That's What Honesty Feels Like.

"That's... that's more or less everything. I wish I could tell you more about what we're up against. Or more about the situation with the gods, or the Aspects, whatever they're calling themselves. There's so much I don't know, so much that people always seem to leave out, and being gone for a year hasn't particularly helped. But that's who I am, where I've come from. If that's enough, or even if it isn't, I'll see you soon, Adantia."

The recording was finished, reviewed, and then sent - and then the drone was too, vanishing with a decidedly unsatisfying silence. John had very intentionally not set a timer on his phone to match the length of the video, hoping that the best way for his arrival to be unpredictable was to not even be entirely certain himself when he'd be returning. Of course, that didn't help with his nerves.

Facing the unknown was actually not something John was particularly good at. Despite all that he'd done in the Abyss so far, he'd had relatively few things that he didn't already know were going to end in a fight, or that something would have to go horribly wrong for a fight to break out. Even when something did go horribly wrong, it usually happened suddenly.

Sitting like this, just waiting.... it was like ****. John alternated between methods of coping with the wait, everything from checking his menus to pacing aimlessly while plotting out imaginary escape mechanisms he could use if things turned hostile. He knew he couldn't outrun Adantia – even if Vallya was wrong about her holding back, Adantia could strike from miles away, even through a Barrier, something that John couldn't do yet even through a Barrier he controlled. But over the course of the time he'd spent hunting the last of the Albidians and a few other errands he'd needed to run, John had actually managed to work the cooldown of his World Shift to only five minutes; if things went south, could he really last that long against Adantia? Considering their last exchange had been a few seconds...

"No, don't think about that."

That phrase echoed through John's mind with an unwelcome familiarity, as another worry was relegated to the obscurity of the darkest corners of his mind. John didn't remember accessing his inventory, yet his fingers found themselves intimately caressing the hilt of his sword all the same. John stood and turned toward the distance, toward where he knew his home lay though it was too far to glimpse. His neck stood rigid as every fiber of his being resisted turning a few degrees and losing himself to despair.

"No matter what happens here, no matter what fate awaits me... I'll see my family again."

That bittersweet thought was what carried John across worlds, propelled toward whatever fate awaited him. The shifting of worlds was a more jarring one than usual, perhaps not aided by the fact that even before he had fully formed, John felt the cold touch of steel on his body.

Metal tendrils snaked in between the gaps of his armor, slithering against his clothes and bare flesh under the protective metal. They clasped onto him and held him in place against the wall of the supermarket with such overwhelming **** that even John's adrenaline-fueled reactive flexing couldn't budge the metal now holding him firmly against the wall. John was surprised the wall held up at first, thinking that even the magical city must have its limits – but he realized with not a small amount of surprise that there were just as many of the metal cables behind him as there were around him, if not more, actually holding him just a few inches away from the wall.

Adantia's approach was slow and confident, but with a clear air of urgency. It was the stride of a woman who'd lost her prey once before, and refused to do so again – even if she wasn't exactly sure how John had escaped her the first time. That just meant she could leave even fewer openings than before.

"Wait, Adantia, I-"

The metal cables weren't quite wide enough to fully cover John's mouth, but enough of them wrapped around his mouth, forcing themselves against his lips, that it was all he could do to gargle a few more syllables before he was in danger of either biting his own cheeks or having the cables snap his teeth.

"I'm going to ask you exactly three questions. You're going to answer them all – short and simple, ten seconds or less. If I don't like any of your answers, I'll kill you without a second thought. Are we clear?"

John felt the cables loosen and thought for a moment that he was being allowed to speak – but the cables around his lips and tightened against the inside of his mouth were still tight. Only those around his neck loosened slightly, and even then, only enough to allow John to nod the barest amount before they constricted once more.

"Good. First question – who the hell are you, and why are you here?"

The metal cables that were wrapped around John's face loosened around his lips and mouth, grinding slightly against his teeth as he was at last able to stretch his jaw again. John fought the urge to gasp and struggle for breath, knowing Adantia likely wasn't lying about his time limit.

"It's all just as I said in the recording. My name is John Newman, I'm a mage from Springfield, and I'm here to ask for your help fighting an army of necromancers coming from the north. Please, if you don't help me, I'm going to lose my home and all of my friends will suf-"

-98 HP

A metal cable whipped across John's face, and the pain silenced him as the remaining steel slid back into place, tightening over his mouth and preventing him from speaking, although they held slightly looser than they had before.

"Time's up, I said ten seconds. Second question – who told you where to find me?"

This time John put a little more urgency into his words.

"Himiko Nakamura, after I asked her to help me she told me where to find you, she said you were the only-"

"Bullshit!"

John was damn sure it hadn't been ten seconds, but he couldn't stop the metal coils from silencing him once more, grinding into his face with somehow even more malice than before as Adantia glared at him, stepping forward and poking into his chest with a single finger so powerfully it felt like a metal rod being jammed into his chest.

"Only one person knows that I'm alive here, and I know who it is, so don't fucking lie to me! You get one more chance, who sent you here, and why?"

The cables loosened again, and John took a deep breath to calm himself before speaking.

"What I'm telling you is the truth, just like I said in the message, if you got to that part. I don't know how she knew – even the mercenary we hired who calls herself Killjoy didn't believe that you were alive when we told her. Killjoy only brought us here because we paid her."

Ten seconds had surely passed, but no metal cables snaked their way across his mouth this time. Adantia stepped forward further, so close that their noses were nearly brushing against each other, and though her eyes still looked milky and sightless, she stared into his with an intimidating aura few could match.

"Final question. What was her name?"

"I told you, her name is Himiko. Himiko Naka-"

"Not her. You told me the names of almost everyone in your story – all but one. What was her name?"

"..."

John couldn't meet Adantia's gaze as he spoke, averting his eyes to the side, though he stared at nothing in particular. He knew immediately who she was talking about. The only name he hadn't said, the one he avoided where possible.

"Her name was... it was Seras."

There was a heavy silence in the air, as Adantia continued to stare at John. Her face twitched down into a frown, and as she raised up her hand John could feel the metal cables shifting around his body. John began to struggle against his bonds, anticipating a **** by crushing or quartering, but found that the cables fell away easily as he began to pull at them. While he was struggling against them, they lowered him to the ground gently, almost gingerly, and then pulled away entirely, leaving him alone and unmolested.

"You can leave now."

"W-what? Just like that?" John asked, before his brain could fully send the 'shut the fuck up' signals to his mouth. "So you believe me?"

"Fuck no," Adantia said, actually laughing in a harsh and bitter way. "Your story is bullshit. I don't know what weird magic you were using before, you do feel a bit different now, but nobody can just make Barrier creatures into living creatures, much less some weird new species. The private world may be some weird late bloomer thing, but half of what you told me sounds like horseshit."

"But then why-"

"Because I don't know how much of the story you twisted around, but there's truth in it. Your voice, your body language... even your aura tells me all I need to know about that. Whatever half-truths you're spouting, at the very least, you seem to believe them. More importantly... pain recognizes pain. I'm sorry about whatever actually happened," Adantia said, her voice actually growing soft for a minute. "But even if I fully believed you, my answer would be the same."

"But I need you to come with me! My home is still in danger!"

"I'm not coming with you. You get to live – that's enough. Get out of my city, and never tell anyone what you saw here. If you do, I swear I'll make sure you live to regret it, even if it's the last thing I do."

Adantia turned and began to walk toward the entrance of the store, her shoulders tensed angrily.

"No."

Adrenaline flared in John's bloodstream, and the sound of his heart was pounding in his ears when he saw Adantia stop mid-stride. Her head immediately spun halfway around, staring at the ground off to John's right, but with a glare that could've intimidated the entire room.

"This is my home. You. Aren't. Welcome."

"Yes, this is your home. And again, I'm sorry for intruding... but my home is in danger. If you believe me now, enough not to kill me, then you have to believe that part too!"

"Not my problem," Adantia said, waving her hand dismissively. "I already lost my home. Deal with it on your own."

"Come on, you can't be that heartless!" John shouted. "You lost your home, shouldn't you want to help prevent something like this from ever happening again?!"

-768 HP!
-129 HP!

The palm that struck John's chest and shattered his sternum had moved so fast that John actually saw Adantia in two places at once – still standing there, and simultaneously striking him. That was in the instant before he was flung against the wall, covering the few feet in a split-second and actually losing another sizeable chunk of health from the **** he impacted the enchanted wall with.

John was barely able to hold himself up after the rebound, coughing and sputtering as his lungs tried to deal with the collapse of his ribcage and the immediate bounceback from Gamer's Body restoring them to normal; the pain and damage were gone, but the memory and the panic remained. Adantia stepped in front of him as fast as she'd struck, poking a finger into his chest so hard he was surprised there wasn't another damage notification.

"You don't ever get to talk about this place, you got that?! You have no idea what happened here!"

"Then... tell me. I told you my story, tell me yours," John offered, hoping that he could at least find some way to keep Adantia talking.

"I don't have to tell you shit, you're the one who broke into my home," Adantia said, scowling as she put her finger to John's forehead and with that one finger seemed to pin his entire body in place. "You shouldn't be here in the first place. Don't you have a home to defend?"

"Funny to hear, coming from you."

John's head was released from the vice-like grip imposed on it by Adantia's finger as the muscular ravenette spun on her heel. Near the doorway to the grocery store stood Killjoy, standing with a look on her face that held some of the same statuesque indifference from before, but with unmistakable cracks of anger breaking through. John couldn't pretend that he'd known the mercenary long enough to know how easy it was to piss her off... but that didn't make her glare any less intimidating.

"Rachel? It really was you!" Adantia exclaimed, taking a few steps forward toward the redheaded merc. She paused when Killjoy – Rachel, apparently – stepped away from her and a scowl passed over her face. "I... I always wondered if it was you that I felt protecting the city. It was so hard to tell, I never sensed your energy from-"

"Stop acting like we're still friends. We're not, not after you spent this long lying to me and hiding yourself away like this. Abandoning everything we ever worked for, everyone we ever cared about? You're no friend, not to me, not to anyone."

Though her face was still relatively even, Rachel's words were spoken with such venom that John physically recoiled, surprised by her shift in demeanor. It seemed that despite the mercenary's generally indifferent attitude, seeing Adantia had been more than enough to break that front. Even her stance had become hostile, tense and ready to strike.

"Rachel... I know this is kind of sudden, this isn't how I wanted you to find out I was still alive. I was hoping maybe you already figured it out, but you have to believe me, I couldn't-"

"There is nothing you couldn't do. At least I used to believe that," Rachel said, now scowling outright. "But that was before you spent years cowering in a hole while the rest of us unlucky enough to survive the fall of Paix thought you were dead, and our best hope with it. Now I believe you. You couldn't save us, you couldn't protect us... you couldn't. Maybe no one can."

"Rachel, it isn't that simple! Please, just listen to me, Suula-"

"I don't want to hear her name, or your excuses. Protect the city your damn self, you clearly don't need me to do it for you, and I have no plans on ever returning to this cursed place."

"Rachel, Suula told me if I ever showed anyone that I was still alive, she'd come back and-"

"Sorry, John. It seems we couldn't find Adantia after all," Rachel said, turning her eyes over her shoulder with a deathly glare. "All we've found is a coward and a traitor. Adantia would never have let herself become either of those."

Rachel didn't give Adantia another chance to call out to her; she tapped her wristbands together twice and vanished. Whether she'd teleported or just gone invisible was hard to discern, with her ability to avoid Observe even while clearly in John's view.

"No- you have to come back, if you say anything, you'll be in danger!" Adantia called out, but there was no response. The store remained silent, and there was no sign of reaction or movement, whether Rachel was still there or not. John wondered idly if the mercenary really was still nearby, ready to protect him according to their contract, or if she had abandoned him to Adantia.

"Damn it... Damn you!"

Adantia turned to John, pointing a finger accusingly at him. Her stance was wavering between hostility and surrender; her body was quivering slightly with the intensity of memories and emotions evoked by Rachel's sudden appearance and disappearance. John found himself really hoping that either Vallya was right about him being the right person to reach her or that Rachel was still hanging around somewhere...

"If she gets hurt because of this, if she dies because you brought her here and found me... I don't care how far you run or how deep you bury yourself away, I will find you, and I will make every remaining second of your life a living hell! She might be one of the only ones left from this city, and I won't lose any more!"

"W-why would she get hurt from this? Adantia, please, tell me what happened here!" John pleaded, intrigue and self-preservation instincts driving a mad curiosity about what had Adantia so concerned.

"That's why I've been hiding here all this time. Why I didn't even let Rachel know I was still alive..." Adantia said, tears forming in her eyes as the hands clasping John's collar began to shake. "If word gets out that I'm still alive, what remains of this city and the few people that survived its culling could be in huge danger!"

"You think Suula will come back here to finish what she started?" John asked. "Even after all these years?"

"I don't know if it will be her or not... but I'll never forget the last thing Suula said to me. After she betrayed me, stabbed me in the back in my own home, and killed almost everyone I'd ever truly cared about..."