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Feathered apes swarm around the arch, positioned to cut off escape. They've already killed several priests who attempted to flee, but with Keimia gone, they seem confused. You surge past Stralchus and the warriors, rifle raised high, and the apes flinch away from you. Just as they start to find their courage, Stralchus shoots the largest one, who falls in a shower of iridescent feathers. The River warriors lay into the rest with their spears and hatchets, and the feathered apes flee down the stairs, some of them falling to their deaths in their haste to escape.

Even with Keimia out of the fight, it's clear that you can't stay here. More feathered apes crawl up the steep cliffs to join the fighting, and the Painted Guardians are finished, despite their much-vaunted invincibility. You need to escape.

Vecla, bruised but still alive, wiggles out from beneath a dead Guardian and bounces onto your shoulder.

As the soot blows away, you see that Therko, the young administrator, has escaped the battle. His white robe torn to shreds, he stumbles away from the apes as they hunt for other survivors to stand, exhausted but not badly hurt, by your side.

Suddenly you remember the diagrams—the precious diagrams, needed to rebuild the Specular! They're gone! Then you spot a badly damaged controller approaching you, holding the bark diagrams in her one good hand. Her remaining eye fixes on you and she hands them off before she collapses.

"We need to go," another controller says, pulling you through the archway and down the stairs, away from the corpse of the Apostolic Mound and Keimia's victorious army of apes.

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