It wasn't a beep. It wasn't a polite chime. It was a magi-tech scream that hit the air like a hammer shattering glass.
Floodlights hidden in the eaves of the warehouse snapped on with an audible thrum, bathing the yard in the colour of fresh arterial spray. The ground shook as the massive hangar doors—behind the empty space where the mountain of copper had just been—began to grind open. Steam vented from the hydraulic gaps, hissing like a pit of coiled vipers.
"Run!" I shouted, my voice barely cutting through the mechanical din.
I snapped my fingers, dispelling the "Shroud" clones instantly to reclaim the mana. We turned and sprinted back toward the shipping container maze, aiming for the sewer manhole.
We made it exactly ten yards before the trap snapped shut.
Three Sentry Golems scrambled out of the shadows, their brass gears grinding as they blocked our escape. Their optical lenses flared red as they locked onto us. Behind them, I could feel the rhythmic, heavy thump-thump-thump of a Loader Golem shaking the concrete.
We skidded to a halt. Blocked front. Blocked back.
"We're pinned," Grace said, her voice trembling.
She reached into her satchel and pulled out a heavy pipe wrench, holding it like a club. It was adorable. Against a star-steel chassis, it was also entirely pointless.
I looked at the Sentries. They were crouching, pistons hissing as they prepared to pounce.
'Ronan,' I snapped mentally. 'Options. Now.'
'We don't have many,' Ronan replied, his voice tight. 'The timing was catastrophic. We have three seconds before they engage.'
Teleport, I thought. We jump into the Inventory. We wait it out inside the Void and regenerate mana.
'We can't,' Ronan shot back instantly. 'Do the math, Murphy. Moving a living soul through the Void costs a third of your maximum stamina tank. Two souls is sixty-six percent. We don't have that many liquid assets.'
I froze.
I searched my core, feeling for the reserves. The heist—the sheer volume of mass-transit—had drained me. I was hovering at maybe forty percent stamina.
It was simple math. Cruel, absolute math.
I had enough gas in the tank to send one person into the safety of the Void.
I could save myself. They wouldn't hurt Grace, right? She was a Voss. Sure, she might get grounded for a decade, or locked in a tower, but they wouldn't physically dismantle her.
"Murphy," Grace whispered. She stepped back as the massive shadow of the Loader Golem eclipsed the red light above us. Her face was pale, stripped of all colour. "They can't take me. You don't understand."
"What? You said the worst we would face is a stern lecture!" I hissed, eyeing the distance to the Sentries.
"I lied," she choked out, shaking her head violently. "My Father is away in the Capital. If the security grid catches us... they call her."
"Her?"
"My stepmother," Grace said, her eyes wide with a primal, prey-animal terror. "She hates me, Murphy. She thinks my engineering is a... sickness. She has a Mind Mage on retainer."
She grabbed my arm, her grip bruising.
"She's been waiting for an excuse. If I go back, she'll have him scrub me. She'll wipe everything that makes me, me, until I'm just a smiling doll who sits still and pours tea. I won't be Grace anymore."
I looked at her. I saw the terror. It wasn't the fear of pain; it was the fear of erasure.
Then, the ground stopped shaking.
The Sentry Golems didn't attack. They froze mid-step, their pistons hissing as they lowered their heads in a submissive, dormant crouch.
"Why did they stop?" I whispered.
Grace looked past me, toward the open hangar doors. Her breath hitched, a sound like a dying engine.
"Oh no," she whispered. "Oh gods, no."
"Grace? What is it?"
"The Curator," she said, her voice barely audible. "My grandfather told me stories. It's not a golem, Murphy. It's... It's an Old World relic they dug up. He said he once watched it dismantle a Purple Core mage like it was stripping a wire."
My blood ran cold.
'Ronan?'
'A Purple Core...' Ronan's voice was hollow. 'That is a titan-class threat. If that thing is here, we are not fighting a guard dog. We are fighting a natural disaster.'
I looked at the army of dormant golems. I looked at the steam clearing by the hangar.
I had one ticket.
Son of a bitch, I thought. Why do I always have to be the good guy?
I summoned a clone behind Grace. It was holding a large, black woollen blanket.
"I'm going to need you to step into that," I said, keeping my voice steady. "We're leaving."
Grace looked at the blanket, then at me. She hesitated, her knuckles white on the wrench. "How? What about you?"
She was smart. Too smart. If I told her the truth—that I was staying behind because I couldn't afford the ticket—she'd refuse. She'd argue. And we'd both die.
So I did what I do best. I lied.
"Trust me," I said, flashing a confident grin that was ninety percent panic and ten percent acting. "I have a plan. Go. I'm right behind you."
"A plan?" she asked, her voice small, searching my face for a crack in the mask.
"Always," I lied. "Now, accept the pull. You have to want to leave."
Grace nodded, the tension leaving her shoulders. She stepped back into the blanket, closing her eyes. She accepted the transit.
VWOOP.
The fabric shimmered, and she was gone. Like a pebble disappearing into a pond.
The connection snapped. The cost hit me instantly—a massive chunk torn out of my remaining reserves. The ache in my core turned into a jagged agony, like someone had replaced my bone marrow with broken glass. My legs felt like lead.
I didn't pass out, but I was running on fumes. I had barely enough mana to keep my eyes open, let alone open another door for myself.
I was alone in the red-lit yard. But I wasn't out of options yet. I still had my knives, and I still had my audacity.
The Sentry Golems hissed, their logic engines confused by the disappearing act, but they remained frozen, bowing to something behind me.
I turned around.
A figure stepped out of the vapour venting from the open hangar doors.
It wasn't a soldier. It wasn't a guard.
It was a tall, slender figure wearing a pristine, black tailcoat. It walked with a stiff, terrifying grace, its footsteps making no sound on the metal floor. As it stepped into the red floodlight, I saw its face.
It was porcelain. Perfectly smooth, painted with the faint, soft features of a pleasant serving man. It had no eyes, just painted sockets, but I could feel it looking at me. Looking through me. It reminded me of those statues at the museum, the ones carved with a concave trick so they stare at you no matter where you stand.
It stopped ten feet away, clasping its white-gloved hands behind its back.
"I see someone has made a very dangerous mistake," the figure said. Its voice was polite, friendly, and utterly devoid of humanity. "And decided to steal from the Nursery."
'Murphy,' Ronan whispered. The arrogant Paladin was gone, replaced by a soldier assessing a losing battlefield. 'Grace wasn't lying. The mana density coming off that thing... It's suffocating. This isn't a fight we can win, kid.'
I swallowed hard, tightening my grip on my daggers until the leather creaked.
'We have been over this,' I shot back, forcing my thoughts to remain steady. 'I'm Butch, and you're Sundance. Don't count us out yet.'
I looked up at the porcelain nightmare.
"I'm just a delivery guy," I lied, flashing a grin that I hoped didn't look as terrified as I felt. "You guys really need to put up some signs, you know? I've been looking for a bathroom for hours."
The Prime tilted its head. The porcelain shifted with a sound like grinding chalk.
"Ahh. I am afraid," the Prime said, the painted smile seeming to widen, "you will find no facilities here. Consider your delivery... cancelled."
The threat hung in the damp air, polite and final.
I didn't flinch. I just shifted my weight, digging my heels into the metal grating and putting my small, fleshy body squarely between the entity capable of killing a Purple Core and the exit my friend had just taken.
The silence stretched, heavy and absolute.
Then, the voice in my head broke it.
'I am proud of you, Murphy,' Ronan said.
His voice wasn't the usual bark of tactical instructions or the exasperated sigh of a parent dealing with a toddler. It was soft. Heavy with a terrible, suffocating weight.
'You knew the odds. You calculated the threat. And you chose to let her run while you held the line.'
I could feel the warmth of his approval flooding our shared headspace. It was distinct from the mana; it was a swell of pure, unadulterated pride. It felt like winning a participation trophy for a race I hadn't finished yet, and I hated it.
'I am prouder of you in this moment than I have ever been,' Ronan continued, his tone thick with emotion. 'To lay down one's life for a comrade… that is the choice of a King. It is a noble end to—'
'Whoa, pump the brakes, Hallmark,' I snapped back internally, my mental voice sharp enough to cut glass. 'I didn't sacrifice anything. Put the violin away.'
'You are facing a Titan-class entity alone with a dull knife,' Ronan countered gently. 'There is no shame in admitting—'
'I am not dying for Grace,' I interrupted, the adrenaline finally overriding the exhaustion. 'I am not dying for anyone. I have every intention of walking out of here. So stop writing my eulogy and help me find a weakness in Mr Robotto over there.'
'Murphy…'
'I mean it, Ronan. If you start crying, I'm going to surrender just to spite you.'
The Prime watched me. It seemed confused by my lack of immediate terror, unaware that I was currently having a domestic dispute in my own skull.
"You are not afraid to die," the Prime observed, its painted head cocking to the side like a curious bird. "Commendable."
"Meh, you get used to it," I shot back, forcing a grin that felt like it might crack my face. "Honestly, it's overrated. Once you get past the initial pain and screaming, you're just glad you finally get a nap."