Scarlett stared at Nol’viz. In return, Nol’viz stared back at her, the trio of eyes on her expressionless mask blinking in concert.

For several seconds, neither of them moved.

Scarlett’s mind raced, trying to figure out why one of the Hallowed Cabal’s more formidable agents would be here, right at this moment. As far as she was aware, the Cabal shouldn’t have any business in this area right now.

Unless it somehow involved Ayrlazkreh, maybe? But they wouldn’t have sent Nol’viz for that.

Was it because of Scarlett’s presence, then? Had they decided to betray her after what happened in Crowcairn? Sure, they would know she’d been there, but she hadn’t violated any terms of their agreement. Without jumping to drastic conclusions, they had no grounds to hold her accountable.

Moreover, how would the Cabal even know to expect her here? They had never displayed any signs of predicting the future before, suggesting this meeting was more likely to be a coincidence.

Still, having a Cabal agent in front of her was disquieting.

Nol’viz maintained her unsettling, silent gaze, tilting her head slightly, as if finding something about this curious.

Scarlett briefly glanced at the [Essence of Zenthas] in her left hand, her right gripping the blade that was pressed against the heart-like object. As long as she had The Angler Man’s heart, she should be fine. Together with the teleportation feature of her [Garments of Form] and the way to cancel Dean Godwin’s spell to return to Freybrook whenever she wanted, she was far from unprepared.

Refocusing on Nol’viz, Scarlett adopted an authoritative stance. Before she could speak, however, Nol’viz’s raspy voice, an echoing blend of whispers, cut through the silence from beneath her mask.

“Why are you here?”

Pausing, Scarlett took a moment to consider the question. It seemed like the Cabal agent was as surprised by Scarlett’s presence here as Scarlett was by hers.

“…The specifics of why I am here are irrelevant,” Scarlett finally answered. “What I want to know is what brings the Hallowed Cabal here?”

Nol’viz leaned her head to the other side. “They aren’t here.”

Scarlett’s expression tightened. “Allow me to rephrase. Why are you here?”

The girl remained silent.

After a brief pause, Scarlett continued. “To be clear, your presence here is unrelated to me, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are not here to interfere in my affairs?”

“No.”

“Very well.” Scarlett allowed herself to relax slightly, though she didn’t let her guard down completely. Taking a step back, she kept a watchful eye on Nol’viz as she began to move away. Nol’viz seemed to make no objection to letting her leave.

It did not escape Scarlett’s attention, however, that the girl soon started following her at a distance. Uncertain what to do about that, she returned to navigating the Zuverian outpost, having to now remain vigilant both of potential threats hiding around the beaten ruins and her uninvited follower.

When Nol’viz showed no sign of halting her pursuit, even after several minutes had passed, Scarlett stopped to face her once again.

“You must realize that the Cabal should know better than to meddle in my affairs,” she said.

Nol’viz stopped, regarding her for a few seconds. “We are not the Cabal.”

“But you are a member of it.”

The girl once more offered no reply.

Scarlett’s brows furrowed. Technically, any action by Nol’viz, a Cabal member, could be seen as a violation of Scarlett’s agreement with them, even if Nol’viz didn’t appear to view it that way.

Should she try to dismiss the girl more forcefully? She didn’t want to risk a fight with her, though. It was possible that Nol’viz really wasn’t acting on the Cabal’s orders, and if so, she might not hold back despite Scarlett possessing the [Essence of Zenthas]. The girl’s priorities didn’t entirely align with the rest of the Cabal.

Nol’viz continued to watch silently as she weighed her options. Eventually, Scarlett shook her head and turned around, resuming her explorations.

If anything, this could serve as future leverage against the Cabal. As long as they didn’t attack her, it didn’t matter if they knew what she was up to here. She would have preferred if she didn’t have to stay on her toes here, but she felt relatively confident in being able to escape if necessary.

With that mindset, she continued moving through the weathered labyrinth of the ruined outpost around her while pretending to ignore Nol’viz’s presence. The structures here, eroded by time, appeared mostly empty, but Scarlett still took the time to inspect most of them.

After more than thirty minutes of walking, she eventually arrived at a semi-collapsed area on the edge of the outpost, near the rocky shore that overlooked the water. Stone arches framed what might have once been a large courtyard, dominated by a larger, tiered building at its center.

Scarlett eyed the place for a short while.

This looked to be what she was searching for.

Crossing the courtyard, she made her way inside the main building, entering into a long hall cluttered with broken pillars and stone debris. Climbing over the rubble to get through—she felt more self-conscious than usual of some of her awkward movements with Nol’viz still following her—she reached a raised platform at the hall’s end, adorned with several podiums.

On top of, it she stopped, glancing back to the entrance where Nol’viz was standing, gaze unwaveringly aimed at her.

What was the girl up to?

Soon, Nol’viz started moving, blending into the surrounding shadows and gliding across the hall, reforming at the base of the platform and turning to look back at Scarlett.

The two of them eyed each other for a brief duration, then Scarlett turned her attention back to the podiums on the platform. Each featured a ten-by-ten grid of tiles, bearing arcane symbols that she was pretty sure weren’t Zuverian script. The tiles showed significant wear, hinting perhaps at years of scholars and other people having tried to figure them out.

Scarlett pondered the puzzle before her. Unlike previous Zuverian puzzles she’d encountered, she had no clue what the solution to this one was, and solving it by hand seemed a daunting task. With five podiums and one hundred tiles on each one, she didn’t even want to imagine the sheer number of possible combinations.

Perhaps it had been easier in the game, but in this world, there would’ve been a reason such an obvious puzzle had remained unsolved for so long.

Silent steps sounded out next to her as Nol’viz approached, and Scarlett stepped aside while watching her.

“…If I remember correctly, the Cabal warned you to be cautious of me,” she said.

Nol’viz nodded. “They said your words could be dangerous,” the girl replied sincerely.

“Then would it not be wise of you to heed their advice?”

“We are.”

Scarlett met the trio of eyes on Nol’viz’s mask as they all blinked in unison, considering that response. Eventually, she returned her attention to the five podiums and the puzzle. She tried shifting the tiles some, seeing if she couldn’t stumble onto the right solution. When that failed, she decided to simply try Plan B.

Stepping off the platform, she climbed on top of a nearby piece of fallen pillar. “You might want to move,” she warned Nol’viz.

After a moment of silently considering her, the girl complied, stepping off the platform as well.

Scarlett then conjured forth a torrent of water that cascaded over the podiums and onto the platform, spilling down the sides and pooling on the floor, where most of it vanished under her command. Extending her senses, she then tried to use her connection to the hydrokinesis skill and follow the path of the water that remained.

For a brief moment, it was as though she could taste it, feel it seep into the smallest of crevices. The sensation was strange, and she wouldn’t claim to entirely understand it, but after spending a while doing that, she managed to find what she was looking for.

On one side of the platform, some of the water had trickled into a narrow gap where the platform met the floor.

Approaching, she crouched to inspect the platform’s edge. Perhaps the stone had been worn down by the centuries that had passed, but she could indeed see a small but noticeable seam.

Employing her hydrokinesis once again, Scarlett formed a tiny heated jet of water, directing it into the opening like a miniature saw. She followed this with a small but intense flame—which drained more mana than one would have thought—that gradually began to melt the rock beneath it.

She had previously tested her fire on rocks and knew it was hot enough to melt them, but she still wasn’t sure exactly how hot her flames could get. At what point did rocks begin to melt? It was a question she wouldn’t mind knowing the answer to, but she was unlikely to find it in this world.

Alternating between her hydrokinesis and pyrokinesis, she used her fire to soften up the stone and then cleared the molten slag with blasts of pressurized water, slowly but surely creating a thin opening. Meanwhile, Nol’viz watched from a distance, silent and attentive.

When Scarlett felt the water penetrate the stone into an open space, she knew she had succeeded. She stood, adjusted her clothes, then activated her [Garments of Form], focusing on the cavity she’d created.

A mist enveloped her, and moments later, she emerged in complete darkness, nearly stumbling on unseen stairs. Steadying herself against a wall, she brought out her enchanted glasses to peer through the dark, revealing a passage that descended far into the ground before her.

She smiled. Things like this were one of the benefits that came with not being constrained by the game’s system.

As she started going down the stairs, the stone around her suddenly trembled. Stopping, she turned only to see that the slab of stone that blocked the way out began sliding open, revealing both the chamber she’d just left and Nol’viz, standing at the mouth of the opening, peering down at her.

…The girl knew the puzzle’s solution? Why would the Cabal have bothered teaching her that?

Nol’viz started descending the steps towards Scarlett.

“Do you plan to shadow me across this entire island?” Scarlett asked, tone sharp.

“We are curious,” Nol’viz replied in her whispering voices. “Why are you here?”

“My purpose here is neither the Cabal’s nor your concern.” Scarlett turned away from her and continued down the stairs.

Along the walls, small sconces held unlit, dark crystals, interspersed with Zuverian carvings that held little interest to her.

After a while, she reached the bottom of the stairs, which opened into a vast chamber.

At its center lay a massive steel construct, its dull grey body marked by faded blue lines that stretched into veined pathways across the floor and walls. These lines, in turn, connected to several shattered crystals scattered around the room.

Scarlett raised an eyebrow at the sight. The chamber’s guardian had been deactivated, it seemed, lending credence to the suspicions that had brought her here.

Feeling secure that she didn’t have to do battle with any of this place’s guardians, she confidently crossed the room, moving past the steel construct. Behind her, Nol’viz paused beside the dormant colossus, studying it intently, while Scarlett approached a stone altar on an elevated platform at the far end of the chamber.

Climbing up to the altar, Scarlett looked down at it.

It was empty.

She had expected as much. This altar was supposed to house the first piece of the Seal of Thainnith, which the Hallowed Cabal possessed at the start of the game. It was also the very same piece that Scarlett had assisted Mistress in stealing from the Cabal.

Her gaze shifted to a mural-covered section of the wall behind the altar, adorned with Zuverian symbols and various drawings etched into the stone. Her attention was drawn to a part where several scenes depicted a group confronting a spectrum of entities across different scenes, ranging from leviathan-like beasts to an amorphous blob blotting out the sky.

Strangely, she knew instinctually that they all represented the same being. The imagery invoked a vague, compelling sensation, pulling at the back of her mind.

Caught up in this feeling, Scarlett momentarily lost track of time. When she snapped back to reality, she quickly turned to check Nol’viz’s position, finding the robed girl standing just a few steps behind, her masked gaze fixed on Scarlett.

Several seconds of tense silence passed between them.

Nol’viz then shifted her attention to the murals, remaining silent.

Annoyed at her own carelessness, Scarlett stepped off the platform and looked back at the wall. She still wasn’t familiar enough with the Zuverian script to decipher the text by herself, but she already had a general idea of what it said. It was giving an overview of what the Seal of Thainnith was.

In the game, this location marked the player’s introduction to the Seal of Thainnith questline, setting the stage for future events. With Scarlett’s experiences in Crowcairn and what she had learned from Anguish, she had been curious to see if reality differed from the game in that regard. So far, it didn’t appear so. At least not necessarily.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to be thorough.

Taking out a notebook from her [Pouch of Holding], Scarlett began transcribing the mural’s contents onto the paper using pyrokinesis. That took her a dozen minutes or so, but once finished, she cast one final look at the depiction of the confrontation with the strange entity.

Glancing to the side, she also summoned her status window.

[Name: Scarlett Hartford]
[Skills:
[Superior Mana Control]
[Superior Pyromancy]
[Major Pyrokinesis]
[Greater Hydromancy]
[Major Hydrokinesis]
[̼̭̬̋̈́̒͜ ̧̘̜́ͣ͛͛ͅ ͚̜̓͜ͅ ̢̰͚̾̏ͅ ̮̿͆̒͠a ̢̾̏ͅ ̢̰̾̏ͅ]]
[Traits:
[Dignified August]
[Supercilious]
[Cavalier]
[Callous]
[Overbearing]
[Conceited]
[Third-rate Mana Veins]]
[Mana: 9632/12145]
[Points: 2]

Her focus lingered on the glitched skill that stuck out like a sore thumb. She was pretty sure it was related to the Anomalous One that was trapped inside the Seal of Thainnith. It was also possible that it was the source of the compelling sensation she felt while looking at the mural. In fact, it was likely.

If she was right, this wasn’t even the first time it had tried to influence her behaviour in some way. Back in Crowcairn, when she had been close to facing off against Raimond, she’d been convinced she could win no matter what happened. That conviction had only felt partially her own. The other half, she suspected, had been instilled by this skill.

As if it were promising her some unknown power.

Scarlett wasn’t exactly keen on taking that offer when she didn’t even understand the skill’s purpose. She just hoped its influence was limited without her consent. Otherwise, she wasn’t quite sure what she could do, considering the system itself was still largely a mystery to her.

Closing the status window for now, she looked over at Nol’viz, who was still inspecting the murals.

By this point, she was starting to doubt she would learn what the girl was really doing here. With the Seal retrieved by the Cabal a long time ago, the ruins here held little apparent value to them. Other than that, there should only be one other site on this isle that might interest them, but she couldn’t figure out how that related to Nol’viz specifically.

With a shake of her head, Scarlett turned and headed towards a half-hidden exit on the side of the chamber.

Before she delved any deeper into that particular question, she wanted to confirm her other suspicions first. Potentially finding more information about the Anomalous One had been part of the reason for her visit here, but it wasn’t her primary goal.

Entering a corridor resembling those in any of the other Zuverian ruins she had explored before, the air turned chillier as she moved deeper into it. Warming herself with pyrokinesis, she soon noted that Nol’viz had actually fallen behind, though she wouldn’t be surprised if the girl caught up eventually.

As she progressed by herself, Scarlett spotted signs of triggered or disabled traps on the way. Broken arrows and weapons littered about, protruding from hidden compartments in the walls or lying amongst patches of dried acid on the floor. The scenes were reminiscent of when her own party had traveled through hallways like this in other Zuverian ruins.

These traces also looked somewhat recent.

She wondered if the Cabal was responsible for that. In the game, these traps would remain intact until the player’s arrival, even though the Cabal had supposedly visited this place first. It was strange that it wasn’t like that here. Maybe it was just another of those minor differences between game and reality.

Maybe.

Continuing on, Scarlett eventually reached another chamber, this one markedly smaller. It almost looked like it might have once served as someone’s living space or workshop, its walls lined with aged stone shelves and desks, interspersed with various odd apparatuses.

She couldn’t help but note the absence of any loot-worthy valuables on the shelves.

Her gaze was drawn to a peculiar structure in the corner — a circular platform of polished grey metal, a few meters wide and surrounded by a charred metal frame that was darkened and twisted inward as if warped by intense heat.

Scarlett’s eyes lingered on this sight.

It was just as she’d thought. Someone had been here. Recently. Someone who wasn’t part of the Hallowed Cabal.

The question was who?