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Whenever Sherry did make the long journey upstairs, she would find Lucky in a slightly larger and somehow emptier dorm room. There were a few pieces of furniture that looked like they'd been gathering dust for a few years, and a few boxes in one corner, half-unpacked. It was pretty evident that he had not brought much with him to this room to begin with. But if it was an issue, he didn't seem to mind, or didn't show it.

Lucky didn't even acknowledge the door opening. He still looked as old and tired as he had when Sherry found him in the fog. But away from all the distractions and danger, he seemed to be hard at work on something quite large, and made of what looked like scrap metal and spare parts. In front of him, spread across half the desk like some kind of grim hunting trophy, was the translucent exoskeleton of one of the centipedes they'd narrowly escaped from.

And on second inspection, whatever weird plated and pointed sculpture he was making looked rather similar to it.

"Hey, Sherry," he called out in answer as he continued to work at his desk.

"Hasn't moved yet," he answered nonchalantly as he reached for one of the tools beside him. Maybe not the best possible answer to the question. "One of the empty carapaces was still stuck to me when I got back, so, here it is."

"I'm -" he began, and then stopped, looking down at the handful of segments he'd pieced together. His expression grew dark and he dropped the contraption heavily beside the exokeleton. Neither moved, though a few pieces of metal scrap scattered from the impact. He leaned back in his chair, running his hands over his face and through his hair in exasperation. "I don't know. Even if it was finished, I can't make it work. It's stupid. It was a stupid idea."

"What about you? You don't sound okay," he observed. Sherry seemed... jumpy, in a way she hadn't been before. Or maybe he just didn't know her as well as he'd thought he did. "You're, uh, starting to sound like me."

"Sorry to hear that," Lucky said in a tone of voice that didn't sound as sorry as he probably should have. He looked away from Sherry, idly rearranging some of the tools beside him as if it was just something to keep his hands busy. He didn't have room to say much - he'd stood by and watched enough people die in Delta that it had desensitized him to the suffering of strangers. It was terrible, objectively; but he felt nothing. "It's not your fault, you know. They were all too new to this, and they shouldn't have been in the Sahara."

He trailed off, and didn't speak again until she inquired about the junk heap.

"Runic weapon," he sighed, laying a scarred hand on top of the accumulated junk carapace and turning it over. A short row of segmented legs drooped lifelessly from it. "Or, well, the prototype for a hypothetical delivery system for one. We've been to the Sahara how many times? And we never learn. We need something that can move in the sand better than we do, maybe drop a depth charge or shield us from below. And the enemy's already solved that problem for us."

He gestured to the carapace.

But Lucky only smiled wryly at her question. "It won't work because it has no power. And it has no power because I'm not in the division that dictates what's worth carving runes into. So it's just going to stay an idea, and more people are going to die in the Sahara, and that's just the way it has to be."

Lucky made a noise of agreement, but didn't say anything on the subject of Caelius. They would have an easier time politely asking a tornado to change course.

But he did not share her enthusiasm for the chunk of robotic insect. This was not the first time he'd had to give up on an idea.

"Anyone can build something like this," he lamented. "It's just a lot of spare parts, from Mark. Old computer parts. Some exposed wiring, on the bottom. Took a while just to find pieces that weren't completely destroyed by whatever broke in the first place. I doubt this would move at all even if it had a power supply, it's just junk attached to more junk. A computer case without all the working parts inside it isn't a computer. And by that measure, this is just a glorified art project."

He seemed a little apprehensive at her question, though, and shifted uncomfortably in the desk chair twining his fingers until he could think of something to say.

"I used to be. It's... well, it's a long story." And one that he wasn't going to get out of telling this time, apparently. "... How much do you know about Ouroboros?"

"It's also the name of an enemy organization in possession of one of the seven Legacies. And my death division specialization is keeping track of it." He grimaced a little. "Well, I might as well start at the beginning."

"When I was still a new trainee, and still in your division, there was a - a council, of hunters, in charge of this place. People that that Caelius, Dr. H, and everyone else must have had to answer to. And during a major mission, they were all murdered." There was a strange apathy to his voice as he recounted it. "We didn't know, at first. Someone set up a macabre murder mystery for us, a recreation of what had actually happened, and I was dumb enough to think it was some kind of skill test."

"There was a trial. All the evidence pointed to our own division leads conspiring to kill the council. They had killed other hunters for their own benefit, and they didn't even try to defend themselves." He was looking off to the side, lost in thought. Or afraid to look Sherry in the eye. It was unclear which. "It turned out there had been one survivor from the council's murder, and he'd joined a rogue organization in order to get revenge. He was the one who had orchestrated the trial. And he made an offer, that only a few of us hunters took, to leave Deus Ex Machina and join that rogue organization too."

"I was one of the hunters who left. That's where I got this." Lucky casually held up his right hand to Sherry, showing off the black circle branding on the back of it. The tattoo was cut neatly in half by a very thick scar that ran almost the entire width of his hand, with an identical one in the center of his palm. Evidence of an old puncture wound that had ignored his fear shield. The scar was too conveniently located to not to be deliberate. "The tattoo, anyway. I... didn't know what they called themselves, at the time. I didn't know what they did until much later. All I knew at the time was that I was working for a group of murderers, and any alternative sounded... better."

"And I wasn't alone. Gale and Mimsy went, too. And... Sam." His expression grew dark for just a moment, but it quickly passed. "They began to initiate us, branded us, and they were going to take our weapons, too. That's when Sam attacked the guards, and the division leaders found their way to us. And I'm pretty sure you can guess who finally killed that last surviving council member."

"We were brought back here, and no one ever - I mean, nobody questioned us or reprimanded us for our obvious disloyalty. But I knew they wouldn't forget what we did. I never really saw this place the same way again."

"They were all there. At the trial. They watched us go through the portal and try to abandon Deus. They knew." Lucky ran the nail of his thumb idly along the scar that split the back of his right hand nearly in half. "The brand was for trying to leave once. The scar was for trying to leave twice."

His gaze flickered to Sherry again at the question. He was silent for a few long moments. He'd never actually been asked that before. He'd have to keep a spoken answer... simple. "Just another cage."

"Caelius," Lucky answered curtly. "What else?"

"It was over a year after that before there was any sign of Ouroboros again. As soon as I found out, I bribed someone for more information. Sam." The way he said the name sounded almost... bitter. "She was a death hunter who already belonged to the organization. And this one. I don't think she was particularly loyal to either. But. She gave me the means to contact them, to let them know I was interested in joining."

"The requirement to join..." he trailed off, and once again seemed to be busying himself rearranging his tools in a neat order instead of looking at Sherry. "I couldn't do it. I didn't do it. Even believing that this organization was corrupted, it wasn't -"

He sighed heavily.

"It didn't matter. The 'target' they assigned me died anyway. Rep killed them, or close to it, in some kind of argument." Lucky covered his face with both hands in a nervous way, pushing his glasses up and hiding his expression. "It seemed too good to be true. Someone had done all the dirty work for me without even realizing it. I just had to... take the credit. It was so easy."

"I was initiated. I... didn't know what I was getting myself into. Sam explained the role they assigned me afterward - I was supposed to act as an assassin following their orders. It was just a revenge cycle, mindless violence. That was the last time I talked to Sam."

"She died during the trials that happened about a week later. You must have heard about it. A lot of hunters ended up in that mess, pitted against each other. I'm not going to get into it." A hint of distress was creeping into Lucky's voice as he recalled the events. "Everyone that survived had to sit through a lecture from Caelius after the rescue. Most of them were free to go. I wasn't one of them. There were maybe ten people left in the room at that point, all told to stay behind, by name. He said all we had to do was sign a paper reaffirming that we were hunters and would follow the rules of the organization, and we could go."

"The first guy talked back. He lost an eye. I was second." He was no longer looking at Sherry at all. "Nothing bad happened then, but - there was a moment when it seemed like Caelius knew. He kept staring at me. Grabbed my hand when I was handing him the form. He knew. He probably knew the whole time."

"And it wasn't long before he demanded I meet him in his office. Asked a few questions. I tried not to answer them. Didn't like that. He... pinned my marked hand to the desk with a sword and interrogated me..." It seemed like everyone had their own gruesome Caelius story. "Somehow, at the end of it I got Sam's old job. And a warning that if I didn't produce results, I was dead."