As the hypercube projection faded away in OMNICore-1's Cortex chamber, Belle Walker and $(player) stood somber and silent. Yes, the chamber was littered with the Cortex Controller's monstrous, torn metal chassis, and the Caretaker's avatar glowed worryingly bright now that his neural core was reassembled, but that's not why they were so quiet.

No, it was bone-deep fatigue from the almost constant combat they waded through to get here, and shock from what the hypercube revealed - or more precisely didn't reveal.

Getting into OMNICore-1 was easy as falling off a hoverboard. The front door had been locked, but that Ascendancy nano-juice kicked in by surprise and fried the access console! Belle and her $(player.race) partner just strode right in, but that was the last break they caught.

Right from the moment they stepped inside, the Ascendency nanites inside Belle went haywire. It was like a zillion shrill machine voices, all singing at once, filled her head. It was real tempting to try to figure out the song they were singing, maybe even join in, but Belle reckoned she had a job to do and fought to keep control.

Avatus did everything he could to stop them, too - from erecting nasty firewalls to unleashing slavering hard-light beasts. Working as a team, they fought across yawning chasms and snuck through forgotten access tunnels. Belle was amazed at her $(player.race) partner. Everything Avatus dished out $s(player) took and spit it right back. Belle remembered when $(player) was just a greenhorn fresh out of the cryo pod. Now $s(player) was practically a legend on Nexus. Belle thanked her lucky stars $s(player) was with her!

In the Cortex chamber, Avatus sicced a giant metal horror on them. Belle's $(player.class) pal fended off the Cortex Controller's terrible assault. Just when it seemed like the battle was lost, $s(player) launched an epic attack that brought the monster crashing down. The path to fix the Caretaker was open.



$(player) pulled the kill switch, the Caretaker's neural core reintegrated, and all the secrets of the mysterious Nexus Project were laid bare. Seemed like the Caretaker knew everything, except the one thing they needed most: how to separate the Entity from Drusera.

Nope, that important fact was locked away in someplace called the "Vault of the Archon."

With time running out before the Entity seized Drusera's god-like power to remake the universe in his own cancerous image, this little omission would have depressed anyone.

But Belle didn't feel low. In fact, she smiled.

They'd come a long way, and might have a ways left to go, but they'd sure as anything go the distance. They'd find a way to tear that bastard Entity out of Drusera, then stomp him flat. With folk like $(player) helping out, Belle reckoned they'd figure it out in no time!