Sunlight peeks through large cracks in the ceiling of rock, offering scant lighting within a cave. It is not an actual cave, but ruins from the Metal World. A ruin filled with still usable high technology, but only though a focus. A ruin that also includes their users, now centuries dead as they lie throughout the place.

But a living man is in there, weeping while kneeling with his hands pressed against his face.

He eventually falls silent and sighs wearily while tilting his head back with his eyes still shut and tears streaming down his face. He makes another weary sigh as he wipes his eyes in his sleeve, then gets up and turns around; only to yelp with a jolt upon being confronted by the shape of a person armed with a spear.

"P-P-Please don't kill me!" The man fretted as he holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I-I'm sorry if I trespassed! J-Just let me walk out of here and you'll never see me around here ever again!"

"Relax, I'm not here to kill you," the person said, their voice marking them as a girl. "But I am here to escort you out. Now come on."

"Wait! Are you the girl who helped save that city Meridian and its people?"

"What makes you think I am?"

"I-It's just that you're wearing what I have."

"Yeah, a focus." As she briefly touches her own. "So what else were you told about me?"

"That you have red hair full of braids and your name's Aloy."

The girl is silent as he can see her tilt her head in the near darkness of the room.

"Fine, I am her," she answered dryly. "So who are you? Someone who wants to have a chat with me? Challenge me even?"

"A chat," the man stated.

Aloy is silent for a moment.

"Let's just go," she finally answered as she steps aside and gestures with her spear. "Come on."

The man walks past her, being carefully not to alarm her into stabbing him.

"Keep walking," Aloy said, then falls in line behind him. "I'll tell you which direction to take."

"Okay, I-" the man began.

"Not now. Keep moving."

The man walks, with Aloy following closely behind as she gives directions on where to go or turn. They go upstairs, turn down hallways, and enter other rooms until finally . . .

"That's the way out," she said while pointing with her spear at an open door ahead of them with more sunlight shining from beyond it. "But first," as she stops while clasping his sleeve, causing the man to stop and turn to her, "I'll indulge you with that chat."

"Ah, okay," the man said with humorous unease.

"First off, you're not a Carja. Because you said, that city Meridian and its people."

"That's right. I came from the northwest. There's a tribe that lives up there called the Harguess."

"Did any machines rise up from the ground up there too?"

"Yes."

"That don't surprise me. Secondly, where did you get your focus?"

"I was given this."

"From whom?"

"From my superiors. What about yours now?"

"This was given to me." As she touches her own for a moment. "I had another one I found off a skeleton within these very ruins back when I was a little girl, but it got destroyed. Now let's go."

"Wait a minute. Those other Nora were running over to me and I fell down here. So why is it only you came down here to get me?"

"The Nora shun the ruins, but I am what they call a Seeker. It means I can enter the ruins with impunity. And leave the Sacred Lands too since the Nora are normally forbidden to do that. I wasn't with them at that moment, but somewhere else when a bunch of Braves came running up to me, waving me down. They told me an intruder was in the Sacred Lands and fell in here. So I came down here looking for you and ended up following the sound of your crying. I guess the dead in here does have that effect on others. Now let's go."

The man walks in step with Aloy.

"I came to these lands after I learned you got rid of Hades," he said. "No doubt you purged him."

"That's right, I simply stabbed-hold on," as she stops, compelling the man to stop, as her tone turned suspicious, "I told people that I got rid of Hades, I also told people that I vanquished him. But I never spoke the word, purge. So how do you know that word?"

"Does the name, Elisabet Sobeck, mean anything to you?" The man instead asked.

Aloy's eyes widen with shock. "How do you know that name?" Her voice a hiss.

"Who was Elisabet Sobeck to you?" He instead asked.

"All right, here's what's going to happen, stranger." Her tone firm and deliberate. "You are going to tell me all about yourself, then I will decide on how to answer that question, got it?"

"O-Okay, just let me clear my head first." The man takes a deep breath and exhales. "Now then, first of all . . . I am an Old One."