The warehouse air clung thick with the scent of mildew. Nyra pressed her ear against the cracked wall, listening to the rhythmic march of the System guards outside. Their armored boots crunched on broken glass in a steady, ominous pattern. Five passed every fifteen minutes.
Dain groaned behind him, the sound wet and ragged. Lucas turned to see the brawler's stone-knuckled hands clenched into fists, glowing cracks spreading up his forearms like burning veins. Each pulse of amber light made Dain's teeth grit harder.
"This can't be real," Lucas said, burying his face in his palms.
Nyra crouched beside them, her rabbit ears twitching at every distant sound. She held the Linkink open in her palm, the riddle's glowing letters casting shadows across her sharp features.
"Where whispers weigh more than gold," she murmured, claws tapping against the page. "The mark he left is buried deep."
Lucas blinked. "What the hell does that even mean?"
"Sounds like a trail," Nyra said. "Or a grave."
"Or bait," Vex muttered, staggering upright behind them. "Whispers, warmth, flickers — I hate poetic traps."
He sat with his back against the wall, methodically sharpening his claws against a rusted pipe. The grating screech of metal on metal set Lucas's teeth on edge.
"The only thing that weighs more than gold is more gold " Sparks flew as he dragged his claws down the pipe's length.
Nyra chewed on that for awhile, her fingers occasionally brushing Dain's forehead. It was burning hot. The cracks had reached his collarbone now, pulsing in time with his labored breaths.
Nyra snapped the Linkink shut. "We need that vial. Now."
The silence stretched. Outside, another patrol passed. Fifteen steps. Pause. Turn. Fifteen steps back.
Vex stood in one fluid motion, his silhouette unnaturally tall in the dim light. "Fine. But the idiot"—he jabbed a claw at Lucas—"stays here. He's a walking alarm bell for every Hound in the district."
Nyra's ears flattened. "We need a distraction."
All eyes turned to Lucas.
He swallowed hard, the artifact in his chest giving a traitorous throb.
___
The alchemist's shop leaned precariously between two crumbling buildings, its boarded-up windows like closed eyelids. Nyra moved first, her form a shadow against darker shadows as she approached the door.
Vex watched from the alley mouth, his tail flicking impatiently. "Hurry it up, rabbit."
Nyra didn't respond. Her claws found the lock, probing gently. A click. The door creaked open, releasing a wave of stale air thick with the scent of sulfur and something sweetly rotten.
Inside, glass vials of every size lined warped shelves, their contents glowing faintly in the gloom. The healing serum sat on a central pedestal, its golden liquid shimmering even in the weak light.
Nyra's nose twitched. "There could be a trap."
Vex shouldered past her. "Obviously." He pointed to the thin chain connecting the vial to the floor. "There are ressure plate. If we break the chain, the whole block goes up."
Nyra studied the mechanism. "We need—"
Vex's claws flashed. The chain snapped.
For one terrible second, nothing happened.
Then the vial slipped, shattering against the stone floor. Golden liquid seeped between the cracks, lost forever. Only a finger's width remained in the broken neck.
Nyra pressed a cloth on it before the last drops could escape.
Outside, a horn blared—too soon. Lucas's distraction.
The boarded window exploded inward. A Hound-class drone scuttled through the wreckage, its segmented body moving with unnatural grace. The red eye in its metal snout pulsed as it scanned the room.
Click. Click. Click.
Vex grabbed Nyra's arm. "Move!"
Lucas's lungs burned as he sprinted down the alley. The guards had taken the bait at first, chasing his flickering Pinky Torch through the market square. But then the Hound had appeared, its snout lifting to scent the air.
He'd run.
Now, cornered in a dead-end alley, Lucas turned to face his pursuers. Three guards advanced, their shock-spears humming to life. Behind them, the Hound's eye pulsed red.
"Whip Flash!"
Nothing happened.
The first spear took him in the shoulder. White-hot pain lanced through his body as electricity locked his muscles. He collapsed to his knees, gasping.
The Hound scuttled closer. Click. Click. Click.
Cold exploded from Lucas's palms.
Not the controlled chill he'd felt before—this was a raging blizzard unleashed. Frost raced across the cobblestones, up the guards' boots, their legs, their—
The nearest guard's scream cut off as ice filled his mouth, his throat, his lungs. The man clawed at his own face as the freezing wave reached his chest. A terrible cracking sound echoed through the alley as his last breath froze solid.
Lucas retched, his stomach emptying itself onto the icy stones. His hands—his beautiful, ordinary hands were blue with cold.
A shadow moved above him. Nyra stood on the rooftop, her ears flat against her skull, eyes wide with something Lucas couldn't name.
Vex landed beside her, his usual smirk absent. For once, the wolf looked almost... afraid.
"What the hell. Did you steal some kind of magic, boy," he breathed.
___
The warehouse door slammed open. Nyra and Vex burst in, with Lucas coming after— still in shock.
Dain lay where they'd left him, but the cracks had spread. Amber light pulsed beneath his skin like a second heartbeat, reaching his jawline now.
Nyra didn't hesitate. She pried Dain's jaws open and squeezed the cloth the cloth she had dipped in the last drops of the vial into his mouth.
For three heartbeats, nothing happened.
Then Dain arched off the floor, his back bending at an impossible angle. His stone skin rippled, reforming too fast, too hard. The sound of snapping bone echoed through the warehouse as his collarbone shattered and reset in the same instant.
He woke screaming.
"Pella!" Dain's voice was raw. "She sold us out! The Warden knows... knows about the artifact!"
Vex moved faster than Lucas could blink. One moment he stood by the door, the next he had Lucas pinned against the wall, claws pricking his throat.
"You hear that?" Vex's breath was hot against Lucas's face. "You're a death sentence."
Nyra didn't intervene immediately. She just watched, her ears twitching at every distant sound. "You probably missed the fact where Pella sold us out."
Vex released Lucas slowly, still panting out if exhaustion. "That's impossible. Dain's still gaining consciousness, he doesn't know what he's saying."
"I saw her with him. It was blurry but I know Pella's Voice." Dain said, his mouth tasting bitter from whatever was in it. "They were discussing something about not letting Lucas get to Voidmark."
"What's so special about this boy?"
All faces turned to Lucas' direction, staring deep into his eyes like he was meant to provide an answer to their lingering questions.
"Lucas, is there something you're not telling us?" Nyra finally said, her face looking worried and eager.
"Okay, this might sound crazy but it's true." He took a seat in a crate nearby, and instinctively Nyra did the same. "I'm not from this world."
Vex looked at him with a judging face literally saying, "This dude has lost his marbles." Nyra's expressions was even worse.
"Now you guys think I'm crazy."
"He's telling the truth." Dain daid, resting on the wall next to the foam he was layed, his eyes fixed on nothing in particular. "They said he's an otherworlder, just like Voidmark."
"An otherworlder ?"
"Yeah, people who dies in their world and get replaced by someone in our world while they are brought here."
"Wait a sec." Lucas stood up momentarily. "So what you're trying to say is—"
"There's someone from here claiming to be you in your world." Dain said, camly.
"That's just messed up," Vex rubbed the back of his neck. He was unsure of how true what Dain was saying was, but Vex trusted everything he said except from the Pella's betrayal part.
Nyra's ears twitched toward the window. "We need to move. The patrols are getting closer."
The warehouse door groaned as she shoved a rusted pipe through the handles, barricading them against the growing wail of System sirens outside.
Lucas pressed his still-tingling hands against his thighs, watching the blue fade slowly from his skin. The cold lingered deep in his bones - not just from Frostbite, but from Dain's revelation about his doppelgänger. Someone was living his life back home. Someone who belonged here.
Dain flexed his stone knuckles, the amber cracks beneath his skin pulsing weaker now but still present. "If Pella talked..." He winced as the movement sent fresh fractures across his wrist. "We need new allies. Fast."
Vex's claws tapped a staccato rhythm against his thigh armor. "Only one rat trades secrets without System ears listening."
Nyra's nose twitched as she stuffed the Linkink into her belt. "Silas."
Everyone except Lucas signed heavily.
Lucas looked between them. "Who-"
"A broker," Nyra cut in. "He's into anything illegal. But he's a good ally, if paid well."
Vex's lips curled back from sharpened canines. "He's also a backstabbing, blackmailing-"
"But he owes me," Dain interrupted, coughing into his fist. Amber light sputtered from his mouth with each hack. "From the Blackwater job."
The artifact in Lucas's chest gave a sudden throb, sending a wave of warmth through his veins that momentarily chased away the lingering chill. His breath fogged in the air despite the stale warmth of the warehouse.
Nyra's ears twitched toward the window. "We move now, it seems like patrols are doubling."
They slipped through the ruins of the manufacturing district, keeping to the chemical-scented shadows where the smog hung thickest. Lucas's shoulder ached where the shock-spear had struck him, each step sending jolts down his arm. The pain seemed... distant though, muted by the artifact's persistent hum.