The banging on my door was like a hammer to my skull. I was halfway through scrubbing tunnel-stink off my arms, my heart still doing a jackrabbit dance from my little trip to hell.
"Damian! Damian, man, open up! It's bad!"
Finn's voice, high and panicky. Great. Just what I needed.
I thought about ignoring it. Let the little weasel scream himself out. But noise attracts flies. And the last thing I wanted right now was more attention. I yanked the door open.
Finn almost fell into the room. His face was the color of old milk. He looked like he'd seen a ghost. Or worse, a failing grade.
"What." I didn't make it a question. It was a command to be quick.
"It's Thrain!" Finn babbled, grabbing my arm. I looked at his hand until he let go. "The Proctors! They took him! Just dragged him out of the Combat Theory lecture! They're saying... they're saying he's a spy! For some... some Shadow cult thing! They found symbols in his footlocker!"
He was gasping, eyes wide. He expected me to be shocked. To be outraged.
I felt nothing. A hollow, cold space where concern should be.
Thrain. The big, quiet frost-giant kid. Liked lifting heavy things. Never said much. A spy? Maybe. The world was full of liars. But a cultist? He didn't have the smell. The cultists I'd met—Vorlan, Conan, Gareth—they had this... oily desperation. Thrain was just solid. Like a rock.
A rock that was now in the way.
The timing was too perfect. Gareth finds me in the tunnels. Hours later, my roommate gets hauled off as a cult spy. They weren't just coming for me. They were clearing the board. Isolating the piece.
"They framed him," I said, my voice flat. I turned back to my washbasin.
Finn stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "What? Framed? Damian, they had evidence! Runes carved on bone! Black candles! That's serious cult shit!"
"And he's an idiot for letting someone plant it," I said, splashing cold water on my face. The logic was clear. Thrain was big, but he wasn't subtle. His footlocker was a joke. I could've picked the lock with a spoon. If the cult—or Gareth acting on his own—wanted to cause chaos, to send me a message, what better way? Remove someone near me. Make me nervous. See if I did something stupid to help him.
It was a test.
"Don't you care?" Finn whispered, horrified. "He's our roommate!"
I looked at him. Really looked. Finn, with his messy hair and his earnest, terrified face. He believed in things like friendship. Like loyalty. He was a child playing in a pit of wolves.
"Caring gets you dead," I told him, the truth as I knew it. "Thrain's fate is sealed. If he's guilty, he's dead. If he's innocent, they'll break him until he looks guilty, then he's dead. Getting involved just puts a target on your back. On mine."
I saw the moment it broke in his eyes. The realization that I wasn't the guy he thought I was. That the quiet, driven roommate was made of stone and shadow. "But... but we have to do something," he stammered, weakly.
"You want to do something?" I leaned in close, my voice dropping to a whisper that wasn't friendly. "Go to your bunk. Shut up. Don't talk to anyone about Thrain. Don't talk to anyone about me. If the Proctors ask, you know nothing. You saw nothing. You're a dumb kid who's scared. Can you pretend to be that, Finn? For your own good?"
He stumbled back, bumping into the doorframe. Nodded, his throat working. Then he fled, shutting the door softly behind him.
Alone again.
Silence.
I finished cleaning up. My hands were steady. The vial of Forge-Flame Essence was warm in my pocket.
A soft chime in my mind.
[Quest Updated: Hunted Prey]
Objective: Survive the next 71 hours. New Complication: Isolated. Your social connections are being systematically removed. Maintain cover.
Additional Reward: +10 Ruthlessness.
They were even giving me points for being an asshole. The System understood me better than anyone.
I needed to think. Gareth was a direct threat. A bulldozer. The Thrain situation was a scalpel. Vorlan and the cult wanted me scared and compliant. Gareth just wanted me in a box. Lyra was a wild card, watching from the sidelines.
I couldn't stay here. The dorm was a cage. They could come for Finn next. Or Sylvia. Or just kick the door in and take me, using Thrain's 'confession' as an excuse.
I had to move. But not run. Running was for prey.
I needed an alibi. A public place. Somewhere even Gareth would think twice.
The library. The Grand Athenaeum never closed. It was full of snooping students and cranky librarian mages who hated disturbances. It was the last place a clandestine grab would go down.
I packed a small bag. Basic gear. The Essence vial. My remaining salves. I left the High-Grade Darkness Stone. Too hot.
Just as I was about to leave, a piece of paper slid under my door.
Not a tube this time. Just a cheap scrap. I picked it up.
Two words, in the same neat handwriting as the map.
"Waste disposal."
Then, below it, as an afterthought:
"He's in the Quiet Cells. West Tower, sub-level three."
My blood, which usually ran cold, went icy.
This wasn't from Vorlan. The cult wouldn't tell me where Thrain was. This was from someone else. Someone who knew Gareth's moves. Someone who wanted me to know.
Clarrisa? Maybe. She had her own game. But this felt… different. Colder. More like a chess move from a player I hadn't met yet.
'Waste disposal.' They were telling me Thrain was garbage to be taken out. And they were giving me the location.
Why?
So I'd try a stupid, heroic rescue and get caught? So I'd see what Gareth was capable of and panic?
Or… were they offering me a chance to clean up the waste myself?
To silence Thrain before he could be 'softened up' into saying something about me?
The thought wasn't repulsive. It was… practical. If Thrain broke, and they asked him about his roommates, what would he say? That I was quiet? Kept to myself? Came back smelling of tunnels once? It might be nothing. But nothing could be enough for Gareth.
A risk. Eliminate the risk.
I stood there for a long minute, holding the paper.
Then I crumpled it. Incinerated it with a thoughtless flicker of Ember Palm.
I didn't care about Thrain. I didn't.
But walking into the West Tower, into the heart of the Academy's security, to kill a guy who probably didn't even know why he was there… that wasn't practical. That was suicide. Gareth would be expecting that. It was the obvious, emotional move.
And I wasn't emotional.
I shouldered my bag. I left the dorm. I walked calmly, openly, toward the glowing arches of the Grand Athenaeum. Let them watch me go in there to 'study'. Let them think their pressure wasn't working.
But in the deepest, coldest part of my mind, where the calculations never stopped, a new plan was forming.
But if he was going to be waste… maybe I could find a way to make that garbage blow back in the face of the guys taking out the trash.
I just had to survive the next 71 hours first.
And to do that, I needed to be stronger. Much stronger.
I found a secluded carrel in the back of the Astral Mechanics section, surrounded by dusty scrolls about dead stars. No one came here.
I took out the vial of Forge-Flame Essence. It glowed in the dim light, promising pain and power.
Drinking unknown alchemy from a cult-trap tunnel was beyond stupid.
I uncorked it.
[Warning: Unstable High-Grade Fire Essence detected. Consumption carries high risk of Mana Burn, Core Fracture, and Agonizing Death.]
"No shit," I muttered.
I didn't drink it. I dipped my finger in. A single, burning drop coated my fingertip. It felt like dipping it in molten lead.
I brought it to my lips, and touched it to my tongue.
Fire exploded in my mouth. It raced down my throat, a river of nails and lightning. My Fire core, pathetic and small, screamed as the foreign power flooded it, tearing at its edges.
I clenched my jaw, silencing any sound. Sweat poured down my face, sizzling where it fell on the wooden desk.
This was going to hurt. A lot.