I stood with Jun and Mortician in front of The End, moments away from being taken back to the all-world. The End looked like it wanted to say something else, but decided against it at the last second. The Ossuary started to shimmer as Jun squeezed my hand, armor covering her in the blink of an eye. I donned my own suit right after, and turned to make sure Mortician had done the same. They didn’t look quite as confident in what was happening, but one glance at Jun and I was all they needed to suit up themselves.

“Farewell for now, and may our next meeting be on happier terms.” The End said with a small wave right before the Ossuary completely disappeared.

//I WILL EAGERLY AWAIT THAT TIME.

I didn’t close my eyes, and yet it felt like I’d just opened them when I saw a brand new landscape rolled out before me. The ground was a rich, earthy brown with traces of a deep, dark blue that seemed to be flowing underneath my feet like veins of solid water. I pressed my toes into one such vein and expected it to sink in easily, yet it felt like I was trying to press my foot into hard-packed wet dirt.

The world above the ground, however, was absolutely stunning. Structures like stone trees ringed the pathway we were on like ancient archways, shot through with the same blue veins as the ground. Here, however, they let loose a fine mist of water that condensed as a translucent white fog, shrouding our immediate surroundings in an almost ethereal wetness that made everything shimmer and gleam like plants on a dewy spring morning. Off the pathway was a mixture of wasteland and yet more stone structures of all differing sizes, from small sprigs to massive towers that seemed to have waterfalls built into them and everything in between.

If a place called ‘Rainbow Basin’ was going to be anywhere, this was it.

“Well, that was unpleasant.” Okeria said happily, rising to his feet as Keratily’s pink crystals fell away. “And this is quite pleasant. The mist in the air has a kind of core-damping effect, so don’t go trying ta fight anyone in here. It’s a perfect natural defence system, if I don’t say so myself, and you’ll see how we completely screwed it up when we get closer ta the city.”

“Just like us to do that.” Jun laughed, following Okeria down the path without letting go of my hand. When I didn’t instantly follow, she turned her head to see what was keeping me. “Seb? What… oh. That’s adorable.”

Mortician was absolutely starstruck by the stone fixtures all around us, barely looking at one as if it were the most delicate thing in the world. They swallowed hard and nodded to themselves as they worked up the courage to touch one of the stone trees, cooing in pleasant surprise when it didn’t collapse under their hand.

“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” I commented.

Mortician nodded happily. “There was so much destruction back in the hazard that we’d almost forgotten what reality could look like.”

“Yeah, the all-world can be real beautiful sometimes. Real deadly, too, in case some people have forgotten.” Okeria cut in. “Like I said, the waters have a core damping effect. Which means it’ll get harder and harder ta keep your armor on the longer we stay in here, at which point the wildlife’ll come out and eat us.”

I nodded, and Jun nodded, and Mortician looked back at the stone tree before reluctantly stepping away and nodding. Okeria stopped and crossed his arms, blowing out a long breath and shaking his head.

“Twist my arm, why don’t ya. Mortician, I’ll come and take ya on a real tour of this place once we’re all set up in Rainbow Basin. Does that sound good ta ya?”

Mortician's excitement redoubled at Okeria’s offer. “Can we!? How long will it take for us to get settled?”

I could hear a smile in Okeria’s voice when he next spoke. “Two, three days at most. I’ll be beyond busy for that long, so it’ll be a nice break ta get outta the office for a few hours.”

“We can wait that long.” Mortician said, though it was more to convince themselves than anything. “We waited so many years to exist, so what is a few days?”

“Good attitude! And one I hope you’ll keep up when this thing ends up going years long like I’m afraid it’s going to.” Okeria said cheerfully. “Again, though, I gotta repeat; we gotta get moving. We’re only safe when we’re comfortably walled in by Rainbow Basin, and that’s a two hour walk at full armor efficiency. So… probably a three hour walk once we factor in how we’re all battle-worn and… huh. How come the three of ya ain’t as battle-worn as ya were just moments ago?”

“The End.” Jun said simply, as if that explained everything. And, almost miraculously so, Okeria nodded as if it did.

“Okay, yeah, so that’s another thing I gotta get used ta. Good ta know.” He said. “I’ll break out the sled again when I collapse from overexertion and the three of ya are still in tip-top shape.”

“If that happens, I’ll happily drag you all the way to Rainbow Basin.” I said with a roll of my eyes that nobody could see. “I’m not sure if I’ll use the sled, though.”

A hearty laugh was my answer. “Then I oughta try my best not ta collapse, yeah?”

The trek to Rainbow Basin was long, hard, and full of so many dangers I could’ve written an entire book on them alone. At least that’s what Okeria kept hyping it up to be, even as we crested a hill two hours into our leisurely walk and unceremoniously got an eyefull of the city that was supposedly still a few hundred hardships away. Mortician had asked for the sled just a half hour ago, and they were comfortably sleeping through the uncomfortable terrain.

“Then we’ll have ta cross the chasm of unrelenting dread, where we’ll fight a–oh, we’re here.” Okeria said without changing his tone. “We’ve gotta go slightly around, since the path down is only built into one part of the, well, basin. Empty basin, that is. Cause we clear-cut an entire city’s worth of those stone-aquifers you’ve been seeing ta make room.”

I stared down at Rainbow Basin feeling… completely whelmed. The city wasn’t exactly a rainbow, and it was certainly in an empty basin. Huge buildings rose up from obviously cordoned off districts, none of which had any kind of unifying size, height, or even building size. I could make out something like an open-air market in the district closest to us, which was also connected to one of many sets of gates that stood connected to absolutely no walls at all. I was about to make a comment, but then I remembered the field around Walkalong that was supposed to detect when anyone entered. If that was the case for Rainbow Basin, then they’d only need walls if they were being attacked.

“Maybe it’ll be more impressive up close?” Jun suggested hopefully. “There are a lot of huge buildings, but they’re nothing compared to what’s back home on Sotrien.”

“Yeah, that’s what happens when ya gotta build for people who’ve got cores and armor. Can’t make anything that’d cause too much damage if it collapsed, and ya gotta make everything so sturdy that the squabbles between drunken idiots don’t ruin someone’s home. So ya build thick, ya build easily replaced, and only then do ya start thinking about anything else.” Okeria explained. “It was only a few decades ago that we were at war with ourselves, don’t ya forget. A lot of Rainbow Basin got remodeled since then, and most of that was for the worse.”

Okeria shook his head and sighed. “Too much history wiped away because it was uncomfortable ta look at. That includes people, but I think all three of ya know that already.”

“Nia’s veterans district.” I muttered. “How much of the city did they do that to?”

“A lot more than they needed ta, I tell ya. Did ya know that when I first came here, there was an actual rainbow over the basin all the time? That was when we tapped the aquifer veins into the city instead of emptying them into a huge reservoir that we keep underground.” Okeria said with mounting frustration. “It don’t do us any good, since the lines have been drier now that we’ve taken too much away from ‘em, and it’s been like plucking buds ta try and get the drowned morons that I work with ta see that their selective opulence ain’t just screwing over the people they don’t care about; it’s hurting them too. If the abyss took that drowned Scalovera today… well, it’d be decades too late.”

If I remembered right, the Scalovera Okeria was talking about was the person who ran Rainbow Basin before Okeria. The same one who’d okayed the destruction of the veterans district. And, if the name wasn’t extremely common, a family member to the recruit that I’d met back in Walkalong.

“I wonder how the Scalovera we know is doing.” Jun mused, taking the sled’s reins from me as she started to follow Okeria along the cliffside. “They’re about as infamous as the Keratilys, but for slightly different reasons. Do you think all the recruits got out safely, or are they all Endra’s prisoners now?”

“Most of ‘em got out safely, but a good few of ‘em chose ta stay with Endra of their own volition. And I don’t mean Endra-as-Persephonia; those morons willingly sided with the person they knew was Endra. At least according ta Inopsy.” Okeria said with a shake of his head. “I can’t even guess what was going through their heads when they made that decision.”

“Self-preservation, I’d guess.” I said with a shrug, following Okeria as he started walking down a fairly steep set of stairs that had been carved into the cliffside. There was a much more gradual ramp further along the cliff, which had to be for supplies and larger vehicles, but it looked like it would take at least half an hour to walk down it.

Whereas the stairs only took us ten minutes. Two of which were spent trying to orient ourselves so we could carry Mortician down without waking them up. Before I was really ready for it, we found ourselves standing at a completely useless gate to the city. An unmanned, comically large gate that absolutely brimmed with power.

“Well, here we are.” Okeria said with a yawn, walking up to the gate and pressing his hand to it. A wave of force blew off of it, threatening to send me off balance for a split second before Okeria shook his hand and glanced up at the top. “...Access denied? Well, that won’t do.”

He took a step to the side and strolled right past the gate.

“These things were always useless anyway. Oh, and be careful; we’re all criminals in the eyes of the city now.” Okeria said casually. “I’ll get everything sorted out, so try and lay low until then.”