In the very top of the Umbral Sanctuary’s onyx tower, Ethan waited.

  Beside him was his Tialax guide, patiently maintaining her vigil.

  And behind them both sat the cradle of a God.

  He could feel the power of the thing humming in the room. Possibly, it had been like this ever since the God of Argwyll had stepped out of it. As he waited for the rest of the team, he traced the split in the center of the cracked rock where the God must have first emerged. And a pair of eyes, somewhere, looked back at him.

  Perhaps just to alleviate the tension, he struck up conversation with the Tialax.

  “You still would not wish to be remembered?” he asked her. “I know that, if you have truly looked into the future, you will see that there is more than one possible outcome here.”

  The grey-scaled lizard nodded once, solemnly.

  “Our names are as dust in a sea of bones,” she said. “We have no capacity to want.”

  “If that’s true, then how can I be sure that you don’t really serve Kaedmon?”

  “You cannot, Archon Ethan,” the Tialax replied nonchalantly. “And if that fact leads to you tearing me limb from limb before you make your ascension, then it is the way my path shall end.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. “That’s a future you’ve seen?”

  A smile pricked from under the lizardling’s hood.

  “Even we who walk in the shadow of dreams have some imagination.”

  At that moment, the door to the chamber opened, and in clamored Klax and Tara. Just the two of them.

  Just as expected.

  Though Ethan could sense something was different about them. Something about their slightly brushing elbows as they shimmied into the room together, each one wanting the other to pass first.

  …I have to wonder, Sys muttered. Did you specify an hour because you knew they would engage in – ahem – relations?

  Ethan smirked.

  I’m such a selfless Archon, right?

  As both of his longtime companions stepped forward, a little unwary, a little unsure, he strode to meet them in the center of the room.

  “So…you’re all set, huh?” Tara asked, arms folded, tail tucked. “You know, for what it’s worth, I still think this is a crock of shit. And so does the dogbrain, here.”

  Klax met Ethan’s quizzical look and gave a gruff cough.

  “…I might have voiced my discontent,” he said. “But myself and Tara had a long discussion. We came to an agreement on the matter.”

  I’ll bet.

  Klax stepped forward, placed one closed fist to his chest, and knelt before Ethan like he had when he’d first delivered him to Sanctum.

  “Ethan,” he said. “If this is where your journey must end, then all I can do is send you off with my best wishes. When I first heard of the new Archon’s appearance, I assumed that you would be one like Gyko – just another weapon. A tool to make this world bend to our will. And yet – in our journey together – I feel that you have shown me that I was merely projecting. For so long I felt that I was nothing but an instrument of my Bonded’s will, or a mouthpiece for the Hybrids of Westerweald. For a long time, I was chained to the past just like any other slave. You showed me how I could break those chains, and for that, you will always hold a place in my heart.”

  He bowed, signaling for Tara to do the same. But both she and Ethan looked at Klax, gripped him by his broad shoulders, and straightened him right up again.

  “Klax,” Ethan said. “I thought I told you long ago that no one deserves your fealty, now. Now, you have a future that belongs to you.”

  The Lycae sniffed, and Ethan realized – unbelievably – that he was holding back tears.

  “I never followed you because I felt I needed to,” he declared. “I followed you because I chose to. You were my Archon. You will always be my Archon.”

  Ethan held out a hand to the great dog-monk of Sanctum.

  “I’d rather be remembered as your friend,” he said.

  Klax stared at his angelic palm for a few moments before sniveling and gripping it tight, shaking fervently with an acknowledgement that he needed to hear.

  Tara, meanwhile, tried to stop from gagging.

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  “Wow, true honest-to-goodness male friendship. Rare sight, these days.”

  “Come on, Tara,” Klax blustered. “The least you could do is say bye in the proper way.”

  Tara closed her eyes and pouted.

  “By sniveling like a babe? Nah. Ethan knows how I feel about him, right? We’ve been through it all already. If you want me to cry and babble about how ‘I wasn’t really free till I met him’ or some bullshit like that then dream on. Besides, I still think he’s a moron for going through with this. I ain’t gonna give hi-“

  While Tara had been saying all of this, Klax had maneuvered himself behind her and gave her a stout push right into Ethan’s open arms. She floundered, gushing, and then opened her eyes to see his face staring down at her.

  “A tearful goodbye just wouldn’t be you,” he told her. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, Tara. Without you – I don’t think I’d have made it half as far as I did.”

  She buried her face in his chest almost instantly. But he caught the blush that had overtaken her face. It was crazy to think that this was the same girl who’d sprung out from underbrush and plucked him from the Lightborn’s fingers all those years ago.

  “…I was here before you,” she said quietly. “I’ve done stuff I’m not proud of, Ethan. When shit got too hot, this kitten always left the kitchen. That was who I was. When a deal went sour, I bugged out. Because fuck loyalty.”

  He felt her return his grip – softly.

  “But then – heh - then you came along. I thought you’d be like the others I’d only ever heard about from Jun. You’d be tough, and change the world for a few years…then go poof. So at first, yeah, I just had fun with ya. I never thought this crusade would be a long-term thing. I wanted it to be, sure. But I never believed.”

  He nodded. In a way, that was something he’d always suspected. She’d had too much fun – made too many jokes – on those first dungeon delves they did together.

  “But then something happened,” she said in a tiny whisper. “I’ve thought about the exact moment things changed for me. And tonight, I got it. You remember that day in the City of Illusions? Just before we fought the Lightborn?”

  Ethan nodded. “That was when you thought you’d walk.”

  He said it in a neutral tone – no judgement. No dismissiveness. It was a fact – and even now, he understood.

  She gave another wet sniffle into his chest.

  “Back then, I was really gonna walk, y’know? I was scared. I was scared we weren’t gonna make it. Scared I was gonna lose the only family I ever knew again. But then you, Klax, Faun…you were all there all along. I never thought I’d ever have a future. Till you guys. Till you.”

  He felt her body shake abruptly, and he knew that he’d probably get a shivving or two if he dared to say anything about it. So he held her while she said goodbye in the only way she knew how, with the man who was her future stayed behind, smiling at what he knew she’d needed to say for a long time.

  “…be safe, idiot,” she whispered. “And when you see Kaedmon, slap him in his dumbass face for me.”

  Ethan flashed her one final smile.

  “I’ll tell him it came from you, personally.”

  He looked on both of them with more pride than he’d looked on anyone in his life – certainly than he’d ever had looking on himself. He remembered their meeting in the clearing beneath the Ashfalls so vividly. He remembered thinking how strong they were, and how much he loved their little quirks. He remembered thinking that they were just like the characters in the games he played – characters who’d been more company to him in his life than any of the real people he’d interacted with.

  And yet, a point had come where he’d realized that was the wrong way of looking at them. Because they weren’t just sprites on a screen, words on a page – he’d met them as two-dimensional beings, projections of his own mind desperate for certainty. And slowly, they’d come alive.

  Now here they stood – flawed, battered, bruised – but stronger than they’d ever been before.

  “I’ve never really known what to say to you,” he told them. “In my old life, I was never good with words. But in my head, in the part where Jun’s mind still exists, there’s an old Lycae proverb that I think sums it up nicely.”

  Klax’s ears perked up.

  “Of course…” he whispered.

  Tara groaned lightly. “Better not be some dirge about the benefits of peeing with your leg up…”

  “I’ll kinda combine it with my own thoughts,” he said with a reassuring wink.

  Ethan held out his hands and they joined theirs together, forming a circle before Kaedmon’s Cradle, probably with the God Himself looking on in utter bemusement.

  As he should.

  “Is this the end of our adventure?” Ethan asked. “No. Nothing has an end. We came here in search of a way to change the world – to grasp the power of a God. And yet here we are tonight, each one of us more mortal than ever. As the pup chases its tail, the answer remains just outside our reach. And yet our exertion is its own answer. Because we might not have found the way to right all the wrongs of a corrupt system. But we did find each other. We discovered who we really are. We began in a fairytale – and we came to life.”

  He glanced at them both, glad that, at the very least, he’d be leaving them with a smile and a fond farewell.

  At least…most of them.

  “…take care of yourselves,” he told them. “And good luck.”

  “You’re the one that needs it, hat-boy,” Tara sniffed. “Knock that bastard off his throne.”

  “For us,” Klax added. “All of us.”

  He nodded, straightening his back and turning to the Tialax waiting patiently behind him.

  “Alright,” he said. “I’m ready.”

  The lizardwoman nodded and ushered him towards the Cradle, which seemed to react immediately. Crackling threads of electric sapphire blazed and threw themselves across the tiled ceiling – the fingers of an angry God ready to snatch up a challenger in its domain.

  This is it, Sys told him. This is it, Ethan. This is what you were born to do. What we were both born to do.

  He clenched his fists, trying to throw sentimentality to the quiet winds. He couldn’t afford a single mistake when he was about to literally invade the domain of a deity.

  And yet, as he checked his Skills for the final time, he risked a look back at the empty doorway behind his friends.

  Right up to the last moment, he was wondering. He was hoping…

  He took a step forward.

  He reached out a single hand towards the threads of power at the Cradle’s core.

  He flexed his fingers, edging them closer, and closer.

  Closer –

  “ETHAN HAWKE!”

  Every head in the chamber of Kaedmon turned at once

  …to see the very flustered form of a Hopla Wildmage storm into the room and sprint at pace towards the currently teleporting Archon.

  “Faun!?”

  The rabbit mage did not stop. She ran past both her friends and leaped at Ethan’s slowly fading form.

  The last thing he saw before he felt his body shift to the realm of the divine was the face of the Hopla girl flying towards him.

  And in the moment just before his form left this earth, their lips met.

  It was only for a moment – no more than a couple of seconds.

  But when she pulled away and dropped to the ground, he saw her smirk up at him with eyes that were no longer red with tears.

  “That’s how you say goodbye to a girl!” she shouted before he faded away.