"Aloy!" The imposing armor the commander of the Desert Clan wore clashed with his outstretched arms and friendly demeanor as he stepped toward the three of them, passing under the rusted arches of the ancient ruins that made up the rebuilt village of Bleeding Mark. "I'd heard there was a certain famous machine-riding warrior with red hair and a habit of taking down Thunderjaws wandering this way. I'm glad it was you."

Not bothering to hide her amusement, Aloy smiled and shook her head. Drakka greeting her like that could only mean one thing—he needed her help. She dismounted her Charger before helping Beta climb off as well. "Hi, Drakka." She gestured at the now thriving town, once a disaster zone. "Looks like things have recovered nicely from the mudslide and the flood. Is that why you're here?"

"Yep, the people of Bleeding Mark are tough. Didn't take long for the water to drain and thanks to you, we got a lot of people safely out of it." He placed a hand on his chest and for a moment, almost looked solemn. "But you got me—turns out I find myself in need of your help once again." He glanced up as his attention went to Seyka and Beta for the first time. "You've brought friends! Care to introduce us?"

Wondering what else could be plaguing the Desert Clan and also where in the world Sokorra was, Aloy quickly introduced them. "Uh, right. Seyka, Beta—this is Drakka. He's the commander of the Desert Clan."

"Hi," Seyka and Beta replied in hesitated unison.

"Great. Oh!" Drakka pointed at Beta and then at Aloy. "Are you two…is she related to you? Sorry, you just look alike and all—"

"She's my sister, yeah." Aloy wondered what their encounter would have been like had Yarra remained commander. Probably not as friendly, but most likely less talking. Drakka had helped take down Regalla's rebels at the Grove so she couldn't fault him too much. "We're looking for a warrior named Sokorra. Is she here?"

Drakka's eyebrows shot up. "Sokorra? Yeah, hold on." He stopped a passing Desert Tenakth. "Find Sokorra. Tell her to report here immediately. Her…new squad has arrived." His chuckled a bit at his last sentence.

"Right away, Commander."

Aloy tilted her head. "New squad?"

"Ah, long story," he said. "Kid was leader of Eagle Squad, did really well, lost her brother to a Bristleback. Kind of a hothead but you'll never see me complaining about that."

"And…now?"

He rubbed his arm where part of his armor dug into his inked skin. "Well, that's where you come in. One of our own went missing a week ago. He survived the mudslide—you rescued him, actually. We thought he just went out to hunt but then six more went missing after that. No one's returned, but Sokorra volunteered to track them down, suggested I call on you for help. Her squad's headed for some training at the Grove so I gave her leave." He grinned. "Perks of being Desert Commander and all."

"Right."

"Commander." Sokorra's bark preceded her hurried steps as she approached them from inside the walls. Once stopped, she saluted Drakka before turning to Aloy. "Aloy, you came!" Her attention went to Beta and Seyka, though Aloy noticed her gaze linger on Beta, despite having already met her days ago. We need to figure out a better way to explain this to people. She noticed Sokorra was not wearing the Focus she had given her. "It's good that you're here."

"She's your new commanding officer now, so make sure you treat her with respect," Drakka ordered, his tone still good-humored but sincere. Aloy admired how at ease he was around the other Tenakth.

"Yes, Commander." Then, with a salute to Aloy. "Ready to depart on your order."

Aloy successfully ignored the stifled snort from Seyka, but it was difficult. Beta remained quiet, watching in awe as she took in the town, the people, and the situation they found themselves in.

"Uh, sure," Aloy managed to reply, hoping the formalities would end once they were out of earshot of Drakka. She noticed there had been no mention of Korreh and figured that was probably intentional. She made a mental note to ask Sokorra later. "No better time than the present. Let's head out."

"Someone thought they saw one of the missing heading toward the mountains in the northwest," Drakka said. "Maybe look there first. I'd go with you but…" he pointed to the town behind him. "…still a lot of cleanup and work to do here. Turns out when you're commander, you don't get to go on all the missions anymore."

Aloy understood, though she hoped it would never come to that with her and her friends. "We'll do our best to find them, Drakka."

"I have no doubts about that," he said. "And thank you, Aloy."

They walked for a few hours to the northwest, as Drakka had suggested. Having traveled near there a few times, Aloy led the four of them through the woods, keeping her eyes and Focus on the ground for any tracks or signs of the missing Tenakth. With her metal club at the ready, Sokorra trailed behind Aloy by only a few feet, and judging by how tense she was, Aloy half-expected her to go rushing for the first machine they passed in case it somehow knew something about Korreh.

Beta too had her Focus activated, though not for tracking but recording their search, in the event they might need to review it later. Seyka held the back of the group, constantly scanning for any machines or other enemies that might try to sneak up on them.

"The Cauldron is this way," Aloy said, stepping over a fallen tree. Her shoes sunk a bit into the ground where mud had taken over, suggesting it had recently rained again. She sighed, knowing it was going to be even more difficult to find anything if the rains had washed away evidence. "We can make it there and still have a few hours of light to search. After sunset it's going to get a lot harder to find anything."

Sokorra protested immediately. "I'll stay out here as long as I have to."

A sharp cry and a sudden groan from Beta took Aloy's attention away from Sokorra's ranting. She stopped, fearing the worst, and spun to face her sister. "What's wrong, Beta?"

"Ugh, I'm—I'm fine." Beta lifted her right leg, which was covered in mud from the knee down. "I should have watched where I was stepping." She attempted to brush some of the mud off her pants but only succeeded in getting it on her hand and wrist. "Let's just keep going."

"Some of the animals like to burrow here, so you should watch out for more holes like that," Sokorra said as they started up their pace again. "One of my squad hurt her ankle in one a few months ago. Took a few days for her to get back in the action. In the desert, you overcome inconveniences like these."

Keeping an eye on Beta, Aloy watched as she tried shaking her hand to fling some of the mud off it. She seemed to give up and just wiped the rest of it on her shirt. "I'm fine. No injuries here. Just…a little messy."

Sokorra shrugged. "A little mud won't hurt you. You look more like a warrior now."

Aloy had to chuckle at that. "This is coming from the same Tenakth who complained about going for a swim in the lake."

Sokorra huffed loud enough for Aloy to hear but said nothing.

Aloy decided to press an earlier issue. "So, you lose your Focus?"

Sokorra froze up, as though realizing she had forgotten something, and reached into one of her armor's pockets, pulling out the device a moment later. "No. I…wasn't sure if I should let anyone else see it. Also, I still don't get what I'm supposed to do with it, except listen for you, I guess. Every time I put it on, I keep seeing all these annoying lights." She held it awkwardly between her thumb and finger before placing it on her right temple. "They're hard to make sense of."

"It takes some getting used to."

"Hey, look at this." Seyka knelt next to a few scattered broken branches a few feet from where they walked. "I think someone came this way recently."

Switching on her Focus, Aloy knelt next to Seyka. There were tracks—faint, but they were there. Two or three people at least, but the mud and debris from the rains made it difficult to tell for certain. Glancing up, she saw the trail of purple light where the Focus registered the prints despite the mud. "Tracks," she confirmed. "This way—I think we picked up their trail."

They picked up their pace, the trail winding through the trees and then out onto the main dirt path that wound through the region for a bit before going back into the wilds, where the trees gave way to open fields again. Rolling hills pushed into snow-covered rocky cliffs. A metal platform stood at the top of one of the hills. Aloy immediately recognized the area. "They went to the Cauldron all right." Crouching, she reached for her bow and turned to the others, placing a finger over her lips. "If the missing Tenakth were taken here, their captors are probably here too as well as machines," she said, her voice just above a whisper. She pointed at a small rock formation a few feet away. "Beta, if we get into trouble, I want you to hide behind those rocks over there, okay?"

Beta pointed to the backpack slung over her shoulder. "But I brought something that could help—"

Aloy didn't let her finish. "No. Not this time. We don't know what we're walking into here. I'm not going to risk it." She forced herself to push past the guilt Beta's crestfallen expression made her feel. Not yet. Maybe someday she'll be ready but it's definitely not today. The realization of how dangerous the situation she had allowed Beta to accompany her into hit her. The Tenakth were able fighters. Whoever or whatever had captured them were likely well-armed. I should never have let her come. I should have made her wait at the Base.

"I don't understand. If she can help, why not let her?" Sokorra said.

Enough. Aloy was about to lose her patience when Seyka stepped between them.

"Let's not worry about that right now and just take a moment to plan our next move, all right?" She pointed at the looming hill where the exit platform of the Cauldron stood. "Why don't the two of you scout ahead and I'll stay here with Beta?"

Aloy had to admit the idea was a good one, and the fact that it came from Seyka helped more than she realized it would. Beta's an adult and she's surrounded by all of us. She's smart. She'll be okay. I need to trust her. But it was easy to convince herself of that when they weren't being shot at.

She took a deep breath to center herself and refocus. "Yeah. That's a good idea." Then to Sokorra. "Ready?"

Sokorra extended her club-wielding arm toward the Cauldron. "Lead the way."

It was a quick trek up the hill, but Aloy could feel Sokorra's tension just walking near her. "Sorry if I got a little short."

"I get it," Sokorra said and made what almost sounded like a brief laugh. "I was the same way with Korreh, even though he can take care of himself."

They reached the top of the hill, coming to a stop a few steps shy of their shoes hitting the metal platform where Aloy had exited on the brand-new Tallneck months earlier. "About that," she said. "Does anyone other than your squad know about Korreh going to live in Plainsong? Your commander seemed to think he was dead."

Sokorra gave a small shake of her head. "Just Ghrella and Rhetta. If anyone knew what we did, well, we'd probably be in a lot of trouble." She avoided eye contact with Aloy. "Our parents don't even know."

"I see." Not really sure what else to say, she let the matter drop and scanned the platform with her Focus. "No tracks here. I don't think they used this way to get in. They might have gone through the other entrance." Still gripping her bow, she jogged down the hillside and around the back of the natural formations shielding the Cauldron, being careful not to slip on the muddy slopes. She stopped when they got to the edge of a ravine, the very same one she had used to get into the Cauldron when she discovered it.

Sokorra's eyes went wide. "Blood of the Ten," she breathed.

Along the edge were piles of dead machines, mostly Glinthawks with some Burrowers in the mix. Their parts were intertwined—many torn off and strewn about, with some still crackling with energy as though they were just destroyed.

Aloy sent a call to Beta and Seyka. "Beta, Seyka. We're over by the ravine behind the main exit. You should come see this."

It only took a few minutes for the others to arrive—the surprise on their faces very similar to how Sokorra had looked upon discovering the machine graveyard.

Seyka furrowed her brow. "What happened here? Did this Cauldron do this?"

Scanning the machines turned up nothing. Aloy sighed. A dead end? Maybe something inside the Cauldron—

"Look." Sokorra reached down into the piles of shredded silver and blue metal and revealed a machine lure. The metal bands encircling it were cracked and broken.

"Another lure," Seyka concluded. She stared at the machines and then back at the lure. "So…what—someone was overriding machines?"

"If so, judging by all these they weren't very successful," Aloy said, taking the lure into her hands to inspect it. "That Oseram Erend and I fought, Dervahl—he used one of these to call Glinthawks to him, but he couldn't really control them." She bit her lip in thought. He couldn't control them, but what if whoever's behind this somehow could? "When I was raiding Regalla's camps, I came across some prototypes that the Sons of Prometheus built. I destroyed them, or I thought I did."

Seyka gestured at the pile. "Maybe one of them found a way to override machines again. Or…they're trying to, and these are their failed experiments?"

"Could be," Aloy said. "But what do Tenakth have to do with any of this?"

"Maybe that lure is different? Do you know anyone who might be able to tell?"

Aloy considered it and it didn't take long for the answer to form in her mind. She smiled as the idea came to her. "I know a few people, actually. But we'd have to go to Hidden Ember to find them."

"More Tenakth?"

"No. Oseram," Aloy explained. "I have some friends there, though we'd just have to make sure they won't try to…blow the lure up."

Seyka raised an eyebrow. "Um, is that a real thing we need to be worried about?"

"Unfortunately."

"Aloy!" Beta's alarmed call startled them both. She had apparently ventured away from the group during the discussion and was now farther down the edge of the ravine, a few steps from the drop, surrounded by more broken machines. "I-I think I found something."

She held up a wrinkled, tan cloth. It was obvious from the ends it had once been tied around a person's head. Next to her was a man's body, facedown and covered in red, yellow, and black ink.

"No!" Abandoning all strategy and awareness, Sokorra raced over to where a shocked Beta was kneeling by the body. "Help me turn him over!"

"Sokorra, wait!" Aloy and Seyka rushed to them, but Sokorra was already turning the body over.

Aloy took the cloth from Beta. "This was Korreh's." She looked down at the dead Tenakth…and recognized him as one of the men she had rescued from the Snapmaws after the mudslide in Bleeding Mark. His face was marred with small cuts, and he had bruising around his throat and chest.

Seyka just seemed horrified by the entire ordeal. "Is that…"

"It's not Korreh." Sokorra's voice broke before she let out a shaky sigh. "B-but that headband is his."

Aloy handed her the cloth—which Sokorra seemed to gratefully accept by clutching it tightly to her chest—before taking a step back to determine what happened. The injuries on the body were not consistent with the kind of damage a machine could do. "A machine didn't kill him. A person did."

Sokorra stood up, the cloth in her hand, and paced by the ravine's edge next to Beta, her worry having given way to pure anger. "I don't understand any of this! First we find that flute and now this." She shook the headband at them. "Korreh was here. I don't know—can we use this…device," she pointed at her Focus, "and figure out where he went next?"

Beta's somber expression vanished as her green eyes flashed in realization. "Breadcrumbs."

Sokorra's response was more of a growl than question. "What?"

"The flute. His headband. I-I think your brother is leaving you clues, Sokorra!" Beta's words came out at breakneck speed. "Something similar happened in Second Time—never mind. But the point is that I think he knew you'd look for him, o-or at the very least that you might ask for Aloy's help, since she's proven she's adept at finding things."

"She's right, Aloy. You are pretty good at finding stuff," Seyka added.

While the comment was not entirely helpful to an upsetting and escalating situation, Aloy still gave Seyka an appreciative smile. "Thanks." She turned to Sokorra. "There were no other trails that I saw, Sokorra. We need to find out more about that lure. Maybe it'll give us another clue we need to find Korreh and the other Tenakth." She nodded at the body. "And tell us who killed him."

Sokorra gazed down at the cloth she gripped in her hands. "Fine. But I'm coming with you."

Aloy's focus went to Beta. It wasn't that long ago that her sister had been kidnapped. She would never forget how she felt when the Zeniths flew off with Beta at GEMINI. "All right, you can come," she said, her attention back on Sokorra. "But I can't promise any answers, Sokorra. And I don't know what we'll find or what we'll see. Are you sure?"

"Yes," Sokorra answered, perhaps a bit too eagerly but Aloy couldn't blame her for being so adamant about finding her brother. "I just need to stop at Bleeding Mark and tell—"

One of the dead machines sparked and exploded in a smoke-filled cloud of metal and sparks—the impact reaching where they stood and cracking the thin snow-covered dirt where Beta and Sokorra stood. The ground gave way, with the two of them falling into the ravine before anyone could react.

"Beta!" Aloy yelled as she frantically reached for her rope. Seyka sprang into action, searching for a reliable edge on the rock to start climbing down. "I'll be right there. Don't move!"

Dazed but uninjured, Sokorra used the ravine's walls to brace herself as she stood up. She reached out her hand to pull Beta up when the snow around them stirred.

Aloy knew before they even emerged. Burrowers. "Shit." She prepared to jump down, but the snow had shifted since she'd last been there and the drop was too far to make safely. She needed a place to hook her rope. "Come on, come on."

She watched in horror as two Burrowers leapt from underneath the snow. One headed straight for Beta. No no no! She reached for an arrow. Too slow—she wouldn't make it in time…

Sokorra's thrown club smashed through the Burrower's eye—the direct hit destroying its core processor. Before it could take another step, it slumped to the ground.

Beta scrambled to her feet to reach Sokorra and the relative safety of the wall, but not before she was thrown aside by the second Burrower's charge, which had been intended for Sokorra.

Aloy's arrow sailed into the ravine, hitting the Burrower but just missing its core. She reached for another arrow when she saw Beta reach into her backpack and fling a small metal canister at the damaged machine. Its targeting focused on Sokorra, the Burrower reeled back as though shocked, and fell in a heap of crackling lightning in the snow. The scent of burnt metal rose from the ravine.

Panting and running adrenaline and sheer relief, Aloy followed Seyka, who had found a suitable climbing path, down the ravine wall.

"Beta!" She ran to her sister, who held her arm while struggling to get up. "I got you. Here." Allowing Beta to lean on her for support, she helped her stand and noticed the deep cut on her arm. "We need to get that cleaned up." She reached into one of her pouches before pushing some dark berries into Beta's hand. "Start with these."

Meanwhile, Seyka checked on Sokorra, who held up her hand to indicate she was fine, before picking up the metal canister Beta had thrown at the Burrower. "Beta, what did you do to it?"

Leaning on Aloy, Beta gripped her arm in reflexive pain before answering. "I-It's an EMP. A—ow—smaller version of the one Aloy used at the Grove to stop Regalla's machines. I thought they might help in—" She winced. "In a situation like this."

"That was quick thinking," Aloy said, impressed but still shaken from the incident. "Maybe tell me about them next time before we leave?" She gave her a quick hug. "I'm just glad you're all right." She looked to Sokorra, who had just yanked her weapon back from the Burrower's broken eye.

"Thank you for protecting her."

Sokorra nodded and sheathed her weapon. "She seemed pretty capable of taking it down herself." Then to Beta. "Nice trick. Taking down a machine isn't an easy feat."

Her face flushed, Beta could only return the compliment with an awkward, pained smile as she held her wounded arm.

Still trying to shake off the terror she was nearly overwhelmed by only moments earlier, Aloy began guiding Beta toward the lowest part of the ravine wall. "Let's get this taken care of and head back to the Base."