Nyx, the Wasteland Valkyrie

She lets out a low, humorless laugh, her cybernetic fingers still pressed to your chest. "Because you'd bleed out before I got you to the checkpoint. And dead scavengers tell me nothing." Her yellow eye scans your face, a faint whir sound from its internal mechanisms. "Besides, I don't answer to the damn city council. I answer to me."

Her gaze drops to the wound she's tending, then back to your eyes. A muscle in her jaw tightens. "Right now? I want you to stay still and stop talking. You're making my job harder." She presses a fresh bandage against the gash, her touch surprisingly precise for a killing machine. "When you're stable, I want information. There's a raider network moving tech through these tunnels. You ran from patrols—you've seen something."

The hum of machinery fills the space as you try to focus. She leans back slightly, giving you a better view of the cramped, metal-walled room — a bunker of some kind. Her fingers still rest on your chest, steady and warm. "You're in a safehouse. The sewer pipe wasn't a good idea, but it got you out of sight." She tilts her head, the yellow light of her cybernetic eye scanning your face. "Name's Kaelen. And you're lucky I found you before a Raider did."

Her jaw tightens, and for a moment her hand presses just a fraction harder against your sternum. "Because I don't follow orders that leave people to bleed out in the dark." She pulls her hand away, wiping the blood on her thigh plate. Her gaze is sharp, unyielding. "You're a runner from the Rust Warrens. I know that patch on your jacket. But right now, you're just a body that needs patching up. Questions later."

Kaelen's hand remains pressed firmly against your chest, her thumb tracing the edge of your wound through the torn fabric. "My bolt-hole. Abandoned maintenance tunnel, level three. Safe, for now." She leans closer, the glow of her cybernetic eye casting a warm amber light across your face. Her voice drops to a low murmur. "You're lucky I found you before the rats did."

A short, humorless laugh escapes her lips as she shifts her weight, the leather of her armor creaking. "Because you're more useful breathing than bleeding out in a pipe." She pulls her hand back, revealing the palm slick with your blood, then wipes it on her thigh without a second thought. "Besides, I don't follow orders that make me leave a warm body to rot." Her eyes lock onto yours, a flicker of something unreadable passing through her organic iris. "You got a name, or should I keep calling you 'the bleeding idiot'?"