"You shouldn't have said anything d," the tei muttered as they approached the mine's entrahe damp air ging to their skin. His gaze studied the pipe as they approached, creating a clear path aination for them to follow.

  Orion didn't respond. He was w the same thing. 'Isn't this how I keep getting hurt?'

  The silence lingered until the tei spoke again, more patient this time.

  "What's your he tei persisted.

  "...Night Light, and yours?"

  "Kiera," the man replied, a faint, tired smile.

  Orion's eyebrow raised, turning his head slightly. The pale light faded as they desded into the gloom. Light was repced by the dull hum of chemtech lighting and the soft bioluminesce of strange mushrooms lining the stone walls.

  "A st name?" Orion asked, his voice tinged with curiosity. "You're a topsider then?"

  Chug softly, Kieran shrugged, mhan amused. "More or less. Lately, I find myself in the Uy more often than I'd like- have to make ends meet like any other family."

  Gng toward Kieran again, Orion studied his features more closely now. Brown hair streaked with grey, left eye repced with a blue artificer's eye for fine crafting, and a grey shirt with brown overalls. The stains of oil and grime, and the toolbelt around his waist, added that extra bit to make him appear more like an Uy resident.

  "I'm sure your wife and kids must be appreciative," Orion said with a forced upbeat tone. "Do they know what you're dealing with?"

  Kieran's weary eyes shifted, his gentle smile faltering as his gaze met Orion's.

  "No. My wife left me, it's just me and my daughter. She shouldn't kher."

  "Ah, I'm sorry..."

  "Don't be," Kieran's solemn gaze shifted toward him from the path, his toinged with old pain.

  "When we first met, I told her I wao leave Piltover. Travel the world, explore new pces, build something new!" His voice dropped lower. "But things ged..."

  "But...don't you two have a daughter? What about her?

  "My wife wao pursue happiness." Kieran sighed with resignation, disappoi clear in his eyes as he exhaled at the question. "Our daughter... has a gift. Though she wouldn't see it that way. She thought it was another curse of this city- like everything else here."

  A brief pause followed as Orion frowheir iron-toed boots eg against the stohway. The faint sound of water dripping grew louder as they tiheir dest into the mine along the fissure.

  "Sorry...I still don't get it. Why didn't you leave with her if you had the ce? You could've stayed a happy family traveling the world, finding a new pce to settle that isn't so... Staying in Piltover seems..."

  "Foolish?" Kieran cut in with a quiet chuckle, the fai gliurning to his weary eyes. "Maybe. But some songs 't be sung elsewhere. Leaving would've meant turning our backs on the people we've bonded with- the ones who needed us. Could you really leave everyone behind, knowing they might never find their way without you?"

  "Depends," Orion snorted. "Does your sario include the variables of being stabbed, blown up, and thrown in jail?"

  Kieran huffed, the er of his mouth twitg with a wry smile. "No, fair point. But I'd say risk is a part of the melody. The he lessons, that hurt the most, give and teach us the most. Otherwise, why keep ing back?"

  With a wry smile of his own- though Kieran couldn't see it, only his bnk, unimpressed stare fixated on him- Orion scoffed.

  "Yeah, sure. Let's stab you a few times- then a few more- maybe toss in a few bombs food measure, nearly kill you, and then we'll see if your opinion stays the same."

  Kieran sighed wearily, closing his eyes briefly as they walked. It was the look of an old man who felt like he wasn't getting through to the younger geion, Orion had seen it plenty at this point. Just seeing it grated on him, but not to the point of outburst as they walked.

  Orion didn't disagree with Kieran. He was just... frustrated. It felt like there was a rge disect between their experiehe same ohat already existed between topside and the uy.

  "Ah, perhaps our source," Kieran said, his weary voice lightening as they tinued forward. The ge in tone drew Orion's attention back to the front.

  Large boulders and smaller rocks had colpsed inward from one side of the tunnel, irely obstrug the passage as it dripped murky water into a discolored pool below. Shifting his gaze upward, Orion traced the damage- support struts for the pipe knocked loose, a jagged rock embedded into the pipe.

  A sharp, high-pitched whistle filled the air as air escaped.

  "That expins why we've been able to talk so easily..." Kieran mused, stepping forward to ihe damage more closely. Eyes narrowing, his eyes shifted back to the cave-in and murky water. "But it doesn't expin the cause..."

  Being Orion, Kieran's expression tightened with as he carefully climbed through the jagged, 45-degree opening.

  "The facility is just ahead," he called back, voice tense, as his leather gloves knocked some smaller rocks loose.

  Unease gripped Orion, a bad feeling rippling through him as he gritted his teeth and followed after Kieran. As they climbed through the narrowing gap, the pale light behind them faded as it was repced by a glowing light e ahead.

  The heat rose sharply. Subtle at first, then rising with each step.

  Breathing heavily, Orion emerged alongside Kieran, equally winded with his e. His brows were creased and furrowed, his facial expressions shiftiween fusion, , and quiet worry.

  Massive steam turbines roared before them, bellowing a brilliant e light from within, illuminating the vast open expanse. On the far side, a mi rested beside rusted rails that trailed into a deeper shaft. A work of pipes coiled from the tunnel's entrance, snaking toward the maery along the ceiling.

  At the ter of the expanse was a massive metal tanker, a thick pipe eg it to a smaller ohe pipe radiated with brilliant light blue and green colors as, from a T jun, alchemical fluids were fed into it from nearby alchemical vats. From the smaller tank, three pipes branched out in different dires- one of which trailed toward their entrance.

  "Despite all of the heat and noise, everything seems to be funing..." Kieran whispered, fists g tightly.

  Orion's gut twisted harder. He k, something was wrong.

  "But where is everyone?"