"You've been helpful," you murmur softly. "We need the Athenaeum. We've needed your research, and your experience. It's been good of you to keep an eye on Jewel and Cherry, and to help Natalia."
"I could do more," Brigette whispers. "I have all this /power/ and I can't use it! Why is she doing this to me? Why teach me all these words I can never speak? What did I do to be...nevermind," she shudders, and sucks in a deep breath. "I know what I did to deserve this."
"I'm not sure she's punishing you, Brige. I do think maybe we need to talk to her sometime soon. Together."
"...Alright," Brigette says quietly. "What...what can I do?"
"Sober up. Cry it out. Then find me everything you can on the Cornucopia and the Sunless Sea. The Pallbearer too, for that matter."
"Okay," the Poet agrees. "...Bri, did it go okay on the surface?"
"Phenomenally," you promise.
"That's good. I...I told them not to bother you with the news. That you were doing something important."
"You did good, Brige. You did good."
* * * *
Vik, Silence's second, is waiting for you in the Company Store. He's obviously seen better days; the man looks ragged from grief and exhaustion.
"Your lovers came through, went on to the Roost," the man says. "We need to talk."
"I heard about Silence. I'm sorry -"
"Don't you be sorry yet, corpsefucker," the Miner snaps. "She's not dead. Just...unwell."
"Define," you ask, flatly.
"They got her with iron. Barbed bolts, the fucks. She wouldn't fall back, kept defending the Roosters, kept fighting back. She drove them back, you know? She didn't deserve that. She left you some final message in the stones near the Roost entrance, made us drag her there, but I don't think she's as dead as she looks. She said...she said she's a body, right? She doesn't have a soul."
"Which would make reviving her complicated even if it wasn't already too late," you tell him.