At dusk the group meets up in front of the stairs leading up into the Citadel, with the Oseram holding torches while Aloy and John rely upon their focuses. The group had searched through Sunfall, both in the streets and buildings. The buildings were a quick search, especially for John and Aloy since their focuses enable them to see through walls so that they might be able to see people. But all the group could ever find were what they had found back at the outskirts.
For not even corpses, let alone living people could be found anywhere within the now vacant city.
"This is all just so weird," Erend winced deliberately as he looks around. "I mean . . . It's as if everyone had suddenly decided to stripped naked and walk away, leaving everything behind."
"That machine cloud really stripped this place of human life," John said.
"So now what?" Aloy asked.
"Now we'll all camp out in the Citadel for the night," Erend said as he gestured up at it with his torch.
They climb the steps and enter the Citadel.
"Hey Erend," John said. "What can you tell me about this Citadel?"
"Well first came Sunfall. It was built during the rule of Basadid, the seventh Sun-King. He had it built after his brother Iriv, the previous Sun-King, ventured west with an army and was never seen nor heard of ever again. It was to be a fortress against the Forbidden West. After that, it was pretty much neglected until Marzid, the eleventh Sun-King and Avad's granduncle, came to inspect the place. He supposedly had a vision of the Citadel and ordered its construction. Once it was finished, he decided to make the Citadel his summer home. A lot of nobles joined him and they ended up making this a thriving city for artisans. Under Hivas, the Mad Sun-King's father, it became more military. To make a long story short, the Shadow Carja took this place over and made it their capital. And that up there," as Erend points up at the throne with his torch, "is where Sun-King Avad's half-brother, Itamen, sat with his mother, Nasadi, to pass judgement."
"But it was a Sun-Priest named Bahavas who did the actual ruling," Aloy noted.
"I've heard of that guy," Erend said dourly. "He was the High Sun-Priest during the Mad Sun-King's rule. Nasty chuff from what I heard."
"Well he's a dead chuff now, thanks to Uthid," Aloy quipped. "I helped defend him out in the hills against bounty hunters sent by Bahavas."
"Oh yeah and Uthid returned the favor by coming to defend Meridian," Erend said.
John walks over to a window. In the fading twilight, he can make out the Orbital Launch Site down below, though now refurbished to resemble a colosseum. It is then that he feels something inside him. As if . . . sorrow is wafting up from there.
"That's the Sun-Ring," Erend said from alongside him, startling John for a moment as he did not hear Erend coming up alongside him. "Originally, it was for military training. Then it became a place of terror and death when the Mad Sun-King started having people who were captured during the Red Raids thrown into that ring to be slaughtered by captive machines. They were mainly people who couldn't even fight a Watcher. The Mad Sun-King would watch the spectacle from a balcony that overlooks the Sun-Ring. Kadaman, who was Avad's elder brother and the Mad Sun-King's designated heir, publically opposed the practice. The Mad Sun-King's response was to have Kadaman thrown into that ring. It is said that as machines were tearing Kadaman to pieces, the Mad Sun-King didn't even flinch let alone look away."
"That monster!" John sneered. "So how did he die?"
"As we were storming Meridian, Avad took a secret passage into the city up into the Palace of the Sun where he confront his father," Erend answered. "After the battle was won, I joined up with Avad to find him sitting on the Sun Throne with bloodied sword in hand and staring down at his father's corpse lying in a pool of blood near his feet. Avad told me that he pleaded for his father to surrender, but Jiran was not going to do that and attacked Avad with a sword, forcing Avad to kill him."
"What was done with his body afterwards?" John asked.
"Avad ordered me and some of the Vanguard to help him take his father's body away from Meridian and get a cartload of blaze," Erend answered. "Once we were well outside of Meridian, Avad ordered for a small pit to be dug then had his father's corpse placed into it and filled with blaze. I poured the trail away from it and gave Avad the honors of setting it alight. A bright pillar of flame instantly shot up some twenty feet and was so bright and hot that we had to get even further back while shielding our eyes while it burned, only looking when the fire got low enough. When the blaze finally burned itself out, we examined the pit to find nothing but charred sand. Nevertheless Avad next ordered for every trace of soot to be dug up and dumped in the closest river. After all that was done, we all returned to Meridian where Avad was crowned the Fourteenth Luminance of the Radiant Line."
John purses his lips as he sighs to relieve the stress of that story. "Wow, that is one grim story. And I figured that Sun-King Avad would've wanted his father's body burned to ashes and scattered. No need for loyalists digging it up and using it as a symbol to rally around." He looks back down at the Sun-Ring. "I bet there must be a lot of blood and body parts mixed into that sand."
"That's right," Erend verified, "and it was allowed to stay there too. Sun-King Avad decreed that site to be a memorial."
"Hey guys," Aloy said, getting their attention as she walks over, then looks out with them. "Ah yes, the Sun Ring. Yeah, that place really does give you a grim feeling when you understand what had gone on in it."
"Anyway, let's get some sleep," Erend said as he turns away. "Because we should be back down by the shore by sunrise ready to return to Meridian to report to Sun-King Avad."
Everyone finds a spot to sleep in, that being inside of the Citadel.
John awakens and checks the time to find that it is two hundred hours, then gets comfortable once again to return to sleep. But he is unable to fall asleep again. Figuring that he had at least a few hours sleep, he quietly gets up and creeps outside and away from the palace. Outside a soft cool breeze blows. John stops and stares up at the clear moonless sky splattered with stars, including the Milky Way.
Those stars suddenly make him think about that signal that caused the Subroutines to become sapient. Could it have been of non-human origin?
He next stares down at the Sun-Ring hidden by the darkness of the moonless night. The grief of that place seems all the stronger.
"Couldn't sleep?" Aloy whispered.
John was startled into gasping and darting a look to see her standing near him.
"Jeez, Aloy. Must you sneak up on others like that?"
"Well I couldn't shout over to you now could I?"
"You could've cleared your throat to get my attention . . . But anyway in answer to your question, I just woke up. I must've had a few hours sleep to begin with so I came outside for a bit. Looking up at the sky got me thinking. What if the origin of the signal that gave the Subroutines sapience wasn't of human origin at all?"
"What do you mean?"
"We used to believe that many stars out there had worlds that were capable of supporting life and that they had their own intelligent life on them. But unlike us they would be more advanced and come here in spaceships. And that some of them might have had malevolent designs on us and try to do away with us. So what if an alien race had sent that signal?"
"An . . . alien . . . race?" Aloy asked bemusingly. "I really don't know how to answer that."
John shakes his head and sighs as he raises his hands while formulating on how to answer that. "It's not like we could ever prove any of that. And even if there were such a species, why get rid of humans when they could just build elaborate space stations to mimic their own world . . . ? It's something we really didn't take seriously. I guess it's because I can't figure out anything about a signal that instantaneously did what should have taken a programmer several months to accomplish. So I'm really just grasping at straws here. But enough about what could be up there. It's what's down there that really gets me thinking."
"The Orbital Launch Site." Soft profoundness in her tone.
"How tragically ironic." As he slowly shakes his head while staring down at it. "The place where the rebirth of humanity began became the place where humans were sent to die. And all because of strange signal that gave the Subroutines instant sapience."
"While we're on the subject about the Subroutines, why are you calling them spirits now?"
"Because it was the only way to get the people of this world to understand. They're not going to understand what we understand, so it was for the best to explain it in terms they do understand. And besides, a spirit is an entity with no physical form. That easily applies to the Subroutines. So technically, they're spirits."
"So be it . . . So what are you gonna do next, Jawn?"
"Next, I'll accompany you back to the Cut and observe Cyan taking the reins of the Cauldrons."
"And after that?"
"Then . . . Then I'll return to Meridian. Avad's gonna send people to reclaim this place. People who want a fresh start in life. I want to be one of those people. Those are the kind of people who don't get nosy."
"I guess you got your mind made up."
"Why? Was there something else you wanted me to do, Aloy?"
"No, it's just that since you are one of five hundred Old Ones who were cryogenically frozen, I just figured that you might be so curious that you would go to that land to the south and see if any of your people survived it."
"Believe me, I'm curious too. But like I told you before, it's a year's worth of walking. Even with the Derangement now over, there are still other dangers out there to consider. Then there's the fact that I don't know where the South American cryo facility is exactly. I may spend the rest of my life searching for it and never find it at all. And even if I do find it, I might end up finding that none of them survived. Or that one of them did survive, only to have gotten killed afterwards. You understand now, Aloy? It's pointless. So when Sun-King Avad gives the okay, I will be settling down here."
"I understand." As she touches his shoulder.
John stares silently into Aloy's face as he feels a tug on his inner self that seems to slowly pull him closer to her face.
"Let's return to our sleeping spots," Aloy suddenly said as she turns away from.
John follows Aloy back inside and they return to where they had been sleeping. Unbeknownst to them Erend had been awake. He had been straining to listen to their talking and had even thought of getting up and eavesdropping, only to decide against it as he understands that Aloy is a very perceptive girl and would have seen him through that second sight of hers. Or Jawn for that matter. He could barely make out a word they were saying and they may as well had been mumbling the entire time.
Though he did catch the name, Old Ones, then something about land. And finally John mentioning Sun-King Avad.
John walked into the West Virginia University. There were a multitude of students and facility members walking throughout the place.
"Excuse me," he said to a girl with long red hair swept back and held in multiple braids. "Where is the conference room?"
"It's just over there," she said while thumbing at a pair of open doors into a darkened interior.
"Thank you," John answered.
He walked into the conference room and sat in a chair with a multitude of others around. The hologram of a man John recognized as General Herres came up.
"The Faro Swarm cannot be stopped," General Herres said grimly.
John was standing outside under a dark overcast sky while incessant rumbling was heard all around. People were screaming as they ran this way and that, only to all disappear in an instance so that there were only wrecked buildings, vehicles, and other damaged infrastructure to be seen.
"It's over," a girl suddenly said from alongside him and he looked to see that she was the same girl who had given him directions to the conference room.
"Aloy!" John gasped.
John awakens and opens his eyes to see that it is slightly brighter now. He checks the time to find that it is five hundred and twenty-four hours. He raises his head and looks around to see that everyone else is still asleep.
John lowers his head and opts to wait for the others to awaken.
"Okay, everyone up!" Erend suddenly announced in an unnervingly loud tone for so early in the morning as he clangs his weapons together. "Come on! We gotta get back to Meridian as soon as possible and let Sun-King Avad know about this!"
Everyone gets up and prepares to leave.
"Hey Erend," John said. "Do you think Sun-King Avad is gonna send people from Meridian to live here?"
"Oh absolutely, Jawn. Now that the Shadow Carja are no more, he will be sending people to reclaim this place."
"If that's the case, I'll join them," John said.
"Yeah, that's a good idea," Erend mused. "And given the fact that you helped Aloy end the Derangement and stopped a machine cloud from killing everyone else, Avad'll probably give you this palace if you ask him nicely."
"Nah, a little to rich for my blood," John quipped as he waved dismissively for a moment. "A nice cozy little place should do just fine."
Erend chuckles, then turns to Aloy. "Hey Aloy, you ready to go?"
"Yeah," she answered.
"Everyone else?"
"Ready when you are, Captain," a man said.
"Alright let's move out," Erend stated.
The group walk out of the palace as dawn graces the sky to the east. It is as they are about to enter the gorge that will lead them back down to the lakeside and their barge when Aloy speaks up.
"We'd like to join you, Erend, but there's somewhere else we need to be." Gesturing between herself and John.
"Somewhere else?" Erend mused.
"We have to return to the Cut because we have an errend to run up there," John answered. "Now I don't know about Aloy, but I'll be returning to Meridian afterwards to take up that offer of helping to resettle Sunfall."
"Very well," Erend mused. "Then goodbye for now, you two."
"Yeah," Aloy said.
"See you soon," John said.
Aloy and John walk away heading north.