There were at least a dozen Locust Nobles here, some still clutching their ill-maintained firearms whilst others had more traditional melee weapons, like swords and polearms. 

Two-thirds or so had the expected mutations - plating, mandibles, feelers, vestigial extra limbs. The rest were some strange inbetween of locust and mantis mutations, with the characteristic sacred red chitin covering vital areas. Two of them had the same demon-mask facial mutation as the Red Mantis herself, one of whose right arm had entirely metamorphosed into a mantis blade. Judging by the dismemberment, the placement of his body right next to the statue, and the fact his skull was clearly stomped open, she wagered that he had to have been the first voice.

She turned her sight towards the door out of this chamber, gigantic and unmoving, its glyph utterly devoid of light. Then came the machine-voice, echoing throughout the arena, forcibly yanking her attention back to the statue. It sat stone-still upon that pillar, unmoving.

“I can’t just let you leave, you know,” it said. The statue raised its right arm, gesturing as if it was raising something… Only for a cluster of the pillars in front of her to rise. It turned where it sat to face her, the light within the hole in its face now visible. Pale, bright blue. It flickered as the creature offered, “Take a seat.”

When Zefaris hesitated, it reiterated its offer, “Go on. I couldn’t harm you even if I wanted to, right now.”

It just… Stared her down, unmoving, unblinking, until she said, “I would prefer to stand.”

“Very well,” the statue replied. “I am Subcore Sigma. Consider me an independent facet of the dungeon core. Just an automaton saddled with the responsibility of making sure the Parasites that climb to this floor don’t clog up the clockworks.” It stiffly gestured to itself, bringing to mind images of clockwork automata that she’d seen at fairs when she was little.

“...Climb?” Zefaris questioned, confused already by the golem’s statement. 

Sigma nodded, explaining that, “Yes, climb. They cannot traverse the dungeon as you or I, so the Parasite-queen forces open pathways just big enough for her disgusting children to move through. The main Core permits this, as long as they only populate chambers that are meant to have enemies.”

“Then why-” she began another question, only for the statue to interrupt right away, as if it knew what she was going to ask.

“These Parasites tried to set up a certain-death scenario. I am here to act as a more fair replacement,” it said. “I believe they referred to me as a mini-boss, long ago.”

“Am I to defeat you?” she continued to question, even taking a breath of Fog in preparation for whatever attack the machine might launch at a moment’s notice.

Only, that didn’t come. 

“No chance,” Sigma laughed. “If and when we do fight I’ll come at you trying to kill, but you’ve no way to actually damage me. All you have to do is land one single hit that would kill a human - if you want to walk through that door, that is. We can stay here and talk, for as long as you wish. Just know that there’s no time dilation going on down here, that’s a myth.”

Zefaris sighed and finally sat down, sliding the bayonet into her belt and retrieving one of the coins in its stead. She didn’t holster Pentacle, and in fact took care to always have it pointed at Sigma, even if her finger was off the trigger. 

With a heavy gaze and an even heavier question on her lips, she shot for the biggest question that came to mind.

“Is there any point to all this?”

The machine let out a faux-surprised chuckle. 

“Can’t say you’re the first to ask that, but…” it began, “I’m afraid I couldn’t answer fundamental questions about the world even if I knew the answers. Neither the main core nor any of us subcores can give new information that could accelerate one’s self-cultivation.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Zefaris said. “I mean the whole reason we’re down here. Why we’re trying to exterminate these fuckers.”

“And what might that reason be?” Sigma questioned, raising and tilting its head in a way that somehow perfectly matched the feeling of a quizzically raised eyebrow.

“The war, our struggle against the old powers, ” she began. “All of this horseshit that the Sage started. Is there any point to a unified Ikesia? Or are we doomed to subservience under the Pateirians?”

Sigma sat stone-still, its eye-light flickering. “I don’t…” it said, before cutting out abruptly. The color of its eye shifted subtly, from a clear blue to a clear cyan. Out of nowhere, it raised its hand like it had before, another pillar rising from the floor in front of Zefaris. In the side that faced her, there was a recess and… A control handle?

Before she could ask what the purpose of it was, the machine already spoke again. “Take hold and simply focus on informing me of a particular subject,” it said. “I haven’t been topside in a while, so your own experiences will have to suffice as a source of information. The connection is one-way and isolated, no other core will know of this - not even the main core.”

Hesitant, she did as asked. She thought of everything she knew about the war, every little niggling thing that didn’t add up. All of the supposed Ikesian offensives that couldn’t have possibly happened, all of the propaganda pamphlets that painted Ikesians as genocidal, ultra-nationalistic snow-devils. All of the cruel ends that she’d been promised. The convenient border skirmish that supposedly started it all, right as Pateirian troops were performing exercises only a mile away. Even memories that she’d suppressed came to the surface, memories of comrades felled by bad luck, memories of soldiers from both sides strung up like grizzly puppets by self-titled noble heroes. 

Their foes, for the gall of opposing them. Their allies, for the failure of dying in combat. She’d entirely given up on finding out the state of her hometown, for fear of the truth being what she wished it not to be. It was better that she didn’t know, as if the fact she didn’t know somehow made the place and the people she remembered so fondly immune from the war’s decimation.