The hall was alive.
Not with chaos, but with a pulse of its own.
The chamber was vast, its ceilings lost in shadow, but its heart burned with old dwarven machinery: colossal gears turning, powered by crystal hearts that pulsed like lungs.
Magic streams branched across the floor in glowing veins, fueling lamps, platforms, and doors.
It seemed like a total new world to the kids.
Everything was immense.
Hooded hunters were everywhere — some hunched over maps, some drinking bitter tea, some laughing quietly as if laughter itself might wake the stones.
The camaraderie here wasn't loud or drunken.
It was subtle — a shoulder bump, a shared coin, a hand adjusting the strap of another's blade.
Everyone was calm, like minding their own business, lost in their world.
Azrael took a look around him and noticed that everything was normal.
As Freya passed, heads nodded.
Sonisen drew whistles.
Azrael's arrival, though, drew something else: the smallest of pauses, a breath that seemed to ripple through the room.
They didn't look directly at him.
But they felt him.
Only a few people greeted him.
"Hello, Noctis." one of them said, his voice sounded very young.
"Hello, Arli." Azrael replied, with an almost invisible smile.
Then, the figure disappeared into the shadows.
The aura inside the hall was a total mistery, but one thing was certain: every single living being that was part of the guild , was really dangerous.
Valtherion and Elarwen froze. They had never seen so many cloaked killers gathered in one place, and yet… there was no malice.
Just a strange warmth.
They were still scared, but they lowered their guard.
They started to feel safer.
Again they pressed to Freya's side, and this time she bent slightly, her voice velvet despite the sharpness beneath:"You're not in danger here. This is where no one will harm you. Where you'll learn to make fear fear you."
Elarwen opened her mouth, but words stuck.
Valtherion whispered hoarsely: "That—" he nodded at a hawk-headed man sharing ink-stained papers with a woman — "that's… normal?"
Azrael nodded his head.
"Don't worry. Just think about resting now. I'll take care of everything." He said, with a soft voice.
"So... this is... your... guild?" Elarwen asked, with a shaky voice.
Freya smiled. "Ours. And now yours."
She then patted their little heads and smiled warmly at them, like a mother.
Sonisen had already drifted away to the central desk, where Miza — bald on the sides, three braids tied back, earrings of steel hoops, gloves runed with glyphs — scratched reports onto glowing metal tablets.
"Summary," he said flatly without looking up. "Mission complete, village cleared, two generals of Maria appeared... but you saved the kids... then, the white wolf arrived and took merit for the mission... Mmmh..." He kept flipping trough the pages that Sonisen gave to him. "They didn't do anything at all, did they?" His brow twitched.
Sonisen's gaze flicked sideways to Azrael before she smirked. "Confirmed. No intervention. They were useless like always."
Elarwen then whispered something to Valtherion.
"Uhm... when did she write that ? I didn't see her writing..." She asked.
"Maybe it's... magic." He replied.
Freya groaned. "Cut the poetry, Miza. We've got two new kids. Register them."
Miza finally lifted his eyes, met Freya's cold stare for a second too long, then dipped them back like a curtain closing. "…Very well."
He then looked at the kids and, with a warm and reassuring smile, he asked them to come closer and lend him their hands.
The two kids hesitated, still frightened by the situation, but Freya managed to calm them down by saying there was nothing to worry about.
So, they walked close to Miza and offered their small hands.
Miza then said a phrase in an unknown language, similiar to Freya's.
"Liëmirë, sereth naethar." (Pure soul, Find any sin)
Two amber crystals appeared in his hands.
He pressed them to the children's palms.
They warmed faintly, glowed once, then cleared.
The two kids felt a pleasant feeling of warmth on their hands.
"Clean," Miza confirmed. "No curse, no residue. Names?"
"Valtherion Kaelvorn," the boy said, firmer than he felt.
"Elarwen Duskveil," the girl whispered.
Miza etched them into the glowing metal with a pen that carved without scratching. "Welcome to the night that does not betray. You'll now under our protection."
Freya tried to hide the emotion in her eyes by scoffing. "See? Told you they wouldn't eat you." She ruffled their hair, then straightened.
A bell rang, low and heavy, through the hall.
Someone shouted "Convocation!" from above.
The gears turned faster for a moment, then settled.
Miza packed away the tablets.
"Temporary lodging in Sector Three, room B-9. Freya, Sonisen, briefing in twenty minutes. Hunter…Number 13" He hesitated, nearly saying the name. "…The Master wants you in the lower chamber."
Freya gave Azrael a sharp glance. "You heard him."
Azrael nodded once, then looked at the children."Go with Freya."
Valtherion tried to speak, failed.
Elarwen met his cold blue eyes — and she didn't feel any kind fear.
It wasn't warmth she saw, but it wasn't ice either.
It was… the feeling of seeing someone who was hiding who he really was.
Someone who had a lot of pain inside and didn't want anyone to come closer.
Elarwen was very young, but she could feel everything.
Freya spread her arms, mock-maternal.
"Come on, disciples. Bed first, food after. Then we learn never to be caught off guard again."
"Y-Yes..." Valtherion muttered.
Elarwen just nodded her head.
Freya smirked. "Good. Now, follow me."
Sonisen brushed past them, trailing a fingertip gently across Elarwen's cheek — fleeting, almost like a blessing. "Welcome to the place where everything is harmonious with everything, little one. Even broken hearts find a place here."
"Is that true?" Elarwen whispered.
"Almost," Sonisen winked. "The rest is discipline."
They moved. The Guild swallowed them in its veins of stone and light.
Azrael lingered behind, then turned down a corridor where the air grew heavier, older.
He paused only once — scanning again for any kind of different smell.
Nothing. Only sea, stone, parchment, and steel.
His hand brushed the hilt of his blade.
And once more, his silence became command.
"I guess what he wants from me now..." He said with a sigh. "Jeez..."