Out of the frying pan...

[Albert Wesker]

The journey with the Gorons had been...enlightening, to say the least of it. Many days, in a landscape that seemed entirely too happy to leave whatever tried to make a living upon it into charred husks and blanket them in a tomb of ash and freshly-vomited molten earth. The hardy creatures he had journeyed with, seemingly made of literal organic rock, had been wellsprings of useful information about it...they had been wellsprings of information about it, once he had earned their trust.

Not a small task, but after trekking across the blasted lands and helping avert many unpleasant encounters with the local wildlife, among other tasks, he had slowly wormed his way into gaining a place among them. The grudging tolerance gradually gave way to acceptance, and then lost all traces of its former hostility and suspicion. Anyone who would walk with them, with no real reason other than professed gratitude for shelter at an inopportune time for traveling, couldn't be all bad.

The poor, deluded little creatures...rocks for brains, they must have had. So easy to slip right in among them, and gain a steady source of reliable information, and shelter, if he should ever return to that ashen wasteland again.

Upon reaching their destination, they had been quick to joyously set up their dwellings again. In an underground cavern this time, where it was much cooler and there was abundant water from an underground river that burst through a wall. It formed a broad, shallow pool, draining through cracks in a shadowy wall far off. The entire affair was lit surprisingly well by growths of crystal jutting from the walls and ceiling overhead, glowing in hues of green and blue. It gave the place an eerie glow, especially when the deep red blaze of Goron lanterns was introduced to the fray.

A day of rest and recovery passed, before the Umbrella executive decided it was time to continue on his road. He took ample time to collect and store his gathered notes and information, memorizing and deleting what he could. The less of it he actively carried, the less of it he could lose in the event of some unforeseen strike of chaos. His supplies and equipment were seen to next, repairing his attire and procuring a fresh set for when he had exited this gods-forsaken volcano-scape. Finally, it came time for directions: back to the gate he had used to arrive here in the first place.

Directions were hard to come by, with such an indistinct horizon to follow, as the Gorons told him. But they provided him with an item that should be of assistance. A compass, of sturdy Goron manufacture. Calibrated and tweaked to hold steady and true, even in this chaotic landscape. The constant upheavals of land and rearrangement of subtle magnetic fields wouldn't disturb it. It was honed in to always point toward Death Mountain; at one point because it had been their home, now because it was a place to avoid at all costs. That, and...it was still a good landmark.

With the needle pointing toward Death Mountain assuming North, the gate back to the Nexus would be South-Southwest.

Those directions firmly in mind, he departed from the company of the burly boulder people, taking with him only the compass he'd been given and a single other item; a trophy, fashioned from a drake's skull. Somewhat ostentatious and...morbid, but it was an amusing specimen to have, given what his original plans had been. He would find a purpose for it, that was of no doubt.

The trek toward the gate was...as unpleasant as going anywhere else among the lava fields were. Countless hours, which stretched into a day and more, of frantic scrambling and marching over the blackened, cracked world. A huge fissure in the earth presented an irritatingly massive obstacle, taking nearly a full day to manage getting around it. Beyond there, the journey to the gate was uneventful, aside from its pervasive unpleasantness.

Leaving the Ashen Steppes behind him and returning to the blank expanse of the Nexus was a breath of fresh air -- literally as well as figuratively. Several minutes were simply spent relishing in the far more bearable temperature, before beginning the process of summoning another vehicle to get them underway, and offer some privacy so that he could begin changing into his newly-repaired uniform. Much more sturdy and suited to traveling and field work, this time. His usual suit and formal wear would need to wait until he had a place better suited to long-term habitation and settling into.

"So tell me, boss...where exactly are we headed to now?" The voice of Agent HUNK snapped the despoiled god out of his wandering thoughts and back to the present. "Hopefully somewhere less face-meltingly awful. I'd like to leave the lava to the cheesy movie deathtraps and ancient temples."

"Perhaps we should simple choose the most foreboding exit from this...Nexus," Wesker mused, carefully cleaning the dust and lingering ash from his sunglasses. "...see what fresh new adventure it will lead us to."

"Actively go looking for trouble," HUNK stated dryly. "There's no way that could go wrong."

"Well, I suppose we'll just have to see, won't we?" There was a faint smile on the face of the crazed would-be-deity as he slowly slid his shades into place over his eyes. "Maybe if we actively look for trouble, we'll find something much less life-threatening, hmm?"

"...yeah. Maybe." The security officer's tone spoke volumes about his thoughts on the subject, as he directed the summoned conveyance at a pace somewhere just below 'as fast as it could physically go' through the Nexus, cutting a path right toward the absolute shittiest of the gates he could make out. Old stone, all worn out and depressed looking; covered in moss and unnatural growths of plant-life in colors too dark, dead and gray to ever be natural. Aside from the one busy looking like the devil's smoking pipe, it seemed the most likely to ratchet the 'this sucks' dial up the highest.