When you exit the Everdeep, several cutscenes will play in sequence. It is recommended that you set aside sufficient time to view these scenes in their entirety.
Even in Orologio, whose skyline is dominated by multiple colossal towers where its residents live, work, and play, Pascal’s Tower remains the grandest. Its colossal gears turn smoothly, forming a background hum that the residents of the Clockwork City don’t even notice anymore. High up on the side of that tower, overlooking the city, is Marguerite’s — a cafe that is a favorite among not just the residents of Pascal’s Tower, but of the entire city; balcony tables at Marguerite’s are something of a rarity. It helps be lucky, rich, important, or all three.
One table, however, is reserved every day. Normally this table is reserved solely for Isidore, the newest of the Mechatriarchs; his rise from an unknown tinker to one of the seats of power in Orologio is something whispered about by any gossipmonger in the city, but in general he’s viewed as one of the more approachable and benevolt of the Mechatriarchy, so they tend to do it out of earshot. From his table on the balcony at Marguerite’s, Isidore holds court each day, treating all who approach him with equal consideration and promising to take their concerns to his fellows on the ruling council. This morning, however, Isidore has a guest.
Seated across from Isidore, Jeanne sets her teacup down on its delicate little saucer. She’s traded in the black armor that our heroes are familiar with for a more frilly, casual dress; her hair, usually cut into a practical but not-terribly-well-kept bob has been carefully tended to and accentuated with a simple black hairband. She is, by anyone’s accounts, simply one of Orologio’s movers and shakers, though no one really knows who she is other than Isidore’s guest. Behind her, the bronze dome that surrounds Orologio lately tints the entire sky, as does the bright glare of the sun nearing sunset.
The sun is always nearing sunset these days. It’s been that way for a very long time; it never quite touches the horizon. It’s just a fact of life in Orologio.
“So this was your plan?” Jeanne asks, a small smirk on her face.
“Well… no.” Isidore looks slightly uncomfortable in his high-collared coat. “There was a variable I hadn’t accounted for. Avelot somehow spirited the catalyst for the ritual out of the city, and allegedly doesn’t know where it went, despite our best efforts to wring it out of him.” He drums his fingers restlessly on the table next to his cup, disturbing its placid surface — coffee, black — with small ripples. “So the ritual partly worked. But you can’t deny it was effective, even if it’s not quite what I had planned.”
His eyes flick down to the large public square at the base of Pascal’s Tower, and Jeanne follows his gaze. A massive world tree sapling — one of the largest on the southern continent, having long since outgrown the word ‘sapling’ — shades the park below. She eventually nods. “Well, yes, you’ve removed it from where she can attack it. And sated its need for nourishment, for now. But is your plan now to just…” She waves her hand, indicating everything around them, everything vaguely colored in that same bronze light. “Wait him out? Or her? Both of them?”
Isidore shrugs, the movement barely visible. “I’m perfectly content to let them wear out their rage on each other. Orologio will endure.” He picks up his coffee now, eyeing her over the rim. “And you? Did your efforts to find Joyce bear any fruit?” A smirk crosses his face. “I assume not, or you’d be on your way to have her talk some reason into him, not here drinking tea with me.”
Jeanne sighs. “She’s vanished, as far as I can tell. The only person he ever listened to, and it’s like she’s vanished off the face of the world. I was so close, I think, but… I just ran out of time. That meddling academic got in my way.” She finishes her tea in one long drink, then pushes her chair back from the table, standing and smoothing down her dress. “Perhaps I should have followed her back home. A university might have better records than some dusty old hidden library, anyway. I just… wanted to see if any of the rest of us had met with some success first.” She gives him a wan smile as she pushes her chair back into its place under the table.
Her companion nods to her. “Back to it, then. Good luck.” He extends a gloved hand to her. “We remain striving.”
She gives him a firm grip, letting it linger for just a second or two. “We remain striving,” she echoes.
Elsewhere, high in the skies above an unknown locale, far removed from miasma, time-displaced cities, or heroes in underwater cities, a massive airship plows its way through the sea of clouds. On the deck stands a man clad entirely in ornate armor; only his eyes are visible, and they are firmly focused on the compass he holds in his hand, which points at something that isn’t magnetic north. Next to him is a large black metal pillar — almost a parody of a tree in shape, given how its top splits into the silhouette of metal branches, forming an even circle around the top of the pillar.
Seeing something in the compass, he snaps it shut and slips it into a pouch at his waist. He turns his head slightly towards the subordinates standing behind him, in armor that is almost a mirror of his own. “We’re here,” he says. He pats the side of the pillar-tree next to him. “Get it ready for transport to the surface. Today we free another city from the threat of her hunger.”
He walks towards the steps leading down into the airship’s hangar, adding almost as an afterthought, “Whether they like it or not.”