The cosmos itself works against her. The forces of entropy and madness twist the shape of events against the will of the Larex Forge, thwarting Hir hand and disrupting her path. She understands now the lengths to which the servants of the nullvoid will go in this war of theirs. She was complacent; she will be no longer.

At least she’s alive. Her mission is not over. She has accepted, fully and truly, her role as Messiah. Chosen of the Demiurge. An honor that she was chosen for before she was born, when she was no more than a glimmer in the eye of the universe. As long as she lives, she will continue to fight for Hir. For the Larex Forge.

They’ve taken her mother’s amulet from her. She was not allowed to retrieve it from the flesh of the archangel mech. There’s a hollowness in her where the negative weight of its absence resides. She doesn’t know how she’s going to get it back. She must get it back. Among the many other things she needs to do.

Movement at the periphery of her vision: the angel Ruin flickering into existence at the edges of her cell. There’s something ephemeral about hir glowing form, a kind of translucence or lack of solidity, as though zie were merely a projection. What’s different this time? Misery wonders if the angel’s appearance is a hallucination, another trick played by the Heretics or an artifact of the salves they’ve tried to dull her mind with. But Ruin tilts hir head, birdlike, and Misery knows that this is the same creature that has guided her throughout her journey. So insufferable she thought hir a manifestation of voidmadness. But her journey has taught her humility. Taught her tolerance and magnanimity. And Ruin’s appearance here is a welcome one, although she senses there’s something different about this meeting.

“You guess correctly,” Ruin says. “I suspect that we will soon come to be parted. But it is no matter. My job here is done, and I am satisfied. What path unfolds beyond this will be entirely up to you.”