The saddlery owner was no longer pretending to stock the shelves by the time that Throné returned, instead dedicating his focus to something else that no doubt was related to the man in the tavern waiting to pick up some unknown goods. The saddlery owner stopped what he was doing when he realized that he had company though, turning around and pressing a personable smile onto his face to ensure that whoever had walked in did not grow suspicious. In a strange way, Throné couldn't help but recognize his acting skills as being eerily similar to those that were taught within the Blacksnakes, but she didn't let herself say it openly. "Back again, I see," the saddlery owner commented. 

"Saddle up," Throné replied simply. "I've brought my 'horse' with me this time." She held up the horse coin, and it glinted in the light. 

For a moment, the saddlery owner stared at it, clearly wondering where she had gotten it from after not having it the first time she came to the shop. In the end, he decided that he did not want to know, and he nodded wordlessly. "So you have... Which means I can finally treat you like a customer." He leaned over the edge of the counter, everything about his demeanor taking a dark turn that Throné had expected but still found herself quietly surprised by. 

Throné hummed and shook her head. "You sure don't make things easy for your clients."

"Aye, for mine is a very exclusive business," the saddlery owner told her, his eyes continuing to glint darkly. "Now, what are you after?"

Throné stepped toward the counter, crossing her arms and leaning over it to greet the saddlery owner at the same height. "'Mother,' of the Blacksnakes," she answered. 

The saddlery owner shook his head. "She's one of my best customers. Your request is beyond my power."

"Well then..." Throné rose to her full height, reaching down by her hip and pulling out her dagger. It flashed dangerously by her side, and the saddlery owner stepped back as she brandished it fully. "Good thing it's not a request."

For a long moment, the saddlery owner fell silent, weighing his various options against the risk that Throné's blade posed. In the end, he relented, though his gaze never left the knife that could have so easily been embedded in his neck if he made a wrong move. "'Mother' is meeting a man I introduced her to," he answered. "They call him the Slaver. He runs the slave trade and is doing business in the town's old foundry right now."

"I see," Throné nodded. If she moved quickly enough, then she would be able to catch Mother before she left town. Throné wasn't sure if she would be strong enough to defeat Mother in a fight, but she knew that now was not the time to let her doubts get the better of her. She had come that far, and she was going to have to find some way to see it through regardless of the challenges. She wasn't going to walk away until she had the first of the two keys that would set her free. 

"To reach him, you must know these words..." the saddlery owner continued. "'Drink from the cup in your left hand.' Remember them well."

"Thank you," Throné told him, and she started back toward the door. She could feel the eyes of all of the travelers watching her, each of them desperate to offer their own opinions on what had just happened but not sure of where they were meant to start. As far as Throné was concerned, they could talk more after they were certain they were safe, and that meant leaving the saddlery behind hopefully forever. 

"Be prepared," the saddlery owner warned her just before she reached the door. "I doubt his lips will be as loose as mine. Lives may be lost before he is willing to talk."

The thought of someone dying for the sake of her freedom was sickening to Throné, and bile began to rise up in the back of her throat. She refused let the weakness show though, and she snarled under her breath. "A small price to pay." With that, she opened the door, and the travelers all trailed after her silently. 

Once the group was back out in the sunshine, Throné let out a small sigh. The foundry was to the back edge of town. She had seen a sign for it just after the travelers arrived in Oresrush. It would only be a short walk, and when she arrived there, she would be able to come up with a plan to get the Slaver to tell her more about Mother... Assuming she didn't just run into Mother then and there. Throné was ready for a fight though. She had fought and killed countless others in order to make her way through the ranks of the Blacksnakes, and if it came down to it, she would fight and kill Mother so that she had the opportunity to leave. 

The other travelers were nowhere near as focused on her mission as she was though, and Partitio had removed his hat to run one hand through his hair. "He couldn't have been serious, right?" he asked. "There's no slave trade here in Oresrush. I know there's not. I've been livin' in this town for as long as it's existed, and that... That's impossible! It can't be real!"

"All sorts of things can happen just beneath your nose unless you know where you're supposed to look," Throné countered. "New Delsta has a dark underside too. Most towns do, in fact."

"But Oresrush isn't supposed to be like that!" Partitio cried out. "The town was founded by my Pops, and he never would've let somethin' like that happen! If he knew about it, then he would've done everythin' in his power to stop it! People aren't slaves to be bought and sold! It's not right!"

"It isn't right... And I can only assume that your father didn't know anything about it," Hikari said. "Perhaps they people responsible for this ring set up a place within the town when your father's health began to decline. There was something else you would have had to focus on when he fell sick."

"I'm gonna have to tell him about this as soon as possible," Partitio declared. "Maybe I should go off and tell him everythin' right now. If there are people in Oresrush who are sufferin' because of somethin' that we didn't know about, then we have to do everythin' we can to set it right! None of this should've ever happened!"

"Don't do anything reckless," Throné cut in. "These people are dangerous, and your father has no combat experience. If he was to try and interfere, then he could end up getting hurt. I know what I'm doing. I need you to trust that I can handle this. Once we have done as much as we can, then we can tell your father and come up with another plan. Stand back and let me resolve this however I can, alright?"

Partitio hesitated, trying to find any excuse he could to push the point that he should go and tell his father then and there. In the end, he realized that nothing he could say or do would persuade Throné otherwise. He forced himself through a nod, and he sighed heavily. "Alright," he muttered. "But the instant that we're finished with all of this, I'm gonna do somethin' to try and set all of this right. Nothin' like this ever should've happened, and I have to try and stop it from gettin' any worse."

"I can't believe there are people out there who would be willing to take others as slaves," Agnea murmured. "It sounds like something out of a horrible history book from decades ago, not... Not the present day. I don't know what to say... It's so terrible."

"But that's why we're here to do what we can to stop it, right?" Ochette asked. "I mean, there has to be something that we can do! I'm not going to just walk out of town when I know that there are people being mistreated like that without the rest of the people in town knowing about it!"

"We need to be careful with how we address this," Throné reiterated. "We can't make any reckless decisions. Trust that I know what I'm doing, and we can figure out everything else we want to try and do after what. For now, we need to stay focused. Can I ask the rest of you to believe that I have a plan in mind as we go to take care of this?"

No one openly objected, but Throné could tell that they weren't entirely happy about having to step back and believe that she knew what she was doing. Throné couldn't blame them at all. She was desensitized to the darker underbelly of the world, but she knew that the others had no reason to think about such cruelty on a regular basis. In a way, it made Throné feel like there was an entire universe between her and the rest of her companions. She knew about the true darkness found in the world, and they had been given the chance to look away from it. Throné wished that could have been her life too, but the world had not been kind enough to deal her a hand like that. Her only choice was to look forward and hope that it would give her the peace and freedom she craved. Everything else could wait until after she had secured what she needed. 

The behavior of her friends left Throné wondering though... Would she have been more focused on freeing the slaves within Oresrush if she had not been raised in a way that made cruelty feel so normal to her in New Delsta? The Blacksnakes' training routine was mapped out very intentionally, forcing a person to forget about their human nature in the name of carrying out the duties that had been pressed into their hands. Throné had come to expect that she would betray what others found to be natural sympathy simply because she was never taught it... But could things have been different if she had been raised in a better environment? Would she even feel like the same person at all if her circumstances had been slightly different? Or would she be unrecognizable from the woman she knew herself to be now, unable to separate her current identity with the horrible past that she had been forced through against her will? Who was she when she stepped away from everything that she had done? 

No. Now was hardly the time to let herself ask questions like that. She could figure out who she was or if that question even mattered once she was free. For the time being, Throné needed to keep going. There were so many reasons she couldn't go back the Blacksnakes, and she couldn't let herself slip in her attempt to escape from the organization. If Mother was there in Oresrush, then Throné needed to find her, get her key, and then make sure she never had to think about the pain of the past again. Her future could be shining and bright, but Throné could not slip up in her pursuit of it if she wanted that to be the case. 

Throné shook herself out of her thoughts as she arrived in the Oresrush Foundry at the back edge of town. She was entirely unsurprised to see that the area was largely abandoned. When the town began to suffer financially, the people had all gathered in the town square in search of a way to earn money, and that meant the Slaver and his cronies had been given free run of the town's northern edge. Throné was hardly surprised. Desperation and poverty helped the darkness of the Blacksnakes to thrive. That was one thing Oresrush and New Delsta had in common; they could both make a person desperate enough to turn to bloodshed in the name of survival. The Blacksnakes were just better at exploiting it than anyone else. 

Throné could still sense that she was being followed as she stared up at had once been a store but had since been abandoned. She waited until she heard a foot collide with a stick, and she turned to face her pursuer. The small boy with the blonde hair and the gray mask was standing here, and Throné could see his body stiffen in shock even with the notable distance between them. He ran off a moment later, and Throné squinted after him. The boy had been following her since she arrived in Oresrush, but she couldn't say for certain who he was. Throné was sure that he had something to do with either the Slaver or the Blacksnakes though. Could word have gotten that far while she was traveling with the rest of the group? Did others in the organization know that she had abandoned their cause? Throné wasn't sure just yet, but it didn't matter. She was going to get the truth out of that boy. 

"Come on," Throné told the rest of the group, not pausing long enough for any of them to ask her for more information about the boy tailing them. "Follow me. I have a plan."

Throné led the travelers toward an alleyway a short distance away, and once they were all clustered together, she retreated in between a few of the nearby buildings. "Wait here," Throné instructed, once again not waiting for them to potentially object. The boy was bound to get impatient and come after her as soon as he was given the chance, and Throné was going to be ready for him when he tried. 

Throné wound her way between the other buildings, letting the rest of the travelers act as bait of sorts. The boy hadn't shown any signs of planning to attack them just yet, so Throné figured that it was probably safe to leave the travelers there while she came up behind him. She hid within the darkness, raising a hand and casting a small spell to disguise her appearance. If the boy walked by, he wouldn't see her at all just as the guards and soldiers outside Conning Creek hadn't noticed the rest of the travelers when they moved to flee from town. 

The boy took the bait just as Throné had expected, and he walked down the path that would take him closer to the travelers. "Amateur," Throné muttered under her breath, and she began walking up behind the boy as quietly as she could. She had been taught how to step as lightly as possible as a child, and the skill had served her well in the countless heists she had carried out within the Blacksnakes. Even if the boy was a member of the Blacksnakes just like her, it wasn't going to matter much. Throné had a lot more experience. She was known as the best in the nest for a reason. 

Throné walked up behind the boy with an intense frown. His hair color was familiar to her, but... No. It couldn't have had anything to do with Pirro. She was just imagining things. There must have been some other reason he was there. He was some sort of spy, and he was trailing after her for a reason. Whether he liked it or not, she was going to expose him, and it would all start with tearing that mask off his face. 

Throné's fingers curled around the mask's upper edge once she was finally close enough to grab it, and she yanked it away from the boy in a single swift motion. "I'm through playing games." 

The boy whirled around all at once, and for a long moment, time seemed to stop. 

The fact Throné was seeing... Belonged to Pirro. 

Throné hadn't known Pirro quite as well when they were younger children, but she had seen enough of him in the modern day to be able to guess what he would have looked like when he was a boy. Somehow, that was exactly what she saw when the boy turned to face her. He had the same light blonde hair that was cut in a short, symmetrical bob on either side of his face. His eye shape was the same. His lips even moved the same way when he rounded them into a circle in the middle of a gasp. 

Throné couldn't bring herself to move in her shock, and she could do little other than stand there as the boy turned in the other direction and bolted off down the alleyway, shoving past the travelers to make a quick escape. He rounded a corner and vanished from view, and Throné didn't remember to move until after he was completely gone. He... He really had looked just like Pirro. She had thought the hair looked similar, but she had done her best to convince herself that it was all in her head. Surely it was impossible for someone to truly look identical to Pirro, and yet, there she was. The boy looked too similar to Pirro for it to be a coincidence. It seemed like they must have been related, but Throné had never heard anything about Pirro having other relatives. Surely he would have mentioned at some point across their years of companionship... Right? Or would he not have said anything at all? Was Throné overestimating how close they had been and only realizing her folly after she had already lost him to her own hand? 

"Throné?"

Hikari's voice came from somewhere to Throné's left, and she spun around to face him in the blink of an eye. He was coming at her from just the right angle to make it seem like he could have attacked her from behind, and Throné's heart began to speed up in her chest at the mere implication of the threat. It took her a moment to recover her strength enough to respond, and she shook her head. "It's nothing," she said even though she knew there was no one in the world that she was convincing with a horrible performance like that. Throné doubted there was anything she could say or do to get the rest of the group to believe her anyway. "We need to keep moving."

"What was going on with that boy?" Castti pressed. "If there's something going on, then you do know that you can talk to us about it, right? The last thing any of us want is for you to feel like you have to bottle this up if it's bothering you. If there's something wrong, then we want to hear about it so that we can help you."

Throné shook her head. "No... There's nothing any of you can do," she told them, and that was true. Throné was certain that she was imagining all of this somehow. She had to be. There was no way that any of this was real. That boy didn't actually look like Pirro, and even if he did, she must have been exaggerating the resemblance to the point of seeing things that weren't there. "We need to find the Slaver. Come on. He has to be around here somewhere."

Throné rushed out of the alleyway as quickly as she could stand, suddenly feeling like she couldn't breathe anywhere near as well as she needed to. Everything was too much. Pirro was gone. She knew that. Perhaps she was seeing something in that boy that wasn't really there because she was still desperate in a state of her grief. She was the one who had killed Pirro, and she was going to regret it each and every day for the rest of her life. It didn't matter that she hadn't been able to convince him to back down at the time. She still hated herself for not doing something more to try and pull him out of that situation, and Throné had the feeling that she always would. 

That boy... Throné didn't know what his story was, but she was certain there was something else at play beyond what she wanted to have to face. She wasn't seeing the truth for what it was. There was no way she could have been. Throné didn't know how she was supposed to adjust herself and get back on the track toward reality, but she had to figure something out. Ideally, she would find a way to do it without worrying any of her friends too much... Not that she was going to have to worry about them sticking around once they realized just how horrible of a person she was by the time the day ended, she supposed. Did anything even matter anymore when she already knew it was destined to do nothing but crash and burn?

At first, Throné thought that she had managed to get away from the conversation with the rest of the travelers without them pushing her any harder than they already had. That was before she felt a presence behind her once again, and for the second time in less than five minutes, Hikari was just a little bit close to her back for comfort. Throné could already imagine him deciding he wanted to plunge his sword into the weakest spot across her spine to kill her for lying to them. He believed in what was right, and Throné had never done what was right even once. That simply wasn't something a Blacksnake was capable of. 

"Hikari..." Throné began, forcing herself to breathe through gritted teeth. "Please don't stand behind me."

Hikari took a step forward to that he was beside Throné, something guilty and worried on his face. Throné felt like she needed to tear her skin off for making him think that an expression like that was necessary, but she didn't let it show beyond a small twitch of her eye. "My apologies. May I ask why?" Hikari asked. 

Throné sighed, fighting the urge to run a hand through her hair. She needed to do something or she felt like she would explode, but every sign of weakness felt like it was going to destroy her all the same. She wasn't always this anxious. What in the world was wrong with her? "In my line of work, we must always watch our backs. It's quite straining on the nerves," Throné answered, hating just how vague she had to be to keep from being ejected from the group then and there. It was what she deserved, but she selfishly didn't want anyone to realize it just yet. "If you're not careful, I could end up attacking you."

Hikari stared at Throné for a long moment, trying to measure her concerns carefully in the silence. "I see," he finally settled on answering after far too much time had passed between them. "I shall take your words to heart." 

Throné could tell that there was still a bit of unspoken tension behind his words. He wondered just why she did not trust him even though he must have known that it was not personal. Nothing ever felt like it was truly personal with Throné... Except for the fact that she had been forced to look at someone who so perfectly resembled a person that she had lost. Throné wasn't going to let herself say any of that to Hikari though, so she forced a smile onto her face with a matching scoff of a laugh. She was so horribly disingenuous, and yet, Throné couldn't bring herself to change it. She doubted there would be much of a point given the path she was going to end up following later that day. "Hah. You ought to watch your back, too, Hikari."

The prince of Ku did not seem to agree with Throné though, and he shook his head, sending his ponytail shifting over his shoulders. "That won't be necessary with trustworthy friends behind me," he said, and Throné hummed. Hikari placed so much trust in other people even though he had been hurt so many times in the past. Throné couldn't say she understood it. She was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but Hikari... He was inspiring with how little he minded such a thing. It was almost maddening, and Throné hated it. But Hikari wasn't going to give up so easily, and he cast Throné a small smile despite the unease he could sense in her posture. "If you would put your trust in me, you would have no need to worry, either."

Throné felt her shoulders stiffen. She should have known that the other travelers were going to figure out that there was something else on her mind when they arrived in Oresrush only for her to turn away from all of them. It would have been a miracle if they didn't see that something was amiss with her. Throné had been vague and cryptic all day, and it was only getting worse as they got closer to their destination. Hikari could see her anxiety, and he wanted to be able to share that burden with her. He wanted her to feel safe enough to place her pain on his shoulders so that they might shoulder it together. 

It was a terrifying thought, especially since Throné felt like she could never do anything to deserve the kindness that Hikari was showing her. She doubted she would ever deserve anything the rest of the group could give to her. They were all much better people, and they didn't seem to realize the filth they had found in New Delsta until it was too late. Throné would even go so far as to argue that they still didn't understand anything about her... But they wanted to anyway. They wanted to try and peel back the layers of her defenses so that one day, they might be able to understand the pain that lurked beneath the darkness of her eyes. Throné was scared out of her mind of the mere thought, and yet, she found herself wanting that too. If this was freedom, then perhaps she should have done a little bit more to embrace it instead of shying away out of dread. 

Throné swallowed dryly and forced herself through a nod that felt like it was going to suffocate her. "Very well then. Consider yourself trusted." Her words felt weak and hollow, and she knew that she was never going to be able to truly believe in Hikari in the ways that he wanted her to. He wanted her complete honesty, but that was the one thing that Throné was never going to be able to give... Well, until they got to the building where the Slaver was waiting, she supposed. The truth wasn't going to take long to come out when she got there, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. 

Throné led the travelers through the foundry in the minutes that followed the end of her conversation with Hikari. She wasn't sure how he or any of the others felt about it, assuming they had overheard their discussion, but Throné didn't let herself care either. She let out a sigh when she arrived in front of the only building that seemed to be in any state of care. There must have been people working there if it hadn't yet started to cave in on itself. The foundry had been left abandoned when Oresrush began to buckle, but this one part was still alive and thriving. Oresrush's economic hardship had invited monsters into the back part of town, and they were doing everything they could to make their lives a little bit easier. After all, even monsters wore human skin sometimes. 

Even Throné looked like a person to the people who she thought were going to hate her the instant she let her guard down. 

There was a single man standing in front of the massive building. It looked like it had once been a factory of some sort, though Throné was almost certain the interior had been gutted for the sake of keeping as many people in storage there as possible. It was only fitting for a building where someone known as the Slaver worked. She would find nothing but cruelty on the other side of the door, and Throné knew it well. She would have to expect it, and that was the only way she would not fold in the face of that which she had hoped to leave behind once and for all. 

Throné gritted her teeth behind closed lips as she approached the door, and the lookout called out to her when she was within range. "'Raise your head with your right hand,'" the scout began, and Throné recognized that it was the first part of a call and response that would allow her access to the building. If she failed, then she would not be allowed inside. 

Luckily, Throné knew that she would not fail. She had been given just the key that she needed, and she knew how to use it too. "'Drink from the cup in your left hand,'" Throné quoted back at him. 

The lookout nodded, and he stepped to the side of the door. "You may pass." 

Throné nodded back at him, and she wasted no time in walking up to the entrance of the building. Regardless of what she found on the other side, Throné wasn't going to give up. Perhaps she would find Mother. Perhaps she would steal the key. Perhaps she would die at the hands of her fellow Blacksnakes. No matter what, Throné knew that she would be one step closer to freedom. There was liberation even in death, after all, and that was the only reason that she could bring herself to not be afraid. 

And yet, her fear of being exposed remained the strongest emotion she had ever felt as she pushed the door open and vanished inside. 

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New chapter time! Yay!

I really do enjoy these dialogue only chapters in a unique way because it gives me the chance to dive into some extra character moments with the rest of the cast. There's just more room to breathe, and I like it. I think the chapter in canon missed out on a bit of an opportunity by not having Partitio react to everything, so that's what he gets to do here. It's going to be a running theme through the end of Throné's chapter two in Oresrush, and I'm really looking forward to it. 

I also feel like this is a decent enough time for me to talk about something that I have been doing with Throné's character writing... Well, unintentionally at first, I suppose, but it just kind of comes naturally to me when I write her. I think Throné might have a few issues with OCD. Maybe this is me being biased because I have OCD, but I feel like it comes out in the way that I write her. This chapter in particular has a lot of morality OCD issues with her, and I think it's interesting. I also think that she deserves to get out of her head for a little while and calm down. That... Probably won't happen for a while though. 

Alright. Rambling done. For a fun fact, I finished writing up this chapter on the day that the Octopath 0 demo dropped, so I'm going to finish things here so that I can go and play it. Next time, we'll continue through Oresrush for this chapter. Until then, I hope you all enjoyed. Feedback is appreciated as always. Have a nice day, everyone!

-Digital