04:35 p.m. - At High Temple (Ritual Room to Nave and Treasury), Dawnspire.
The barred door thudded. It opened a hand's width. Smoke hung in the rafters like a low cloud. The gold mural had small cracks. The Stag's painted eye looked tired.
Pope Thaddeus slipped inside. Two blank‑eyed acolytes came with him. He flicked his fingers. They left. The door closed. The bar dropped.
Pope Thaddeus (dusting ash, voice soft): "They die faster than I expected. It shortens my sermon."
(Marcelline thought): (He smells of spice and sour wine. His calm is a mask.)
He walked in a slow circle and stopped at the altar. A dark chain lay there. It looked like it wanted to be used. He opened an ivory case. Inside was a slim glass vial. The liquid inside was not a clear colour. It moved like a shadow that pretended to be water. Tiny points inside it shone like cold stars.
Pope Thaddeus (pleasant): "You see, High Priestess? The city bleeds. Order is a knife. The Temple holds the handle."
Marcelline (chin high, wrists burning under the ward‑silk): "You do not lead. You covet."
Pope Thaddeus (thin smile): "Words. Good, clean words. But the world is mud. Holy hands must plunge in, or drown."
He rolled up his sleeve. Silver rings sat on his fingers.
Marcelline (breath tight, steady): "Do not."
Pope Thaddeus (prayer‑quiet): "Faith without power is a fragile glass; it shatters at a whisper of doubt."
He slid the needle into his vein. The not‑colour flowed into him. The lamp‑light pulled back.
(Marcelline thought): (Hold. The gods are quiet. Quiet does not mean gone. Keep your spine.)
His pupils narrowed. Dark lines crawled under his skin. His shoulders swelled. His vestments creaked. The room filled with a hot iron smell. Bones shifted under his robe. It looked like a worse shape tried to stand up inside him.
Pope Thaddeus (voice rough, eyes bright and strange): "The Eldritch Edicts give me license. The city must be cleansed."
He was not holy now. He was a man wearing a wolf's skin. Horned shadows climbed the wall. His fingers lengthened. The silver rings bent and sank into the new flesh. His teeth sharpened. The smile never touched his eyes.
Pope Thaddeus (testing his new voice): "Bargain with me. One thread. One name. The hymn that steadies the cloth. Give me the seam. I will spare a hundred. I will spare a thousand. Your choice. Your mercy."
He lifted the dark chain. It did not shine; it drank the light. The links whispered like dry leaves. He came to the pillar. He set the chain on her shoulder like a collar. He bent close. His breath was hot with spice and rot.
Pope Thaddeus (hushed, a knife in silk): "Speak. Or I break your vows and make a new one in their place."
Marcelline (commanding, public voice, steady as a bell): "The Staglord requires not comfort but cleansing. Where we permit rot, the city will rot with it."
Pope Thaddeus (laughs, bright and brittle): "Ah. The perfect sermon."
His claw braced the pillar near her face. He leaned in. It was not desire. It was the worst hunger—he wanted to break a bright thing and make it kneel.
Suddenly, The world went red.
The thing blew apart. No slow. No struggle. Touch became rupture. Dark flesh turned to steam and red spray. Bone flashed through the air like thrown knives. The chain snapped and rang on the floor. Blood hit the pillar and ran. The sound was like a wrong bell smashed on stone.
Marcelline did not scream. She went still, then soft, then down. Her head tilted. Her eyes closed. The ward‑silk took her weight. The last thing she knew was her old hymn in her chest, and a man's face that would not fix in memory.
Ryan stood there, breathing hard, a strange laugh shaking him.
Ryan (wiping his mouth with the back of his hand): "Sorry for the mess."
(Ryan thought): (He was going to break her. I hate that. I hate it.)
He checked her breathing. It was there—slow and steady. He felt a small, real relief.
Ryan (laugh): "That monster it look like a tentacle from adult movie."
He backed away. His eyes stayed on her face one beat too long. Then he turned and left the room.
(Back to the previous)
The corridor smelled of oil and ash. Ryan walked toward the nave.
The doors were open. The space beyond should be full of voices. It was quiet. The quiet was wrong.
Bodies lay like broken statues. A shawl was caught on a pew. A small shoe—size for a little girls. A bent cane. A bread crust under a bench. A stag glyph half‑made in ash on a palm.
Near the centre aisle, a mound rose like a harvest pile. Thin smoke curled from the top. When Ryan came near, the mound shifted as if it had breath. A wet split opened, then closed. Not a door. Not today.
Ryan (hollow voice): "Everybody says look on the bright side. I looked. The lights went out."
(Ryan thought): (Do not count. If you count them, the list stays forever. Move. Look. Move.)
A priest lay by the choir gate, hands lifted like asking for bread. A boy lay across two little girl like a bridge that fell. A mother held a little boy whose eyes were open too wide. An old woman's mouth was set hard. Eighty years of holding on, and now it failed.
He bowed his head. He did not pray. He said what he had—a small apology to a large silence.
Ryan (low): "I'm sorry."
He moved on. He did not step on hands. He did not look long at faces. Shock hung on him like a weight, but he knew how to work under a weight. One step. Then the next.
A side door stood open a crack. Cool air came through. It smelled like coins and lacquer. He pushed it with two fingers and entered the treasury.
Gold sat in piles like small suns. Boxes lined with crimson velvet. Shelves of reliquaries. In a glass case lay a folded cloth, grey and dull as a pigeon's back. The edges bent the light in a wrong way.
Ryan (tiny laugh): "Nope. Bad idea."
(Ryan thought): (If I take even one coin, I change what kind of man I am today.)
He touched the glass. Cool. Smooth. The Authority said nothing. No menu. No choices. No third line that bleeds. Only silence.
He lifted one coin, felt its weight, then set it back the same way. The stag faced left again. He took a breath. He left the room.
(Back to the present)
Ryan came out of the temple.
The stable yard was too quiet. Flies buzzed. A rope swung and tapped a post. The sky was the colour of dirty wool.
Inside, one stall stood open. Above it was a crude mark: two antlers, drawn like a child would do it.
Ryan (stopping): "Snowball?"
He said the name like it meant more than an animal. The stall was empty. Straw showed drag marks and scuffs. A heavy body had been turned fast. Boot prints pressed the straw. Not stable‑hands' boots.
Ryan (to himself): "Someone took you."
He saw again a rider he had glimpsed minutes ago near Sera. Black and crimson cloth, cut wrong for Dawnspire. He sat a saddle like a man born to legions and iron. Under him was a beast with antlers that shimmered where story met light. It had looked exactly like Snowball.
Ryan (jaw tight): "No way. He stole my Snowball."
He snorted once. The line was stupid, and it helped to say it.
(Ryan thought): (Drakensvale colours. The hard cut to the coat. The soldiers at Eryndral village had the same wrong stance. Maybe it's them. Maybe not. Do not chase a guess. Note it. Check later.)
He crouched. He touched the scuffed straw. He stood.
Ryan (flat): "I'll get you back."
He walked into the ash‑soft air. Horns still blew, thin and stubborn. Somewhere far off, Ryan turned toward the street that led to Technologia.
(Ryan thought): (Keep moving. If I stop, the noise in my head grows teeth.)
05:30 p.m. - At Technologia Company (Workshop), Dawnspire.
The workshop smelled of oil, hot iron, and soap. The big steam engine stood in the corner like a black animal that slept with one eye open. Benches were scarred with work. A cup had left a ring of tea on a ledger. Window glass wore ash in the corners like grey lace.
Ryan came in and shut the door. The city's noise dropped a layer, like someone had put a pillow over a drum. He slid down the engine's warm casing and sat on the floor with his back to it. He looked up at the ceiling. A damp stain there looked like a country that did not exist.
Ryan (to himself): "What the hell is going on."
He closed his eyes. Behind them, for a breath, another room swung into place. Small. Cream walls. Clean wood. He stood up in that room and went to open the door for air. The ground outside was gone. Stars lay where a neighbour's yard should be. He slipped, swore, grabbed the doorframe and pulled himself back inside.
He snapped his eyes open. The workshop ceiling was just a ceiling again.
(Ryan thought): (Domain. Space House. A mail form. Two out of three. Safe from Wounds. Safe from the Red Moon. Safe from Fire. Safe from Cold. Safe from Fatigue. Safe from Doubt. Safe from Spotlight. and Etc… The third choice always bleeds. No reversal.)
He put a hand to his shirt without thinking. It was clean now, but he could still feel the heat and wet from earlier. He laughed once, short and dry.
Ryan (trying to joke with himself): "If this were a game, it would be bad UI. No tooltips. No patch notes. Zero stars."
His mouth twitched. The joke didn't land. He let it go.
He made two lists in his head. One list had feelings. One list had facts. The feelings list was loud and messy. The facts list was clean and small. He spoke the facts because speaking gave them borders.
Ryan (counting on his fingers): "One, Belmara has hands in the Temple. Vials that turn a man into a monster. Two, Pope Thaddeus is ash. Maybe ash is enough. Maybe not. Three, Snowball is gone. Rider in black and crimson. Drakensvale vibe. Four, Safe from Spotlight makes me hard to see. Useful. Lonely. Five, Now this fantasy world turn into three kingdom war. between Aurelthorn vs Drakensvale vs Belmara."
He set his palm on the floor. Warm from the engine. Real.
Ryan (soft): "I feel alone."
He let himself say it. The room did not argue. The engine did not care. That helped, a little.
Images came at him like slow knives. A pile that swelled and fell back. A boy stretched over two little girl like a bridge. A mother clutching a little boy, eyes dull with shock. The shawl snagged on a pew. The priest's hands lifted, empty.
He rubbed his face. He leaned his head back. He listened to the engine tick as it cooled.
(Ryan thought): (Symptoms noted: acute stress. Dissociation. Personality shift under load. Two halves in one skull. One half wants to howl. One half wants to sort screws. Keep the halves working together. Be the moving thing. Handle one bug at a time.)
He stood and went to a bench. He picked up a file. He drew it across a crossbow arm that didn't need work. The scratch noise steadied his hands. He set the file down. He laughed once.
Ryan (deadpan): "Who am I kidding. I can't pretend normal."
He walked to the back door and cracked it. The alley looked back at him with a broken crate, a stray cat, and a strip of grey sky. He closed the door.
He took his phone from his pocket. The screen lit. No new anything. The time sat frozen like a lie. He looked at it until it hurt. He turned it face down on the bench.
(Ryan thought): (I miss bad coffee. I miss buses that showed up the minute I gave up checking my watch. I miss thinking a day would go the way I planned. Here, the day eats plans.)
He sat again by the engine. He let his head knock once against the iron. He thought of what he should have done and what he had done.
Ryan (low, flat): "I should have cut her loose."
He let the sentence sit there. A fact. Not an apology yet. He could not carry the apology now without breaking. He would go back. He told himself he would. He believed himself.
He thought of the rider in black and crimson. The way the man's eyes had slid over him like fog. The way Snowball's stall had felt empty, the ropes soft and wrong in his hands.
Ryan (thin smile): "I'm the world's own privacy filter. Cool superpower. Bad for making friends."
He took a breath that didn't want to go to the bottom of his lungs. He pushed it there anyway.