Nyxil coughed, waving away dust from her face as her wings reluctantly hid themselves beneath her robe. Su'Baar slumped over his tank, crying over its damaged barrel. The thick metal had buckled near the base; the machine moved around absolutely fine, yet it wouldn't be firing anytime soon.

As the dust settled, their new ceiling became obvious. Where the stone had shattered along the wall, it had fallen and sealed off the pit above.

There would be no flying out of here.

Well, it was better than more stone crushing them; she'd already had enough worries when the first boulder had almost killed them.

"I'm sorry Buddy. This is all my fault." The boy's words came between hiccups. He was incredibly distressed at the damage inflicted on the lump of metal.

Buddy wiggled its cannon — what remained of it — as if to say it was alright, but that just sent the boy into a fit of sobs.

She cringed watching him. It was a machine. The creature summoned to inhabit its circuitry wouldn't be bothered by a bit of metal getting bent, nor would it cease to exist upon the breaking down of its host, so Su'Baar's reaction was excessive.

But mostly, she hated seeing the boy look so vulnerable when she was going to have to kill him.

He had seen her mutations. If by some freak stroke of luck he hadn't seen her wings, then Pushy had given her away. He may act like he saw nothing, but that was unreliable. It wasn't hard to put on an act. Even if he didn't understand exactly what her mutations meant, or assumed they were some Bodytwister weapon, it would take a single word and she'd be revealed.

Nyxil unsheathed her blade.

She stepped forward, rapier gripped in both hands. Su'Baar, witless and blind, continued to wail from guilt. He never noticed death's touch looming over his neck.

His machine certainly did.

Hinges squeaked as the tank pivoted. Its cannon shifted up and down, side to side with an aggression that she was sure only manifested in flailing movements because its barrel was broken. Treads spun through the dirt, kicking rocks everywhere, and dragged Su'Baar over the loose earth.

The moment to strike slipped through her fingers. As the Worshipper turned to look back, her blade was already sheathed again.

Whether intentional, or simply to save his own skin, it was true that Su'Baar and his machine had saved her. If he hadn't shattered the boulder, Nyxil would be ten metres below. To kill him after such an act… well, it felt wrong.

He was a cultist. The boy was more integrated into his cult than most other participants of this Trial. As long as he continued this path, Nyxil would kill him whether he knew of her mutations or not. It was inevitable. It was her survival or his.

She knew he would need to die, but to reward salvation with betrayal… that was not who she wanted to be.

It was the act of a cultist.

"What was that?" Su'Baar finally got a hold of his tears enough to ask. As he stroked the dented metal of his agitated machine, he softened his voice for it. "It's okay Buddy. We're okay."

Nyxil stared at him blankly, not wanting to confirm any suspicions he might have. She wouldn't be the first to mention her mutations. As much as she wanted to point his attention elsewhere, she couldn't change the topic; she still needed to know how much he knew.

Her silence prompted him to clarify. "Before. You flew, didn't you?" he asked. "I saw a ripple, but I'm not exactly sure what that means. How did you…?" the boy seemed entirely baffled, and not the slightest accusatory.

She absently touched Ta'Stralanov'r's armband. Even bringing her mutations out in the open, right before the boy's face, he hadn't noticed them? It seemed almost too convenient.

"Just how many names do you have?" His machine kept trying to pull him away from her, and misunderstanding its intent, he simply pet it, saying, "don't worry, Buddy. I'll get you fixed up in no time. When we get out of here, I'll make sure to buff your new cannon until it shines."

Turning back to Nyxil — who was trying not to let her sudden wave of relief show — and continued. "They're all of such high quality… what's your secret?"

It was clear he didn't actually expect an answer, but she saw no reason to lie about this. So what if he assumed the effects of her mutations were from a name? "Spend some time in a Dark Star." She shrugged.

A strained smile stretched across his face. "Right. Just survive a Dark Star." He turned to a yellow glow from one side of the cavern of rubble they found themselves. "So simple," he deadpanned.

"You've got to do a little more than just survive," Nyxil said, brushing past him. She ignored the tank that tried to roll aggressively between her and its Worshipper. "The Fleshsmiths tried that, and none of them came out stronger."

"That's because barely any survived," she heard him whisper, but her focus was entirely on the glow.

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Having fallen so far, it was hard to imagine the light could come from the sun above; they were buried too deep. And she was right. Instead of a crack filtering down light, Nyxil found the sickly radiance of the sceptre half buried under stone. It had fallen down the pit with them.

Strange that Lysyra hadn't taken it with her. Was there a limit on her on what she could teleport besides herself?

Nyxil picked it up and immediately hot power flowed through her arm. Waves of heat rippled through skin and bone in bursts. The power carried with it an unnatural presence. She couldn't isolate the feeling, but she was almost certain the sceptre had a mind of its own.

Through the rolling heat and the sub-sapient thoughts that flowed with it, Nyxil knew that if not for her chitin, her hand would have melted.

Immediately she tossed the idea aside and contained the alien thoughts. Lysyra had touched it and her arm hadn't melted. She'd exploded in motes as Nyxil punched her, but no part of her body had melted. Deciding this was one of the many artefacts that had infectious essence, she closed her mind to it. While it still felt like it should melt her arm — and not just with heat — that could just as easily be a lie imprinted on her instincts.

Nyxil tossed it aside to analyse her thoughts. Once she was sure she had narrowed down where it could influence her mind, and locked it down, she picked up the staff again.

Gold, shining with the intense light of this world's sun, it was hard to look at directly. Only with her third eye could she see the black markings intricately inscribed down the shaft. Imagery reflected the sun, and the all consuming darkness present only where the light could not reach. At the top, the head of the sceptre bent at a slight angle, and shone with such an intense — eerie — light, that it hardly even looked golden anymore. More like solar flare capture and bound as the figurehead of the sceptre.

"Are you sure it's safe to hold that?" Su'Baar asked, joining her. "It could still be trapped."

"And what? Send us down another pit?" Nyxil dismissed the idea. Not because it was unfounded, but simply that with such fortune landing in her lap, she wasn't about to throw it away. No matter the risk. Now, she just needed to figure out what it could do. She straightened her arm, and aimed it at the nearest wall.

It glowed.

Not with a radiant heat that melted the stone around them, nor a powerful blast that could blow away her enemies. It was a simple glow, only somewhat more intense than the normal glow it gave off.

All that power… for a flashlight.

Nyxil regretted her earlier thoughts. This was absolutely ironic punishment from the Eidolons for her doubts.

Well, even if it didn't have any hidden abilities — which she absolutely intended to test later on — a torch was rather helpful down here in the dark. She waved it around, bathing the dark stone of her surroundings in the sceptre's unsettling light.

The Cavern's ground was filled with the shattered remnants of the boulder, and the angled ceiling was the half-broken sidewall of the pit. It sealed over their heads perfectly, as if cut to fit. That wasn't the only strange thing; the walls around them remained intact. With how much force the boulder struck the ground, it was hard to imagine walls of the same black stone could survive.

"So you're going to be taking that with us?" Su'Baar didn't look happy with her decision. "You won't be able to hold onto it long after we leave." He glanced around. "…If we can."

The tank nudged his side comfortingly, yet never diverted its cannon from Nyxil. She raised her brow at the machine. If it wanted to attack, then it could go ahead. As much as she wanted to hold off Su'Baar's death until it wasn't so soon after he'd saved her, she was hardly about to sit aside as she was attacked.

Unfortunately, no such escape to her problems showed itself. The machine sat besides Su'Baar, and glared at her the best a tank could.

"If nothing else, we should be able to break through the-" Nyxil was interrupted by the scraping of stone.

The light of her new Sceptre revealed the wall as it groaned out of place. Just like the doors of the secret passages — except on a larger scale — the wall slid away from them, and folded upwards. The pile of rubble beneath their feet tumbled into the opened space.

"See," Nyxil said, as if she knew this would happen. "No need to worry."

She leapt down and swivelled her head around the new room. It was massive. By far the largest chamber in the pyramid. Darkness clung to the walls, and even with the intense light of her golden torch, it spread like thick syrup. The dark ceiling was visible — barely — a dozen metres above. The opposite wall, not so much. Even her third eye failed to pierce the murky blackness.

Her eyes strained. Nyxil risked Su'Baar seeing the gravity-defying dust flowing into her chest to see further, and slowly a massive form appeared in the void before her. Neither foot dared another step as she took in what she saw.

"What is it?" the Worshipper asked, but the scraping of stone on stone pulled both their attention to the side.

Another large door swung open. Nyxil's torch illuminated the dark dark chamber beyond, revealing the lidless eyes of an Everseeing eye cultist. They shielded their face from the light before throwing down their arm when they realised their reflexive action.

She paid only enough attention to notice his dusty face and the lack of rubble on the floor behind him before twisting back to the giant embalmed lurking in the shadow.

The hulking scaly form reached five metres tall, and a hundred long. Wax melted under her observation, but she didn't stop looking. Claws larger than her body and dozens of long teeth resting along its wide jaw, the beast was intimidating, even unmoving. It was everything she'd heard crocodiles were meant to look like, except massive.

"What is this?" she heard the Everseeing Eye participant snarl in accusation, but she didn't turn away from the huge embalmed again.

Beneath the thick layer of wax, the crocodile's eyelids were shut. Immediately, she ceased consuming. If the creature was sleeping, she wanted no part in awaking it. The larger embalmed insectoids had been strong enough; she didn't want to find out how powerful this one would be.

"So you both think you need to join forces to ambush me?" the new arrival groused.

"Will you shut up," Nyxil hissed. Slowly adding weight to her sight again, she found the beast still asleep.

"While you try to blind me? I think not." He stormed forward, and she noticed a dozen tiny needles spinning through the air before him. "I'm not in the habit of…" his gaze fell on the trail of wax dust floating towards Nyxil's chest. She cut off the flow, but it was already too late.

His gaze followed the trail to the lumbering source, where he seemed to narrow his eyes without having the eyelids to do so. It took him a few moments, but it was clear he could pierce the darkness when he suddenly stumbled back. The needles spinning in the air before him clattered to the floor, before dragging themselves back to the Everseeing cultist and hovering defensively before him.

"What the fuck is that?" he hissed, imitating Nyxil's previous volume.

Su'Baar looked between them in confusion. But this wasn't the time to give an explanation; they needed to get out while they could.

Before she could wave them to go through the doorway of who must be the Everseeing Eye's champion, the sound of grinding stone rang through the room once more.

Around them, five more heavy doorways swung inward.

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