Annette oohed and aahed at the impressiveness that was the facility. I expected that out of her, since she was a human like me, but what I didn’t expect was Inopsy joining in like an even more excited child.

“Look at this! It’s all rainbow-y, just like this place’s name!” He said excitedly and jumped up to hang from a glass pipe, then yelped as his fingers touched it. “It's thinking at me! That’s so drowned cool!”

“Thought at you?” Annette murmured as she studied the scenery from a respectable distance. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not how thoughts work.”

“You’re wrong.” I said plainly, then grabbed Inopsy by the ankle and pulled him off the pipe. He’d shed his armor the second he got in, but Annette was intelligently keeping hers on. “It’s a little too complicated to explain to you, but the extremely dumbed-down version is that this place is like a magical graveyard that somehow stores all the thoughts from Rainbow Basin.”

Inopsy nodded and caressed his chin in thought. “This must be the work of one powerful person if it’s lasted this long. Especially since it looks like it's gotten stronger over the years, not weaker.”

“Observant, aren’t you?” Gloriosa said flatly as she emerged from a hallway, then turned to me. “Looks like you found some backup. I recognize Inopsy, but who’s the other one? Another of Addia’s chosen?”

“Nope!” Inopsy answered immediately. “This is Annette! She’s a human just like Sebastian, and she’s going to help us kill Keratily! And free Rainbow Basin, plus deal with Endra, yada yada yada, not as important stuff.”

Gloriosa frowned and crossed her arms. “Another human, right. Well, she doesn’t feel anywhere close to how strong Keratily is. How is she meant to help us?”

Inopsy smacked his forehead. “Right, I forgot to tell you. For some reason, the light part of her function destroys Keratily’s crystals like they were nothing. We point her in the right direction while I distract the pink-crystal monster, get her to destroy the lattice that’s weakening Rainbow Basin, and BAM! I go in for the kill when Keratily’s so surprised she can’t think straight.”

All the attention in the room instantly shifted to Annette. I had not been aware of that part of her core, and it almost seemed too good to be true.

“You’re lying.” I said in disbelief. “I already said I wasn’t going to hold a grudge, and that I was actually going to try and help you. You don’t need to lie to get my trust.”

Annette pointed directly at her chest and sputtered. “I… you… I’m not the one that said that! Inopsy’s pieces were trapped in Keratily’s crystals, and my function somehow got them out! Trust me, that's all I know!”

“The two functions are very similar, actually.” Inopsy cut in before anyone else could. “Keratily steals away people’s stats and battery with her core, and Annette can force anyone under her illusions to help power her functions. I did a little research with some chunks of crystal Keratily left in my organs, and it turns out that the light Annette emits that puts people under her illusions actually works on continuous functions too.”

He summoned a chunk of pink crystal and tossed it to Jun. She caught it, frowned at it, and held it out at arm’s length. “What was that about Keratily putting crystal in your organs?”

“Oh, not that one. I stole that from a spire we found on our way here.” Inopsy said with a dismissive wave. “My theory is that Annette’s core actually has three parts–illusions, light, and something that lets her use other people to fuel her own functions. And when she finds a remotely-operated function that isn’t immediately connected to its user, she can use that fuel to force a function to burn itself out way too quickly.”

“You saw how it destroyed the crystal. That didn’t look like burning something out.” Annette argued. “It was like my light melted the cry–MMPH!”

Inopsy put a hand over Annette’s visor that somehow had the same effect as if he’d placed it on her mouth. “Haha, she’s such a kidder.” He chuckled. “Doesn’t even know how her own core works yet. But don’t worry–we’ll weaken and distract Keraitly enough that you won’t have to factor her in for the first few stages of whatever your plan is. Can’t guarantee that she’ll stay distracted through all of it, though!”

Annette wrestled with Inopsy for a few seconds, then gave up with a muffled sigh. “Mmrgmph frr yellrsah.”

“Let her talk, Inopsy.” Gloriosa sighed. “All you’re doing is making me more suspicious of her, while she looks like she’s trying to alleviate that suspicion. We don’t need to keep things secret down here, you know.”

“Uh-huh. Riiight.” Inopsy said in the least convinced voice possible. “Well, I’m still not telling any of you exactly what my core does, even if you spill all the details about your own.”

“We never asked you to, Inopsy.” I pointed out. “We’re just looking for reasons to trust you and Annette with the ‘distract Keratily’ part of the plan.”

Something flashed in Inopsy’s eyes that I didn’t like. For a split second, it was as if he viewed all of us as enemies. I brought my functions to the tip of my mind in preparation for him to go berzerk, but instead, he just removed his hand from Annette’s visor and stepped back while his breathing settled into a calming rhythm.

Mutterings escaped him with every few breaths. I could only pick up every third or so, but what I heard instantly killed my suspicion and replaced it with sympathy. He was reminding himself where he was. That he was among friends–and that he wasn’t in that time of his life any more, no matter what his mind told him. Nia’s lesson flashed before my eyes–the one where Inopsy had seemed perfectly reasonable–and his struggle finally made sense to me.

Whatever had happened to him had broken him. And now we were looking at a man trying to gather the pieces and arrange them into something resembling a normal life. Well, a normal life for someone on the all-world who’d also been chosen by an Embodiment of addiction.

“Inopsy, go sit down until you feel good enough to talk.” I said confidently, but not forcefully. “We’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Inopsy stared at me for a moment, and I was ready to take whatever attack he decided to use. But he just slowly nodded and snapped around violently looking for somewhere to sit, eventually settling on a folding chair that someone had left up against the wall. He walked up to it and flicked it open with one hand, slumped down into it, and raised his hands to cover his eyes while his breathing slowly calmed.

We all just sort of… stopped for a few minutes. For me, it was to remind myself that this wasn’t just something that was happening because I was here. It was the culmination of a string of fuckups and hate that had led to this point, somehow involving whatever had happened to Inopsy and the war that I still had next to no idea about. I was just the latest link in this particular chain of history, and if I played my cards right, I could be the one to end it.

“Maybe we should give him a little more space.” Annette eventually said.

“Good idea.” Jun agreed. “Back to the meeting room?”

When everyone had settled in, we all sat there in silence again for another few minutes. Without Inopsy there to break the ice, Annette really didn’t seem comfortable. I didn’t blame her.

“I guess that gives you a part in our plan.” I said in an attempt to get the conversation rolling again. “We have people out looking for where Keratily’s crystals are, and as soon as we have that info, you and Inopsy can get started. Is there anything you need before that?”

Jun nodded. “We can give you some supplies and a powerful healing blessing, but we don’t really have any weapons for you.”

“Not true.” Gloriosa said. She tapped on her slate, then flipped it over. It showed a long list of untranslated words that meant nothing to me or Annette. “We just finished moving everything into the facility, including all of the guards that want to stay and fight for their home. Once the plan is solidified, we’ll position them around the city wherever they need to be.”

I reached for the slate and scrolled through the long list of things. If they were all weapons, then we had far more weapons than we had people. Unless Thorn’s return had brought a lot of guards I didn’t know about.

“How many people do we have that can fight?” I asked and handed the slate back.

Gloriosa bit her lip in thought. “That can fight, or that should fight?”

“One, then the other.”

“Okay. For those that can fight, we have around three-hundred and fifty people. That includes those resisting that you haven’t met, which mostly consist of people like the cafe worker you met the day you met us.” Gloriosa said in a way that spoke of how little she wanted those people to go out and fight. “As long as nothing goes wrong, they’ll be assigned to groups whose only job is to escort civilians to safety and fight back the stragglers that somehow make it out of the real battles.”

Not a bad number. And as long as we managed to do our jobs right, they wouldn’t have to fight at all. More pressure on us, but if everything went well, we’d have a circle of loyal people to rebuild whatever was left of Rainbow Basin. Unfortunately, I had a feeling I was about to hear a much lower number.

“And those that should fight?”

Gloriosa swiped across her slate and winced. “...I think I have to separate this category in two. We have sixty guards willing to fight and twenty-three competent people like Cyntherin. Eighty-three in all, but that’s compared to–”

“We know how many people Scalovera has. No need to repeat it.” Jun interrupted. “If that’s the first half of the category, what’s the other?”

Gloriosa gestured at the room around us. “All of us. The people who are actually strong enough to fight Scalovera’s elite, who we don’t actually know the numbers of. Nine of us if we count Inopsy and Annette. If Endra brings in any of her chosen, or Scalovera has reserves we haven’t uncovered, things will go very wrong very quickly.”

“Because if we all die, everyone else goes right after.” I said with grim understanding. “But the opposite isn’t necessarily true, since we’re fighting to save an entire city. Scalovera’s just fighting to save himself. I guess our best chance is to drive Keratily out or kill her, then get Annette and Inopsy back here so they can help us with Scalovera.”

I turned and gestured at Annette. “Your core seems tailor-made to deal with big groups of not-so-powerful people. Once you destroy all of Keraitly’s crystals, can you regroup with us while Inopsy fights Keratily off?”

Annette shook ever so slightly. “Um… I didn’t know things were this intense.” She admitted sheepishly. “I do have a few questions, though.”

I nodded and spread my arms. “Ask away.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Why is Endra here? And who is Scalovera? And why are we fighting them, not just Keratily?”

Oh. Right, we hadn’t explained all that to her. I leaned back and chewed on my words, trying to find a good and succinct explanation for everything, but it was too much to just thrust on someone with a ‘trust us’.

“I guess we can spare an hour.” I said. “Sit back, Annette. We’re skipping ahead a little on that story we were telling you.”