#we're baaack

It was a long way up, and the day grew scorching fast, but it was worth the view, and not just for its own sake. I spotted a Survey Drone drifting around the blighted ruins, close to where I fought that Fireclaw.

Making the breathtaking glide down, I returned to my mount and headed for the ruins, hoping Hephaestus hadn't already repopulated the area.

Fortunately, the place was quiet, apart from the thick red blight sizzling the air and soil. I climbed the tall, dry husk of a nearby tree and brought the drone down to salvage its data. Maybe once I get this back to Gaia she'll be able to analyse this 'Blood Choke' infecting the region, and figure out what makes it so resistant to Poseidon's powers of restoration.

My Focus picked up on something else in the drone's recent recordings—a small deviation from its baseline visual noise. An anomaly in bright Carja armour traveling alone, far from the road. The rumour I'd heard was right.

So, Talanah had made the journey after all, and without running into any of the local patrols. Hanging around the gates of Thornmarsh, that wouldn't stay true for long. Before she could draw any attention from the lookouts, I met her in hiding. My lowlander garb shocked her for half a moment, but then Talanah got right to business, as if our conversation at Camp Nowhere had just concluded.

I reminded her of what she'd promsied me there: the truth about Amadis and her reasons for chasing him this far. When he'd saved her from machines deep in the Jewel, they'd made a poor first impression both ways. A proud, stuck-up trophy hunter of the Lodge, and a weird jungle hermit. But when they got to talking, and Talanah saw just how much the Red Raids had stolen from him, her perspective began to change. They bonded over their grief over the lives they had lost—Talanah's father and brother, and Amadis' lover, a woman called Nessa.

I asked her outright what was obvious in her voice, and she admitted it. She loved him. A little sheepish about it, maybe a tad embarrassed, but she was earnest. I'd never seen her like that before. I don't know why her admission made me recoil so much—made me want to sink into the mud or turn and walk away. Not-envy, like I said. More like a complete inability to understand. Because this love of hers had driven her from her greatest goal in life, recently achieved and clung to since childhood. It had made her journey all the way here through incalculable danger, just in case Amadis needed her. That said, I could see in her face what his safety meant to her. Something just shy of everything, it seemed. And she was my friend. Of course I would help her see this foolish thing through.

Love was only part of the reason she'd come so far. In speaking of the closure and clarity she'd gained upon honouring her family's legacy at the Lodge, Amadis had been so taken by the idea that he'd resolved to discover Nessa's fate. She was the fellow soldier he'd lost at the battle of Burning Blooms, who'd been carted off to the Rot as prisoner and likely died there years ago. She disguised herself as a man so she'd be able to join the Carja military. Awful keen to fight for the mad Sun King, I thought, though according to Talanah she and Amadis had spent most of their time out west disobeying orders and trying to deescalate the situation. Though just their being there was escalation enough, I'm sure.

So it was guilt as well as love. Now that, I could understand. Talanah blamed herself, in a way, for Amadis coming all the way out here. She'd planted the seed of closure and healing in his head. And before he could get to any of that, he needed to discover Nessa's final fate. I didn't imagine it could've been anything good. Talanah agreed.

Knowing only that the Rot was on the coast, and that Amadis was likely to have reached it recently, if at all, Talanah led the way through the jungle.

We took a north-west road, narrow and hopefully lesser travelled. I'd like to think I could have dissuaded any local patrols from attacking a trespassing Carja noble on sight, but my reputation could only do so much. Talanah was utterly focused on the journey, and as we approached the edge of the marshes, where rusted, uniform structures sat sunk in the shallows, we found what she was searching for.

Trouble, and of course Amadis along with it. I first spotted his traps; an impressive array of shock wire strung across the path of a pursuing Fireclaw. He taunted the beast, luring it into his traps. I took the ensuing opportunity to add some shock ammo of my own, overloading one of its sparkers with my warrior bow. Talanah and Amadis closed in to hack at the Fireclaw while it was down.

Amadis hadn't done much damage to the machine yet—had he been hoping to take it down by himself? Bold, and probably idiotic—it's not like he'd have faced machines this fearsome in the Jewel—but his adeptness in traps and bombs of all types showed him to be a master hunter. Not the showy kind that frequented the Lodge, but a survivalist that would use any edge afforded to him. I still did all the work, of course, but Amadis was no amateur.

I set off the Fireclaw's sparkers whenever respite was needed—too much magma stirred up, setting the shallows to a boil—letting Talanah and Amadis get in close and wrench apart its central components. Outside of that I stuck to a proven strategy, using my new Nora-touched bow to brittle its armour before riddling it with bolts and explosive sharshots, cracking it to pieces. When we finally put it down, I stripped the kill while Amadis and Talanah stepped away to speak in private.

Conversing turned to arguing—I only caught the edge of it. As Talanah told it, Amadis had promised before setting off to send word back with the trading caravan he traveled with, and his plan had only ever been to go as far as No Man's Land. When the tunnel collapsed, he said, he had no choice but to press on, and no means to send word. He'd never wanted to worry her, never thought she'd follow. I guess he didn't know how much he meant to her. I sorely hoped he saw it now.

I butted in and introduced myself, a little awkwardly, but there was nothing else for it. I was no stranger to Amadis, despite his lone nomad lifestyle back east. Talanah had told him all about me, apparently. He was heading for the Rot, just north up the coast, but I didn't go running after him right away. Not so fast.

I asked him about Nessa, I guess wanting to get a sense of what he was really after here. From where I was standing, it might've just been suicide. I wasn't about to let him drag Talanah down with him.

Amadis explained what had happened right before the battle of Burning Blooms, when he and Nessa had been separated. He knew that the Tenakth outnumbered them greatly, they all did. They were walking into sure slaughter, yet their drunken, foolhardy commander ordered them to press on into their territory. Amadis threatened to expose his incompetence, and the commander threatened his life. When the fight was over, Amadis stood beside a very high-ranking, wealthy, and well-connected corpse.

Ever since that day, Amadis was pursued by loyalists to the Mad King—first other soldiers, then Shadow Carja, and even now, Carja bounty hunters hired by nobles who escaped persecution. The commander's family remained powerful even now, and not even Avad could stop them from carrying out justice as they saw fit. A royal pardon would certainly do him no good. He'd been a fugitive all this time. An outcast, even. Not that he looked like one, in his silks and all that ornamentation. Didn't even look particularly strong—not the formidable sort I'd pictured when Talanah described his feats. I suppose he was living in the jungle all that time, just trying to survive...I tried not to be too judgemental. Talanah made her own choice to follow him into danger, nonsensical as I found it. I couldn't blame him—I could even help him get the answers he craved without pissing off the entire Lowland clan. I don't think he'd taken survival into account before coming here. The way he told it he didn't have much left to lose.

Talanah led the way to the coast, continuing to bicker occasionally with Amadis as we went. Travelling north, we passed through a wooded stretch of land populated by Old World ruins. The sort I might not have been able to ignore had I been travelling alone. Large and well-preserved, glinting with loot and data points picked up by my Focus. Something for the return trip.

At the western edge of the ruins, we faced the Rot. Ragurt's rumours were true: the place was huge, stretching out of sight along the coastline with Tenkath structures woven above and around ancient stone walls. I had been hoping to make a good-faith approach and negotiate entry for Amadis and Talanah, but the guards at the battlements were not Lowlanders, they were rebels.

Regalla had taken the Rot. It seemed a strange strategic choice, but no doubt the place was rich in resources and ammunition. Maybe they were carting it between here and Fenrise? And now they were stranded out here on the coast. Not for much longer. Though that still left us with the question of Nessa's fate. We could only hope that the rebels hadn't killed the only Tenakth who might have remembered her.