The Academy's undercroft auction halls reeked of desperation and dragon dust—polished marble floors etched with bid-runes, air humming with the afterglow of resonance trades. Dylan Voss slunk through the throng like a shadow audit, wyrm-blood still crusted on his boots from the Roost. The heart-core shards had fragmented clean in the frenzy: 1,200 favors tallied, a micro-fortune in favors, copper, and patched prayers. His hedge ballooned—debts zeroed, assets stacking like compound interest on a god's gamble. But solvency was a siren's song; the global rate had crashed to nine heartbeats per cycle, reality's pulse ragged from the wyrm's default. Dylan's thirteen? A forced march, whispers from the syllabus gnawing at the edges.
He ducked into a alcove off the main floor, the crowd's roar muffled to a debtor's murmur. Bids still echoed from the central dais: "Nine hundred for shard three—leyline stabilizer!" "Guild claim on ventral bonds!" The Valerian woman's voice cut sharp earlier, her sixty bid swallowed by the surge, but her eyes—gold-flecked daggers—had promised payback. Bounty active: fifty micro-favors base, compounding hourly. Public dragonslayer? More like public piñata.
A system box materialized, flickering like a bad receipt.
**[AUCTION YIELD PROCESSED: Heart-Core Shards (1,200 Total Favors).]**
**Assets Deposited: 800 Micro-Favors (Liquid) | 300 Copper Equivalents | 100 Prayer-Patches (Church-Backed).**
**Debt Update: Syllabus Whisper (Escalating – Compounding at 2% per Hour). Yield: Draconic Terms (Unreadable).**
**New Notification: Ally Ping – Debt-Shadow Contact. Location: Underforge Cantina. Intent: Leverage Share.**
**Warning: Bounty Hunters Dispatched (Valerian Charter – 3x Active Contracts).**
"Ally?" Dylan muttered, cynical lip curling. In Resonance Economics, allies were just co-signers on your noose. But a ping from the shadows? Better than soloing the retaliation. He palmed a fresh resonance-crystal—scrap from Basement Zero, etched with his thirteen-beat ward—and slipped into the service tunnels. The undercroft's veins: pipes groaning with mana-loans, walls tagged with foreclosure graffiti. *F-rank ate a wyrm. World's ending? Nah, just interest.*
The Underforge Cantina squatted at the tunnels' nadir—a dive for the overdrawn, lit by forge-glow and the occasional spark of bartered spells. Dylan pushed through the beaded mana-curtain, the air thick with ale that tasted like regret and smoke from half-tuned forges. Patrons hunched over tables: E-rank scrappers nursing favor-bonds, a D-rank seer peddling future-glimpses for a 20% cut. No cameras here. No gods. Just the grind.
The ally ping tugged him to a corner booth, shrouded in debt-veils—illusory fog that blurred edges for a micro-fee. A figure waited: lean, hooded, aura flickering like a hedged bet. Not Valerian silk; roughspun, scarred with resonance burns. The hood lifted as Dylan slid in, revealing a woman—mid-twenties, eyes sharp as audit blades, a faint scar tracing her jaw like a bounced check's edge.
"Voss," she said, voice low, accented with the clipped burr of outer spires. "Elara Ketch. Debt-shadow runner. You framed the House on live feed—clutch-crack leak? Bold. Stupid. Profitable." She slid a tankard across: dark brew, fizzing with micro-thunder residue. "Drink. It's on the yield."
Dylan eyed it, then her. Cynical rule two: free drinks accrue interest. But the ping was legit—system-vetted. He sipped; it burned clean, thirteen-beat sync holding. "Runner? You traffic whispers? Or just the fallout?"
"Both." Elara leaned in, veil shimmering. "Saw your Roost play. Ch.17 recon, Ch.18 gambit—barter, disrupt, inherit. Classic loop. But the syllabus whisper? That's new debt. Draconic fine print. I run shadows for hunters who bite off more than they hedge." She tapped her temple; a faint glow, like internalized assets. "Got a line on Valerian retaliation. Three hunters: Gritch the Enforcer (D-rank brute, favor-crusher), Syl the Seer (C-rank, future-bets), and Vex (B-rank ghost, betrayal specialist). Contracts compound at 5%—your head's worth a clutch-fix by dawn."
Dylan leaned back, tankard halfway. The whispers stirred—syllabus terms flickering unreadable: *Scales for syllabus. Audit the auditor.* "And your angle, Ketch? Co-sign my noose for a cut?"
She smirked, scar twisting. "Alliance, not charity. Fifty-fifty on the retaliation yield. I feed you shadows—their paths, debts, weak bonds. You leverage the kill. We split the bounties reversed: they pay us to default." Her hand emerged, palm up: a micro-asset token, etched with a shadow-rune. *Debt-Shadow Favor: 1x Path Insight.*
The system pinged softly.
**[ALLY OFFER: Elara Ketch – Shadow Runner.]**
**Terms: 50/50 Yield Share on Valerian Contracts. Asset: Path Insight (3x Hunter Tracks).**
**Debt: 1x Co-Sign (If Breached, Shared Audit).**
**Yield Potential: +200 Micro-Favors (Bounty Flip).**
Dylan weighed it—cynical calculus. Solo, he'd outbid the hunters with storm-residual and scale-portfolio. But allies compounded faster. "Accepted. But hedge it: if you ghost, betrayal asset eats your shadow."
"Deal." The token merged with his crystal, paths lighting up: Gritch barreling from east gates (heart-bond heavy, slow), Syl weaving futures in the spires (overdrawn on glimpses), Vex slinking tunnels (betrayal yield high, but echo-vulnerable). "First mark: Gritch. He's crude—crushes favors like eggs. Hits the cantina in thirty. We frame him defaulting on his own contract."
The cantina door banged open then—too soon, interest impatient. Gritch filled the frame: seven feet of slabbed muscle, aura a blunt hammer of D-rank force. Patrons scattered like loose change; the barkeep paled, ledger-scroll trembling. "Voss," Gritch rumbled, eyes debt-red. "Valerian price: scalp you, claim the core-shards residue. Pay up—your favors, or your pulse."
Elara's veil thickened, shadows coiling. Dylan stood slow, heartbeat thirteen syncing to the brute's thudding eight. "Price? Auction's closed, meat. But hey, counter-offer: default on your charter. I audit your bonds—free."
Gritch laughed, a quake that rattled tankards. He lunged, fist crackling with crush-resonance—raw force, no finesse, 15% recoil tax ignored in the swing. Dylan sidestepped, betrayal micro-asset flaring: it twisted the brute's footing, path insight marking the weak bond (overleveraged favor from a minor guild). "Elara—shadow his ledger."
She moved like smoke, rune-hand slashing air. Debt-veils parted, exposing Gritch's aura-core: bonds frayed, 20% interest buried. "Audit," she whispered, and the cantina's runes lit—neutral ground enforcing truth. Gritch's contracts spilled: Valerian charter, but cross-collateralized with a defaulted god-loan. Compounding exposed.
The brute faltered, swing glancing Dylan's shoulder—recoil tax bit him 15%, converted to speed. Dylan countered: palm to chest, storm-yield residual tuned low. Not kill—disrupt. Blue arc synced to Gritch's pulse, fracturing the core-bond. The hunter crumpled, favors evaporating in static, his own bounty flipping: -50 micro to the House for breach.
**[YIELD: Hunter Default – Gritch Contract Flipped.]**
**Assets Gained: 25 Micro-Favors (50/50 Share) + Brute's Crush-Glove (1 Charge, Yield: Force Multiplier).**
**Debt Update: Syllabus Whisper (+2% – Terms: "Crush the creditor, owe the crush").**
Gritch wheezed, bound in shadow-threads. "You... rats. Valerian'll—"
"Compound your ass," Dylan finished, pocketing the glove. Elara nodded approval, scanning for the next ping—Syl inbound, futures weaving. The cantina exhaled; patrons crept back, whispers turning to wagers. *F-rank and shadow—House's nightmare.*
Outside, tunnels cooling, Dylan flexed the glove. Allies emerged from debt-shadows, sure. But the syllabus whispered louder: draconic terms sharpening, *audit the auditor* echoing. Volume 1's close loomed—public scalp auctioned, retaliation flipped. But the dragon that wrote the syllabus? It watched from the fine print.
Elara fell in step. "Two down by midnight. Then Vex—the ghost. Betrayal's her game; yours too?"
Dylan grinned, dry as dust. "Mine's better. Let's compound."
The global rate ticked to eight. His thirteen rebelled. Bounties compounded, but so did the loop: earn, leverage, survive. Allies just made the math funnier.