“But first,” I said loudly. “We need to find the lost Shurengan down here. None of this is going to matter if we can’t free the last person stuck in their trial.”

  Azarus paused, where before he seemed almost amused at the idea of me acting as an assassin once more. “Ah. Tha’s…right.”

  Harlow interrupted our sideshow before it could progress. “I do nooot know what a ‘Shurengan’ is, buuut if you refer to the laaast presence withiiin the facilityyy, it is with It. Find the core, slay It, and your last companion shall be freed.”

  Oh.

  Well.

  I guess we couldn’t put it off any longer.

  Time to get this show on the road.

  Renauld deflated where he stood. “I guess I’m not leaving just yet, after all.”

  “Do not fear, Sir Renauld,” Kazuma stepped forward proudly. “I shall protect you in the fight to come.”

  Meanwhile, Azarus walked up to the Gnoll and nudged him with an elbow. “And I’ll be here to lift your spirits, eh?” He said with a smirk.

  In response, Renauld gave the both of them a tired side-eye. “Oh. Yay.”

  Venix ignored the second side-show and turned to face me. “Good luck, Hart. I doubt you shall need it, however. This is hardly the greatest beast you have felled.”

  I…wanted to point out that I hadn’t actually assassinated Rhazal, per se. I’d kinda…killed him in a rigged duel in the middle of some wacky Spirit realm.

  But instead, I took the encouragement in the ‘spirit’ it was given.

  Heh.

  “Thanks…I guess,” I said, before turning to the three others, essentially joking around under the gaze of one very confused horrific monster. “Alright, now we need a signal that I can give Tarus. And…I think I have one in mind.”

  Azarus looked up from his nudging of Renauld. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I smirked at him. “I’ll look up, and say the words ‘Azarus isn’t as good of a griller as he thinks he is’.”

  My Dwarven friend affected what looked to be a genuinely affronted expression. “Hey now, that’s a mite uncalled f-and now he’s laughin’ at me. Thanks, Nate.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh briefly myself, before the reality of the situation dawned on me. All this joking around…

  It was because the time had finally come for us to settle matters here in the bunker. Everyone else had realized that as well. We were all happy to be reunited, to a degree, but there was a subtle, battle-ready tension in the lines of my companions' bodies. In these final hours down here in this tomb, we would be separated in the final act. Them, so they could fight and keep Harlow busy and away from the core. And me, who had to go it alone in the den of the creature capable of projecting an existence that had plagued Kawamara for millennia.

  A Calamity level threat.

  That’s…fine. I was used to it, in some ways. Even though I may have put that life behind me, I still retained the abilities of an assassin.

  And besides.

  My main objection to that lifestyle had been about the senseless waste of human life, caught up in the midst of an equally senseless war. I could deal with an old monster like this that way, no problem.

  Azarus must have read the resolve that grew on my face because he abandoned the others to reach out and extend his hand. I grasped it firmly in response halfway up his forearm, in a warrior's exchange, meeting his eyes.

  “Good luck, Azarus.”

  “You too…Nathan.”

  Looking around, I received equally firm acknowledgments from all the people who had followed me, wittingly or unwittingly, into this hell at the heart of this island. For a moment, I was…grateful.

  Indescribably so.

  I don’t know what exactly I had done to engender such loyalty in my companions, or even accomplished to be deserving of it. And maybe questioning it at all was to spit on their faith.

  But I never wanted to take it for granted.

  “Good luck to all of you. Even…even you, Harlow.” I said, gazing up at the monstrosity looming over the goodbye. “May you find the end you seek, no matter your sins.”

  Harlow bowed his head to me. “Mayyy you find your dreeeam in the waking wooorld…whatever it may beee, warrior.”

  An odd saying. But he came from an odd group of people, I’m guessing.

  With one last glance around at my companions, I turned my back and walked away from Harlow's cavern.

  I was intending to call out for Travers as soon as I exited Harlow's ancient room. However, I didn’t need to. The moment I passed through the ‘seeming’ that the transformed man had cast on his doorway, I found another. Standing patiently right in the middle of the hallway, not far from where I stood, was the sliding door of the Lich’s clinic.

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  Strangely, this time, he wasn’t waiting for me in the doorway.

  I took a deep breath and approached it. Seemingly motion-activated, it slid open at my approach. Once inside, I initially didn’t see the ornery Lich himself. However, I should have known where I would find him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the illusioned form of Travers standing eerily still over the bed which held Aveline’s sleeping form. He didn’t look up as I approached his watching form, nor did he acknowledge me. For once, I didn’t interrupt him.

  Instead, I joined him.

  Gazing down at the peacefully resting form of Aveline, I felt a…myriad of different emotions.

  Exhaustion, for one. It had taken a lot to get to this point. Weeks of travel, and battle, and intrigue across the breadth of an island that might charitably be called a small continent. And once we’d reached the mountain at the center of it all, I’d unwittingly thrust the bulk of my companions into a strange, haunted hell. As much as I’d been looking forward to this trip back in Hinaga, I was beyond ready for it to be over.

  I wanted to say that I was determined as well, but…that would be a lie. I was mostly nervous about the task ahead. I told myself it was just pre-battle jitters, but I knew that was a lie. I’d come up short before whenever I had to confront a problem head-on by myself. The truth was, that I was simply more comfortable operating in a group. Although I’d agreed to take this task on, I was…apprehensive about actually performing it. All I could do was try, I suppose.

  That, or die. And possibly get all of my closest friends killed in the process.

  So.

  No pressure.

  But the sight of Aveline in particular…

  Well, I felt a certain sense of wonder.

  This girl…I fully intended for her to become a cornerstone of my life. It was frankly shocking to me just how certain I was about how I’d made that decision, rather than the decision itself. It was like I had instantly, subconsciously decided that I would care for her for as long as she could possibly need.

  Odd, that. I didn’t realize I was that kind of person.

  But…in a way…I could see why I’d done it.

  Aveline was like me. Not…exactly like me, per se. She wasn’t a Precursor.

  (I think. She didn’t have a Status right now to Observe, so I couldn’t be sure. We’d have to wait for her sixteenth birthday.)

  Nor was she from Earth. But what she was, was a frightened, stranded little girl with no one to care for or support her in the world but me. Although she was presumably born here, modern-day Vereden might as well be an alien planet to her. I was skeptical about how much Aveline might even know about Vereden itself, considering just how isolated the Netherim appeared to have been.

  Aveline needed help. So had I, and I had gotten it. Even if it had been under fairly…dire initial circumstances. She was like me. I was more determined to help her than I was to actually kill the Wyrm in the core.

  Ah.

  There it went. I wasn’t nervous about the fight anymore.

  Now I was ready.

  I must have given off a tell of some kind because Travers finally stirred from his own contemplation. “So,” He said in a monotone. “Harlow has joined your little conspiracy.”

  I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, somehow unsurprised. “You were watching us, then.”

  It makes sense. How else would he know to direct the door to wherever we had gone?

  Travers inclined his head ever so slightly but didn’t take his eyes off of Aveline. “In a way.” He said, refusing to elaborate. A small, mirthless smile stole across his face, and he finally turned to face me. “Did you notice, Nathaniel Hart?”

  “…notice what?”

  “That Harlow never once expressed regret for what he did,” Travers said, in a voice carrying an old, old fury. Not at me, though. I could tell that. “Nor did he even mention me. And believe me, we’ve crossed paths on occasion, through the years. He knows I’m here. All he wanted was to be free of his punishment.”

  I was quiet for a moment, absorbing that. He was…right, I suppose. But…

  “There comes a time,” I started slowly. “When punishment outweighs the crime. Millennia of deathless, transformative torture at the hands of a monster might just verge on that. I’m not sure I can blame such a person for just wanting a way out.”

  My words caused Travers's false lips to curl. “How easy it is for you to say that, pretender,” He said in disgust. “You did not watch as your entire civilization fell to treachery, from he who was supposed to defend us. It was not you who lingered beyond death to look after the sleeping form of your only daug-” He cut himself off mid-sentence, but the damage had already been done.

  Silence descended between the two of us again, and Travers briefly looked away in embarrassment. Eventually, though, the once Doctor met my eyes again, almost defiantly, nearly daring me to challenge him.

  Instead, I nodded quietly, a suspicion confirmed. “Your daughter.”

  In a move that I would almost term subconscious, the disguised Lich let out a slow sigh.

  And nodded. “My daughter.”

  “She…didn’t call you father, though?”

  “Because that’s what Cecily wanted,” Travers said sharply. “We were not…married in the sense you would understand, pretender. Aveline…she wasn’t a love child. She was born from a drunken moment of passion, between two intellectuals at the height of their careers. When Cecily Montblanc discovered she was bearing my child, she was very clear. I was not to be involved in the child's life, as anything other than a childhood Doctor. She did not want my…other interests-”

  Necromancy, I’m guessing.

  “-to influence an innocent soul. How ironic, then, that it was those same ‘disgusting fascinations’ that granted me the eternity needed to watch over our child,” Travers laughed bitterly. “I…respected her decision, if only with the promise that I would be allowed to tell her once she came of age. And so it came to be that the man once known as Jonathon Travers was not ‘Papa’, to his own child. He was merely ‘Doctor’.”

  “You…speak as if you aren’t that man,” I said slowly.

  Jonathon Travers shook his head with finality. “Because I am not. That man is dead and gone. I am what remains, and I do not regret my decisions!” He finished with an almost crazed shout, turning to face the door of his own clinic and clenching a fist towards it defiantly. “Do you hear me, Cecily?! I do not regret it! You are little more than a shade, but I am still here to watch over her!”

  I cast a glance over at Aveline and was relieved to see the little girl still sleeping peacefully. Those must have been some strong sleeping aids.

  She didn’t need to hear this.

  When I looked back at Travers, I was unsurprised to see the Lich heaving in place, like he was trying to draw in breath to lungs that had long since withered. “Do you,” I said, pausing briefly when his attention snapped back to me. “Want me to tell her that, when she’s older?”

  Travers closed his eyes, partly I think to consider, and partly to calm himself. “No,” He said finally. “No, I do not. If I am not the one to tell her, I do not want her to know. She will grow, eventually, and realize the truth of what I am now. I…do not want her memories of me to be tainted by that knowledge. Let me remain as the man who would give her lollies after an injection and not her undead forebear.”

  “…as you wish.”

  I may have chosen to take up the task of caring for Aveline, but that didn’t mean it was my place to gainsay her actual Father.

  …not yet.

  “Enough,” Travers finally growled. “Enough of this. Let the past lie amongst the dead. Let Harlow have his lessened sentence. And let my only remaining link to this damned world be free of this wretched tomb. Come, pretender.”

  “It’s time to settle this.”