Animus: Your friend is gone. She will never return from the gate.
Her eyes crinkle with pleasure, drinking deep from tears running over Nautika's face.
Still held under the arcane skill, the believers remain frozen in place.
Ms. Stranger: Timekeeper, now!
Three figures burst in from the edge of the plaza.
Ms. Stranger: Slæstu í djúpan dvala.
Ms. Stranger charges through the believers, her fan-spell dazing the gate-guarding Apostle just long enough to reach back for the other two.
Ms. Stranger: Go! Through the gate, Timekeeper!
Vertin: We can't just leave Nautika here! Sonetto!
Sonetto: Ed è subito sera!
An incantation is cast from Sonetto's glasfeder, and Nautika's bonds begin to unwind.
Nautika: ...
She lifts her head, but her glazed eyes don't fix on her rescuers.
Ms. Stranger: The gate only stays open for a brief time after an offering.
Ms. Stranger: You have to pass through it before it closes again.
The Manus's arcane skill falters too soon as Animus shakes off its effects in a blink.
Vertin: Come, Nautika!
Half-conscious, Nautika is tugged toward the sacred gate, her wavering vision briefly pausing over a blue neck-ribbon as it flutters in the distance.
Animus: Hmph! Why am I not surprised?
She sneers.
Animus: Sie mußte mich leben lehren oder sterben lehren.
Manus Believer: roar
Sonetto: ...?!
The still disciples flanking the door snap into motion, their massive hammers barring the threshold.
Animus: How hopelessly naive. How delusionally optimistic.
Their rescue teeters on the brink.
Animus approaches slowly, wiping her longbow.
Animus: Has the thought not crossed your ignorant little minds for even a moment?
Animus: Would I, under the supreme guidance of the Mother of Resurrection, simply allow you poisonous little pests to scurry about these sacred grounds right beneath my nose?
Animus: Ha! Since the moment you stepped foot on this holy land, every one of you has been under my watch. Nothing escapes my gaze. Not here.
With a raised arm, she raises more believers up from their trance. They swarm in to encircle the group, some seizing the intruders' wrists at her signal.
From behind the dark wall of believers, Animus holds a hard stare on the face of Ms. Stranger.
Animus: And you, Ms. Grace. Indulge my curiosity.
Ms. Stranger: ...
Animus closes in, halting just before the intruder, letting her longbow's tip rest by Ms. Stranger's feet.
Animus: That noose about your neck—is it simply a choice of fashion, or a reminder of the precariousness of your situation?
Animus: Life must be ever so suffocating, knowing that the smallest breeze could tighten its grip at any moment.
Animus: You must be longing to loosen it.
Ms. Stranger: You're making sport of me again.
She tucks her hair behind an ear, a moth slipping out from her collar as it twirls toward the light.
Ms. Stranger: choke
Animus snaps it from the air, crushing it into glimmering dust between two fingers.
Animus: Moths. Creatures easily overlooked when eyes are turned to matters of greater import.
Animus: Tell me—how long have you been with us?
Animus: What made you worthy to ascend so quickly to the glorious heights of "Apostle"? Hm?
A throbbing drumbeat provides cover as she circles Ms. Stranger with measured steps.
Animus: We have painstakingly cleared the path to THEIR final ritual, yet ever since you reared your head, greater and greater complications have continued to arise. Do not take me for a fool, girl. I know treachery when I see it.
Animus: You were lucky, taking Mr. Forget Me Not's place after his expulsion over his alchemical failure.
Animus: But fortune can be fickle, don't you think?
Ms. Stranger: ...
Animus: You need no reminder that the trial of the Guiding One is not to be tampered with. Those who sow discord will be silenced forever.
Animus: You've fallen. Your ladylike visage cracked. I can only imagine how strenuous the fight against THEIR will must be in the face of your waning willpower.
Ms. Stranger runs a hand through her hair, releasing a shower of scale powders.
Animus: You are courageous, I suppose. Ambitious, even. But my! Do you lack wit? For you have found yourself in service to the wrong master. The Foundation is already crumbling at our feet. The information you risked your life to provide has been of little import.
Animus: At this very moment, the Foundation's fleet is stranded off the Antarctic coast, and the only reinforcements you've received are some arcanist children and a human.
Sonetto: ...
As Animus paces away, the two intruders from the Foundation exchange nervous glances.
Vertin: ...
Both pairs of eyes settle on Ms. Stranger, who lowers her eyes to the crowd.
Ms. Stranger: As I said, you must be jesting, Lady Apostle.
Ms. Stranger: I fell ill at sea while serving the Guiding One aboard the "Free Breeze." The Timekeeper isn't an enemy to be taken lightly, as I'm sure you're aware.
Vertin: ...?!
Ms. Stranger: She took the ship we left in Ushuaia and followed the trail I carefully placed for her, all the way here.
Ms. Stranger: I have brought her to you.
Ms. Stranger: She is my tribute to you and the Guiding One—a toll I pay for the path I've chosen.
She pats the believer before her on the arm.
Manus Believer: roar of confusion
The weapon-bearing arms lower.
She steps forward, pausing beside Animus.
Then she kneels, pressing lips to Animus's withered hand.
Ms. Stranger: What would you have me do with them?
Ms. Radio: You've been lying to us this entire time?
Vertin: ...
Animus: Heh.
Animus lingers on Ms. Stranger's youthful face, weighing the truth of her allegiance.
Animus: What did I say about airs and graces? It'll take more than the kiss on the hand and a few hostages to prove your loyalty, girl.
She offers up her longbow, guiding Ms. Stranger's hand to the string.
Animus: Go on, end them. The Great Mother will be quite pleased to see THEIR enemies dealt with.
Now they face the intruders together.
Animus: Perhaps you'd like to start by piercing their eyes. I personally find it particularly potent in sowing fear.
Ms. Stranger raises the arrow's tip, holding it level at a pair of cloud-gray eyes.
Sonetto: Timekeeper!
Sonetto struggles against the disciples' control; her hand—still grasping her glasfeder—is nearly bent backward.
Though now unrestrained, Nautika mutters vacantly, lost in delirium.
Pale, slender fingers draw the bowstring taut.
Vertin: ...
Gray eyes face down the arrow's gleam.
Ms. Stranger: Follow the wind, Timekeeper.
A forceful burst of snow erupts as a squall that covers the plaza; its dazzling whiteness blinding every open eye.
Manus Disciple I: What?
Manus Disciple II: What's going on?
Manus Disciple I: A snowstorm?
Animus: Don't let them get away!
Manus Believer: roar of confusion
Manus Believer: roar
A swirling tide of moths comes next, thick enough to blot out the sun, wings settling over every mask.
Ms. Stranger turns to her Foundation colleagues, her lips curling into a faint, relieved smile.
Ms. Stranger: Now is the time to act.
Vertin: Sonetto, now!
Sonetto pulls herself free, then casts an incantation from her glasfeder, repelling the enemies surrounding her companions.
Animus: Stop them, you fools!
Animus's cries are suffocated in the moth-filled air.
Countless wings beating in an audible flutter, reflecting the hinterland's eternal sunlight, washing the world in blinding white.
Manus Disciple I: I can't see!
Manus Disciple II: Where did they go?
The plaza becomes drowned in a cacophony of screams.
Manus Believer: roar
Animus: How could you pull such a thing from that feeble body of yours? Just how far are you willing to go in service of the Foundation?
Ms. Stranger: ...
Ms. Stranger doesn't respond. She collapses slowly onto the ground.
Moths descend one by one upon her motionless body, encasing her, piece-by-piece, in an immobile cocoon.
Out of the corner of the furious elder's eye, she sees three figures flash toward her.
The girls stand hand in hand under the glaring light, already leaping toward the dark gate.
Vertin: On the count of three!
Vertin: Three ...
Vertin: Two ...
Animus: You cannot pass. I will not allow it!
A lead arrow pierces into Nautika's flesh.
Nautika: Ugh!
Sonetto: Nautika!
Blood soaks through the leg of her trousers as Nautika falls before the gate.
Animus: Heh ...
The Manus Apostle's incantation strikes down whole sheets of moths as more and more believers swarm forward.
Animus: I need only the Timekeeper. Dispose of the rest.
Manus Believer: roar
COMBAT
Animus: Sickening little pests, blasphemous filth.
Animus: And that ever self-important "Preacher."
Animus narrows her eyes at their stubborn resistance, then flashes a smirk.
Animus: Come, children of flesh! We need not entertain these fools any longer. The Mother awaits.
Her longbow taps the ground as arcane light floods the plaza in eerie blue.
At her command, the Manus believers advance like a long-awaited avalanche—layer upon layer closing in, yet none spare a glance for the intruders.
The crowd presses around Animus, who stares back at the intruders with undisguised contempt.
Then, she sets a foot into the sanctuary gate.
Animus: Let this meeting be our last, heathens.
The blinding light fades and the plaza is empty—the rushing tide of black is gone. Each and every believer has followed the Apostle through the gate.
Sonetto: The gate ... It's closed?
Ms. Stranger exhales a long breath.
Ms. Stranger: We missed the window.
All eyes turn toward the deserted plaza, now strewn with the chilling aftermath.
Sonetto: And it'll only open again ...
Vertin: When we make another offering.