Bottom of the Shade

* Login screen
* Title screen
* Original title card

**Bottom of the Shade** is an event story that serves as the origin story for Ministra and Spira. It is followed up by *For the Uncrying*.

## Synopsis

> *A loan shark is sipping her drink by herself in an empty bar. As she recounts her past experiences, nostalgia overcomes her.*
>
>

## Appearances

* Replacer Rook
* Lee Sooyeon
* Administrator
* Rita Arsenico
* Dash
* Matchmaker
* Horizon
* Wilbur Whateley
* Mors
* Sollicitatio
* Professor James

## Plot

### Act 1

Inside a simulated bar within the Coffin Company building, the Administrator is having Replacer Rook purify the Eternium collected from Shadows into Alternium when Lee Sooyeon calls and questions if he can make the Eternium usable. He is confident he can and Sooyeon hangs up. He then turns to another woman sitting next to him at the bar counter and offers her a drink. The woman introduces herself as Rita Arsenico, a debt collector for a private financial company, and begins recounting a recently-mishandled incident.

Some time ago on a snowy day, Rita was looking for her coworker, Dash, and a client that owed money to her company. She asked a homeless person nearby if he saw Dash, and the man recalled that a girl matching her description gave him alms before heading towards a building after hearing someone scream from there. The man cautioned that she had went into the hideout of the Matchmakers, a drug cartel whose leader is a A-Grade Counter, but Rita was undeterred and heads over to the building to retrieve Dash.

Inside the hideout, Dash confronted a high-ranking member known as "Executive Red Dog" about how they captured and beat up the debtor to her company, only to be attacked herself. Rita appeared and, together with her summoned companion Omerta, swiftly took down all the guards before the group's leader, the eponymous Matchmaker, entered and greeted Rita. The Matchmaker told his guards to stand down and handed over the unconscious debtor as Rita was not only a former business partner of his but also an employee of the ruthless loan shark company Horizon Finance.

Rita and Dash returned to the Horizon Finance office with the debtor and laid him on the couch. Their employer, a Woodpecker drone named Horizon, whose original body was undergoing maintenance at the time, examined the debtor and confirmed his identity as Wilbur Whateley, a doctor of archaeology who went off the grid for months after taking out a loan from her company. Wilbur awoke and tried to escape upon realizing where he was, but Rita forced him to stay and demanded he pay his debt of 5 million credits. Wilbur begged her to give him a few more days as he scheduled an expedition to the Counterside to find ruins and offered to give the company whatever Eternium he collects as payment. Horizon found his offer pathetic, but Rita accepted it under the condition that she come along on the expedition.

The next day, the Horizon Finance team, along with some hired guns, boarded the cargo ship and traveled to the Counterside. On the way, Dash met a mysterious, armored figure named Mors and tries to strike up a conversation with her, but the mercenary captain told Dash not to bother as Mors was a notoriously quiet person and rumored to be a bringer of disaster. Soon after, the ship is under attack by Corrupted Objects, and Dash fights alongside the mercenaries despite Rita's orders to stay out of trouble.

Meanwhile, Horizon rebuked Rita for accepting Wilbur's offer, and Rita, reminded of her own past regarding her family (especially her father), responded by saying everyone deserves a second chance. When the ship was attacked, Rita initially decides not to intervene but joined the battle when she learned that Dash was also fighting. Rita repelled the last of the C.O.s. and chastised Dash for not staying put, telling her she needed to look after herself first and foremost. The ship's thrusters were critically damaged in the attack, causing the ship to crash-land.

The mercenary captain examined the damage and determined that the ship was no longer suitable for further travel. Wilbur was adamant on pressing forward and suggested continuing on foot, but Rita called the idea suicide, pointing out how ill-equipped everyone (except Mors) was. Dash, however, persisted that they help Wilbur try to reach his goals and soon got Rita to begrudgingly repair the ship. Afterwards, Mors gave Rita a vague but ominous warning and suggested she turn back "lest the plague fall upon you". Rita ignored her warning, and the crew eventually arrived at the ruins Wilbur was searching for. Rita orders Dash to stay in the ship for her own safety, but Dash follows her anyway.

Back in the present, the Administrator observes that Rita was very caring and protective towards Dash, but Rita denies this and says Dash was a nuisance. She explains she took in Dash as collateral from her parents, whom were gambling addicts, only because the girl was a potential asset; as such, protecting her was nothing more than a financial precaution. Regardless, the administrator asks Rita about the journey into the ruins, and the latter recalls that it went terribly wrong.

### Act 2

While gathering the eternium inside the ruined building, one of the mercenaries stumbled upon an instant camera that seemed to be broken. Wilbur hastily demanded that he hand it over to him, claiming it could be an artifact, and scolds him for dismissing it as junk. Wilbur then decided to test the camera on a curious Dash by taking a snapshot of her. A photograph was developed, and a Shadow greatly resembling Dash spawned out of it and almost immediately attacked the two. Dash held it off and Rita joined in the fight, but their attacks were fruitless. The Shadow seemed invincible until Horizon analyzed that it was actually an illusion projected through a medium, in this case the photograph it came from. Dash located and destroyed the photo, causing the Shadow to finally disappear. After seeing a wound on Dash's arm, Rita near-strangled Wilbur and declared she was taking whatever the crew collects, including eternium and artifacts (though this was only a partial threat to get Wilbur over himself). Later, she reprimanded Dash and ordered her not to leave her side from now on.

When she and Dash reached the bottom floor, Rita heard an eerie voice beckoning her and followed it behind a wall concealing a hidden laboratory. The lab is strangely neat and undisturbed, and Rita found documents detailing a Counter-cloning experiment involving Mental Printing technology while Dash picked up a crystal. The security system suddenly went off and deployed an endless wave of Corrupted mech units, forcing Rita and Dash to fight them off on their way out. Unfortunately, an earthquake occurs and crushes the two of them.

Meanwhile, the mercenaries were loading up all the spoils onto the ship. Feeling spiteful, Wilbur tried to persuade the captain to abandon the loan sharks, but the captain refused since it was because of their efforts that the crew was able to make it this far. When the earthquake shakes, Mors warned everyone of upcoming trouble and told them to prepare themselves.

Rita and Dash survived the earthquake and learned that the crew was being attacked by a Tyrant and sent out a mayday signal. Rita defeats the Tyrant and ships from Daymine Mining arrive to rescue everyone. All seemed well until the same mysterious voice from before called out to Rita and announced that she would become their "sister" upon the "tribulation". Suddenly, three more Category 3 C.O.s appeared seemingly out of nowhere, destroyed the rescue ships and attacked the crew. The mercenaries hurriedly started up their ship and prepared to surface when Dash, carrying a heavily injured Rita, latched onto the ship's loading ramp. Wilbur took a gun and threatened to shoot the two of them off the ship unless they beg for their lives like they made him beg for a second chance. Dash naively complied only for Wilbur to cruelly fire them off anyway.

In the present, Rita admits she wanted Dash to go through hard times in hopes that it would make her less naive and cautious. The administrator asks her why she became a loan shark given her abilities, and Rita answers that, just like Dash, she had to pay a debt with her life.

### Act 3

The Arsenico Family was a powerful mafia during the early aftermath of the Grand Purification War but began to rapidly falter following the assassination of Rita's father, Don Arsenico, who was the boss. When the family was on the verge of collapse, the Dark Council offered to postpone the due date of a debt the Arsenicos owed them and even help the family gain its lost power back if Rita assisted them in their own affairs. Rita stated the family will pay their debt as normal but refused to provide any help to the Council, prompting Rita's uncle, who served as the consigliere to her father, to try to kill her with the aid of soldiers sent by the Machine Collector. Rita effortlessly defeated her attackers and executed her uncle. She later met with Horizon and requested a massive loan so she can use to silence or possibly kill any other opponents of the Arsenicos. Horizon accepted but then made a counteroffer: the loan will be free of interest if Rita will work for her as a debt collector. Rita agreed but in the end could not save her family.

After being forced off the ship, Rita summoned Omerta at the last second and saved herself and Dash from falling to their deaths. The mercenary captain, who was among the causalities of the surprise ambush, transformed into a C.O., forcing Dash to kill him. Horizon reactivated herself after being shut down earlier from exposure to strong Corruption rays and told Dash they need to move to somewhere safer due to the growing presence of C.O.s at their location. Meanwhile, Mors observed the now-quiet battlefield and confronted Sollicitatio, an apostle of the Demon Lord Thagirion. Sollicitatio tauntingly threatened Mors not to interfere with Thagirion's affairs before sending larger and more powerful C.O.s after Rita and Dash.

Rita awoke in a Shadow Palace and found Dash, who accused her of practically enslaving her. Rita argued she in fact saved Dash from her neglectful parents when she took her in as collateral, only for Dash to call her a murderer and scathingly remind her of the people she's killed. Dash then turns into the Shadow from the ruins and vengefully attacks Rita but is defeated by her. Sollicitatio appeared and revealed to Rita her plan to destroy her and take Dash away so that the girl could be reborn into a "perfect being" for finding the crystal from the lab. Rita struck the apostle to no effect, and Sollicitatio tried to engaged her but is interrupted when Mors attempted to break into the Shadow Palace.

Upon waking up for real in the Counterside, Rita asked Dash for the crystal she picked and destroyed it, hoping that doing so would keep Sollicitatio away. As the C.O.s started closing in, Horizon detected a ship-guiding signal southeast of their position and suggested moving there to contact for help. They traveled and fought through the C.O.s until Rita hallucinated Dash as the Shadow again and passed out, her CRF now dangerously low.

In the present, Rita gets up and decides to hunt Wilbur down, but the administrator tells her to sit down. Rita angrily questions why she's here in the first place, and the Administrator answers that he's here to help her keep her promise to Dash and put an end to her "endless waiting."

### Act 4

Rita started subconsciously talking in her sleep, leading Horizon to suspect her to be suffering from Corruption Syndrome. Dash laments how Rita never expressed how much she's been suffering and wishes she could be less of a burden to her. Horizon suggested the two of them visit a bar together someday so she could get Rita to share her feelings for once, and Dash agreed but doubted it'll happen given the current situation. She later rested alongside Rita while Horizon kept guard.

The team reached their destination, which turned out to be an exploration outpost. While Dash scouted the building on her own, Rita asked Horizon if she could ever replace Dash's parents. Horizon bluntly tells her no but conceded that she could still be a sister figure to her instead. Rita becomes uneasy when she hears the word "sister" because of Sollicitatio and vowed never to let anyone take Dash away. Once the building was cleared, they all made their way to to control room. Rita and Horizon examined the state of the communications system, and the latter volunteered to sacrifice parts from her drone unit so that the system could be repaired; she stated she would not "die" so as long as her memory unit was intact and later inserted into her original body.

The Tyrants from earlier, along with some other C.O.s, approached the building, so Dash, being the only one capable of combat, headed out to fight them off despite Rita's pleas for her to hide instead. Rita hastily repaired the comms and sent out a mayday signal but received no answer. Sollicitatio reappeared and reiterated her plan to take away Dash to make her a "sister", i.e. a Shadow subservient to Thagirion, so Rita desperately bargained herself instead of Dash to become Thagirion's subject. Sollicitatio accepted her plea and began transforming her using the crystal Rita thought she had destroyed. Mors entered the room and reproached Sollicitatio's methods, having realized that Rita, not Dash, was the Shadow's target all along.

Outside, a severely-weakened Dash was about to be killed by one of the Tyrants when Rita, now a Shadow, arrived and saved from the C.O.s, taking them all down with ease. Dash was initially frightened by Rita's new appearance but quickly became relieved when she saw that Rita's demeanor had not changed. When a rescue fleet appeared above them, Rita told Dash to take care of herself and Horizon once they get back to the Normalside and leaves. Afterwards, the rescue team spotted Dash and took her in for recovery... or so Rita recounted. In truth, Dash was absolutely horrified at what Rita had become, and Rita, zealously ecstatic over her newfound powers, tried to convince her to become a Shadow as well. Dash attempted to fight back but was ultimately "reassembled" into a Shadow.

The Administrator obviously does not believe Rita's claim that Dash was saved as he already knows that his employees had fought and defeated Rita's and Dash's Shadow forms, MInistra and Spira respectively. Just then, Dash enters the bar much to Rita's surprise. Rita approaches and tearfully apologizes to her for being so harsh and unkind towards her, but Dash cheerily assures Rita that she was the best grown-up she could ask for. With the reunion settled, the Administrator has a drink with the former loan sharks before ending the simulation and putting their souls to rest; it becomes clear that Rita and Dash were in fact apparitions who were briefly revived through Replacer Rook's purification of the Eternium. Afterwards, Sooyeon expresses amazement at the success of the Administrator's experiment, especially since he had to go through the victims' pain and suffering to achieve the results.

Sooyeon later meets with Horizon, now in her original body, and tells the robot about Rita's and Dash's fates. Horizon offered to buy the Eternium dropped by Ministra and Spira as a way to bear responsibility for their deaths but is refused as it is not up for sale. Before she leaves, Horizon asks Sooyeon to notify her if Coffin Company finds Wilbur, who disappeared right after the expedition.

In the final segment, the expedition crew returned safely to the Normalside, and Wilbur was surprised to the Professor waiting for him at the landing zone. Wilbur mocked him and boasted about all the artifacts and eternium he got from the dive, but the Professor showed no interest and was in fact displeased by his former pupil's egotism and materialistic attitude. He then has armed soldiers from ESPR abduct him and kill the rest of the crew before telling him that someone would like to see him.

## Stages

* Act 1
* Act 2
* Act 3
* Act 4
* Hard

And it's always the Council who does the tipping.