Jeremy
The drone trundled back down from the sky, landing upon the dirt beside Cumhall, it skittered up his back to rest upon his shoulder as it began to report what it had found.
Keri
He sighed
```diff
- "Great." -
```
He finished his maintenance just before Kuo arrived, the metal casing snapped shut and the arm shifted its weight back up onto his shoulder.
```diff
- "So we can' continue forth, and you're sure there wasn' a wiff of another lead?" -
```
He cracked his knuckles absent mindedly, as he deliberated, but would be interrupted by the arrival of the bandit.
He smirked behind his helmet.
```diff
- "Admirin' my handy work?" -
```
He stood and rolled his right shoulder, smiling at his own pun, he paced around behind Kuo as the bandit spoke.
```diff
- "Will curin' this `Root Crown` lemme get inta tha' tower, because i may be inclined to assist." -
```
He assumed the Root Crown and by extension "This motherfucker" Was in reference to the large beast behind the fortifications, he had no interest in killing or, not killing the beast, unless it would help him progress.
Anne
The thick, yet dry wood that formed the fortifications that blocked the end of the road initially burned slow, yet soon grew into an intensified blaze of chaotic flame that sent a thick stream of cloudy, black atmosphere into the air and atmosphere about itself. Within the Watch, the artificial winds brought about by the principal nature of the *Vektet* Would not be as prevalent, and so the billows of smoke would only continue to rise and rise with the hot air, streaming dozens of meters into the false-green sky above.

Slowly, but surely, as the two deliberated, the barricade would burn away, reduced to but a few smoldering braces, and dry, carbon-hued wood that snapped and shattered as loosely as dead wood to the touch. The fortification withered away, and the path before them was left open.

Slowly, but surely, as the two began to catch sight and sense of what was beyond the fortifications, they would be met the dominating presence of what was held behind it. The fortification withered away, and they were met with what was the single most *`harrowing`* Presence they had felt since stepping foot within the Ark.

*Before them laid a guardian.*
*Before them laid a warrior.*
*Before them laid a beast.*
*Before them laid a **Monster.***
_ _

```diff
- ɪᴛꜱ ᴠᴇʀʏ ᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴄᴇ ꜱᴛʀᴜᴄᴋ ᴀɴ ᴀɴɪᴍᴀʟɪꜱᴛɪᴄ ɪɴꜱᴛɪɴᴄᴛ ᴏꜰ ꜰᴇᴀʀ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛꜱ. -```

An aberration of distorted facial features and an unmatchably enormous stature. A beastly figment of a once-man, eyeless, with horn-like, lusterless roots of gray sprouting from each eye-socket, twisting and warping the flesh of the brow, cheek, and jaw in its tumorous expansion. An entity of an utterly inhuman form, corrupted and defiled by the ever-growing progression of the parasitic root that spread throughout its flesh, gnarling its limbs and digits into unrecognizable masses of swelling *Muscle.*

Even lain on the ground, it was taller than both of them. Its head had not yet lifted, and yet they would be forced by their very own instincts of self-preservation to not move a muscle forwards. To even be within the same relative space as the creature was *Terrifying.*



***`It clutches its sword, and so begins to stand.`***



On its feet, it was a *Tremendous **Four meters tall,** Dwarfing each of the two by such a margin that it seemed unrealistically colossal in nature.* The tarnished greatsword in its right-hands' grip was thicker and taller than the two stacked atop and beside eachother, and yet it wielded it with a single, damaged hand, wrapped, bound, and run through in every-which-way by the root that plagued its body. It could hardly bring itself to fully stand, and yet still it *Dwarfed* Each of the two outsiders to the Vektet.

***`The Branded Exile — The Thorn-Crowned Nameless King, Guardian of the Ascent to the Second Floor.`***

***```diff
- ᴛᴏ ᴀᴘᴘʀᴏᴀᴄʜ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʙᴇ ᴘᴜᴛᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴠᴇʀʏ ʙᴏᴅɪᴇꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ʟɪᴠᴇꜱ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪɴᴇ. -```***