The hike back to camp was uneventful outside of the handful of bodies I found along the trail. They must've had a delayed reaction to the psychic shock of encountering an aberrant. Besides the four mercenaries in the courtyard- the one Aiya and I saw and the three that made it out only to pass before the aberrant was sealed- the rest were all students. I never talked to them, personally, but they were important to someone. I take a moment of silence and offer a prayer to Po'oraat. Aiya and I would have to come back once things have settled down to retrieve the corpses; but that's an issue for a later time.

As I arrive back in camp, I notice a small fire crackling with Aiya and four others huddled around it to distract themselves from what just happened, "Are you all okay?" I ask, hoping for good news all around.

"Everything's fucked," The other girl sobbed, barely keeping it together.

"We're mostly alright," One of the other students reaffirmed, "A bit shaken, but we're alive and physically intact."

"I'm glad to hear you're all alive. I have some very important things I need to share with you all," I do my best to express my words calmly and clearly as to prevent a panic from breaking out, "The good news first: The aberrant- the thing you encountered- is sealed back up; and so long as no one says what the professor said, it'll stay that way."

"And the bad news?" Aiya asked with fear building in her eyes, "What else happened?"

"The bad news is that it's only Abso'ol, and our ferry doesn't come back to get us for another four to five days. On top of that, none of the mercenaries survived the encounter with the aberrant; and unless some of the other students fled off in some wild direction, we are the only survivors," I pause for the others to take in the heavy information. I didn't want to be the one to do this, but if we're to recover the bodies anytime soon, it'll need to be said. Better sooner than later.

"So what do we do?" One of the other students asks weakly, "Sit here for the next few days and pray we make it?"

"No," Reaching my hand over to theirs, holding them tightly, "We formulate a plan. Planning ahead will be what makes or breaks the future of our survival. We'll need to keep our heads if we're to get out of this." I make eye contact with each of the other students and Aiya, to ensure we're all on the same page. "First thing we need to do is gather up our food and water supplies. We'll ration everything out from now on; we're in emergency mode, let's not take any chances." I nod at everyone and all but the crying girl go out and retrieve what food stores they had.

Bringing everything we can find into the professor's tent, I count out everything and divide it by five. We have eight days' worth of food and water, ten if I include my supplies, but I'll hold onto that in case of emergencies.

"Ain, I think your math is wrong," One of the other students pipes up, "You said we have eight days' worth, but there's six of us. We'll barely make it!"

"Ah, don't worry about that," I wave my hand gently, "I'm not partaking."

"Wait why!?" They reply, "You'll need to eat, too!"

"No, it's fine, trust me. I've trained my body to go without food and water for far longer than eight days," Aiya gives me a suspicious look as if I was going to reveal my secret, "I'll be fine. The next thing we need to do, and do so before sunset, is move our tents much closer together. We don't have the protection we used to, so we have to be close to each other in case of another emergency."

"Can we share tents?" Another student asks.

"If you feel safer that way and the other person agrees, then yes, I don't see why not."

The three men give each other subtle nods as they go off to combine their tents. As I prep my tent for Aiya's long-term stay, I see her embracing the other girl who was still at the campfire. Aiya points back towards my direction and the girl nods as she wipes away a stray tear. I give Aiya a 'thumbs up' in understanding as I expand my tent so that it may house all three of us.

"Done!" The men stand triumphantly by their tent, looking proud of themselves.

"Good work," I do my best to praise them, as keeping morale high is incredibly important at the moment. If that falls we'll drop like flies, fight amongst each other, or become exhausted far more quickly. "I'm just about done, myself, and then we can discuss the next step."

I get the remainder of Aiya's and the other girl's belongings into my tent and regroup with the others by the fire. They had begun talking to each other more nonchalantly again, which was a good sign; but I worried about the potential stress bubbling underneath, "Okay, it's about noon. We have around seven hours before it's dark-dark, and six before the sun starts to set. We need to go back and identify bodies. We've had a lot of fallen colleagues and mercenaries, but we need to make sure to document who we find and where. When we move, we move as a group. If anything seems off, let the group know immediately. In addition to identifying them, we should probably take anything useful off of their persons, too-"

"Isn't that... Wrong?" One of the men ask, "Like, isn't that grave-robbing at that point?"

"Good question, but no," I rebut, "We are not digging up their graves nor stealing valuables off them. We are strictly taking what may be necessary to survive. This means any weapons, tools, maps, notebooks, et cetera... Don't take heirlooms, coins, clothes, or personal items. Again, this is to make sure we make it." I look around the campfire to ensure no one looks hesitant before standing up and moving towards the trail, "Let's get to work, then. I want us back before sunset."

I don't recall the total count for the expedition; but so far we've only managed to find ten of the other students' bodies. One of them, thankfully, was making a map of the area for their cartography course back home, so we were able to properly mark who was where. I didn't want any of us to touch the corpses any more than we had to for various reasons, so each one was a quick search, removal from the trail, and a marking on the map. It felt irreverent, but it had to be done to keep us all safe and disease-free.

In addition to the ten students we found, only six of the mercenaries appeared to have died outside the altar room. As I gathered their weapons and tools, I realized we'd be in for a rough time if we ever bump into trouble; as the weapons I managed to get off of them were: a longbow, a wand, a long sword, five daggers, and a shield. Given the Slinger had run out of arrows just before the doors closed, that was worthless. None of us could wield magic; although if any of us could it wouldn't be reliable enough to consider. As for the long sword, shield, and daggers, however, one of the men gleefully accepted the sword and shield, claiming they've trained with their uncle a good bit. He wouldn't be anywhere near the same level as a typical Pit-Fighter, but something was better than nothing. The daggers were split amongst all of us, except for myself, mainly as a tool for around-camp-use. None of the mercenaries' potions- assuming any of them had some- survived the fight; and besides their weapons, there was nothing worth taking.

As we begin heading back to camp I start thinking on how I'm going to deal with the aberrant. It needs to be destroyed, along with the rest of this place... I don't mean 'break a few of the valuable things and leave' either, I intend to fully and thoroughly destroy this entire site once I get the rest of the students back home. I'll have to assemble some kind of team for it; as I'm not sure who- or what- would be effective against the aberrant, specifically. The structures, altar room, and the halls of cages I could just drag a Tinkerer out with a bunch of high explosives and blow the place to kingdom come... But the aberrant would be a different story. Since we know that bullets and arrows don't affect it in the slightest, but magic seemed to have some effect; I'll probably see about finding an Etherial or Oath-Sworn, maybe an Arcanist if the gods permit the use of such a being for my cause. I'll have to get looking as soon as I get home...

The next few days were uneventful- thank Po'oraat for that- as we didn't get low on any of our supplies and, besides a lone rodent, we had no run-ins with any bandits or fauna. We pack up only our personal belongings and head back to where Keildrik dropped us off and waited for him to arrive. As established in a previous journey of mine with Keildrik, I took out my Ever Burning Torch and each of us took turns waving its ghastly-blue light. This was a signal from me to him that something had gone terribly wrong and that we'd need help.

As his new boat drifted into the harbour in front of us, a bell rang out, alerting his crew to get all hands on deck immediately. Dropping anchor, he and his crew rush out in row boats to meet us at the shore, "Ain are you alright!? Where's everyone else?"

"This... This is everyone," I say with a heavy heart, "I'll explain more once we're aboard. We need to get out of here as soon as possible."

Keildrik gives me a wink, "Aye aye, 'Captain'," He chuckles as he grabs the bags of the others and tosses them into his row boat. The students join his crew in the other boats while I help Keildrik back to his ship.

Once aboard, the crew gives everyone a quick check-up to ensure they're not cursed, dying, or otherwise sick. I give them a stern look when they approach me for mine; they don't know my secret, nor do the others, save for Aiya and Keildrik... I try reasoning with them that I'm fine, but the crew and my colleagues insist I get checked.

"What do you need to see?" I ask with a nasty tone, "Just my arm, my face, or my whole body?"

"The more we see, the more we can confirm you're okay," The ship's head mechanic says. Keildrik didn't believe in a dedicated medic and instead insisted that everyone be capable of performing multiple tasks in case of an emergency. This particular woman was one such case; being the ship's head mechanic and their medic, among other things, "You don't need to get naked, but removing all but the strictly necessary articles will help us get a better picture on what you condition is like."

I reluctantly relent.

Disrobing, I carefully remove my bandages, mask, and larger articles of clothing to allow her to make sure I'm okay. Upon seeing my true mechanical form, the other students gasp, partially in terror and partially in amazement.

"You!" One of the men shout, "You've been one this entire time!?" Here come the same questions Aiya just asked me a few days ago...

"Why didn't you tell us you were an automaton!?" The other girl demands.

"Did you know about this site ahead of time!? Did you plan all of this!?" Another one of the men accused, standing to his feet before one of the other mechanics grabbed his shoulder.

"To answer your questions, as I'm sure you're all very curious," I begin explaining, doing my best to not squirm too much while the head mechanic inspects me for any injuries or curses, "Yes, I'm an automaton. I did not know about the site ahead of time, nor did I plan the events that transpired during our expedition. To put simply, When I became what I am, I lost all my memories of who I was previously... I had hoped this class- namely this expedition- would give me further insight into the origins of my people-"

"What do you mean by 'became'?" The third man asks with an inquisitive look on his face. I had actually forgotten that some theories exist where automatons are created from scratch and infused with a fresh soul; or that they were created much like every other race was, by the gods.

"Automatons," I begin hesitantly. I can't give out too much information, or the very thing I was trying to prevent will happen anyways, "Are created from already existing people. Specifically, by means of human-sacrifice. The site we were investigating was one such site. There may be many many more, but this is currently the only known one. The process, as I've come to figure out over our time at the dig site, can be a fickle one; one wrong move or variation in the ritual, and you get that thing... An 'Aberrant', as it's called; a victim of a failed ritual."

"So... You were human once?" The girl asks, staring at the back of her hands.

"Most likely, as my current form is human-like; though even way back then: elves, hum'dova, sly'lec, and others existed... So it's not entirely certain what I was, although that doesn't matter anymore, in my opinion," I give a deep sigh. I'll probably have to move after we get back. Can't have someone knowing I exist when some folks want to dissect me.

"Is that why you claimed you didn't need any rations," One of the men asks, "Back on the day of the catastrophe. You mentioned how you've trained your body to go without food and water."

I nod my head, "Yes, I knew you all needed it far more than I did, so I excluded myself from those calculations. Although, it's not a matter of being 'trained', that is just something I don't need to do..."

"Ah, so the rumours are true!"

"Indeed they are," I begin putting my clothes back on as the head mechanic moves onto the next student, "I don't need to eat, drink, sleep, breathe, and to my knowledge it's difficult- if at all possible- for me to get sick."

"So when you went missing in that cave!?" The third man asks.

My body shutters at the memory of getting trapped in that cave. What a shitty day that was, "Yes, although I'd like to point out that that still made me panic. I didn't want to be trapped there forever..." I finish wrapping fresh bandages on my limbs and dawn my mask again, "Any other questions?"

"I've got one," The second man throws his hand up as if we were in a lecture, "How old are you?"

I roll my eyes, "Why don't you ask Aiya that question? She knows the answer," My tone shifting to an annoyed and agitated one as I slip out one of the doors to head to the bridge; the chaos of the other students barraging Aiya with questions quickly fills the cabin as I make my escape. "Gods!" I shout, slamming open the door to the bridge, "One day I won't be harassed for existing... One day!"

Keildrik glances at me before looking back to his dials, "Aye, that's on me... I forgot to tell them to inspect you in private, I'm sorry, lassie."

I storm over the to table and stash my backpack under the bench just like I did a week ago, "Like, I get it, right? I'm 'rare' and they've been studying specifically my people for a while and I could give a lot of insight on things that history books could never even begin to touch on... But fuck me, is it too much to ask if one could throw a billion questions at me!?" I kick my feet up on the table and lean back, pressing my hands into my face in frustration, "Gods, it feels like I'm some zoo animal sometimes..."

Keildrik sits down across from me and takes a sip of what I could only assume is tea, based on the smell, "Yeah, sounds rough, lassie..."

"And the worst part?" I continue complaining, "The worst part is that now I'm going to have people constantly harassing me once these goons," I point back to the cabin, "Get back to port and spread my true identity like wildfire..." I let out a deep scream, which causes one of the crew members to peek their head inside before ducking out just as quickly once he saw it was just me having a moment.

"Would it help if I let you steer?" Keildrik gestures towards the controls. He was never good with his words, but I knew he meant well.

"No thanks... I just- I just need to rest up a bit. It's been a long week."

"Suit'cherself," He chuckled, "If you change your mind, you know where I'll be."

"I appreciate it."

As I try to meditate, I think back to the various visions I saw during my time at the dig site. The one with all the people... The one with the frightened child... And then the one with the ritual, itself. Were they past memories of mine? Were they memories of the ones who were sacrificed for my sake? Nothing I recall lines up with anything. There's a few familiar faces between the first two visions, but beyond that nothing that could explain how I got an inside-view of the altar room after the aberrant was created... Maybe automatons have a lot more secrets than even I know about. I try to clear my mind and rest while we travel home.