In the small, impersonal hotel room, the leader was reviewing a route map on his wrist-mounted display when the call came through. The hotel manager's voice was a tinny, apologetic whisper. "Sir? A… a matter with your charge. He appears to have developed a high fever. Our medic is with him now."
A fever? Now?The leader's jaw tightened. Of all the…He cut the connection, a wave of pure contempt washing over him. The boy was a walking testament to genetic mediocrity, but this was a new low. No wonder his attributes are garbage,he thought, echoing the unspoken sentiment of his men who shifted uncomfortably behind him.
He arrived at the room to find the local medic, a harried-looking man with old-fashioned instruments, holding a digital thermometer to the "young master's" forehead. The display read 39.9°C.
"Exhaustion and exposure, most likely," the medic diagnosed, throwing a reproachful look at the guards. "You really should take better care. The wastes aren't kind to the… unhardened."
The leader's expression remained impassive, but a vein throbbed in his temple. Exposure?They'd ridden in climate-controlled mechanical saddles for a few hours. The boy had stuffed his face with crisps and a synth-burger not three hours ago. He forced his features into a mask of concerned duty. "Is there a treatment? Something fast-acting. We have a schedule."
"Fast-acting?" The medic sniffed. "There are stimulant-antipyretics. Powerful. Expensive."
"Get it. Now." The leader's tone brooked no argument. He needed the asset mobile, and quickly. The timeline was delicate.
Inside the cocoon of feigned illness, Yao's mind, far from feverish, was ice-cold. This confirms it. He needs me on the road. The second half of the journey. That's where it happens.The dread was a lead weight in her stomach. But why? His own career would be stained by her death. Unless… unless the order came from above, with protection promised. Or he had a patsy ready, a convincing narrative of tragic banditry. Either way, she was a lamb being led to a pre-selected slaughterhouse.
She couldn't just lie there. She had to use this. The diagnostic device from before had been single-use; she'd seen its power cell die after her scan. Her elevated temperature was a gift, a perfect biological alibi.
When the powerful fever capsules arrived, she waited until the room was empty, the door clicking shut. Then, moving with a speed that belied her apparent weakness, she sat up, fingers at her throat. A controlled gag, and the partially dissolved capsule was coughed into her palm. She peeled the gelatin shell, tapping the potent powder into a small, secreted container. She repeated the process with the remaining pills from the packet, building a small, deadly stockpile.
Her "recovery" involved frequent calls for room service—fruit, mostly. The staff saw a pampered, sickly noble craving fresh produce. They didn't see her using acidic juices as catalysts, carefully mixing them with the pilfered drug powder in a stolen ceramic cup. Time was a predator at her heels. She had to finish before her fever broke naturally, before the leader's patience snapped.
Over-the-counter fever reducers,she thought, her hands steady as she worked. Target receptors: neural pain pathways, inflammatory response. Side effects: CNS depression, potential organ stress at high doses. Catalyst: citric acid concentrate from Frost-Lemon peel, amplifies absorption rate by 300%, directs metabolic breakdown toward sedative byproducts.This was no advanced alchemy. This was Applied Household Toxicology, a niche, infamous skill tree in Arcane Throne. She'd sold guides on it. Now, she was brewing her own salvation in a hotel water glass.
The fruit essences weren't just catalysts; they were masks, layering the chemical bitterness under a tangy, innocent scent.
By dawn of the third day, her temperature had dropped. She was pale, drawn, playing the convalescent to the hilt. The leader, his impatience barely veiled, announced their departure. Yao offered only a weak, petulant grumble, which seemed to satisfy him further—the expected behavior of a spoiled brat, not a wary prey.
They remounted. The sky-dock was only two hours away at a hard gallop. But the route the leader chose… it was wrong. It plunged into a stretch of scrubland bordering the rocky badlands, a known shortcut, but one notoriously empty. Too empty. Yao's eyes, sharp behind a facade of weariness, scanned the horizon. No scavenger birds circled. No rustle of hardy desert rodents in the brush. It was as if the land itself was holding its breath.
A good escort captain doesn't choose an ambush alley for his charge,she thought, her heart thudding against her ribs. Unless he's not an escort. He's a deliveryman.
She began to complain. Thirsty. Always thirsty. She drained her own canteen, then "borrowed" from the guards, one by one, her requests growing increasingly childish and irritating. The water supply, carefully rationed for the final leg, dwindled. Resentment simmered in the guards' eyes, a useful cover for the deeper malice she knew lurked there.
At noon, under a sun that beat down like a hammer on an anvil, they reached a shallow, brackish creek. Yao moaned about being hungry, about dry rations being "unfit for a noble stomach." She wanted something hot.
The leader's patience was a fraying wire. "Make a fire," he ordered tersely. A small cookpot was produced. They used their precious remaining clean water for the broth. No one would drink from the creek; even boiled, water in an arcane-saturated world could carry subtle, deadly pollutants.
As the thin stew simmered, Yao made her final play. "Water," she croaked, pointing a trembling finger at the leader's own, still-half-full canteen—the last one.
A flicker of pure animosity crossed the leader's face. He tossed it to her without a word. She took a small, theatrical sip, then coughed violently, her sleeve brushing the canteen's mouth. "Bitter! Tastes foul! Here, take your swill back. I'll drink when I'm reallythirsty." She shoved it back at him, her face a mask of disgust.
Grunting in annoyance, the leader took a long pull from the canteen to prove a point, then passed it to his men. They drank deeply, parched from the ride and the sun, making a show of finishing every last drop, denying the "brat" any more.
The meal was a tense, silent affair. Yao ate the stew slowly, watching. No one avoided it. No one showed signs of adding anything extra to her portion. Their plan didn't involve poisoning themselves. External forces,she concluded, the broth turning to ash in her mouth. Bandits. They'll let the bandits do it.
The effects came on subtly at first. A heaviness in the limbs. A dullness behind the eyes. The leader, Adar, rubbed his temples, a frown deepening. Then Yao let out a strangled gasp, clutching her throat. "Wha… what's happening? Am I… fever again? My throat… it's closing! Adar! Adar!My voice!"
In her past life, Yao had been steady, grounded. A planner, not an actress. Everything she'd done in this world—the simpering, the arrogance, the fear—was studied, borrowed from a thousand dramas. This performance, however, was pure, raw instinct. The terror in her voice, the wide-eyed panic, was utterly convincing because a part of her wasterrified. The leader and his men, their own senses beginning to swim, didn't doubt it for a second.
"The stew!" Adar snarled, his voice already slurring. His mind, trained for betrayal, jumped to the obvious source—the communal pot. An insider. A traitor in my own unit.The fear of that was more immediate than any external threat.
Adrenaline, sharp and chemical, cut through some of the fog. He raised a hand, his lips moving in a guttural chant. The air around his fingers grew hazy, then cold. Wind elemental particles, drawn by his will and the structured command of the spell, coalesced. A sigil, intricate and blue, glowed briefly on his palm. Three seconds. Four. A spiraling orb of compressed air, the size of an apple and glowing with violent blue light, formed with a hiss-crack. A Level 1 Arcane Missile, the simplest combat spell, but lethal at point-blank range.
His bloodshot eyes swept over his men, landing on his second-in-command, a man whose ambition he'd always quietly distrusted. Him.
"It wasn't me!" the deputy screamed, fumbling for his sidearm and a defensive command for his mechanical steed.
He was too slow.
Adar unleashed the missile. It wasn't aimed for the chest, where armored plating might deflect it. It streaked, unerring, for the man's face. In his weakened state, Adar couldn't afford a non-lethal blow.
THWUMP.
The impact was a sickening wet crunch. The energy didn't explode outward; it focused, driving bone fragments and superheated air inwards through the eye socket and temple. The deputy dropped without another sound.
Yao, watching through slitted eyes, felt a chill that had nothing to do with the drugs. He's tying up loose ends. Removing a rival under the cover of 'traitor.'
Adar staggered toward his mechanical mount, his vision tunneling. The drug was too potent, a cocktail designed for systemic shutdown. He made it three steps before his legs buckled. He collapsed face-first into the dust. One by one, the other guards followed, their bodies slumping, breath becoming ragged, uneven snores.
Yao waited, counting her own heartbeats, listening to the chorus of drugged stupor. When she was certain, she rose, her movements swift and silent. Her first target wasn't a weapon. It was Adar's communicator.
A final check,she thought, a stubborn fragment of her old world's morality insisting on certainty. She scrolled through the recent logs. There. An encrypted call, fifteen minutes ago. The signal origin triangulated to a location less than five kilometers from their current position, deep in the bandit-held badlands.
Fifteen minutes ago. When he went to 'relieve himself' after telling the cook to go light on the salt.
The last of her doubt evaporated, replaced by a cold, clarifying urgency.
She then pried the sophisticated wrist-unit from Adar's limp arm. It wasn't just a timepiece. A few taps on its interface, and a topographic map flickered to life. A cluster of a dozen red blips was moving fast, converging on their location from the northeast. Estimated time of arrival: minutes.
Bandits. Professional, well-informed, and right on schedule.
Her original plan—to run—was dead. The mechanical horses left distinctive, deep prints in the soft ground. They'd be tracked down within the hour. She had to work with the scene.
Kneeling in the dust, she drew her belt knife. The blade bit into her thumbpad. Wincing, she used the welling blood to draw a precise, six-pointed star in her right palm. Her mind emptied of everything but the pattern, the intention. This was a Custom Arcana, one she'd designed and validated in the game years ago. A beginner's trick, a spider's thread of manipulation. Back then, she'd had the Spirit reserves of a mid-level player. Now, with 188 points, it should be just within reach.
She began to chant, the syllables low and sibilant, pulling at the weave of ambient arcane energy. The blood-star on her palm grew hot, then began to glow with a faint, sinister red light. A massive drain hit her, a psychic siphoning that felt like a part of her soul was being ripped out. Her vision greyed at the edges. When the spell completed, her Spirit pool plummeted to a mere 18.
But from her palm, nine thin, crimson filaments of pure energy shot forth, ethereal and sticky as spider silk. They connected with a faint thwipto the chests of Adar and each of his unconscious men.
[Custom Arcana Activated: Puppeteer's Strand]
[Effect: Establishes a low-energy psychic tether to unconscious/weakened targets. Allows for minor kinetic suggestion and life-sign monitoring. Duration: 10 minutes. Cost: 170 Spirit.]
The headache was immediate and brutal, a spike driven through her temples. Gritting her teeth, she pulled out her own communicator. Her fingers flew, pulling up the contact for the Li Conglomerate representative. She took a deep breath, and when the connection clicked open, she unleashed a scream of pure, undiluted terror into the device, her voice high and breaking perfectly.
"HELP! BANDITS! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! ADA AND THE OTHERS, THEY'RE—!" She cut the transmission mid-sentence, leaving only chilling ambiguity.
Let them piece it together.
Next, she turned to the mechanical horses. Using Adar's command override, she programmed them with a simple, chaotic order: Scatter. Run.The great beasts whirred to life, stampeding in different directions, churning up the ground, creating a confusing web of tracks. They'd return to a pre-set location miles away.
She gave the campsite one last, swift search. She ignored coins, personal effects. She took only Adar's wrist-unit and communicator, and a small, non-descript data chip from his belt pouch. Evidence, and tools.
Then, she turned and ran—not towards the road, but towards the sluggish, algae-choked creek. A deeper pool, formed by a bend in the stream, lay partly hidden by reeds. Without hesitation, she slid into the icy water, submerging herself completely just as the first, distant thunder of un-shod hooves vibrated through the earth.
She held her breath, sinking until her feet touched the silty bottom. The world above became a wavering, distorted ceiling of greenish light. Her heart was a frantic drum in her ears, competing with the watery silence. The custom arcana threads, invisible and intangible, still connected her to the men on the bank. Through them, she felt a faint, rhythmic pulse—their slowing heartbeats. And she felt the sudden, violent tremor as dozens of heavier, unfamiliar presences arrived on the bank above.
They're here.