The mission slate was a grim list of names and blood prices. Two days after the Inquisitor's visit, the air in the pocket dimension was still thick with unspoken dread. Everyone moved quieter, talked less. Fear was a good fertilizer for obedience.
I found my name, my fake heart giving a dull thud of inevitability.
Team: Extraction & Sanction
Location: Ironfall Township, Stoneheart Foothills (Disputed Zone).
Objective: Retrieve prototype Rune-Plate of Mana Suppression from the craftsman Borik Martinez. Sanction the craftsman to prevent replication.
Handler: Acolyte Selene.
Members: Mara (Flame), Damian (Earth/Fire), Liam (Wind/Steel), Noah (Shadow/Beast-Communication), Olivia (Water/Healer).
Sanction. A clean, bureaucratic word for murder.
I memorized the details and went to gear up. My ribs were still tender but the salve had worked miracles. The two gold coins and six silver left in my pocket felt like a secret armor. I stopped by Hacks' window on the way to the transport bay.
"I need rations. The good ones. Not the sawdust bars. And two extra mana-restoration potions. Low-grade."
Hacks squinted at me, his scarred lip twitching. He'd already made a month's wages off me. Greed warred with caution. "Good rations are two silver a pack. Low-grade mana potion's five silver a vial. That's… fourteen silver total. You got that kind of silver, pup? Or you flashing more of that 'found' gold?"
I didn't have fourteen silver. I had six silver and two gold. I needed to understand the conversion. "What's the exchange?"
He snorted. "Where you from, a cave? Fine. For the slow ones: One Gold Coin gets you twenty Silver Shards. One Silver Shard gets you one hundred Copper Bits. Your two gold marks? That's forty silver shards. A fortune for a recruit. Now, you buying or wasting my time?"
So, two gold was forty silver. Fourteen silver was a significant chunk to him. The potions were insurance. The rations were about not being weak from hunger at a critical moment. I pulled out one of my remaining gold coins and slid it across the counter. "The supplies. And I want my change in silver. All of it."
His eyes gleamed as he pocketed the gold. He handed me two packs of dense, nut-and-dried-meat rations, two vials of cerulean liquid, and a heavy cloth pouch that clinked. I counted it quickly: Twenty-six Silver Shards. My entire remaining wealth was now this pouch and one last gold mark hidden in my boot. It felt more real this way. More usable.
"Pleasure doing business," Hacks muttered, already turning away.
The transport bay was a cavernous space echoing with the thrum-thrum of mana cores. Our ride was another armored Skimmer, this one more battered, with scratch marks along its flank. The team was already assembling.
Mara was there, checking the crystal focus on her staff. She gave me a curt nod.
Liam was a lean, tense man with close-cropped brown hair and eyes that never stopped moving. He had two short, broad-bladed swords on his back. My Gaze read him: *2nd Order, Rank 4. Primary Affinity: Wind (D-Grade). Secondary: Steel Reinforcement (E-Grade).* A close-quarters fighter who used wind for speed and his blades for killing.
Noah was the opposite—slouched, with shaggy black hair and a bored expression. He wore dark clothes and had a raven perched on his shoulder that stared with intelligent, beady eyes. *2nd Order, Rank 2. Primary Affinity: Shadow (D-Grade). Secondary: Beast Empathy (F+ Grade).* A scout and a tracker.
Olivia stood a little apart, a young woman with kind, anxious blue eyes and hands that kept smoothing her simple grey robes. She carried a satchel of herbs and vials. *2nd Order, Rank 1. Primary Affinity: Water (D-Grade). Secondary: Healing (E-Grade).* Our medic. The cult always brought a healer on sanction jobs— to keep the assets functional.
Selene arrived, her grey coat swirling. "Load up. The ride is eight hours. Ironfall is a mess. It's officially under the Stoneheart Confederacy's protection, but it's full of human prospectors, rogue beastkin, and guild spies. The dwarf, Borik, is hiding in a boarded-up workshop in the slum district. He's scared. He's trying to sell the rune-plate to the highest bidder. Our intelligence says the Argentum Empire's agents are already sniffing around. We get there first. We get the plate. We leave no witnesses, especially not Borik. Understood?"
Murmurs of assent. We piled into the Skimmer's hold. The atmosphere was thick with tension. Liam took out a whetstone and began methodically sharpening his blades. Noah's raven, Korv, tilted its head, watching everyone. Olivia clutched her satchel to her chest. Mara stared at the wall, her jaw tight.
The Skimmer lurched into motion, the mana-core's whine rising in pitch as we left the pocket dimension and hit the open road.
Hours passed. To break the silence, and to probe, I spoke to Liam. "Steel affinity. That's rare. More for knights than… us."
He didn't look up from his whetstone. Scrape. Scrape. "My father was a blacksmith for a noble house. I learned the feel of metal before I learned to talk. The House saw it as… utilitarian. He finally glanced at me. "Heard you're the Earth user. You're the one who brawled with a Spore Nyx."
"It wasn't a brawl. It was a messy survival," I said.
He grunted, a sound of approval. "Survival's the only art that matters."
Noah, from his shadowed corner, spoke up, his voice a lazy drawl. "Korv doesn't like you. Like blood and your aura is dark"
All eyes turned to me. Mara's gaze was sharp.
I looked at the raven. It stared back. "Tell your bird to keep its beak out of my business."
Noah just smiled, a thin, unpleasant thing. "Just an observation. We're all monsters here. Some of us just wear it on the outside."
Olivia flinched at the word 'monsters'. I saw it. A crack. A point of pressure.
"We're tools," I corrected, my voice flat. "Monsters are unpredictable. Tools are precise. The House invested in us because we're useful. Sentient tools, but tools nonetheless. The moment we stop being useful, or start being a liability…" I let the sentence hang, my eyes meeting Mara's, then Liam's. "We become the sanctioned."
The hold went very quiet. The truth, spoken aloud, was colder than the metal walls.
"So we be the best damn tools they have," Liam said finally, sheathing his blades with a definitive click.
"Exactly," I said. My mind wandering somewhere else.
Ironfall Township stank of coal smoke and forge-fire. It was a vertical town built into a cliffside around a roaring waterfall that powered grinding mills and smelters. Ramshackle buildings of stone and rusted iron clung to the rock. The streets were narrow, muddy, and crowded with a mix of surly dwarves, hard-eyed humans, and a few skittish beastkin hauling carts.
The Skimmer dropped us off in a scrap yard on the town's fringes. Selene handed Liam a small, glowing compass. "It's tuned to the resonance of the prototype rune-plate. The workshop is in the Rust Gulch district, bottom level. Move fast, stay quiet. Olivia, you're rear guard. Watch our backs for curious locals or Empire tails. Go."
We moved into the chaotic flow of the town. The disparity of wealth was stark. Prosperous dwarven merchants in fine wool coats jostled past human laborers in threadbare clothes, their pockets jingling with copper bits. I saw a shop selling low-grade mana crystals—a tiny, cloudy one cost five silver shards.
We descended through the town, moving from relatively clean streets to narrow, reeking alleys where the buildings leaned together. Rust Gulch. The compass led us to a dead-end alley. At the end was a door of solid iron, rusted but heavy. No windows. The symbol of a crossed hammer and chisel was barely visible under the grime.
"This is it," Liam whispered, hand on his sword hilt.
Noah gestured. Korv the raven took off, silent as smoke, landing on the roof above the door. After a moment, it gave a soft, single caw. One person inside.
"Borik's alone," Noah translated.
"Damian," Selene said. "Get the door open. Quietly."
I stepped forward, placing my hands on the cold metal. My Earth sense reached through it, feeling the mechanism—a heavy internal bar, not a lock. Simple but effective. I couldn't shape the metal. But I could manipulate the stone frame. I focused, sending a subtle, precise vibration through the mortar holding the door's hinge-stones.
A soft crunch. The mortar turned to dust. I pushed, and the entire door, bar and all, swung inward silently on now-loose hinges.
We flooded inside.
The workshop was a single, low-ceilinged room lit by a single, flickering glow-stone. It was a chaos of tools, half-finished metal projects, and schematics pinned to the walls. In the center, bent over a workbench, was a dwarf. Borik Martinez. He was older, his beard streaked with grey, his eyes wide with panic as he spun around, clutching a rectangular, dull-grey metal plate to his chest.
"Stay back!" he yelled, his voice rough. "I've sold it! The Empire's men are coming! You're too late!"
[System Quest Activated: Swift Sanction]
Objective: Secure the Prototype Rune-Plate. Eliminate the craftsman, Borik Martinez.
Secondary Objective: Do not allow the plate to be damaged.
Reward: 1,000 System Credits. Increased favor with the House of Crimson.
Failure Penalty: Demotion of Resource Access. Physical Punishment.
The System's cold prompt mirrored Selene's order perfectly.
"Hand over the plate, dwarf," Selene said, her voice devoid of warmth. "It will be cleaner."
"Go to the abyss, cultist!" Borik spat. He slammed the rune-plate down on the workbench and grabbed a heavy, rune-inscribed hammer.
The moment the plate hit the bench, a visible wave of nullification pulsed out from it. My connection to my Earth core sputtered, thinning by half. Mara's staff-tip flame died to a mere ember. Liam cursed as the wind around his blades stilled. The Rune-Plate of Mana Suppression was active.
Borik, unaffected—likely keyed to the rune—swung the hammer at Liam with surprising speed. Liam parried with a blade, but without his wind-enhanced speed, the dwarf's strength knocked him back a step.
Noah melted into the shadows near the door, but his form was fuzzier, less substantial. The plate suppressed his shadow affinity too.
This was a problem. We were a team of magic-users suddenly fighting in a low-magic zone.
Borik was a 2nd Order Rune-Smith. In a straight, magic-less brawl in this confined space, with that nullification field and his heavy hammer, he was a serious threat.
"Close quarters! Take him down!" Selene ordered, drawing her own knives, but even her movements seemed slightly less fluid.
Mara, her fire all but useless, reversed her grip on her staff and lunged, using it as a blunt spear. Borik blocked it with his hammer, the impact ringing in the small room.
This was taking too long. Noise would draw attention. The Empire's agents could be close.
I didn't try to use big magic. I used the principle. Density. Impact. I charged, not with Earth magic flowing, but with my body temporarily hardened by the last dregs of power I could channel in the field. I became a battering ram.
I ducked under a wild swing of the hammer and drove my shoulder into Borik's chest. There was a satisfying oof as the air left his lungs. I wrapped my arms around him in a brutal grapple, pinning his hammer arm. He was strong, thrashing like a bull.
"Liam! Now!" I gritted out.
Liam didn't need magic. He stepped in, his steel-affinity subtly reinforcing his muscles even under suppression, and drove his short sword in a clean, professional thrust under the dwarf's ribs, angled upward.
Borik stiffened. A wet gasp. His struggles weakened.
I held him until the light faded from his eyes, then let the body slump to the grimy floor.
The nullification field flickered and died. The rune-plate was just inert metal again.
Silence, heavy and the smell of blood.
Olivia stood by the door, her face pale, a hand over her mouth. She'd watched a man be murdered. A sanctioned murder.
Selene stepped over the body and picked up the rune-plate, tucking it into a shielded case at her belt. "Clean and fficient. Liam, Damian, good improvisation." Her praise was like a clinical note.
[Quest: Swift Sanction - COMPLETE.]
Reward: 1,000 Credits Added.
"Search the place for any notes, backups," Selene ordered.
As Liam and Noah began rifling through scrolls, I knelt beside Borik's body. I slipped my hands into his pockets. In a hidden inner pouch, I felt the familiar cool weight of coins. I palmed them smoothly and stood, transferring the small handful to my own pocket. A quick mental assessment: felt like a few silver, maybe a handful of copper.
Mara was watching me, her expression unreadable. She'd seen me loot the corpse.
I met her gaze and gave a tiny, cold shrug. Waste not.
Her lips tightened, but she didn't say anything. She looked from the dead dwarf to the terrified Olivia, then back to me. The message in her eyes was clear: This is what we are now.
Yes. It was. But I wasn't just a tool. I was the hand that would one day hold the hammer.
"Clear!" Noah called. "Just basic schematics. Nothing on the suppression principle."
"Then we're done," Selene said. "Move out. Back to the extraction point. Now."
We filed out of the workshop, leaving the dwarf craftsman cooling on his own floor. As we moved back up through Rust Gulch, I subtly counted my newfound wealth in my pocket.
Three Silver Shards. Twenty-two Copper Bits.