for someone.
Turned out, bird's target was Brail, or Master Sunless to be precise, and after he figured he's not here, the little guy came back to him, seriously upset. But as Ascended told the echo that 'Sunless' is certainly alive, just got a little bit lost, little crow quickly shook the sadness off and told Lith to follow him to safe-safe place-place.
They descended from the mountain road, driving away from the burning Siege Capital and made a few roundabouts, effectively evading vicious packs converging towards the city. The crow was a surprisingly helpful guide, so nobody got hurt during the smoothest till now ride.
An hour before the finish line, which was this marvelous, earth take it, underground facility, they met another convoy, much bigger than their one, which was in the midst of fighting off the Nightmare Horde.
The battle concluded quickly after the unexpected Irregular reinforcement arrived, but the group of evacuees already looked bad. Almost all of them were mundane, so it was a miracle, that they managed to escape Erebus Field at all. Many were dead, even more injured and they looked for a shelter.
A very specific shelter, as it turned out. Exactly the one the crow was leading Irregulars and the remnants of their caravan to.
So they joined forces.
The leader of a bigger part of these forces was obviously very glad to see them, but what was strange, she was even more glad to see Lith.
To say the least it was awkward. She knew him, or to be precise Master Verne, and looked like very well.
And the girl, Carin, was friendly. Too friendly.
Lith had nothing against being friendly, but the questions and conversations could very easily end with unexpected and very poor results.
So, not knowing how to act correctly, he decided to use 'one head is good, many heads are gooder' tactic and immediately told what he suspected was happening to the team.
A bunch of blank faces certainly matched his one.
The prospect of a close acquaintance or even a friend unveiling his situation was not a pleasant one, considering the circumstances, so they decided for Lith to play a very busy commander, and for Dorn to entertain and distract the girl.
Unfortunatelly this brilliant and genious tactic held for only around couple hours, - who would have known? - and now he was forced to play a very natural ignorance.
'This shit is going hard on my nerves. How long will she stalk me?'
At last Lith reached the room he chose for himself, and quickly slipped in, slamming the door behind him. Though before he could drop on the folding bed, Ascended was stopped by the three muffled knocks.
"Verne, can we speak for a bit?"
'This damn girl is doing everything to set me up.'
"Later, I want to sleep now."
"Ha? What's wrong with you?"
Master sighed.
"It was a long and harsh road. Now a proper bed is right in front of me, so please let me have a little rest."
For a moment he thought as there was no immediate response from the stalker, the girl will just let him be. Apparently he was wrong.
"Verne open the door or else."
The veins on his forehead were about to explode.
'If I snap her neck it won't end well, right? Right.'
While Lith was contemplating on some drastic measures, another set of heavy steps approached the door, and familiar low voice addressed the irritated Awakened.
"Lieutenant, give Major some rest, he's very tired from all that happened. I will gladly answer your questions myself. Please follow me to…"
"No! I didn't come here to speak with a commander, I want to speak with my friend. Here and now! So either you get lost somewhere and he opens the door, or I'll take the door of the hinges myself and you watch the show."
"…"
"…"
"Talking about subordination…"
"Subordination my ass, me and you are of the same rank."
(A/N So, here I maybe got a little bit confused with the details, but since Verne was in charge of a 1k+ soldiers, he I assume should be a Lt. Colonel, and since he's not a mundane it's minus one rank, so Major. But there was also an observatory full of scientists under him, and tenth of soldiers were also awakened, so correct me if that's wrong.)
Before Dorn managed to find another answer, the metal door clicked and slowly opened, revealing a sullen face of the tall Ascended.
"Okay, I'm tired of this shit, come in, both of you."
Carin immediately rushed into the room before he even finished speaking, while Dorn gave the Master a questioning glance. Lith lowered the voice.
"I don't give a fuck anymore. Just enter, or I'll deal with her myself."
With a hesitating expression, Irregular followed suit and all three of them sat down, letting Lith start the story. Looking at the two serious faces, Carin dropped her irritated demeanor and listened.
And from the start she thought they were seriously messing with her.
"So, let me get this right. First you are ignoring me the whole day and now you are suddenly not my friend, but some foreign entity who took over Verne's body? Did I miss something?"
"Ehh, I guess not? But I'm not some entity. I'm a normal human being. And I didn't 'took over', it was against my will."
Carin didn't even try to hide her eye twitching.
"Right. Listen, if you decided to shrug me off with just another prank of yours, then I should tell, you were never good at these. And this is the poorest one. So just tell me the real reason you don't want to stick with me, and I'll be off."
"This is the real reason."
"Yeah, sure. And you are from the future."
Nobody replied to that. Two men were just staring at her saying nothing. The girl raised her chin.
"You know what it reminds me of? Last couple of days were already like some nightmare. And now these body swaps, time travels and... so on."
She exhaled tiredly.
"You'd better tell me this all is a just some Nightmare Trial I don't remember entering. At least would be somewhat believable."
Two guys met each other gazes, promptly returning them to the Awakened. Lith gathered his thoughts and spoke again.
"You don't remember entering because you didn't. You still are you, right? But I did."
Carin frowned.
"What?"
"I said you are right. It is a Nightmare Trial. My third one."
The girl looked at Lith not blinking for a while, and then started rubbing her eyes in irritation.
"You… I… Fuf… You know what? I'm not even mad... This is just…"
She lowered her palm and glanced at the injured Irregular. Seeing his calm gaze Awakened could only utter a quiet, tired word.
"Wonderful."
"I'm sorry. But it is what it is."
She snapped.
"And what, I'm then just some sort of a Spell-made clone of myself?"
Ascended rolled his eyes, sighing.
"Do you feel like one?"
"Certainly not."
"Good. Then it's a normal world for you and the Nightmare for me and my cohort.
Quiet bewildered laugh was the only answer to that.
"Anyway, I can promise you one thing. Even if I'm not from here, I will not place my life higher than yours. I'll try to do Verne's job well and help with the evacuation. Will fight creatures in the vanguard, just like I did before. Ask Dorn here if you don't believe me."
His face became solemn.
"Carin, the road ahead is difficult. But remember this: all Nightmares tend to end. So for me and you both, all this horror will end sooner rather than later."
With this reassurance, her anger and annoyance subsided a little, and she reluctantly decided to listen more about that cruel 'prank'. But the further they went, the more serious her face became. Because regardless of what bullshit her apparently not friend anymore was telling, the situation didn't change.
And it was grim.
Lith was speaking for a long while, telling his tale. The LO, the road, the battles. His friends who were dragged here just like him. How many they already lost, and how much they needed to resolve.
At some point other Irregulars came into the room and confirmed 'Master Verne's', or Lith's, as she knew now, words. Carin's mood was already down, but now it fell even lower.
Ascended felt the urge to fix that quickly.
That was less to prevent her from clinging and stalking, and more because that was not him who brought in the majority of evacuees. She did. What will happen if the person they all looked up to and trusted fell into despair? It was enough to look at Tei to get the answer.
So in order to lift her spirit even a little and calm her down, he needed to give her some kind of additional goal. That always worked with people in terrible situations, plus at that point Lith's mind settled with the thought he was pondering from time to time on.
What will happen with this body if the Nightmare ends, and this version of the world will continue existing? The answer was simple, Verne will maybe have some memory losses, but he will return. Perhaps that wasn't the truth, but it was the only thing Lith would accept.
So he asked the poor Awakened to help him. Help find his friends, help save people, what she was already doing, help finish the Nightmare. Because then, he was sure, he will return this body to Verne, and her friend will be safe and sound.
When the most crucial parts of their unfortunate adventures were told, nobody wanted to sleep anymore, so they moved to the big room, that acted as a cafeteria and kitchen. Other people were there too: Gere and his soldiers, guys from the Erebus convoy, and survivors from theirs. Even though they were in safety behind the blast doors, collective mood was still awful, so Lith continued telling parts of the story louder, omitting the 'time traveling' stuff.
In several minutes their small gathering grew, and others started to talk about their awful experiences. Lith heard a little more about the situation around Erebus.
Before he entered the Nightmare, he learned that the Titan should somehow emerge from inside the volcano. This proved right, and, as later was confirmed by Gere's words, it moved away from the city.
Ascended thought that this was about it regarding the devastation they observed from that cliff, but apparently there was something else that participated in Siege Capital's destruction. An unnatural explosion. But the only guy who could tell something on that matter was lying unconscious in the improvised med bay at the moment.
There was other interesting information as well, but eventually stories changed from the catastrophe of Antarctica to the wistful discussion, of what everyone will do when the campaign ends.
After a while mood was lifted a little, so to prevent survivors from returning into despair he needed to find something their minds could escape to. In peaceful times escapism was seen as an unfortunate phenomenon, but if it could distract others from all the horror here and now, Lith would gladly put survivors in that state.
People, whether they want it or not, he knew, always focused on something that turned their lives upside down. Drastic changes always held weared minds in iron grip, especially bad ones. And considering that these awakened and mundanes just relieved a complete destruction of their city, no matter how positively this conversation would end, their thoughts will eventually return to the tragedy.
So since good thoughts won't hold their attention, he needed to give them something bad but unrelated. Loud enough to focus on now, and interesting enough to speak about later.
Ascended decided to go with some real horror stories, nobody heard here yet.
Thinking about his previous situation with Carin, he decided to scare her a little as a revenge and talk about a creature who could actually take over others' bodies.
Hiding sly grin, Lith cleared his throat.
"That reminded me about something. Recently one group of our scientists, may they rest in peace, were working on the very important research. Evaluating of the Nightmare Creatures invading Southern Quadrant."
He glanced at the weary old man, who just entered the room, hinting him on playing along. Professor smirked, took the plate, and joined the table, prompting him to continue.
"So. Nightmare Gates from that damned Chain are leading to a specific regions. Obvious, I know. But! They confirmed, that one of them, the most dangerous one, is some kind of a Desert. And the most horrible abominations are coming exactly from that place."
Ignoring Obel's hesitantly rising brows, Lith continued his tale about the 'research'.
"What interesting is that if the Seed is located somewhere on the periphery, the Gates bring total weaklings. En masse, but still. But if the Gate leading to the inner parts of the zone will open somewhere here… Well. Let's just say I hope I will be nowhere near it. The divergence is huge."
One Awakened from Carin's convoy put the fork down and frowned.
"But how do you know the specifics? Did you send the exploration group in?"
His friend instantly cut in the discussion.
"Then they would need a Saint to drag them out, dumbass. Do you think Wake of Ruin personally went in to scout?"
"Maybe they sent the clown?"
"Yeah right."
Lith glanced at the two soldiers and smiled.
"We didn't send any clows there, no. Gladly, we had no need to send anyone at all. Clans did, and shared the info, as our facility was working on the same problem."
Lith glanced on the silently dinning professor, prompting him to make a serious face and confirm his words with a nod.
"These sent their own goons, and only one of them made it out. And told about one particularly nasty horror."
He held a dramatic pause.
"They called it The Skinwalker."
Many shivered from the name only. 'Master Verne' decided to double down on suspense and lowered his voice.
"The creature is very powerful, to say the least. It was estimated to be of the Great rank and at least a Tyrant class. Most likely a Terror. It can make servants taking over other creatures' bodies…"
Lith glanced at shivering Carin and made an evil grin.
"…But apparently it prefers humans, as the whole group was not just eradicated, but consumed and set on the pursuit of the last survivor."
Everyone behind the table stopped munching and waited for the continuation. Carin turned deathly pale, and her eyes were frantically inspecting every part of his face.
'Serves you right, hehe.'
He was certain, she deemed him a fellow human, but that didn't stop her from being scared after the latest switch up in his tales. Lith cleared his throat.
"Anyway, if you ever encounter it, you have basically three options. To kill the host, which is highly unlikely. Try to escape, which is less unlikely but still. Or pretend to be a very intricate bush. Maybe it will respect the attempt and ignore you."
After a stretch of silence, one of the soldiers stated the obvious.
"So, it can come here too. Great. And what if it don't attack immediately? Tried to blend in? How do we understand that this is that… that thing, and not a normal human?"
Lith paused to think, trying to remember how people were detecting this abomination.
"You need to have something or someone, who can see the corruption in one's soul. Otherwise, the only option to detect the creature is to listen to it speech patterns."
One of the listeners gasped.
"Speech patterns? This thing can speak? What hell did it come out from?"
Lith scratched his chin, amused by the thought of revealing the name of the Ariel's Hell. Deciding to withhold that information for now, he continued.
"Well, it can, but this is still a corrupted abomination we are talking about. So it only imitates the conversation. Though if I understood correctly, it's doing it pretty well."
Luster finally unfroze and decided to ask a question too.
"So the only option is to run?"
Kimmy side eyed him.
"It's a Great horror of the high Class. What do you think?"
The poor guy visibly shivered.
"Honestly, nothing. I don't want to think about it at all."
Sam divided her food on several parts, and started pocking each separate one with a knife, talking thoughtfully.
"But one body won't be as strong as the original, right? Around the Corrupted level probably."
Obel clasped his hands in a lock looking over it on the Irregulars.
"Then even if we encounter several, you could divide them, find weaknesses with this young lady's ability, and strike with precision one by one."
Lith knew that that damned thing won't appear in the Antarctic Center, but still paled a little. Even without pre-trial briefings he heard stories. Not shallow like he was telling, in-depth ones.
"Professor, please don't say things like that. Don't jinx it. And about what you guys asked..."
Everyone held their breath in suspense.
"The escaped guy actually managed to slay one of the carriers, while being a mere Master. But that's only because it took over the heavily injured body. And even with that, he barely made it."
Ascended made a pause, waiting for everyone's attention.
"So if you have no other option… The heart and the brain. You need to strike both simultaneously. Otherwise it will regenerate and… Well, you know what will happen."
For a while, other unknown before horror stories sounded throughout the room, capturing everyone's attention, distracting from what happened before. Somehow it worked, everyone's sour mood was lifted, and the discussion went on and on.
Even with freezing winds howling outside, this hidden part of the dying nightmarish world was warm from heated debates. At least for now.
***
While some enjoyed warm food and safety behind the bunker walls, a lonely battered figure was fighting his way through blizzard and monsters.
Already difficult path between destroyed mountain peaks was becoming only harsher with each passing minute.
The weather was gradually worsening too, only adding to his misery.
One would think that a Master with an aspect like Brail's one shouldn't be bothered by rough weather conditions, but considering his state, using even the slightest bit of his powers was now under the question. After all, his own essence was almost fully depleted in several little skirmishes with wandering abominations. So now, in front of the cruel elements, he was as protected as a mundane man.
Ascended body was also not in good condition, so all he was capable of, was slowly climbing and hiding, while holding pained groans to himself. The only thing that didn't bother the weary traveler was the temperature, and that was only thanks to his new owlish memory.
Without using of essence, it was also difficult to determine the route, but at least now, unlike before, he could rely on his recently returned little companion and her perception. So maybe, and only maybe, there will be less fights further on.
It was difficult to say precisely when, but felt like several hours ago, Zeph had finally evolved and returned to support him in this tiresome journey. Now she stood a step higher on the ladder of ascension, becoming a Terror. Which looked ridiculous, to say the least, considering her cute appearance and size.
She definitely became stronger after consuming the eye of that deranged bird, but for now it wasn't the right time to explore cat's new possibilities. The least he learned was that she could certainly be more concrete in telegraphing her intentions. Now Zeph could translate something resembling more of indefinable words with vague meaning than shallow calls Brail was so used to feel. Though she still sticked for the latter mostly.
After few more hours of ascending, explorer finally crawled on another chunk of a flat surface. Brail thought he would finally manage to catch his breath, considering nothing was threatening him for the last dozen minutes, but then it happened again. Hopes of the calm traverse were shattered for the n-th time with another slight tug on his senses.
Familiar state of alert and anxiety returned, and Ascended quickly pressed himself against the nearest cliff, trying to locate the enemy before it did the same.
He was sure Zeph's warning came because of another creature lurking on his path, and as it turned out he was somewhat right. Though he couldn't immediately see what it was. Belatedly Brail's tired brain realized why he couldn't catch a glimpse of an enemy: Zeph was pointing not on one of the breaches in front of him, but in the air above instead.
'Did some stranded leech from the Cloud caught up?'
He hoped not.
Brail didn't receive the confirmation, meaning the cat didn't know herself, so he quickly found a deeper crevice, and hid under the rocks to prevent being exposed to the air surveillance.
Peeking from the shadows he finally managed to barely see the incoming threat. A small, almost invisible against the dark sky, if not for the snowfall, black bird, was descending directly to the place he hid in.
Brail was reluctant but ready to deal with another of these flying beasts, but as it turned out this one wasn't an enemy. What was even more surprising, the crow was searching not just for some survivors, but specifically for him.
Apparently this was an Echo of the unreachable and unyielding warrior, fighting for humanity times longer than he lived. He knew, he obviously knew who she was, both at present time and back then, during the times of this Nightmare. He learned she was around back on the briefing. But it was still unsettling.
The Soul Reaper.
Or at least a younger Ascended version of her, who didn't want to lose her subordinate.
During the Trial his thoughts rarely went to her, even knowing she was effectively the direct commander of this cohort. But now, seeing her own Echo, the wraith's presence didn't feel so ghostly anymore.
'Hopefully I won't meet her.'
He knew, that reaching Falcon Scott ensured the meeting with the Colonel Jet, but hey, the man have to dream, right?
A distant memory retuned to his mind. Certainly not the happiest one.
He saw her once. Up close.
Back then she just casually walked the main street, seemingly irritated, forced to parade in front with others out of the city, and got close to where he was standing. Brail was already an Awakened at the time but got exactly the same feeling as when he was a helpless child witnessing attacking their settlement Tyrant.
'You will be squished' feeling.
He waited to see a hero. Waited for warmth and hope.
Instead, he accidentally met her eyes, and felt the bone chill cold and death. Irreversibility of the fall. The depth of the pit one somehow appeared to be in. Call it as you want.
He wanted to turn away and run but couldn't. It was like his own soul was frozen in place too afraid to move.
And that's from a single glance. He didn't wan't to think what would happen if someday she saw him as an enemy.
'That power… Was just too much.'
When the procession went away, and he finally snapped out, he swore to never approach her no matter what.
And now this cold person cared for someone. Specific someone. Even if she knew it wasn't him anymore.
The importance level of Master Sunless grew even higher in Brail's eyes.
'Each damned time, this guy surprising me more and more.'
Brail had a little nasty intrusive thought, that maybe Reaper was searching for him to deal with his small poor soul. But he quickly pressed that out of his head. After all, Crow-Crow, as the creature called itself, looked friendly and promised to show him the safest pass through the range, leading to some sort of a hideout.
Brail was too tired to hesitate. Any help was welcomed, so he agreed not thinking much, and the climb continued.
Unfortunately, even with two echoes specialized on reconnaissance, it was still hard to navigate the half-crumbled maze. The strugles Brail experienced, and zero out of ten environment made things more complicated too.
But the worst part was the Nightmare Creatures, which soon began to appear more and more frequently. The section of the mountain range ahead was literally infested with all sorts of abominations. Sometimes he needed to wait for half an hour to evade the danger, sometimes - push his broken body forward as fast as he could and waste the precious essence, to not be detected. And sometimes, the only way was to get rid of the threat quickly, no matter how hard it was.
At some point he made a mistake and didn't muffle the sounds of Monster's last cry, which attracted several too tough to fight abominations. Stalkers followed him for several hours, but his guide was so effective, that he managed to escape never meeting them personally.
Somewhere along the way he completely forgot about his goal of making it to the Capital in time. The word 'time' was simply erased from his head by the endless struggles in barely conscious state of mind. The only thing he thought of was how to survive the mountains and blizzard, and get out.
Right when his brain was on the verge of shutting down, Crow-Crow descended near him to bring the news. Jumping on place, the little guide was pointing a wing to the only looking safe passage.
"No-Road! Dead-End!"
Hearing this Brail was ready to just drop dead on the spot. It was the only reliable way forward. Otherwise he needed to drag himself back at least for several hours to the crossroad and pick another route afterwards. With the monsters on his tail it was out of question.
His still existing expectations of a simple or at least not terrible passage were already buried long ago, but this? This looked like a sucker punch.
But the words, that sounded like a sentence, somehow were pronounced in a cheerful and energetic voice. And to his surprise, the bird was insisting on going into that dead-end.
He didn't understand why they needed to 'Go-go' to the 'No-road', and how it can be the only 'Right-right' way, but his new cawing surveillance drone didn't lie before, so he decided to 'Come-come' with it. Like he had another choice...
Brail guessed that the flying echo wanted to find shelter and let him rest, until the stalker pack will come too close, so he followed. After all if he'd manage to restore his health a little, the three of them without doubts should have been able to find a way through with a relative ease.
Or at least he tried to force himself into thinking that.
But as he squized between the rocks, another type of unease creeped into his heart. In the beginning of this cruel mountain hike he put himself on the clock, and now as he didn't remember how much time passed, and considering how tired his body and mind were, the perspective of even a short rest started pressing on his mind. He needed it, sure, but the time seemed to relentlessly run out, and as he already got use to being in constant torture, easing it felt like giving up. His brain was forcing him to not stop for anything, and thoughts of even a small delay were making Ascended increasingly nervous.
With a heavy heart Brail followed and after not so long, he suddenly, instead of awaited hidden cave, walked off to a beautiful open view.
Well, the sight of the spreading outwards cliffs and a half-destroyed road wasn't really beautiful, but for him it was marvelous. It meant they finally found the way out.
Crow landed near them, still maintaining some distance, weary of a little predator resting on his shoulders, and cried out happily:
"Dead-end! Dead-end!"
Brail didn't even know how to look at the little bastard. He slowly closed his eyes and began counting inhales.
"This is not a dead end, Crow-Crow."
Crow stared at him, then at Zeph, then flied to the nearest broken-off piece of a road coverage and tapped it with a beak couple times. Turning to them again, bird cawed in confusion.
"Yes, it's not a dead end! Gods, why did you even said that? I was afraid we stuck again."
Small echo tilted its head in hesitation and looked at the survived section of the asphalted surface in the distance.
"Road end. Road cut. Cut – dead. Dead-end?"
And stared at him with question in eyes.
Brail squinted in irritation, trying to find an answer to this simple but oh how wrong logic chain, but before he did, he felt a tug on his senses again. Looking at where the little spirit pointed, he noticed the glint of the reflective surface. The same he saw twice already during the crossing of this damned pass.
Brail immediately rushed down the slope, and sure enough, the same picture he seen before was burned into the corner of the road sign. A headless knight and an arrow pointing forward.
'There! The caravan is somewhere there! Good, good, this is good. Okay, alright.'
Thanks to these pointers, Brail already knew some part of the Irregulars' convoy survived, and he was even more glad they thought of him enough to leave these pictures. But no matter how useful they thought the pointers should be, following the directions before was impossible because of the Nightmare Creatures occupying the only right passes.
Now though, he had an open path out of the mountains and a straight road under his feet.
He was finally out of the labyrinth of cliffs.
A small, tired smile found a way to his face.
"Look at it, Zeph! We will reach them soon."
Soon. Right. They all are waiting for him. And most of them are alive and well.
He had to make himself think of it in only this way. And he will.
Picking up a pace, the three of them moved forward.
"I thought nothing will be able to lift my mood today."
Hope flared in Brail's eyes.