The Dealer's Table did not fade when Leon slept.
It gnawed at him.
Even with his eyes closed, he felt the Domain's pull—mana flowing through him like a second circulation, demanding attention, precision, payment. Every breath stabilized something. Every lapse threatened collapse.
Leon woke with blood dried at the corner of his mouth.
Domain Stability: Critical.
He exhaled slowly and sat up.
"So this is the bill," he muttered.
The Nexus pulsed weakly in the distance, its alignment slipping. Dungeon fragments began drifting again, subtle at first, but accelerating as the Domain strained.
Leon raised a hand.
Blue Card anchored.
The regeneration effect spread, shoring up cracks in the Domain's structure—but the cost spiked immediately.
Mental Load Warning.
Leon winced.
He couldn't hold this forever.
---
Movement rippled beyond the Domain.
Not a threat.
A negotiation.
Leon stood, steadying himself.
A figure approached the boundary—human, unmistakably so. No distortions. No shifting rules.
A woman in a long coat reinforced with dungeon fiber stepped forward, hands visible.
"Leon Mercer," she said.
Leon's Gold Card lifted instantly.
The woman stopped.
"I'm not here to fight," she said calmly. "And if I were, I wouldn't announce myself."
Leon studied her.
No guild insignia.
No bounty tag.
But the system window flickered when she spoke.
Unclassified Entity.
System Access: Partial.
Leon frowned. "That's new."
She smiled faintly. "You've forced a lot of 'new' lately."
"Who are you?"
"Maribel," she said. "I represent an… independent archive."
Leon didn't lower the card. "You're not an Observer."
"No," Maribel agreed. "Observers record. I negotiate."
---
She gestured toward the Domain.
"You can't maintain this," she said. "Not at your current stage."
Leon didn't argue.
"What do you want?"
"To keep you alive," Maribel replied. "And functional."
Leon laughed once. "That sounds expensive."
"It is."
She stepped closer, stopping just short of the Domain's edge.
"The system is preparing a response," she continued. "Not enforcers yet. Auditors."
Leon stiffened.
Auditors were worse.
They didn't kill.
They normalized.
"Your Domain will be reviewed," Maribel said. "Your cards classified. Your growth rate capped."
Leon's jaw tightened.
"And you're here to stop that?"
"To delay it," she corrected. "By making you harder to evaluate."
Leon's eyes narrowed. "How?"
Maribel reached into her coat and pulled out a thin, translucent shard.
"By teaching you how to move your table."
---
The idea hit harder than any warning.
"Domains are fixed," Leon said automatically.
"Most are," Maribel replied. "Yours isn't most."
She glanced at the Wild Card, still dormant but ever-present.
"You didn't claim territory," she said. "You imposed a rule set. That can be packed up."
Leon's heart raced.
"Portable Domain," he whispered.
Maribel nodded. "Fragmentary. Temporary. Painful."
Leon laughed softly.
"Of course it is."
---
They worked fast.
Maribel didn't enter the Domain. She instructed from the edge, guiding Leon through adjustments that felt wrong on a fundamental level.
Blue Card first.
Instead of anchoring space, Leon anchored sequence—forcing regeneration to apply to transitions rather than locations.
Gold followed.
Control redefined from area to condition.
Red was the hardest.
Leon had to teach it restraint.
Explosions became clauses.
Triggers.
The Wild Card—
Maribel stopped him.
"Not yet," she said sharply. "Use it last, or not at all."
Leon listened.
Hours blurred.
The Domain shrank.
Not collapsing.
Condensing.
The Nexus dimmed, its influence pulled inward like a folded map.
Leon screamed once as something inside him realigned.
System Warning: Structural Rewrite in Progress.
He bit down and pushed through.
---
At dawn—if dawn still meant anything here—the Dealer's Table changed.
It no longer filled the plateau.
It surrounded Leon.
A shifting, invisible presence tied to his cards rather than the land.
Maribel exhaled. "That's as much as you can manage."
Leon swayed.
Domain Status Updated.
Form: Mobile (Unstable).
Range: Personal.
Maintenance Cost: Extreme.
Leon laughed hoarsely.
"Extreme is familiar."
Maribel smiled. "Good. Because the Auditors won't be."
She stepped back.
"I'll check in again—if you survive," she said. "Until then, don't stay in one place."
Leon watched her fade into the fractured distance.
He looked down at his hand.
A card appeared.
Gold.
Steady.
The table was no longer a place.
It was a burden he carried.
And every step forward would make the system look closer.
Leon pulled his coat tighter and walked into the Fracture Belt.
Still seated.
Still dealing.