Connor took a different route back. Ashe noticed it within the first few turns, when it became clear they were not retracing the path she had taken to reach the arena. He seemed to know the town well, judging by the way he chose narrow passages over open streets and slipped through spaces that were not easily noticeable.
The decision to follow him at all came down to the fact that Connor was, at that moment, the only person in Railen, apart from Cressa and Halen, who knew what she was and hadn't tried to harm her in some way, something she had learned the hard way not too long ago. She was also looking for answers, and for now, he seemed like the most direct way to get them. It didn't mean she trusted him. She kept herself slightly to his side at all times rather than directly behind him, where she could see his hands and read his direction should something unforeseen occur.
The neighborhood they entered next was quiet. The buildings here were older, or at least more visibly worn. Cables ran between them at irregular heights, strung hastily from one structure to another as if patched together just to keep things working. Up high, the ruins of Lethon were visible from certain angles, which made the entire area even more unsettling.
Connor stopped in front of one of the buildings. The entrance was functional, opening and closing as it sensed someone's presence, but nothing beyond that. The building itself was very much neglected and frankly, quite eerie. The ground floor was dim, with a staircase running upward along the right wall. She moved toward it, but Connor stepped in quickly, stopping her before she could take the first step.
"Not that way."
He indicated a different direction entirely. She looked where he was pointing and saw what appeared, at first glance, to be just a metal wall. On closer inspection it was in fact a door, and beyond it, barely visible until Connor pulled it fully open, a small elevator that occupied an improvised space. It had been installed at some point after the rest of the structure existed, fitted into whatever gap was available. The result was something that didn't inspire much confidence except to those who knew it well.
Connor stepped inside without hesitation, but Ashe remained at the threshold for a moment, studying it.
"It does work…" he assured her, as if this wasn't the first time this conversation was taking place.
Eventually, she stepped in, but reluctantly so, positioning herself in such a way that she wouldn't be taken by surprise.
The elevator then moved upward and Ashe counted four floors before it stopped again. The level opened into a narrow corridor that led to a single door. No other entrances existed as if this specific floor was meant for only one person. Connor moved ahead, unlocked the metal door, and pushed it open.
Ashe stepped in after him but immediately stopped as soon as she found herself at the threshold. The apartment was small. That was the first thing she registered. Under normal circumstances that might have been it, but the smallness of it was almost entirely secondary to what occupied it, because the apartment was full of plants. Full, in the actual sense. Climbing plants ran along the pipes that crossed the ceiling, following them from one end of the room to the other. A long counter beneath the windows was lined with rows of glass jars as well, each containing plants at different stages of growth.
Ashe took a long look at the space, trying to map what she saw to what little she knew about the man.
"Sit wherever," Connor said, moving to the counter and setting something down.
She chose a spot near the window where the city outside gave her a slight sense of perspective, and watched him move through the room, thinking. After a while, he slowed, then turned toward her, as if he had finally settled on how to approach the conversation.
"The men who robbed you are here in this town."
Ashe said nothing, but she registered the information as important.
"Most likely they wouldn't recognize you if they saw you again," he continued. "But that's not really the point. You're an emergent and emergents draw attention, not necessarily in the good way." He paused briefly. "And I need to stay out of trouble. Which means I can't have people seeing me mixed up with scavengers or emergents or whatever combination of problems you bring."
Ashe looked at him steadily. "Then let's talk about that. Because you keep using these words and I don't know what any of them mean."
Connor rubbed his forehead, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.
"There used to be guides for this. People who explained things to new emergents when they came out." He then pulled the chair from the desk, turning it around and sitting on it. "I'm not good at that."
"I figured," Ashe replied.
"Alright. Short version, and mostly speculation because nobody actually knows anything anyway."
He leaned back slightly, thinking for a moment before continuing.
"Everyone woke up the same way you did, without memories and in places they didn't understand. Some woke in big ruined cities with heavy infrastructure, others in small settlements with barely anything to help them survive. You did pretty much alone, I reckon. Nobody has a clear understanding of how they got there or what had happened before that, but we do know most of the population woke up around the same time. Emergents appeared less and less as the years passed, until it became a common belief that no one was left to emerge at all. You're pretty much a rarity at this point."
Ashe didn't interrupt but catalogued every word.
"We know something bad must have happened before all of this, something that brought the world to what you've seen out there, but what exactly it was nobody can say for sure."
His gaze unfocused for a moment as he continued.
"As for why we woke up like this, the most common theory is that someone anticipated what was coming and found a way to preserve part of the population, placing them into some form of suspended state until certain conditions were met. But no one knows what those conditions were, or who set them in the first place."
"How come nobody remembers anything?" she asked.
"It could be a side effect… that's what I believe, at least. Being unconscious, whether it was cryostasis or whatever we were put through for who knows how long periods of time, can alter the brain in many ways. It suppresses neural activity to the point that some pathways degrade, so memory loss isn't really surprising. But even so, there's no certainty," Connor explained.
As he continued, his tone began to change. He gestured vaguely toward the window and the distant noise of the city beyond the glass.
"None of them care anymore anyway, so whatever research was done never amounted to anything certain," he added. "All they care about nowadays is commerce, mundane pleasures and survival."
He scoffed.
"Okay," Ashe said, when he paused. "What about Threnos?"
Connor reacted immediately to that word, snapping his attention toward Ashe and reassessing what he thought he knew about her.
"Where did you hear that name?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter," she said.
He held her gaze for a moment, clearly unconvinced. For a second it seemed like he might press further, but he eventually decided to simply let it go. Perhaps because he didn't want to complicate himself further, Ashe couldn't tell.
"Not many people know it," he said, and his voice dropped slightly. "It's the first place… The first known location where emergents appeared, back when it was all still new. Nobody fully understood then what was happening yet."
"Where is it?"
"I've never been there. I've seen maps and heard reports from people who tried to find it." He stopped again, and this time the pause was different. He looked at the plants on the counter beside him without appearing to see them. "I know people who went looking for it."