Two months had passed since Fornos returned to the Dag estate—a house of gold-veined halls, armored servants, and parents who could disassemble a person with words sharper than blades. Now, at long last, he stood at the gates, carriage waiting, bearing a rare expression: not quite joy, but relief wrapped in grim purpose.
"You look happier than you did while staying," Mary observed, standing beside Voss beneath the archway.
"Believe me, Mother," Fornos replied, straightening the collar of his travel coat, "I am not."
"Then you can just stop," Voss said flatly.
"You know I can't."
Neither parent pressed further.
Mary stepped forward and gently adjusted his sleeve, brushing invisible dust off the fabric. "Come back safe."
Fornos said nothing—he only nodded. Then, with practiced calm, he boarded the waiting carriage. The wheels churned against cobblestone, and the Dag estate receded into the distance.
Inside, Fornos pulled out a narrow scroll, unfurling it across his lap. The parchment was clean and methodical, inked with objectives in crisp, boxed letters.
1. Integration of the underground logistics.
2. A method to communicate with the warband remotely.
3. Identify and scout viable targets for expansion or disruption.
He tapped the second point with a gloved finger.
"If only there was something that allowed long-range communication," he muttered. A sigh escaped. "If I could just adapt the Codex relay system…"
The Codex—a magical script bound to a golem's core—was a marvel of compact, directional energy translation. Used correctly, it allowed one operator to command a golem from a limited range. But adapting it for general communication, across city-states or through mountains? That was a dream most scholars would dismiss outright.
He sat back, staring at the ceiling of the carriage as the thought echoed: Building something like that would take hundreds of years…
Still, a sliver of an idea lodged itself in his mind like a seed. A relay system of small golems, each hardwired to repeat and translate basic magical pulses into patterned language. A code.
Fornos reached for parchment and began jotting notes.
Two days later…
Stan City – District of Blake Dine
The city stank of smoke, sweat, and cheap perfume. Blake Dine, the underbelly of Stan, was alive with its usual rotting charm—gamblers barking at card tables, dancers luring marks with painted smiles, thieves running backroom deals for nobles too proud to soil their own hands.
In one corner tavern, the bartender scrubbed at a glass with bored precision. The door opened with a low creak.
A figure stepped inside wearing a plain black cloak and a wolf-mask of dark iron. No words, just a motion—a single black coin placed on the counter. It gleamed with an insignia: the outline of the same wolf-mask, stamped over a dying sun.
The bartender said nothing. He simply nodded to the back.
Fornos moved through the beaded curtain and into the real tavern—the lounge behind the stage. The air shifted immediately, cloying and warm. Incense masked the scent of narcotics and lust. Men and women lounged in various states of dishevelment—some counting stacks of coin, others sprawled in drugged haze, moaning under soft lantern light.
At the far side, on a low pillowed couch, sat a woman in a tiger mask. Her bare legs glistened with sweat and other fluids, a haze of redroot smoke curling around her body. Three men were taking turns with her, laughing and moaning as if they had no past or future.
Fornos didn't flinch. He took a seat opposite her, calm as glass. Then he slid the black coin across the low table between them.
The tiger-masked woman noticed.
She groaned, half in ecstasy, half in recognition, and slithered free from her partners. Still high and flushed, she stumbled toward the table, hips rolling like she'd forgotten how to walk properly. She sat, straddling the seat, and leaned forward, eyes glinting through her mask.
"I need you to spread a word," Fornos said, sliding a folded parchment across the table. "I want this idea discussed in every magical research circle that matters. Four months. Quiet, but loud enough for the right ears."
The tigress barely glanced at the document—her gaze was on Fornos. "Mmm… And what's in it for me?"
Fornos pulled a gem from his sleeve—raw and mana-infused, likely worth several golems' worth of fuel. He placed it on the table.
Her fingers hovered over it, trembling slightly.
"That's just the first," Fornos said. "You'll get the second after it spreads. Once the whispers hit at least three noble-sponsored academies."
She hesitated.
Then, while one of her previous lovers continued to rut against her from behind, she reached for the gem and purred, "Done."
Fornos nodded.
He slid forward another folded parchment, stamped with a wax seal depicting a black mask. "Come here for the second half," he said. "Ask for the Black Mask. My men will verify your progress."
The tigress stared at him, for a moment more sober than before. "You're pushing a dangerous fire into the wind, you know."
"I'm counting on it," Fornos replied.
He rose, ignoring the sounds behind him—the slaps, the moans, the soft jingling of jewelry. The underworld didn't disgust him. It was just another ecosystem. A jungle with its own apex predators.
As he exited back into the humid alley, he removed the wolf mask and tucked it into a hidden compartment in his coat.
Back inside the carriage, Fornos reviewed his own message again.
It was written in mild academic tone, masking what it truly was—a manifesto on the potential use of relay-based Codex-link fragments for real-time magical transmission of simple data across long distances.
If someone solved it publicly, and nobility took notice, it would explode. They would see the invention as a leap in military communication—something no one controlled yet. But Fornos already had a list of strategy in construction.
He didn't need to be first. He just needed to be fast.
Let others scream about discovery. He would already have the infrastructure.
The jungle was full of noise and hunger.
Fornos intended to become the silence that ruled it.