They woke before dawn had touched the forest canopy. The air was sharp and cold enough that each breath steamed faintly in the dark.
After a brief and quiet discussion, they agreed to return to the Maw Gate tunnels together.
They retraced their path in silence, slipping through frost-stiff underbrush and weaving between black trunks until the crooked stone hatch revealed itself again between roots and moss. Eryndor pushed it open and climbed down first.
The air inside felt wrong.
Thicker. Hotter. Heavy with the scent of burnt metal—and something else. Something that had died.
The collapsed chamber was no longer collapsed.
The tunnel had been violently torn open from within. Metal supports were folded outward like ribs split by some colossal beast. Stone had been melted and forced aside in jagged waves. The destruction was not accidental. It was deliberate.
Varric's aura still lingered faintly in the air—molten, hateful, furious.
Most of the bodies were gone.
Eryndor exhaled through his teeth and offered a bitter smile.
"Damn."
Varric was already out. The guild had regrouped. Whatever chaos they had caused the previous night had only slowed him.
"We expected this," Lirien said quietly.
She studied the destruction with sharp, measured eyes, then glanced at him and added dryly,
"And you wished he had survived. Congratulations. Your prayer has been answered."
Eryndor snorted and let out a hollow laugh. "Well, on the way here I started hoping he'd died," he said in a mock-sad tone, placing a hand over his heart.
"Tragic how fate ignores my feelings."
Garruk dropped down into the chamber moments later, boots landing heavily on fractured stone. He surveyed the ruin with a grim expression and hefted his hammer with a sigh.
"He's moving fast," Garruk said. "I'm pretty sure they headed back toward Dhaurim."
"Oh," Eryndor muttered. "And he seems angry."
Garruk nodded grimly. "Exactly like we discussed yesterday. And he is going to chase us."
Lirien crouched near a warped steel support and brushed her fingers across the metal.
"Mortal Lord realm, probably noble tier," she said calmly. "And He is hunting us."
"Yeah," Eryndor agreed. "He won't slow down."
His voice lacked fear. If anything, it carried mild curiosity.
Garruk scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Then neither will we."
Eryndor finally turned toward them—the two people who had no obligation to follow him into this growing madness.
"You're sure about this?" he asked.
Garruk grunted. "Boy, I want to plant my hammer in that bastard's face."
"We're not actually going to fight him," Eryndor said, lifting a brow.
Garruk's lips curled. "By stealing that relic, I figure it would be equivalent to hitting him with my hammer. Repeatedly."
Lirien's shadow curled like smoke at her feet. "I just want to kill him. No—kill them."
Eryndor sighed. "As I said—"
"Stealing that relic is more or less equal to killing them," Lirien cut in smoothly.
Eryndor paused mid-sentence and stared at her, before realized it.
She met his gaze with derisive eyes.
"It's obvious," she said simply.
He coughed lightly. "...Eyes really do speak, huh."
Garruk pointed down the forest slope. "Dhaurim City lies that way. Two days if we push hard. A day if we don't mind bleeding."
Eryndor smirked faintly. "I think we've bled enough."
"Debatable," Lirien murmured.
Eryndor inhaled slowly and felt the Scripture pulse once beneath his skin—faint, distant, but unmistakable. Like a compass pointing south.
Toward Dhaurim.
Toward the relic.
Toward answers.
He tightened his gauntlet and squared his shoulders.
"Alright," he said. "Let's go steal from a guild."
He grinned—not recklessly this time, but with focused excitement.
A day later, the forest thinned as morning light filtered through the canopy, sharp and pale against Eryndor's cheeks. Frost cracked softly beneath their boots while the smell of smoke and iron from the Maw Gate ruins faded behind them.
They walked in silence for a while. Garruk scouted ahead with practiced caution. Lirien moved like a cool shadow at Eryndor's flank. Eryndor adjusted his cloak and began humming softly under his breath.
Lirien glanced sideways at him. "Must you?"
"It improves morale," he replied.
"It does not."
The path widened into an old trade road. Rusted rails ran alongside it like forgotten veins—remnants of the Southern Sky Bastion's early industrial expansion decades ago. A rail-cart station lay half-collapsed at the roadside, its iron beams warped by time, yet the rails themselves still stretched toward the horizon.
By midday, the final treeline broke as Dhaurim City revealed itself.
It was not beautiful in the classical sense.
It was a creature of iron and steam.
Massive brass-plated gates engraved with old Bastion script stood open in silent invitation. Beyond them, the city rose in layered tiers of stone and steel platforms, where rugged dwarven architecture blended with advancing mechanical innovation.
Enormous piston towers pumped steam skyward in rhythmic bursts. Cable-cars rattled along suspended rails between districts. Mechanical carriages rolled through the streets, powered by mana cores that hissed and glowed behind protective grills. Vendors hawked spare gears and scrap metal beside traditional food stalls fragrant with roasted meats and spiced breads. Children ran laughing across paved streets, their wooden toys competing with tiny mechanical birds that whirred and chirped on ticking wings.
Eryndor had seen cities before, but Dhaurim felt alive yet restless, like a beast of machine and mana it was vibrating and hungry.
Their cloaked presence drew only little attention as Travelers were common here—workers, traders, mercenaries, engineers. Faces came and went in constant motion.
Garruk grunted in satisfaction.
Lirien's gaze sharpened as she studied the infrastructure—mechanical guards, patrol rotations, vendor districts, worker uniforms, the flow of traffic between tiers.
"This city is a good place to disappear." She suddenly said.
"Or a good place to get crushed if we miscalculate," Eryndor smiled faintly.
"So we try to avoid miscalculating." He continued.
The Scripture pulsed faintly whenever he glanced toward the northern quarter.
Garruk had already informed them that the Emberforge Guild's regional compound lay there.
And the relic was likely inside.
They had been walking for a while, when Eryndor glanced at Garruk,
"The Guild, they won't recognize you right?"
"I am not sure," Garruk said while observing the street." but we have the cloak, unless they expecting us and inspect every person entering Dhaurim. I believe we are good."
"That make sense. More over with the cloak, there are many with similar build to you" Eryndor nod in agreement.
They found an inn on a mid-level terrace—cheap, functional, and sturdy enough that Garruk's weight did not threaten the floorboards. The single window overlooked a metallic maze of streets and cable rails.
Once the door shut behind them, the atmosphere shifted.
Garruk unfolded a worn map across the rough wooden table.
"Dhaurim has three major guild compounds," he began. "Emberforge occupies the northern sector."
He tapped the structure marked there.
"It's a pentagonal fortress integrated into the city's power grid. Thick steel walls. Watchtowers with rotating mana-conductors. Guard patrols every quarter-hour."
"Multiple entry points," Eryndor observed. "And no easy path for thieves like us."
Lirien shot him a sharp look at the word.
He smiled at her. "We are going to steal something, Lirien. You might as well embrace it."
Her response was immediate and vicious—a precise kick to his midsection.
He doubled slightly. "Violence is unnecessary."
"Your phrasing was unnecessary," she replied flatly.
Garruk shook his head and leaned closer to the map. "There's one potential weakness."
He tapped the eastern edge.
"The supply duct. It connects to the guild's generator hall. Lighter guard presence because no one assumes anyone would be insane enough to crawl into a live mana-core duct."
"Or stupid enough," Lirien added, eyes narrowing at Eryndor.
Eryndor shrugged lightly. "We've done worse. Beside,"
He placed a hand over the guild's central vault on the map.
"Sometimes the stupidest path is the smartest one."
Garruk snorted. "Never heard of that."
Eryndor tapped his chest proudly. "That's because I just invented it."
"Stupid words from a stupid person," Lirien muttered.
He looked genuinely offended. "Innovation is rarely appreciated in its time."
After some meaningless banter, they continued their discussion and finally decided to scout the area first, hoping to find a safer and less guarded path.