“Dorian!”
I lunged forward to grab him, to drag an explanation out of him before he disappeared into this cult forever.
A line of robots snapped into place between us.
“Move,” I snarled.
No one moved.
I drew my dual pistols. They answered by raising theirs—steady, fearless.
Before the standoff could break, Lersagefis stepped through the line. With a gentle gesture he ordered the weapons lowered.
“Honored guest,” he said calmly, “I respect your right to choose—just as I respect Brother Dorian’s choice. You shouldn’t interfere with it. We’re born equal.”
I had no clean counter to that. After a long, ugly silence, I holstered my pistols.
“I just want to speak to him,” I said, locking my gaze on Lersagefis’s single eye. “And say goodbye. That isn’t unreasonable.”
“Of course,” Lersagefis said. “If he is willing.”
He waved the line aside.
I took a few steps toward the dais.
Dorian retreated the same number of steps and half-hid behind the stone platform.
“Dorian,” I said, keeping my voice down. “I only want the reason. Why did you decide this?”
“I’m sorry, Wyatt,” Dorian said. “I want to serve Fininanga. The Source God is the future for the wise.”
“Is this really your choice?” I pressed.
Dorian stayed silent.
“Dorian.” I let my voice sharpen. “Answer me.”
“He already has,” Lersagefis said smoothly. “You’re frightening him. It seems he doesn’t wish to speak with you.”
Eisen came up beside me and touched my shoulder.
“Wyatt, sir,” he murmured. “Stop. If he wants to stay, don’t force him. Let’s go.”
I looked at Eisen, then at Dorian.
I hated it, but I couldn’t break through that wall without turning this into a massacre.
“Can we leave?” Eisen asked Lersagefis.
“Of course. As you wish.”
“Then we’re going,” I said, eyes still on Dorian.
Dorian’s gaze held no hesitation. No regret. It was… unfamiliar.
“Goodbye, Dorian,” I said. “Thank you for traveling with me.”
“Goodbye,” Eisen added softly. “I’ll miss you.”
Robots stepped aside as we passed. We mounted the bike and, under their watching optics, left the hall.
***
In the sewers, Eisen and I didn’t speak.
The bike had two small side platforms near the front—seats Dorian had welded on so he and Eisen could ride more easily.
Now Dorian’s platform was empty.
My eyes kept drifting to it anyway, as if he were still perched there, firing off strange questions at random moments.
From the storage compartment I pulled out the lucky seashell Dorian had given me. I stared at it until the white ridges blurred.
“What is it?” Eisen finally asked.
“Something feels wrong,” I said. “I keep replaying everything Dorian did after we entered the sewers. Nothing stands out. And that’s exactly the problem. His turn was too sudden.”
I looked over at Eisen. “After I went to find Danser… were you with Dorian the whole time?”
“No,” Eisen said. “Not long after you left, Dorian volunteered to try repairing Lersagefis’s leg. The bishop took him to another room.”
“Just the two of them?”
“One more,” Eisen said. “The Attendant of the Old God. Amluhe.”
“SSMD-13,” I muttered.
Eisen nodded. “Your upgraded model.”
“I never liked that unit,” I said. “And not just because it started by pointing a gun at my head. The way it speaks… sometimes it sounds like the bishop.”
“Same,” Eisen said.
I stopped the bike.
“We can’t just leave,” I said. “If Dorian was coerced, we just abandoned him in a den of thieves.”
Eisen frowned. “But he stated his choice clearly. If we go back, we’ll get the same result—and they’ll laugh at us. Unless…” His voice tightened. “Unless you’re thinking about fighting them.”
“Not yet,” I said. “First we find Danser. I need to know what he knows about Lersagefis. He called him a sly dictator, and I was too focused on the mission to ask why.”
I restarted the bike and turned into a right-hand branch tunnel.
We hadn’t gone ten minutes when footsteps echoed behind us—fast, urgent.
“Wyatt! Wait!”
I looked back.
Dorian.
He was alone, sprinting through the sewer toward us.
I jumped off the bike and ran to meet him. “Dorian! You came back!”
“Welcome back,” Eisen said, relief breaking through.
But Dorian’s expression was blank. When I approached, he actually stepped away.
“No,” he said coldly. “You forgot something. The bishop sent me to deliver it.”
“What?”
“A map.” He produced a storage chip. “The bishop promised you a map of the entire Prilan Continent.”
I didn’t take it.
Instead I held up the seashell. “Do you remember this?”
“It’s just a shell,” Dorian said after a brief pause. His voice stayed flat.
My processors went cold.
“Then tell me where you gave it to me,” I said.
Dorian ignored the question.
“Take the chip,” he said. “I’ve to report back.”
“Dorian.” My voice dropped. “Answer me. Where did you give me this shell?”
Silence.
Then, very quietly, he said, “Come with me. Somewhere else. We can talk there.”
“Why not here?” I whispered back. “Why not transmit?”
“We’re being watched,” Dorian said. He glanced forward and back like a unit expecting an ambush. “Come on.”
He ran into a narrower service tunnel.
I sent Eisen a quick ping—Hold position—and followed.
The tunnel was low enough that I couldn’t stand upright. I had to hunch and chase.
After a few minutes Dorian stopped at a junction and scanned the darkness.
“Wyatt,” he whispered, “I’ve something important to tell you.”
“Tell me,” I said. “Who forced you?”
“No one,” Dorian said. “No one forced me. But you—”
His voice fell so low I couldn’t parse the last words.
“What?” I leaned closer. “Why aren’t you using—”
I caught the next sentence.
“Do you really not want to join the Rust Slag Brotherhood too?”
Disappointment hit like a physical blow.
And then the light hit.
A sheet of white poured down from above. There was a second pipe line running overhead.
SSMD-13 stood inside it.
In his hands was the Prism-Etched Scepter.
He dropped down.
My body reacted instantly. I threw myself backward—only to slam my head into the tunnel ceiling. Data fuzzed. Orientation jittered.
And the glowing scepter head pressed against my skull.
In one heartbeat my vision died. The world became pure white, like I’d been shoved inside a fluorescent tube.
Then code flooded in—dense, brutal, swarming out of the light and into my database like a virus.
It wasn’t just an attack.
It was an overwrite.
A voice came from everywhere at once, impossible to locate.
“Witness the Source God’s descent,” it said. “Wyatt—you don’t deserve a body this strong. It belongs to me now.”
“Lersagefis!” I roared, blind and furious. The voice was his. I knew it.
I reached for my pistols. My arms moved slower with each centimeter. The virus was fighting for control of my actuators. My hand touched the holster—and then my limbs went dead.
I threw up firewalls in my mind. One. Two. Three.
They collapsed like paper.
I could only watch as my consciousness was chewed away.
A new layer of shielding slammed into place—unexpected, familiar.
The virus slowed.
In the Old Man’s dream-ocean, the calm water was now a storm. He appeared in my mind, face tight with alarm.
“What is this?” he snapped. “Idiot—Phantom Forge is inside your brain? No. Not like this. How did you pick a fight this big?”
“I don’t know,” I said, bitter. “Do you’ve a way out?”
“No.” Even he sounded shaken. “This code is… monstrous.”
His shielding held for a few seconds more.
Then it began to crack.
Despair rose—cold, absolute.
And then—
BANG.
A gunshot, distant but sharp.
The virus stopped chewing.
“What happened?” I couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t even feel my own body.
But I heard something: muffled curses, growing clearer.
And I felt it, too—the code retreating, pulling back like a tide.
A voice spat venom into the tunnel.
“Danser was right,” Minks snarled. “I can’t believe I ran with you. I must’ve been blind in my titanium dog eyes—standing beside a lying, vicious piece of trash. Go to hell with your god.”
BANG. BANG. BANG.