Part 1: The Gate of Ironhorn
The town sat like a tumor on the hillside.
Thick stone walls ringed it in tight, rising from the cracked dirt like a clenched fist. Two wooden watchtowers jutted up on either side of the iron gate, manned by guards who looked more like mercenaries than soldiers. Rust-red banners hung limp in the wind, their sigils faded, more ash than color. Behind the walls, the sky darkened from the smoke of low-burning furnaces and cookfires.
Yuji took it all in from a rise in the trail, arms crossed, cloak newly patched and pulled tight.
"This is Ironhorn?" he muttered.
Sylvia, standing just behind him, sniffed the air. "It reeks."
"Smoke?"
"Blood. Greed. Desperation."
He glanced at her. She was still bruised but healing fast—his aura was accelerating her recovery without conscious effort. Her ears twitched slightly. She was alert. Focused. No longer just a beaten slave girl.
She was a wolf again.
"Stay close," he said. "And play the part."
Her eyes flicked toward the heavy collar still around her neck. She hadn't asked him to remove it. Maybe she wanted others to think she was owned. Maybe it helped keep them safe.
Or maybe it reminded her of what they'd escaped.
They approached the gate.
Two guards stepped forward. One was fat and pockmarked, the other tall and wiry with eyes like cold nails. Both wore piecemeal armor and loose expressions that flickered with interest the moment they saw Sylvia.
"State your business," the tall one said, leaning lazily on a spear.
Yuji didn't stop walking. "Adventurer. Registering with the local guild. Got coin."
"Name?"
Yuji paused. "Kael."
The fat one snorted. "Kael, huh? Fancy. And the mutt?"
Sylvia's body tensed behind him. She didn't growl. She didn't need to.
"She's mine," Yuji said evenly.
The tall guard's eyes slid over her, lingering. "She's got fight in her. You tradein' or keepin'?"
Yuji didn't blink. "Wouldn't advise touching her. Not unless you want your dick growing backwards."
That made the fat one laugh. "We get all kinds lately. Mages. Drifters. Foreigners thinkin' they can save the world with a sword and a sob story."
The tall one stepped forward, lifting a hand. "Toll's two silver. Or the girl for a night."
Yuji stared at him.
Then reached into the pouch on his hip and pulled out something shiny.
It wasn't a coin.
It was a crystallized chunk of mana—dense, glowing faintly red, taken from the slaver mage he'd torched the day before. Unstable. Potent.
He tossed it underhand.
The tall guard caught it—barely—and nearly dropped it as the heat burned his glove.
"What the—?"
"Mana core. Unrefined. Worth four silver at least," Yuji said, already walking past. "You just got a bargain."
He didn't look back to see the guard's reaction.
Sylvia followed, quiet as snowfall.
Inside, the road twisted through a set of sloped alleys, packed with carts, beggars, pickpockets, and drunks. The people of Ironhorn moved fast and hunched, eyes darting, lips sealed. The buildings were crammed together like dying teeth—leaning, soot-stained, and ugly.
Sylvia leaned closer as they walked. "You gave that man a core."
"Better than giving him you."
"He'll track it."
"I know."
She eyed him. "You plan to kill him?"
Yuji smiled faintly. "Eventually."
They walked deeper into Ironhorn, the gate closing behind them like a cage door made of promises and rot.
Part 2: Meat for Gold
Ironhorn wasn't a town. It was a wound that never healed.
Yuji moved through its arteries with eyes half-lidded, cloak drawn tight, letting the crowd swirl around him. Sylvia stayed at his side, her wolf ears flattened beneath a crude hood. No one looked too closely. The collar did most of the talking.
Street vendors barked like starved dogs, hawking mystery meat on skewers, rusted weapons, and half-used spell scrolls. Beggars sat in corners, faces hollowed out from mana sickness or hunger or both. No children were playing. Only children working—or crying.
And then they turned a corner and saw it.
The auction.
A wide plaza lined with weather-worn marble columns, sunken slightly into the ground like a pit. At the center stood a platform of dark wood, surrounded by armed guards and clustered merchants. A man in gold-threaded robes paced beside a line of shackled figures—mostly demi-humans. Fox-ears, scaled arms, tails peeking beneath torn rags.
Each wore a tag. Age. Gender. Breed. Price.
"Five silver for this fine doe! Healer potential! Virgin!"
The crowd murmured.
Sylvia stopped walking.
Yuji glanced back.
Her hands were clenched so tight her nails had drawn blood in her palms.
She didn't say a word. Didn't have to.
He stepped beside her. "Don't."
"I'm not—" Her voice was raw. "—not going to make a scene."
Her body betrayed her.
Every inch of her wanted to rip, to tear. But she stood still. Her chest heaved. Her scent shifted—anger and grief mixing into something primal.
Yuji turned back to the auction. The robed man had moved on.
"And now—our final entry before the noon toll. This little mix-blood. Bit of an attitude problem, but still untouched. Starting bid: three silvers."
The girl he held up looked maybe eleven. Rabbit ears drooped. Eyes glazed.
A man stepped forward and waved a pouch.
The merchant smiled. "Sold!"
Sylvia made a sound like a dying growl.
Yuji spoke softly. "This is how the system works. The guild doesn't just allow it. It funds it."
"I know," she hissed. "I lived it."
He looked at her again. "Then we burn it the right way. From the inside."
Her eyes met his—ice-blue, furious, but not reckless.
She nodded once.
They moved on.
Deeper into Ironhorn's heart, the architecture shifted. The streets were cleaner. The bloodstains rarer. Banners of the local guild fluttered from high poles—red on black, with the emblem of a cracked sword wrapped in vines.
Yuji stopped before a wide cathedral-like building of grey stone and obsidian glass.
Over the main archway was carved a phrase in Highrunic:
"Service is the path. Obedience the reward."
Sylvia snorted. "Guilds. Always poetic with their chains."
Yuji stepped through the threshold.
Inside was worse.