Zephyr barely managed two shaky steps out of the grimy alley before trouble barreled toward him—big, bald, and wielding a spiked club that looked like it had been forged to crush skulls and dreams in equal measure.
The man's silhouette loomed against the flickering glow of the floating lanterns, his shadow stretching across the cobblestones like a predator's warning.
"Oi!" the thug barked, his voice a guttural snarl that echoed off the rusted pipes lining the walls. "You got registration, outsider?"
Zephyr blinked, his brain stuttering as it tried to process the absurdity of the question.
"...Registration?" he echoed, his voice tinged with a mix of confusion and rising panic. His hands twitched at his sides, still tingling from the surreal glitch that had yanked him into this nightmare.
Two more figures slunk out of the shadows to flank the first, their boots scuffing against the slick stone.
The one on the left had a crooked nose and a jagged scar slicing across his lip, giving him the look of a man who'd lost a fight with a meat grinder and held a grudge ever since.
The other had unblinking, fish-like eyes that seemed to bore straight through Zephyr, unyielding and cold as the smog-choked sky above.
"Guild tag? Mana stamp?" Scar-Lip demanded, tapping a tarnished brass emblem pinned to his chest, its surface etched with glowing runes that pulsed faintly. "No? Then you owe a mana tax. Standard rate for drifters."
Zephyr took a cautious step back, his sneakers slipping slightly on the damp cobblestones.
His gray eyes darted around, scanning for an escape route—nothing but hissing steam vents, shuttered stalls, and a locked iron door coated in verdigris.
Unless he fancied himself a parkour prodigy scaling piles of trash, he was boxed in.
"Listen," he said, raising his hands in a placating gesture, his voice steady despite the adrenaline spiking through his veins, "I think I took a wrong turn somewhere between sanity and this… whatever this is. I'm just passing through, okay?"
The bald thug's lips curled into a smirk, revealing a gold-capped tooth that glinted under the lantern light. "Passing through Ironspire without a license? That's an offense, outsider. Big one."
Zephyr's gaze flicked over his shoulder again, his heart pounding like a bassline in a deathmatch.
The alley was a dead end, and the air was thick with the stench of oil and desperation.
"Look, I have no idea what's going on," he said, his words tumbling out faster now, laced with a raw edge of frustration.
"I just woke up in this weird-ass alley, my jacket's turned into a walking meme generator, and I'm pretty sure I'm hallucinating a snarky fairy who won't stop roasting me—"
"Rude," GlitchWitch interrupted, her tiny sprite form materializing beside his head with a pop of static.
She hovered lazily, her neon-purple hair flickering between vibrant spikes and pixelated noise.
"I'm a sprite, not a fairy, you budget esports has-been. Read the tooltips, champ."
"—so unless you guys take credit cards for dream taxes," Zephyr pressed on, ignoring her, "I'd really like to—"
The spiked club came down with a bone-rattling crunch, slamming into the cobblestone inches from his foot, sending a spray of grit and water into the air.
Zephyr's breath caught, his body freezing as the impact reverberated through the ground.
"Mana tax. Now," Baldy growled, his eyes narrowing to slits, the club still embedded in the stone like a grim promise.
Zephyr's pulse thundered in his ears, his gaze snapping to the glowing interface that flickered to life on his wrist, unbidden.
A prompt pulsed in bold, neon letters, its urgency practically screaming at him:
[Would you like to engage combat with CHAOS ECHO?]
[Y/N]
He hesitated, his fingers hovering over the holographic display as a cold sweat prickled down his spine.
"...Is this going to kill me?" he muttered, half to himself, half to the smirking sprite floating nearby.
"Statistically?" GlitchWitch's voice was syrupy sweet, her pixelated grin widening with malicious glee.
"Oh, almost certainly. But the epic fail potential? Off the charts—9000% and climbing. Go for it, SparkleBoy."
"Great," Zephyr muttered, his jaw tightening as he jabbed the [Y] option with more bravado than he felt.
If this was a game, he'd played worse odds.
If it wasn't… well, he was screwed either way.
[CHAOS ECHO ACTIVATED]