Burning the Files

A fine rain fell over the Dragon Wharf.

The few oil lamps still lit near the docks cast small yellow circles swallowed by the mist rolling in from the sea, settling over the uneven cobblestones. Most of the streets, however, remained in utter darkness.

Daniel and his allies approached their destination with caution and silence.

That night, Lais brought up the rear, wearing a long coat over her dress, hood raised to hide her face in shadow, concealing the runes glowing faintly red on her bracelet. Sallustia moved at the traveler’s right hand, face as ever unreadable, her steps noiseless.

Gupta walked slightly hunched, checking the vials fixed into the framework of his gauntlet, a myriad of liquids in aberrant colors sloshing inside. Thanatos, on the other hand, looked as if he wanted to crawl inside himself; his wide eyes and parched lips betrayed that he had not yet recovered from the attack at the marketplace.

“We’re here” Daniel pointed with his cane to a building ahead. “This is the first address.”

The windows on the upper floor had shattered long ago, now boarded up with rough planks. Below, the double steel doors, chained shut with locks and links thick enough to restrain a giant, bore the faded, crooked sign: Northern Routes Mercantile Company.

Daniel studied the façade carefully and quickly noticed something amiss. Despite its apparent state of abandonment, the chains, the lock…

They’re new. Someone’s been using this warehouse. And keeping it shut tight.

No lock, however, could pose much of a challenge to a master thief armed with his picks.

[You attempt to use your lockpicking skill. The level far exceeds any mundane lock. You succeed!]

No sooner had the message from the Gift flashed before his eyes than Grace heard the click, and the lock yielded in his hands. Sallustia and Gupta unwound the chains, removing them from the gate with barely a sound.

Before they entered, however, Lais hissed sharply, drawing everyone’s attention. She raised her right hand and traced runes into the air with swift, precise movements.

Lines of ether flared into existence like glowing cracks, linking themselves to the marks carved into her bracelet. The ground thrummed as the circle of thaumaturgy snapped shut, compressing the air with a dry crack. She whispered three inaudible command words, and the energy swirled into her palm. With a twist of the wrist, the crimson energy condensed into a pulsating globe that she hurled upward.

“There’s much blood in there…” she murmured, studying the floating orb. “Someone’s used the true exchange magic here. And more than that: I sense many living presences… but another spell interferes with my detection. I can’t determine how many.”

“Madame Umbra” Sallustia muttered, barely above a whisper, locking eyes with Daniel.

He nodded once.

The paladin-slave moved fast. Black chains erupted from the floor, weaving upward through the air. At their center, her colossal sword materialized in violet flame and shadowed metal, the weapon humming low like a predator about to strike. With a sharp motion, she gripped the hilt, and the chains shattered, releasing the blade.

The moment they swung open the gates, the stench struck them — metallic, cloying, the breath of death itself. Beneath it lurked another odor, sweeter, sickly, making Sallustia tighten her grip on the weapon until her knuckles blanched.

Lais traced a solitary rune with one finger; her bracelet vibrated, the sigil flaring blue.

The five of them moved inside. What awaited them forced even the battle-hardened to pause.

Light filtered in through the ill-fitted boards above, carving thin stripes across the wooden floor — stripes that fell upon dark stains, and then upon horror.

A slaughterhouse.

Bodies lay strewn across the floor or hung from meat hooks driven into the beams. Men and women, vagrants and workers from the Outer and Middle Rings, exactly as the Beggar King had warned Daniel.

Severed limbs dangled like grotesque ornaments. Heads split open like rotten fruit. Entrails hung in glistening garlands from the rafters. The light of Lais’ rune glinted off blood pooled in uneven pits.

Thanatos vomited instantly.

At the center of the carnage knelt a woman, carving unreadable sigils — unreadable even to a magus like Lais Ambrosio — into her own pallid flesh. Blood streamed freely from her fingertips. Only her face remained covered by a veil of coarse cloth. Long black hair fell across her shoulders, bound in leather strips etched with metallic runes.

Madame Umbra.

Her voice was wrong. Not simply low or raspy — wrong. It carried a layered timbre, as if dozens spoke at once in overlapping cadences. With every word she murmured, the few rays of light daring to enter the charnel house flickered violently in answer.

The syllables belonged to no mortal tongue. The air itself seemed to reject them, vibrating with dissonance, infecting the ears of those who heard with crawling revulsion. Even Lais’ thaumaturgy faltered against that alien incantation, its rhythm warping the surrounding space.

High above, shadows clung to the beams — long, shifting silhouettes stretching toward the woman like carrion birds circling a corpse.

This was no mere slaughter.

This was a ritual.

Umbra raised her gore-soaked hands. For the first time, Daniel had to brace himself against his cane to keep from falling. All outside light died instantly. Only Lais’ blue rune remained, flickering like a cornered flame.

For one heartbeat, the marks carved into Umbra’s flesh revealed their full shape: an enormous eye with a vertical pupil.

“Is she… calling something?” Lais whispered, wide-eyed.

“No! They can’t cross over” Daniel snapped, recalling what The Truth That Is Blind had told him. “Not yet… But she’s feeding them. Or finding a way to bring them through.”

“Bring who?” Gupta demanded, voice shrill, holding up a trembling Thanatos, the fool clawing at his own ears as if the sound alone would drive him mad.

The corpses began to twitch. Thick black fluid bubbled from slack mouths. Eyes rolled in dead sockets.

Umbra turned toward them. The veil hid her face, but violet light burned behind the cloth. Something beneath it writhed, as if trying to break free.

“Intruders…” the voice boomed, a chorus in unholy harmony.

Armed men emerged from the shadows. The same agitators from the market, now wielding short swords instead of clubs, chains still dangling from their wrists. At their head walked Vega.

He wore gilded plate armor reinforced across chest, shoulders, and arms. The breastplate bore a glowing blue crystal at its center, mirrored in the bracers along his forearms. The pauldrons rose high and flared outward, from which a blue cape flowed to his heels. Greaves matched the segmented gold of the rest, the whole suit traced with faint azure lines along its joints, hinting at ceremonial craftsmanship beneath its brutality.

Vega carried his angular horned helm under one arm, the other hand stroking the thick mustache on his patrician face. His eyes held the calm of a man long accustomed to danger.

“Fidenzio Crisci de Lio, Custos Tecit” Vega said flatly. “Obviously a false name. Though, Prebito pays for your head, not your signature.”

“And who you truly are?” Daniel asked.

“My apologies” Vega gave a mocking half-bow. “Domenico Vega, at your service. Or rather, at the service of the Swords tonight. But you understand.”

“Domenico” Grace used the name deliberately, “you do see what’s happening here, don’t you? What this woman is doing? These abominations will doom us all. Or do you have some plan to spend Prebito’s gold after the Empire itself falls?”

Vega shrugged.

“I’ve seen sea-serpents in the northern straits, fought tattooed berserkers in the Éilanthir Isles, killed immortal warriors in the Frozen Wastes, and shot lizard-men cultists through the smoke of the Fire Dunes. This?” he gestured toward the surrounding atrocity. “This is just another day. And if a new millennium war breaks out tomorrow, as you Coins claim… all the better. Demand rises, prices soar. I am, after all, a merchant of war.”

Then he opened his arms. His men charged.

Sallustia moved first.

The paladin-slave spun her greatsword and met the rush head-on, her beastlike fighting style unleashing carnage with each stroke. The first man lost his arm at the shoulder; the second, his chest from collarbone to hip.

Blood sprayed across walls, floor, Sallustia’s own face. She didn’t slow. A kick sent another thug crashing backward into a meat hook — the steel punched through his ribs with a wet crunch.

Daniel blocked a strike with his cane, arms shaking from the impact, then sidestepped, forcing distance as Gupta unleashed a cloud of greenish gas from his gauntlet. The nearest enemy gagged violently, veins bulging before bursting in purple webs across his skin.

Thanatos stumbled back, mute with terror. A mercenary grinned and raised his sword — only to collapse as Daniel clubbed him from behind, smashing the cane into the base of his skull.

“Back, fool! Hide!” Daniel barked, shoving the jester toward cover.

Above, crossbowmen lined the rafters. Sallustia seized a corpse by the ankle and hurled it upward. The body struck two marksmen, knocking them screaming to the floor below.

Vega advanced calmly, stepping between bodies, twin short swords spinning in precise arcs.

Gupta whistled sharply. Sallustia pivoted, intercepting Vega before he reached Daniel. Meanwhile, the alchemist flooded the air with smoke, shrouding himself, Grace, and Thanatos while the remaining thugs coughed and faltered.

“You shouldn’t have come tonight, my dear” Vega said almost politely, mocking bow and all. “I’ve studied your methods. Prepared for them. Shall we?”

From the mist, Gupta lunged, clamping his gauntlet over a mercenary’s face. Yellow fluid hissed out. The man’s skin blistered, then dissolved, skull gleaming wetly through the melting flesh before he collapsed, shrieking into bubbling froth.

Thanatos curled behind Lais, who carved runes desperately into the air. Small explosions crackled around Madame Umbra, but the witch ignored them, hands raised skyward, chanting on.

“Damn it! I can’t hit her!” Lais spat, then froze as Umbra turned toward her.

The veiled woman leapt — no, folded — backward into herself, body bending at impossible angles before bursting apart into a murder of blood-streaked crows. The flock erupted through a shattered window and vanished into the storm.

“She’s gone!” Lais swore, fury twisting her features. But there were other problems.

Vega closed on Sallustia, blades flashing with measured precision. He fought like a man used to killing quickly: long, controlled arcs aiming for throat, gut, joints.

Sallustia met him blow for blow, purple fire wreathing her greatsword. Sparks lit their faces as steel screamed against steel.

Vega pressed harder, twin swords hammering at her guard. She yielded ground, then lunged back, raining heavy strikes until one split his pauldron with a screech of tearing metal.

He snarled, stabbing low. She leapt aside, her riposte shearing half his shoulder-plate away. Blood darkened the gold beneath.

With a roar, Vega raised both blades overhead. Too slow. Sallustia spun, driving her greatsword straight through the gap in his armor.

He staggered. She tore the weapon free in a shower of gore, then swung again, severing both his hands at the wrists. The swords clattered to the floor.

Vega fell to his knees, breath ragged, as Sallustia leveled her blade at his chest, eyes hard as iron.

Above, the remaining marksmen loosed their volley.

“Shields!” Lais shouted.

Daniel grabbed Thanatos and dove through a window. Sallustia kicked Vega’s twitching body aside, sprinting after Gupta as he bolted for the gate.

Freed of Umbra’s interference, Lais unleashed her full power. A crimson sphere blossomed above the ritual circle, swelling like a newborn sun —

— and fell.

The warehouse vanished in fire.

Walls, roof, men, screams — all dissolved in the blast. Heat stripped flesh from bone before the shockwave hurled bodies into collapsing beams. Vega’s death-cry cut off as the ceiling crushed him in burning rubble.

Outside, Daniel slammed into a stone wall, ears ringing. Thanatos shrieked nearby. Lais dropped to her knees, soot-streaked and trembling, but alive.

When the smoke thinned, only smoldering ruin remained. Charred meat crackled among blackened beams. Sallustia stood drenched in blood and ash, chest heaving. Gupta leaned against a wall, gauntlet dripping poison and rainwater alike.

Thanatos shivered uncontrollably, staring at what scraps remained of men — and pieces no longer recognizable as such. He retched again, empty, until nothing but bile came up.

Daniel clenched his cane until his knuckles ached.

No documents. No clues. Nothing left but fire and death.

And the certainty that, from this night onward, Castra Devana’s game had turned lethal.