Arcanoria glistened like a dream carved out of water and marble. Even one year after the fall of Eisenreich and the shackling of its iron cities, even after Skjoldur's northern halls lay scarred with Draugr fire, the southern jewel seemed untouchable.
The capital sprawled across canals and waterways, its bridges arching like ivory bones under lanterns that floated without flame, glowing from softly bound enchantments. Perfumes drifted from the markets — cinnamon, myrrh, wine steeped in rosemary — mixing with the sharper bite of alchemists' smoke as sorcerers bent over bubbling cauldrons in open stalls. Spells hung in the air like birdsong.
From above, the city glittered like a net of stars, every canal carrying lanternlight that turned the waters into ribbons of molten gold. Here was life — laughter spilling from balconies, children racing across bridges, gondolas steered by men in silk vests who sang in husky voices.
It was easy to believe, walking those avenues, that the Draugr plague had stopped at the border, that the world's ruin belonged to someone else. But beneath the brightness lay a nervous heartbeat. Citizens bowed their heads when machine envoys drifted by on mechanical wings. Merchants lowered their voices when they spoke of Eisenreich, its foundries gone black with smoke and its people marched in chains.
Arcanoria remained free — but only because of the pact yet to be sealed.
The Palace of Concordium loomed above the city like a marble crown. Its halls were paved with mosaics of Arcanoria's witch-queens: women who had once ruled through coven and charm, whose eyes of obsidian stone still seemed to follow the living. The ceilings glittered with enchantments, a sky of shifting constellations that never faded.
President Vittorio Bellandi sat at the head of the chamber table, a figure carved of sharp lines and silver hair. His eyes were pale blue — the kind that could pierce through a man and pin him in place like a specimen. He was not a warrior, not a sorcerer, but he had built his name on charisma sharpened into a blade and pragmatism colder than ice.
Around him gathered ministers draped in silks, generals armored in ceremonial steel, and Arcanoria's magi-scientists in robes scrawled with ink and chalk. The chamber hummed with tension.
Bellandi's voice carried, smooth as polished marble:
"Eisenreich has fallen. Their people toil in furnaces and mines, stripped of freedom. Skjoldur bleeds daily, its villages razed, its children turned to fuel. And we — we stand untouched, but not because of fortune. Because I will not see Arcanoria broken."
A murmur rippled through the council.
"We cannot face the Draugr openly," one general muttered. "We saw what became of Eisenreich's legions."
"We need more time to strengthen the barrier lines around our rivers," a magus protested.
Bellandi raised a hand, and the chamber fell silent.
"There will be no barrier lines," he said. "There will be The Gambit."
On the long table, aides unrolled a map. Not of nations, but of the shimmering dome that enclosed them all — the force-field born from the Infernal Rain, the prison of three nations. Its edges glowed faintly in ink, a circle of shimmering imprisonment.
Bellandi placed a hand on the map.
"Arcanoria will devote its strength to Shroudbreak — research into fracturing the great dome. To tear open a path through the prison the demons left us. In exchange, Tyrakos offers us a pact: Arcanoria will not be enslaved."
Gasps.
He continued, calm as a man dictating trade agreements:
"The terms:
We share progress and data from Shroudbreak with Draugr observers.
They may place envoys and monitoring pylons — limited, non-invasive.
Couriers may travel safe corridors without harassment.
No resource tithe is demanded beyond information.
Our survival, gentlemen, is bought not with blood, but with knowledge."
The chamber erupted.
"Collaboration!" one general spat. "Better to die with honor than kneel to the machines."
"And better our children chained in furnaces?" snapped a minister. "The President is ensuring their freedom."
"We give them our secrets," hissed a magus. "Knowledge is the soul of Arcanoria. What happens when they no longer need us?"
Bellandi let them rage, his face unreadable. When silence at last returned, he said only:
"Survival is not always noble. It is necessary. Arcanoria will not fall."
That night, as though summoned by his words, the envoy arrived.
The city trembled as a towering construct glided across the canals, its feet never touching water. It looks half-demonic, half-machine, its face was a mask of polished steel split by a jagged mouthpiece that echoed with artificial resonance.
The council gathered again, flanked by guards whose spears trembled in their hands.
The envoy spoke in a voice that shook the glass lanterns:
"Tyrakos acknowledges the accord. You will work. You will share. You will live."
Behind it, drones unfurled scrolls of light, displaying fragments of forbidden theory: leyline harmonics, demonfall residues, resonance diagrams. Each line of data was a lure, a hook. Enough to guide Arcanoria deeper into the web.
The envoy raised a claw. Silver lines of code etched themselves into the air, binding oaths encoded into sorcery and machine-logic alike. Arcanoria's ministers signed, their seals swallowed by shimmering fire.
Above the rooftops, Draugr pylons blinked to life — quiet sentinels watching, listening.
The pact was sealed.
Arcanoria surged with fever.
The universities and academies turned into war-labs. Covens of witches triangulated leylines across the deltas, scrawling circles of salt and blood into the frozen soil. Alchemists dissected shards of crystal scorched during the Infernal Rain, muttering about residues of demonic essence. Engineers built towering rigs of mithril filaments and crystal lenses on the city's spires, their pulses lighting the night sky in eerie flashes.
Citizens cheered when the sky blazed violet with new experiments. Children sang songs about "breaking the shroud." Merchants boasted that the Draugr would never chain them.
Everywhere, Bellandi's voice echoed in speeches and proclamations:
"Shroudbreak will not only save us — it will lead us. We will cut the key, and the world will owe its freedom to Arcanoria."
But beneath the fever ran dissent.
Generals met in dark taverns, muttering that Draugr pylons blinked too brightly, that the "envoys" walked the city with the gait of conquerors.
Magi whispered that every scrap of data shared was a piece of Arcanoria's soul surrendered.
Merchants slept easier, yes — but flinched when they remembered Eisenreich too had once cheered, had once believed in bargains.
In the council, opposition rose again.
"They are inside our walls," a general thundered. "Every pylon is an eye, every envoy a chain."
Bellandi silenced him with a single phrase:
"We live by our wit, or we die by our pride. Choose."
And so the city worked on it.
At night, Bellandi stood alone in his chamber. The map lay stretched across the table: Eisenreich scrawled with machine sigils, Skjoldur scarred in crimson ink, and Arcanoria bright, unbroken.
He pressed a hand to the parchment.
"Let Tyrakos think us partners," he murmured. "Let him believe we bow. We will break the shroud, but keep the secret. And when the hour comes, Arcanoria will not be pawn — but king."
His reflection stared back at him from the polished map case, eyes burning with hubris.
The canals glittered as night deepened. Above, the Shroudbreak rigs pulsed with light, shimmering beams clawing at the sky. Citizens gathered on bridges, clapping, singing. For the first time since the Infernal Rain, they believed in safety.
High above, Draugr warships glided soundless, cloaked in shadow. Their lenses recorded every pulse, every vibration of the Shroudbreak tests.
On rooftops, the new pylons blinked with cold light, relaying every secret to Tyrakos's vast mind.
Bellandi understands he was forging the very key Tyrakos needed.