[Crickets. A slow guitar ambience.]

Narrator 1: Insects drone in the still desert air. Weird lizards warm themselves on red rocks. Clouds drift lazily in the sparkling bright sky.

Narrator 2: Stationary Hill wasn’t the only thing subject to the chaotic ravages of the tearror — the entire islet of Midst has been affected. It’s been a while since we were out here in the uninhabited desert wilderness of Vermillion County. What has changed?

Narrator 3: The natural red-orange stone of Midst has been enlivened in places with variegated splashes of other mineral colors: dusky purples, vibrant sapphire blues, achingly neon pinks.

Narrator 2: As though the islet has been splashed by a whip of rainbow paint from a cosmic paintbrush.

Narrator 1: The stone formations, the spires, the arches that were spectacular even before, are now even more strange, even more sculptural, occasionally physics-defying.

Narrator 3: Windswept arches fan out wildly from spiral, spindly spires. Rock fingers are splayed open like skeletal hands, laying massively in the prismatic landscape.

Narrator 2: Think Monument Valley or Arches National Park, with the dials cranked not to 11, but something more like 30.

Narrator 1: More tumbleweeds roll across the plains, gathering like cottonwood pollen around various oases of succulents — plants like cactus and jade, but radically large, thickly copsed.

Narrator 2: Alien cedars, strange junipers, twisted and gnarled, clinging to crimson stones.

Narrator 3: Vibrant mosses, curious lichens, weird trees sprouting like super broccoli.

Narrator 1: There’s a small cabin of sorts out here, a sort of shed-shack-house-hut.

Narrator 2: Where before it stood out on a lonely plain, it is now perched up on a rocky promontory, overlooking a jagged ravine, almost as though the landscape has reshaped itself specifically to defend the tiny dwelling.

Narrator 3: Thorny brambles and maze-like twists confuse the approach to the little cabin, where only a small, narrow footpath provides easy access up the back way.

Narrator 2: The incoming limpet ship has to land at a distance because of all this. Fluttering unevenly like a shredded leaf, making worrisome noises, it makes its limping descent.

Narrator 1: Poor little thing has been through the ringer. It’s still flying, but it’s not gonna be making any interisletary trips after this.

Narrator 3: Not anytime soon, anyway.

Narrator 2: It’s a wonder it made it this far. With a surge of braking effort, the oar-like projections sweep down before the ship lands, jarringly, on the sloping side of a butte that gently descends into the ravine.

Narrator 1: And the Breach renegades, looking similarly worse for wear, disembark into the desert air.

Narrator 3: Gretel scans the horizon of Vermillion County, shielding her eyes, peering at the distant red crag of Stationary Hill.

Narrator 2: (Gretel) “There’s no way the Company in town didn’t see us come in. What do you think they’re doing?”

Narrator 1: Hieronymous steps up beside her, planting a foot on a red stone crag, gazing into the distance at the town.

Narrator 3: (Hieronymous) “The Tripotentiary is their only authority anymore. I imagine they’re mustering around him, waiting on whatever his orders are going to be.”

Narrator 1: Phineas and Spahr are coming now to join the others,

Narrator 3: Spahr’s brow furrowed.

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “Without Valor to gain, without any Caenum to lose, it’s only that lingering influence of the Tripotentiary, whatever that’s worth, that’s going to give the Company any kind of structure at this point.”

Narrator 2: Phineas looks thoughtful.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “It can be hard to know what to do on your own. People won’t be quick to abandon their posts. Even with the Arca gone.”

Narrator 2: As the islet turns, the distant, interminable wall of the Fold slowly rises on the horizon. Evening is coming, at the pace of a fast walk.

Narrator 1: Gretel watches it approaching, concerned.

Narrator 2: (Gretel) “Our window for Un transit is short. If we’re gonna try and figure out what’s going on in town, what happened to everyone, if uh, Saskia’s other body is…well, we should be making our way there. I’m flying. Who’s coming?

Narrator 1: Backpack and Hieronymous move to stand with Gretel.

Narrator 3: (Hieronymous) “I have an idea about where the Stationarians might have gone,”

Narrator 1: Hieronymous says.

Narrator 3: (Hieronymous) “Probably underground. There are some caves — I can show you where. Saskia’s probably with them.”

Narrator 2: (Backpack) “I’m coming too,”

Narrator 1: Backpack says.

Narrator 2: (Backpack) “If they have functioning teletherics, I might be able to contact them, give them a heads-up we’re coming.”

Narrator 3: Lark doesn’t answer. It’s pretty obvious she’s staying here.

Narrator 1: Phineas takes a step towards her.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “If you’ll have me, I can probably be of some help to you here.”

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “Me too,” says Spahr, serious, resolved, unhesitating. “It’s time to put an end to this.”

Narrator 2: Lark gives Phineas and Spahr a look, sizing them up. Her scar seems to have grown at least two new branches just since they departed from the wrecked cruise ship. It spreads across the left side of her face, an inexorable spill of ink. (Lark) “You understand what you’re getting into? We’re outnumbered. We’re not dealing with the Trust anymore. We’re dealing with Weepe. He is not going to hold back. I am his last shot at salvaging any of this. Honestly, I’m not even sure if it’s about saving the Trust anymore.”

Narrator 1: She can’t describe what she’s really feeling, the poison seeping through the threads of the spiderweb, the metastasizing darkness she feels on the other end.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “If you stay here, you have to be ready to die here.”

Narrator 3: There’s a moment while the weight of her words settles over them. Phineas understands. He nods. (Phineas) “It’s all for the…good riddance of the Trust.”

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “Heh, haven’t heard that one before.” Spahr subtly gives Phineas’ hand a squeeze. “Understood, ma’am.”

Narrator 2: Gretel’s ready to go. (Gretel) “Okay, it’s decided, then. Let’s dust off. We’ll have to go in low and probably loop our way in quietly so we don’t distract the Company from you here.”

Narrator 3: Phineas puts up a hand. (Phineas) “Wait, um… If you can, tell Saskia thank you for what she did.”

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “For everything,” says Spahr. “And maybe if we get through this, we can all tell her ourselves.”

Narrator 2: Hieronymous looks around at his companions, at this unexpected group of people that he’s fallen in with in the last few days.

[The limpet ship feebly warms up in the background.]

Narrator 3: (Hieronymous) “I hope this isn’t goodbye, but…” He shakes his head.

Narrator 2: It’s probably goodbye. Maybe. Too much to say, too little time. He just doesn’t have the words. It’s hard to get this one out, but he does his best.

Narrator 3: (Hieronymous) “Thank you, so much, all of you. For everything you’ve done and still have to do, and…I’m sorry. And good luck.”

Narrator 2: (Backpack) “Good luck,” Backpack echoes.

Narrator 1: (Gretel) “Give ’em hell,” says Gretel. And they go. 

Narrator 3: The limpet ship lifts off and peels away, keeping low to the desert terrain, gliding away on a long, extra-wide, slow, stealthy sweep towards Stationary Hill, still shimmering in the distance. The rising backdrop of stark black Fold sweeps nearer and nearer to the cabin.

Narrator 2: Lark, Jonas Spahr, and Phineas Thatch watch the ship go until it disappears into the fiery desert landscape, and then they ascend the transfigured red stone promontory, climbing up to Lark’s cabin.

Narrator 1: In this moment before unset, Lark takes a sec to take in the transformed landscape of this here, her modest desert acreage.

Narrator 2: It’s…amazing. She actually loves it.

Narrator 1: If she’d hired a team of elite landscapers to build her a bespoke custom homestead to her own personal exact parameters… Shit, it could hardly have been better than this, more secure, or more ideal.

Narrator 2: She notes with satisfaction a few splatters of dried blood here and there, torn bits of clothing, little indicators that her various booby traps did indeed successfully snare a few curious Company trespassers.

Narrator 3: Maybe the tearror even set up a few more for her.

Narrator 2: Vermillion County stretches out all around her, transformed, yet more itself than ever. This feels like home. She fully admits that to herself now. Of all the places she’s been in the cosmos, nothing has dug its way into her heavily-fortified heart quite like this little islet floating here on the border between Un and Fold, part of both worlds, but more than either of them. She’s ready to die on this hill.

Narrator 1: Oh, and the cabin, the cabin!

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “So, that’s…where you…live?” Phineas asks, incredulous.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Uh, yeah,” Lark says, kind of stunned. “I guess it is, now.”

Narrator 1: Lark’s cabin…has, uh,

Narrator 2: How shall we say,

Narrator 1: Been renovated?

Narrator 3: All of Lark’s secrecy, her paranoia, her mistrust, and her defensiveness, that energy that has seeped into and saturated this home as long as she’s lived here — well, it’s like the Fold smelled it or something.

Narrator 2: And it took that energy and ran with it. Here is a house that just screams ‘Go the fuck away.’

Narrator 1: Like the spiny leaves of an artichoke, the material of her cabin’s outer walls has fanned outward into a threatening barricade of spikes.

Narrator 2: The windows have contracted into narrow little slits, perfect for sniping.

Narrator 3: The Fold has picked up on things that she maybe wanted to do or wished one day to do to the cabin, and it’s done them. Ten or more years of crafty housework has been applied in one instantaneous, alien-minded, fell swoop.

Narrator 1: Of course, Phineas and Spahr have no idea that her cabin hasn’t always been this way, and they are… how shall we say it?

Narrator 2: They’re attributing all this madness to her?

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “Fuck,” says Spahr.

Narrator 3: Phineas’ jaw is just agape.

Narrator 2: Lark won’t bother to correct this misunderstanding, of course. (Lark) “Well,”

Narrator 1: She says,

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Time’s a-wastin’.”

Narrator 1: And the three of them step within.

[The creak of a door. A change of scene.]

Narrator 2: The inside of her cabin has clearly been searched. Whoa. Ransacked. People have been here, recently, repeatedly, looking for her.

Narrator 3: Her food stores lay smashed on the ground, drawers from chests hanging open or laying on the floor, rugs heaped in corners where they were kicked or discarded after failing to reveal trap doors to hidden cellars or secret compartments.

Narrator 2: Despite the disarray, the cabin’s interior is surprisingly…uh, cozy. Homey. Snug. And, interestingly, though reinvented by an alien consciousness, not actually THAT bizarre? No corkscrewed walls, no impossible angles or anything like that. No hovering objects or surfaces made of birds. A sensibly harmonious interior design vision. A safe house, built for safety, with clear purpose and intent.

Narrator 1: Hmm. Just when you think you understand tearrors, they go and surprise you by doing something…uh, sensible. Whaddaya know?

Narrator 3: The cabin stands ready and welcoming, a sanctuary in the wilderness. It smells comfortingly of faint woodsmoke and herbs, wood shavings and leather.

Narrator 2: An ideal place to get away from it all, curl up with a cup of tea, and enjoy some goddamn peace and quiet.

Narrator 3: Bristly and forbidding on the outside, yet strangely sentimental on the inside.

Narrator 2: Hmm. Remind you of anybody?

Narrator 1: Spahr is peering around with interest at the cozy den of the Trust’s most legendary nemesis. (Spahr) “Cute,” he says, examining some fortified walls, the narrow windows. “This has actually got crazy defensibility. Good view of the approach from town, too.”

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “What do we have to defend ourselves with?”

Narrator 1: Phineas is looking around, trying to find some useful armaments.

Narrator 2: That’s a good point he brings up. In all the mess, there are no weapons to be seen. The Company did their best to confiscate anything of use. But Lark knows she can still find what she needs here. This is HER home, and it doesn’t answer to anybody else. She strides across the room, looks at the wall where she used to hang her motley collection of guns and hunting knives. It’s bare. Even the hooks are gone, with no holes in the wood to show that anything was ever there at all. Interesting. She puts her fold-stained hand on the wall and traces her fingers over the seams and the planks until she finds a little whorl in the wood, just big enough to fit her pinky. She wiggles in, hooks, and pulls, and a masterfully-hidden door swings open, its seams nearly invisible where they perfectly aligned with the grain of the wall, revealing…

Narrator 3: A fully-stocked hidden arsenal straight out of Lark’s daydreams.

Narrator 1: Well well, what do you know? Thanks, the Fold! Lark owes you one.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Help yourselves.” Lark slings a favorite rifle over her shoulder and buckles a couple of knives onto her belt. The weapons here are all familiar to her, each one bearing the telltale marks of her own meticulous hand-modifications.

Narrator 3: Phineas and Spahr examine the arsenal, particularly the guns: pistols, rifles, shotguns. They look at each other with some surprise.

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “This is all Loxlee tech,” Spahr says. “Same as the Company uses. How’d you get all these?”

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Made ‘em.”

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “Well, nice work. But, uh, using these is out of the question.” Spahr glances out of a window at the incoming wall of night shortly to arrive. “We can’t fire any of these in the Fold unless we want to risk obliterating ourselves.”

Narrator 3: Yeah, he’s not wrong. Bright flashes of gunfire, in the Fold? Big tearrors. Very bad. Like striking a match in an atmosphere of pure hydrogen. You know how it is.

Narrator 2: Lark gives him a withering glance. (Lark) “You think the Company won’t fire on US?”

Narrator 1: Spahr matter-of-factly shakes his head. (Spahr) “No. It’d be borderline suicidal of them, they know that. Extremely inadvisable. Goes against Company training and policy to discharge firearms in the Fold.”

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “That’s true. Incendiary tearrors could—”

Narrator 2: (Lark) “This isn’t your Company anymore.”

Narrator 1: Lark turns to them.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Weepe doesn’t care about stirring up a few tearrors even if it makes things complicated for his own side.”

Narrator 1: Spahr warily grabs himself a rifle from the rack and doles one out to Phineas. (Spahr) “Well, it’s a desperate last resort then, but for fuck’s sake, do not fire them inside this house.”

Narrator 2: Lark’s having a bit of trouble getting her point across, it seems. She slowly walks over to the former Prime Consector. They haven’t really interacted much, one-on-one. (Lark) “It’s MY house. This fight isn’t gonna go like one of your official Company jobs. Things are gonna get messy. If you don’t think you can handle that, you need to get out of here while you still can.”

Narrator 3: It feels like a genuine offer that she’s making, not a taunt. She isn’t forcing anyone, expecting either of them to stay.

Narrator 2: She turns to Phineas now. (Lark) “And you. We haven’t, uh, had a talk about your little lapse in conviction up there at the Arca. What happens if they make you the same offer again? Do I need to be watching my back, or are you all good now that your boyfriend jumped ship with you?”

Narrator 3: Phineas’ brain, briefly short-circuiting at the word ‘boyfriend,’ just says (Phineas) “That was… I wasn’t actually going to…” He breathes deeply. “No. You’re right. I was tempted. It’s gonna take me a while to completely get over the things I used to want, but…the Trust is gone. I just have to keep telling myself that. There’s nothing for me to go back to. I don’t want any part of whatever Weepe is doing. There’s no Valor to reward me with anymore, even if I did — even if I DO — want it.”

Narrator 1: Spahr listens quietly. It’s still a unique, very new experience to hear all of this. And his own wounds, Spahr’s wounds, are also still fresh.

Narrator 3: Phineas continues, (Phineas) “And Lark?” He meets her stare. “You saved my life once, when you didn’t have to, when you probably had every reason not to. Back in the mail car? You let me come with. You let me live. I owe you for that.”

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Okay,”

Narrator 1: Says Lark.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Guess that’ll do.” She reaches into the arsenal cabinet once more, where a collection of little glass vials of black liquid glimmer among the more obvious weapons — her stash from the Black Candle, still here, still waiting for her. She takes one and puts it in her pocket for later, just in case. (Lark) “Ready?”

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Ready,” says Phineas.

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “Ready,” agrees Spahr.

Narrator 3: An ink-black rippling curtain of liquid fog glides through the cabin, and the immediate, mysterious darkness of the Fold fills the room. Lark stands before Phineas and Spahr, enrobed in coiling, inky fog.

Narrator 2: It seems thicker around her, where she stands. Could just be their imaginations. Lark turns her gaze inward. Outward. She tries something she’s never tried before, something that she’s not even sure she could do until now: she sends her OWN vibration down the spiderweb, reaching out for Weepe, lancing a thought straight from her mind into his. (Lark) “Come and get me, you piece of shit.”

Narrator 1: He doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even know if he has the ability to do that.

Narrator 2: But she knows he hears her. (Lark) “He’s on his way.”

Narrator 3: The islet of Midst revolves, like an apple bobbing in the Fold, the cosmic supernatural fog enveloping Vermillion County. And out of that darkness, an airborne mass of yet more solid darkness emerges.

[A mechanical thrum.]

Narrator 1: Grinding to a ponderous halt in the air, the glistening prow of an impressive foldmersible looms, hovering over Lark’s cabin like a shark in the deep ocean.

Narrator 2: Fold-safe floodlights snap on, glaring down upon the little artichoke house on the promontory.

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “Ah, great,” Spahr says, assessing the looming vessel. “Just great.”

Narrator 2: He, Phineas, and Lark, huddled in the cabin, peer out the windows at the dark spectacle of the former baron’s — and the new baron’s — submersible, sweeping its flickering searchlights onto the tiny hut-house-shack.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Uh oh,” says Phineas.

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Told ya it would be messy,” says Lark.

Narrator 1: Whatever great defensible position this cabin seemed to offer them previously is now rendered pretty obsolete. They might be able to hold their own against ground-based Company troops, but against a fucking death zeppelin? Not so great.

Narrator 3: The behemoth issues a gout of steam. Gravel ballast rains out of a side hatch as massive banners unfurl in the humid current of the Fold.

Narrator 2: Trust sigils, hastily emblazoned on top of Kozma Laszlo’s original branding, billow forth, backlit by the pulsating spotlights.

Narrator 1: Moc Weepe, Tripotentiary of the Trust, and, unfortunately, Baron of Midst, has arrived. 

[Ominous music.] 

Narrator 3: He has a sick ride.

Narrator 2: He has a sick everything. A loudspeaker-like contraption periscopes up from the top of the foldmersible. Weepe’s wrecked voice booms forth. 

Narrator 1: (Weepe, voice distorted and amplified by loudspeaker) “Hi.”

Narrator 2: No response from the cabin. They don’t have a loudspeaker, and Lark doesn’t bother with her new, uh, telepathy mind powers in this case.

Narrator 1: (Weepe) “Nice job wreckin’ the civilization and lifestyle of millions of innocent people. Great job. Hope you feelin’ good about yourselves for completely fuckin’ obliteratin’ the fair and quiet existences of countless normal innocent Trustees, who are now living in confusion and panic thanks to your little Breach stunt.”

Narrator 3: …Is what Weepe WOULD have said. But Weepe isn’t really here anymore. That endearing sense of humor, gone. What our pals in the cabin hear instead is…

Narrator 1: (Weepe) “I’m here to kill you.”

Narrator 2: Inside the cabin, Lark, Spahr, and Phineas exchange glances.

Narrator 1: (Weepe) “This isn’t a negotiation. Your only value is in your destruction. Therefore, as Tripotentiary of the Trust, I declare this a sacred act. And by killing you, I restore to the Trust what was lost. The Rebalancing will take place now.”

Narrator 2: Lark unshoulders her rifle,

Narrator 1: Spahr sees it. (Spahr) “Lark, no.”

Narrator 2: Pokes it through the narrow window,

Narrator 1: (Spahr) “Lark?”

Narrator 2: Takes a deep breath.

Narrator 3: (Phineas) “Lark, what are you doing?”

Narrator 2: (Lark) “Evening the odds.” [Gun cocking.] In the space of a single breath, as she looks down the gun sight with predatory focus, her fold scar shoots a new tendril straight through the white of her eye, like ink injected into milk, lancing into the center of her pupil. She takes perfect aim and pulls the trigger.