The door closed behind them once they were all through, and then promptly fell open again. The door they had entered was strong and ornate, made from wood that seemed able to last a thousand years. The door they looked back on now was old and falling apart, barely staying on its own hinges. They could see through the door to the outside, where the frozen ground sat in the meager light that made it through the clouds. The room they now stood in was seemingly the entirety of the temple that housed the Relic of Deliverance. It was cold, barren, and drafty. Light from outside shone through several places where the ceiling had collapsed completely.

Clover immediately moved back to the door, looking outside. There was no sign of anyone, so he called back to Ironwood. "I'm going to step out to see where Marrow and Harriet are."

"Understood." Ironwood nodded, then turned back to the rather small room they had found beyond the tests.

Clover, for his part, stepped outside and looked around to find no sign of his Ace Ops. He had ordered them to guard the entrance before they went in, so they should have been there somewhere. He pulled up his radio. "Harriet, Marrow, report. Where are you?" There was silence for a moment, and then Harriet's voice came back.

"Just anchored myself. I'm about to head down."

Just anchored? He stepped away from the temple and looked up at the tall canyon walls surrounding them. He clicked the button on the radio again, taking a moment to figure out what he wanted to say. "Harriet... do you... mean to tell me that you've not even started your descent yet?"

"Uhh... yes? It takes a few seconds to get ready."

A few seconds? He shook his head. "How long ago did I give you that order?"

"A minute at most. I've now spent most of that time talking to you. Is something wrong?"

"I'm not sure..." He looked back to the temple entrance. He could see right in now, the black shadows that had shrouded the temple interior before they first entered were no longer there. "Let me check on something." He ran back into the temple to report back to Ironwood. He silently thanked his luck that it didn't force him through another trial. "General, sir, I just talked to Harriet. According to her, we haven't been gone any more than a few seconds."

Ironwood raised an eyebrow, intrigued, but no longer seriously concerned. He did look questioningly at Jinn, however. "Your take on that, if you will?"

"Oh, that's pretty simple." Jinn stepped over to the general's side, explaining as though it was a simple matter. "Many things like the Relics affect the flow of time when in use, and sufficiently advanced societies were able to learn how to replicate that effect. I imagine they used a similar affect for the tests. So while it took us a fair amount of time, and could have taken much longer, no time at all has passed outside of our group."

"Well, that's a bother." Weiss said.

Ironwood grunted in agreement, but he put it out of his mind. That meant they had regained precious time to move the Relic back to their base camp. He turned to the back of the temple, to where Elm and Vine had positioned themselves on either end of what looked to be the Relic. It appeared as a tall box with a rounded top. It stood four feet high and was about four feet wide and just over seven feet long. There was a seam along the edges near the top, where it looked like the lid could slide open. Other than how much work they had to do in order to reach it, though, it did not look all that impressive.

The general looked back to Jinn again. "This is the Cradle of Deliverance?"

"Yes sir."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Very well..." He let out a sigh, burying his misgivings as he turned once again to the two Ace Ops on either side of the Cradle. "Can you move it?" It was a simple matter of Elm and Vine reaching down and lifting. The Cradle moved with ease. Ironwood nodded. "Good. Let's head back then. Unless there's anything else worth staying here for."

Jinn answered matter-of-factly. "The tests are supplied by the guardian. Without the Cradle here, the guardian has no interest in the temple and will be free to act as it pleases. It won't attack us without direct provocation, and it might even just go back to sleep. So once we take the Cradle from this temple and start on our way back to Atlas, there is really nothing remaining here of interest to anyone except perhaps archaeologists." She looked pointedly at Weiss. "And Dust mining corporations."

"You're kidding, right?" Weiss looked grim. "If my father knew about all the Dust gathered up here, he would send workers without any concern for their wellbeing. They would die."

"This isn't worth the time it's taking to talk about it. This entire mission is still classified top secret." Clover explained simply. He looked to Weiss. "No one can tell your father, or anyone else, without the general's express permission."

"Well, in about a hundred years, if someone asks me I'll have to tell them." Jinn smiled. "I hope you don't mind."

"That's not my call." Clover shrugged it off. "But maybe in a hundred years it will still be necessary to maintain secrecy. We don't know yet."

As they moved to the canyon path back, Clover went ahead to take the lead, with Ironwood taking up the rear. Elm and Vine carried the Cradle between them, in the center of the group. Running ahead of them, Ruby and Weiss were more in a hurry to get out of the cold, and they were dragging Jinn along with them. Harriet and Marrow were still up above, glad that they didn't have to climb down just yet and that they would only have to climb up and down once, but still grumbling about being exposed on top of the plateau for longer. It was still very cold, and everyone was feeling it. The sooner they made it back, the better.

The journey back to the LADs and the rest of the expedition was quicker than the trip into the plateau's interior. Even when reaching towards the end of their walk, with the deep snow and heavy winds pushing them around, the three girls held hands and pushed on through valiantly. Their efforts were rewarded soon enough, after Ruby got a face full of flying snow, when they finally broke out into the open again. The four LADs were sitting around right where they had been left, and the snow was still whipping around in the heavy winds, but the scenery had changed notably. Two buildings had been erected on either side of the entrance to the canyon, and a third was already under construction right between them. Soon, the entrance would only be accessible through the new outpost.

There were half a dozen soldiers outside, working on erecting the third structure that would act as the gate. They had already done quite well to construct the other two, as well as what looked to be a couple smaller structures for other purposes. There were generators, scanners, and the beginnings of defensive structures as well. When the outpost was done, there would be towers, turrets, and a barracks. For the moment, if anyone needed sleep, the LADs were easier to make use of, but once the barracks was complete it would be in heavy use pretty nearly at all times.

Weiss approached one of the soldiers, a man who was busy holding up one of the corner pillars while the rest of the metal frame was being fitted to it. She saw from the name tag that it was McCree, the man she'd spent a significant portion of the trip to the plateau talking with in the LAD. "McCree. You guys have been working fast. Nice job."

He nodded to her, then checked up and down to make sure he was still holding the piece of frame straight. "Thanks. Things go well on your end?"

"It actually did." Weiss looked back and forth between the two standing structures. "Could you tell me where my sister is?"

McCree motioned to the building across from them. "She'd be in the command center. This side is the common area."

"That's good. Thank you." Weiss turned back to Ruby and Jinn, who she was sure were ready to get in out of the cold. "Ruby, do you want to go report to Winter, or should I?"

"You know what, I'll let you handle that. This common room thing sounds like a great idea right about now."

"Okay, you two take a rest. I'll go tell Winter we're back." Weiss watched Ruby give a playful salute before leading Jinn in through the nearby door. For her part, Weiss headed across to the other building and entered in. It was the command and control center for the outpost, but it was really mostly empty right now. Priority went to constructing the outpost first, and furnishing it second. Granted, outfitting command and control was the most important part of the second step, so while there were six soldiers outside building the other parts of the outpost, there were four more in here setting up the equipment that would be needed to run the place. She spotted her sister among them. "Winter."

Looking up at her sister's voice, Winter quickly gave some directions to the woman she had been consulting with and then turned her attention to Weiss. "You're back already. That's a surprise. Was there a problem?"

"Not exactly." Weiss shook her head. "We encountered some rather strange tests. But we got through them well enough, and the rest of our team is bringing the Relic back. Ruby and I came ahead with Jinn."

"So it was a success. But please, tell me, what does 'not exactly' mean?" Winter was calm and reserved in her questioning, but Weiss could tell that she was quite concerned. She knew the words 'not exactly' didn't inspire the most confidence.

Weiss let out a huff. "Well, the tests were strenuous." She thought a moment and then lowered her voice, leaning in towards Winter. "They didn't take all that long, really, but they did take some time. However, once we finished them and reestablished contact with Harriet and Marrow, apparently no time had passed at all."

Winters eyebrows shot up. "Oh? How interesting. And these tests, you said they were strenuous. What did they entail?"

"Oh, well, that..." Weiss groaned more audibly, partly just because the tests had been such an annoyance ultimately, and partly to subtly reassure the working soldiers that she wasn't keeping secrets from them. "There was this huge catacomb with giant pillars and water at the bottom. It was the worst. And then I had to fight this giant eel monster. That thing reminded me of dad."

Winter's face was showing an increasing level of good-natured sympathy throughout Weiss' description of the tests right up until the mention of their father, at which point she feigned shock. "How terrible for you. That sounds just awful."

The woman Winter had been talking to when Weiss entered came up to them, showing a little concern regarding what she'd just overheard. "I'm sorry, did she just say something about an eel?"

Winter immediately sobered up. "That's right... Weiss, we actually found something alive up here, if you could believe that."

From the sounds of it, Weiss had to guess that she already knew what was coming. "Great. Is it eels?"

"Yes." The woman soldier answered, taking a few steps away and picking up a small clear container, holding it up for the sisters to see. Inside was an eel, pale and white with milky blue eyes, squirming about in the small amount of snow they'd scooped into the container with it. "It's not like they're all over the place, but it's not terribly hard to find them now that we know what we're looking for."

"Okay... that's a little odd. Why is it in a box?" Weiss asked the woman.

She smiled. "I like eels and snakes. I'm going to study it, and if it survives in captivity, I'll keep it as a pet."

"Alright, that's enough, Argent. Back to work." Winter directed the woman, getting her to put the eel back down and resume setting up the equipment that the control center needed. Winter sighed and turned back to Weiss. "Knowing a lot of people with a wide variety of strengths and skills is very important, but sometimes that comes with the burden of realizing that everyone has some sort of irregular hobby or interest."

Weiss moved past that subject, preferring to push the thought of eels out of her mind. "So... the outpost is coming along well. You've got two sections up, and... three left?"

"Yes. The medical section is going to be just through there when it's built." Winter pointed at a door to the left of the entrance Weiss had used. "The barracks come last. Once they're up and everything has been moved in, everyone will be getting a night's sleep. Then, in the morning, you'll be heading back to Atlas."

"And you're staying up here?"

Winter nodded. "We are, yes. At least for the time being. It likely won't be an extended stay, so you'll be seeing me again soon enough, but we need to make sure of what's up here." She wrapped her arms around her body, shivering for a moment. The cold was pervasive enough, even indoors and through her cold weather clothing. "Unless we can't get some heat in here. Then, we'll be abandoning this place real soon, I can promise you that."