Planning the infiltration took two days. Tallis provided detailed maps of the Penance Halls, marked the guard rotations, identified weak points in the security. The Curator supplied equipment: disguises, lock-breaking tools, memory-suppression Shards that would hide their identities from detection devices.
They were as prepared as they could be.
"The Penance Halls hold about two hundred condemned prisoners," Tallis explained, spreading the map across the planning table. "Most are awaiting execution for heresy, murder, or virtue-theft. They've been offered conversion, forced virtue until they crystallize or submit. Those who refuse are scheduled for public execution."
"Grim," Ven muttered.
"The Sanctum believes suffering purifies. That pain brings people closer to the divine." Tallis touched one of her black Marks. "I believed that too, once. Now I see it for what it is. Control through fear."
"How many guards?" Marik asked.
"Thirty, rotating in shifts of ten. They're not Saints, just regular enforcers with standard training. The real security comes from the Hall's location. It's built on a plateau, single approach road, surrounded by wasteland. Anyone approaching is visible from miles away."
"Then we approach at night," the Cartographer said. "Use the memory-suppression Shards to hide from detection."
"That gets us to the building. But inside, we'll need to move fast. Find the prisoners, explain the offer, transfer guilt to volunteers, and escape before reinforcements arrive." Tallis looked at Jiko. "How long does a transfer take?"
"Thirty seconds per person if they're cooperative," Jiko said. "Faster if they have experience with guilt-absorption."
"Figure one minute per prisoner to be safe. If we get forty volunteers, that's forty minutes of exposure. Too long." Tallis traced a path on the map. "We'll need to move them to a secure location before starting transfers. The chapel, maybe. It's central, has multiple exits, and prisoners are brought there for forced conversions anyway. Guards won't question seeing people there."
"What's our cover story?" Ven asked.
"I'm a Saint conducting an emergency conversion ritual. You're my assistants. Jiko is a blank we've captured for study." Tallis pulled out her old armor. "I kept my credentials. They won't have invalidated them yet. I can bluff our way in."
"And when they realize you're marked black instead of gold?" Marik pointed at her visible Marks.
"I'll say it's part of the ritual. That I've taken on sinners' guilt to better understand their corruption. It's unusual, but Saints have done it before for extreme cases." She looked at the group. "The real risk is Jiko. If anyone scans him properly and realizes he's carrying nearly five thousand Marks, they'll know something's wrong."
"Then we move fast," the Cartographer said. "In and out before anyone looks too closely."
They spent the rest of the day preparing. Tallis coached Jiko on how to act like a captured prisoner. Ven and Marik practiced their roles as assistants. The Cartographer reviewed the escape routes, planning contingencies for when, not if, things went wrong.
That evening, Tallis found Jiko in his quarters, sitting with the clear Shard Dr. Seo had left behind.
"You still haven't used it," she observed.
"I'm waiting for the right time."
"Why? Knowledge is knowledge. Time doesn't change it."
"The Curator said it's emotionally charged. I don't process emotion well. I want to be in a stable state before trying." He set the Shard down. "Are you afraid of tomorrow?"
Tallis sat across from him. "Terrified. I'm about to betray everything I spent fifteen years building. Walk into a place I helped secure, lie to people I trained with, undermine the organization I dedicated my life to."
"But you're doing it anyway."
"Because it's right. Or at least, less wrong than the alternatives." She looked at him. "Do you understand that distinction? Between right and less wrong?"
"Intellectually. But I don't feel the moral weight of it."
"That must be strange. Making decisions without the emotional feedback that tells you if you're on the right path."
"It's the only way I know. Is it better or worse than your way?"
Tallis thought about it. "I don't know. You make decisions more efficiently, but you also lack the emotional warning system that stops people from doing terrible things. I feel guilt, which slows me down but also guides me away from cruelty." She smiled. "Maybe neither way is better. Just different."
"But soon I'll be like you. Growing a conscience, feeling guilt." Jiko looked at his hands. "I don't know if I want that."
"Most people would say feeling is essential to being human."
"But I've survived without it. Functioned without it. If I gain the capacity for guilt, I'll also gain the capacity for suffering. Is suffering inherently valuable?"
"No. But it connects you to others. Shared pain creates empathy, understanding, community. Without it, you're alone even when surrounded by people."
"I'm comfortable being alone."
"Are you? Or have you just never known anything else?" Tallis stood. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we find out if I can still bluff my way through Sanctum security."
She left, and Jiko lay back, thinking about her question. Was he comfortable being alone? Or just unfamiliar with alternatives?
He didn't know. Another thing to add to the growing list of uncertainties.
They set out before dawn, traveling through the wasteland toward the Penance Halls. The landscape was harsh here, all rock and dust with no cover. They moved quickly, using the darkness as concealment.
The Halls appeared on the horizon as the sun rose. A massive structure built from pre-Severance materials, it rose from the plateau like a fortress. Guard towers marked the corners, and a single road wound up the cliff face to the main gate.
"There," Tallis pointed. "That's where we're going."
They activated the memory-suppression Shards, and immediately Jiko felt strange. As if he was fading slightly, becoming less real. Detection devices would register them as background noise, unworthy of attention.
They approached openly, walking up the road as if they had every right to be there. Guards watched from the towers but didn't challenge them. At the gate, Tallis presented her credentials.
"Sister Tallis, Third Blade, conducting emergency conversion ritual. These are my assistants, and this is the subject." She gestured at Jiko.
The gate guard examined the credentials, then looked at Jiko. "The blank? We heard you were hunting him."
"Found him at the Archive. He's dangerous, needs immediate conversion before we transport him to the Sanctum proper." Tallis's voice carried absolute authority. "I'm authorized to use the chapel for preliminary work."
The guard hesitated, then nodded. "Very well, Sister. But you'll need to register the ritual with the Warden."
"Of course. After we're settled." Tallis swept past him, and the others followed.
They were inside.
The Halls were exactly as the maps showed: a central courtyard surrounded by cell blocks, with the chapel at the structure's heart. Prisoners could be seen through barred windows, many covered in black Marks, some in chains.
Tallis led them directly to the chapel. Inside, it was austere and cold, built for function rather than comfort. Rows of benches faced an altar where forced conversions took place.
"Perfect," Tallis said. "Now we need to get the prisoners here without arousing suspicion."
She found a guard and gave orders. "Bring fifty prisoners to the chapel. Selection criteria: most heavily marked, scheduled for execution within the week. Tell them they're being offered final conversion opportunity."
The guard looked uncertain. "Fifty is a lot for one ritual."
"I'm demonstrating the blank's capacity. Need multiple subjects for proper testing." Tallis's tone brooked no argument. "Now, please. We're on a tight schedule."
The guard left to comply. Within thirty minutes, prisoners began filing into the chapel. They came in chains, suspicious and afraid, but also curious. Most were heavily marked, their sins visible for all to see.
When fifty had assembled, Tallis closed and sealed the chapel doors.
"Listen to me," she said to the prisoners. "What I'm about to offer is unprecedented. I'm not here to convert you. I'm here to give you a choice."
She removed her helmet, revealing her black Marks. Gasps rippled through the prisoners.
"I was a Saint. I spent years inflicting virtue on people like you, believing it was mercy. But I've been shown the truth. The Sanctum is built on lies." She gestured at Jiko. "This is Jiko. He's a blank who can absorb guilt without suffering from it. He's currently carrying nearly five thousand Marks and will die unless he can redistribute them."
The prisoners were staring, confused and hopeful.
"Your choice is this: remain here and face execution within days, or accept some of Jiko's guilt and live. He's carrying sins from hundreds of people. You'd be taking burden from others rather than adding to your own. It's redemption of a sort."
"How many Marks?" a prisoner asked. An older woman, covered in black from wrist to shoulder.
"Between fifty and a hundred, depending on your capacity. More than you have now, but still survivable. And in exchange, you get life instead of execution."
"What's the catch?" another prisoner demanded. "Why would you offer us this?"
"Because I'm trying to do something right for once. And because you don't deserve to die for your sins when others walk free with worse." Tallis looked at them. "But understand, this is voluntary. Anyone who doesn't want to participate can leave. Guards will return you to your cells."
Silence. The prisoners exchanged glances, weighing survival against additional burden.
Finally, the older woman stepped forward. "I'll do it. I've got fifty-three Marks now. What's a hundred more if it means I live to see my grandchildren?"
Others followed. Forty-two of the fifty prisoners volunteered, driven by hope or desperation or simple calculation that more life was better than certain death.
Jiko stepped forward. "Form a line. This will be quick."
One by one, they came to him. He transferred guilt efficiently, giving each person between fifty and a hundred Marks depending on their current load and apparent capacity. The prisoners gasped as the weight entered them, stumbled, caught themselves. But they didn't break. They were carriers already, used to bearing sin.
Four thousand eight hundred Marks became three thousand seven hundred. Then three thousand four hundred. Then three thousand.
Jiko felt himself lightening with each transfer. His thoughts cleared further, his movements became smoother. He was approaching functional again.
Two thousand five hundred. Two thousand. Fifteen hundred.
"We have a problem," Marik said from where he was watching the door. "Guards are gathering outside. Someone must have reported something suspicious."
"How many?" Tallis asked.
"At least twenty. And I see a Saint arriving. Gold armor, proper credentials."
"Damn. We're out of time." Tallis looked at the remaining prisoners. "We need to move faster."
Jiko increased his pace, pushing the transfers as quickly as safe. One thousand Marks. Eight hundred. Five hundred.
Pounding at the chapel door. "Sister Tallis! Open immediately! This has been reported to the Warden!"
"Hold them off," Tallis ordered Marik and Ven. "Just a few more minutes."
But the door exploded inward, blown apart by concentrated virtue. The Saint entered, radiant and furious, surrounded by guards.
"Traitor," the Saint said, his voice echoing with divine rage. "You've betrayed the Sanctum. Freed condemned prisoners. Corrupted our holy purpose."
"I've freed no one," Tallis replied calmly. "Just offered choice where before there was only execution."
"Choice is not yours to give. The Sanctum decides who lives and dies, who bears guilt and who is purified." The Saint raised his hands, virtue gathering. "You'll answer for this heresy."
"We need to leave," the Cartographer said urgently. "Now."
"Three hundred Marks left," Jiko said. "Almost done."
"No time!" Tallis grabbed his arm. "We run now or we all die."
The Saint released his virtue, golden light shooting toward them like spears. Tallis met it with her own hands, and something impossible happened. The guilt-Marks on her arms absorbed the virtue, converting it to black energy that she redirected.
"I'm not what I was," Tallis said. "I've seen too much. Carried too much. Your virtue can't touch me anymore."
She fought the Saint while the others herded the marked prisoners toward a back exit. The chapel was chaos, light and shadow clashing, guards trying to restore order while prisoners ran for freedom.
Jiko transferred the final three hundred Marks to the last three volunteers, then joined the retreat. Behind him, Tallis was holding off the Saint and two dozen guards single-handedly, her guilt-Marks glowing with dark power.
"Go!" she shouted. "I'll hold them!"
"Tallis, no!" Ven tried to turn back, but Marik grabbed her.
"She chose this. Honor it by surviving."
They ran, the freed prisoners scattering in all directions. The Cartographer led Jiko, Ven, and Marik down a service corridor, through a maintenance tunnel, out into the wasteland beyond the Halls.
Behind them, the chapel erupted in light. The Saint had overwhelmed Tallis, was forcing virtue into her, trying to convert or destroy her.
But Tallis just laughed. "I've carried five hundred Marks of guilt. What's a little virtue on top of that?"
She detonated herself.
Not physically, but metaphysically. All five hundred Marks released at once, a shockwave of concentrated sin that inverted every virtue in range. The Saint crystallized instantly, his golden armor becoming a prison. Guards fell, overwhelmed by sudden guilt. The chapel walls cracked under the metaphysical pressure.
Tallis fell with them, her body shattered by the release. But she died free, having chosen her own path for the first time in fifteen years.
Miles away, Jiko felt the moment of her death. Not emotionally, but as a sudden absence where her presence had been.
"She's gone," he said.
The others were silent, processing loss in their own ways. Ven cried. Marik held her. The Cartographer just stared back toward the Halls, his expression unreadable.
Jiko checked his internal state. Zero Marks. For the first time since meeting Marik, he was completely empty. The prisoners had taken everything, distributed across forty-two people who could bear it.
He was clean. Free. Himself again.
But he knew it wouldn't last. The guilt was building inside him, crystallizing into a conscience he'd soon be unable to avoid. Tallis had bought him time with her sacrifice, but only time.
"We need to keep moving," the Cartographer said finally. "Tallis gave us a chance. We can't waste it."
They traveled through the night, putting distance between themselves and the Halls. By morning, they'd reached neutral territory, a small settlement that asked no questions if you paid in Shards.
They rented a room and collapsed, exhausted and grieving in their different ways.
Jiko sat alone, holding Dr. Seo's Shard. Tallis had believed in choosing your own path, even if it led to death. She'd made that choice consciously, knowing the cost.
Could he do the same? Could someone without emotions make meaningful choices?
He was about to find out.
He activated the Shard, and Dr. Miriam Seo's final thoughts flooded his mind.
And for the first time in his life, Jiko wept.
Not because he felt sad. But because the Shard contained something so raw, so powerful, that even his void couldn't contain it.
The weight of what Dr. Seo had done, preserved in crystal. The guilt of having broken the world.
And as Jiko wept without understanding why, his companions watched in stunned silence.
Because crying meant feeling.
And feeling meant the process had begun.
Jiko's conscience was awakening.
And there was no stopping it now.