To say that Xelil was worried after hearing Exvhar's story was an understatement. Vex wondered if she simply hadn't processed everything they'd told her properly until she heard it from her brother's own mouth. One thing he'd almost forgotten was that Exvhar had kept his memories of the Void. He knew on some level what was happening, even if he'd been rather ignorant of it all compared to many others. He could recount the experience of being in there, of what it felt like to have your very essence slowly stripped away.

That, along with the news from Enkiros's branch of the Adventurers' Guild as they got in contact with the other branches and caught up with what was happening, was more than enough to convince Xelil that they needed to evacuate immediately.

"I don't care if the king agrees with me," she growled out. Vex had explained to her what happened in the first iteration of things—the one time he'd been here within the semerit, and how the king had refused to evacuate, insistent that the gods would save them. "We're going to get our people out of here before we get another Elyra. What did those stupid fucks think they were doing? Creating a fucking god? Who do they think they are? If we'd still been around at the time—"

"—it would have been an act of war, wouldn't it?" Vex asked. The realization came only as he said the words, and small piece of horror bloomed in his heart at the realization of what they'd only just avoided.

"Yes," Xelil said shortly. "It's damn lucky you guys cut it off when you did, and frankly I'm still tempted to give them a piece of my mind. No one goes around just trying to create gods. Do you know what would have happened if they succeeded?"

"Nothing good?" Vex said. It wasn't exactly a hard guess.

"Nothing good," Xelil confirmed. "If you're making a god out of the small piece of divinity within everyone in your kingdom, you're going to make a god that defines your kingdom. And then, guess what? Gods can't sit around in the physical plane! It would have to ascend! And your entire kingdom would lose its spark of life just like that." She snapped her fingers. "Whole kingdom of robots, that's what you'd get. Uh, no offense." She glanced at Derivan.

"I am not a robot," Derivan said, a little self-consciously. Vex looked up at him, his eyes widening a little when he realized that his partner was clutching the amulet that the Guildmaster had given him—the one that was supposed to help him stop others from realizing that he was, technically, a 'monster'. As designated by the system initially, anyway.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Xelil said, waving her hand dismissively. If she knew that she'd just casually bypassed a piece of perception-altering gear, she certainly didn't indicate it. "I didn't mean anything by it. You seem cool enough. Kinda weird, but cool. Aren't we all?"

Derivan shifted uncomfortably. "I... do not know how to respond to that."

"You're cool, is what I'm saying!" Xelil said. "Look, don't worry about it. You have something that's supposed to stop people from noticing, right? Keep that, it works well. Took me way longer than I should have to notice."

"...Thank you?" Derivan tried. Vex walked over to him to take his hand, and Derivan gave him a grateful squeeze as he did so.

He still felt awkward about being a 'monster', evidently, and though he'd made a ton of progress past that, he still wasn't... open about it. Not to the world. He was open about it with them, felt comfortable with them, but Vex hadn't thought about how he never introduced himself as armor—never made mention of what he was.

"Hey, Deri?" he said softly, once Xelil's back was turned and she was leading them forward again, navigating a path through the crowd and directly to the palace. Derivan glanced down at him, eyes curious.

Vex couldn't help himself. He tiptoed, planting a small peck on the part of Derivan's helmet where his mouth would've been if he had one—where his mouth had been when he chose to manifest one using Slime's limited shapeshifting capabilities—and then gave him a small smile. "Once all this is over, let's introduce you to everyone?" he said. "Properly, I mean. To my family, and all our friends too. I bet Max would be excited! And Novice! And Raltis. And—"

Derivan chuckled, interrupting him by placing a hand over his mouth. "Sometimes, I wonder which of the two of us has that Physical Empathy stat," he said, amused. He was smiling now—all discomfort gone, replaced by a look of pure affection. "I would appreciate that. You would stand by my side?"

"Always," Vex said immediately. "If anyone doesn't like you 'cause you're a suit of armor I'll fight them."

"I'm still here, you know!" Misa interjected with a laugh. She was walking along behind them, and Vex yelped when she spoke. "I'd fight them too."

"I'd fight them harder!" Vex stuck his tongue out at her. Just because.

Derivan just laughed. "I am glad to have you both as friends," he said. "But let us speak to the king, and hope that he favors our plan. We do not have much time left."

That... was true. Vex sobered up a little at the realization. Time was relative, to be fair—but there was a lot that needed to be done before he could live the life he wanted to live.

What he did know, though, was that he couldn't see a future that didn't have Derivan in it. It wasn't that he needed to have the armor with him for every second of every day.

It was just that when he pictured home, Derivan was always a part of it.

"Okay," Vex said. "Let's get this done and grab the Grand Anchor. We're almost there. Two more Grand Anchors, and then we've saved the world."Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Two more," Derivan agreed.

Misa didn't speak, but Vex felt her grasp his shoulder reassuringly. She smiled at them both, and the message was clear—she was with them, and they'd save it all together.

The palace loomed ahead.

Time to meet the king of Enkiros for the second time. Hopefully this time, he wouldn't get a death bolt thrown at his face.

"You're both named Ixoryn," Sev said slowly. He glanced between the Conductor and the God of Navigation. "And I feel—you're both divine. How is this possible?"

"I would like to know the same thing." Ixoryn—the god, not the Conductor, and Sev decided he'd keep referring to them by those names just to avoid the headache for now. "You carry a piece of my divinity."

"Yes." The Conductor didn't flinch at the accusation.

"How?" Ixoryn pressed.

"I do not know." A slight tilt of the head, a whirr in his mechanisms. The Conductor was distressed, if Sev was reading him right—but not so distressed that he wanted to evade the conversation entirely. No, he was uncomfortable? Or curious. "I only know what I am. I am a guide for this dungeon."

"And I'm sometimes known as the Guide," Ixoryn muttered. He glanced at Sev. "You know anything about this?"

"I'm the one that asked!" Sev protested. "I mean, I know a bit about Prime Anchors and what they can do, I guess. If I had to guess, something happened and it tried to incorporate you into the dungeon instead of just absorbing you for... whatever reason. Maybe because you were on the verge of death?"

"And I was not worth absorbing?" Ixoryn said dryly. "Though I appreciate that I wasn't erased as you've described."

"All of the anchors have to have some level of intelligence so they can make decisions," Sev said. "And that kind of includes decisions when it comes to building its dungeons. I'm not sure why it would take you in unless—"

Sev cut himself off, a foreign memory suddenly piercing into him. He winced. It was one of his own, yes, but separate from the others. Something he'd hidden from himself. What—what was this? He saw himself working on something in the dark. Not even in the dark. In the Void. Like he had to work on it separate from all of reality. There were very few things that had to be built outside of reality. The anchors were one of them, but what he was building... it didn't look like an anchor.

The memory of what it was—its shape, its function—that was fuzzy. It was a blur in his mind, a blur he was moving around and working on, muttering to himself in a tone that almost scared himself. He sounded borderline obsessive.

The machine clicked. The memory ended.

"What the fuck," Sev said. "What was that?"

Ixoryn glanced at him, and Sev felt the remnant threads of divine power around him. Anger briefly flared within him. "You used divine magic on me!"

"To guide you, yes," Ixoryn said, unrepentant. "To a memory that would assist."

"That didn't help!" Sev said. "It just hurt! I don't even know what that memory was!"

"What was it?" Ixoryn asked.

"It was—I don't know. I saw myself building something. Don't know what it was, don't know what it was for." Sev scowled, his heart still racing—the memory had genuinely hurt. Something fought against it being revealed to him. He'd built something in secret, even from himself. Why? The only reason to hide anything like this was to tear away conceptual links from it; the less links there were, the slower the Void could eat away at it.

"But it's relevant to my condition," Ixoryn said. Then he frowned, tilting his head slightly. "Or to your future."

"Or both," Sev said. "Fuck, that hurt. Don't do that without warning next time."

"I will endeavor to warn you," Ixoryn agreed, though he seemed uneasy. "Unless it is an emergency. It should not have hurt."

"Apparently I hid that memory from myself for a reason." Sev rubbed at his temples—his head still ached. "Look, if I had to guess—and you should not take what I'm saying as definitive—then the only reason I can think of for the dungeon to do this would be because it's trying to save you. It wants you here, for some reason, instead of in the divine planes. If you were complete you'd be forced back into them, right?"

"I didn't think of that." Ixoryn frowned in thought. "You're correct. It exacts a cost to remain here if one is a complete god. I am incomplete, which makes me mortal, but that mortality has the benefit of allowing me to participate in this realm."

A pause. "More gods should do this."

The Conductor chose this moment to speak up again. "I feel I should have input on the matter," he said. "I am, at present, a servant to the dungeon's needs."

"Oh." Ixoryn blinked, then frowned. "That won't do. Can't have a piece of myself as a slave. Let me just—"

"Do not sling divine power around," Sev barked before Ixoryn could try to sever the Conductor's connection with the dungeon. The Conductor, to his credit, had also taken several steps back and lifted both of his hands as if to defend himself.

"I do not wish to be disconnected from the dungeon at the moment," he said. "Servant was a poor choice of word, perhaps. There is a symbiosis—a mutualistic relationship. I am provided with experiences divines could not normally have in exchange for my service."

Ixoryn paused, his hands still practically glowing with power. "...I see," he said, though not without a small amount of suspicion. "We'll have to join with one another again at some point."

"I am agreed on this," the Conductor said. "I cannot remain here forever. Or even for much longer, if what you have said about this dungeon is true."

"You overheard?" Sev asked, surprised.

"I listen to everything that happens within the dungeon." The Conductor shrugged. "It is part of my job."

"Speaking of which," Sev said. He glanced out of the window—whatever the Conductor had done, it had clearly changed routes. Mostly because he was pretty sure the train was now headed down, and it was doing so fast enough that it felt like his ears were about to pop. "You did something when I gave you all those tickets."

"Yes." The Conductor nodded. "When a team is delving, I am restricted in what I can do for them until I am fed with tickets. More tickets enable me to do more for them, at the cost of less tickets being available for rewards later in the dungeon. But you are not interested in rewards, correct?"

"No." Not really, anyway. The rewards could be helpful, but they had more important things to worry about.

"I am therefore taking you directly to the dungeon core," the Conductor said. "And to the Vault, when you are done. They are not far apart, though the Vault would not normally be accessible to the dungeon."

"You can do that?" Sev blinked.

"I have done so." The Conductor gestured—with what Sev thought was a small bit of smug grandiosity that he allowed himself, which was completely fair—toward the windows. "Next station: dungeon core. Good luck, my friends."