The deeper sectors of the Forbidden Vault were quiet.
Not silent.
Silence implied peace.
This place possessed none.
The corridors seemed to absorb sound rather than carry it. Footsteps became muted. Conversations felt distant. Even the ambient hum of artifacts and containment arrays sounded somehow wrong—as if reality itself struggled to decide whether noise should exist here.
Emma walked through the corridor with measured steps. Two Punishers stood outside a reinforced door ahead.
Neither spoke.
One simply pressed a hand against a crystalline panel. The door opened and cold air rolled outward. Emma entered.
The interrogation chamber resembled an operating theater more than a prison cell. Everything was black, as if it was a lightless void. A single chair sat in the center of the room.
Bound to it was a man who looked as though he belonged anywhere except somewhere clean. His name was Bartholomew "Blackwake" Voss, now a prisoner with no ship, no crew, and no hope of rescue. His wrists were bound to the armrests. His ankles were chained to the legs. His chest was bare, crisscrossed with old scars and fresher wounds that had been treated but not healed. The maw tattoo etending from his cheeck down his neck.
Normally his Presence alone would have been enough to crush weaker Flow users unconscious. But not here.
The chair he was bound to was well as several artifacts embedded into the darkness prevented him from expressing the weight of his soul. Above him, a lamp hung from the ceiling. It was not an ordinary lamp. Its casing was wrought from dark iron, its glass etched with symbols that shifted when viewed directly. The light it cast was pale, almost blue, falling directly onto the pirate's face while leaving the rest of the room in shadow. It was an artifact was amplifying cognitive effects.
The effect was unsettling.
The pirate's features were stark, illuminated, trapped. Around him, darkness pooled like water. Layl, Yulan and Dmitri stood just beyond the boundry beyond light and dark, hidden from the pirate although he could vaguely feel thier Presence.
The interrogation had already begun.
"Once more."
Layl's voice echoed.
The pirate flinched, not because of the words but the Forbidden Artifact, the Witness Lamp (FA-0036) that hung overhead. When the Inquisitors spoke, their voices did not travel through the air. They echoed directly inside Blackwave's skull. Drummed against his thoughts. Demanded answers.
He could hear nothing else.
"Go to hell."
Yulan calmly made a note.
"Hostile."
"I'm a pirate," Blackwave snarled.
"What exactly were you expecting?"
Emma stepped inside and Layl noticed immediately. For the briefest moment—her eyes widened. Then her expression flattened.
"You're late."
Emma folded his arms.
"I wasn't aware my attendance was mandatory."
Yulan sighed.
"They're doing it again."
"We are not." Layl said quickly. She was blushing but the change in complesion wasn't visible in the drakness.
'Lucky'
"We are conducting an interrogation. No need for idle chatter."
Layl shot Emma one final glare before turning back toward Blackwave. The atmosphere changed instantly. The woman vanished. The Inquisitor remained.
"Captain Bartholomew Voss."
Her voice echoed unnaturally.
"What happened before you attacked the extraction team?"
Blackwave grinned a cruel grin.
"Ate some food."
"Then?"
"Drank."
"Then?"
"Drank more."
Yulan continued writing.
"Unhelpful."
"I'm a pirate."Blackwave laughed. Then suddenly stopped.
His Presence flared, struggling against the supression artifacts. For a moment, the shadows recoiled. The lamp flickered. Dmitri tensed.
But Layl did not move.
She raised her hand.
Her Trait was The Justice of the Cognitive Class, which had authority over Empathy and Emotions. Her First Resonant activated.
She perceived his emotional state not as vague sensations but as weights. Tangible. Measurable. His fear weighed seventeen stone. His confusion weighed thirty. His hunger for violence weighed forty-two. But beneath all of it, coiled around his consciousness like a serpent around its prey, was something else. A weight that should not have been there. It was not his.
Her eyes narrowed.
Very interesting.
"He's under a mind hex."
Silence.
Emma looked toward her. Dmitri did the same.
Yulan lowered her pen.
"What?" Blackwave tried to answer.
"Answer this. Who sent you."
His expression changed.
Genuine confusion.
"What are you talking about?" the pirate asked.
"Something is interfering whenever he approaches certain memories." Yulan observed. The room grew colder.
"Can you remove it?" Emma asked.
Layl smiled.
"Who do you think your'e talking to?" she replied. Blackwave suddenly looked concerned.
"Hold on..."
No one listened and the Witness Lamp brightened.
Layl activated her second Resonant which was the ability to strike a target's emotional scale directly, inflicting judgment upon their feelings. You declare one of their emotions "unbalanced" and force its weight to crash down upon them.
Blackwave screamed.
His presence flared again—stronger this time, the instinctive resistance of a Saint trying to throw off a Cognitive attack. The lamp's light flickered violently. The shadows writhed. Blackwave convulsed. His Presence erupted and the whole room shook a the chains holding him strained and the space around him seemed to distort.
Emma, standing at the back of the room, took a step forward.
Dmitri's hand shot out.
"Don't."
"He's breaking containment."
"Allow."
"She needs—"
"No."
Dmitri's voice remained calm.
"The hex will affect you too if you get too close."
Emma stopped. His jaw tightened but he did not move.
Blackwave's eyes rolled back, his mouth opened—and something escaped.
A mist.
Black, thick, coiling upward from his throat like smoke from a dying fire. The temperature plummeted.
Emma's instincts screamed at him but he chose to put his faith in Layl. The black cloud twisted.
A face almost formed then vanished. A hand emerged then dissolved. Yulan activated three artifacts simultaneously. Golden chains erupted from the floor, containment rings formed around the mist.
Layl continued pressing.
Fear.
Doubt.
Terror.
Every suppressed emotion crashed down upon the pirate. He screamed again. The mist shrieked and the room trembled as the Witness Lamp blazed brighter.
Then—
The mist ripped free. Like a parasite being torn from flesh.
The chamber shook violently.Then everything stopped as the mist vanished. Blackwave slumped back in the chair, breathing heavily but otherwise alive.
The hex was gone.
The pirates breathing slowed. His shoulders relaxed and hen he looked up, his eyes were different. Still his, still aware but different.For the first time since Emma entered—
Peace settled across the pirate's face. Layl had put him in a state of stillness. A state of Serenity.
Layl lowered her hand.
"Now."
Dmitri stepped forward.
"Someone placed a seal on your mind. It prevented you from speaking about your orders. It also compelled you to attack Veridian."
Blackwave stared at him.
"I don't... I don't remember any of that."
Layl studied him.
"Tell us the last thing you remember." Yulan prompted.
"We..."
He swallowed.
"We attacked a merchant convoy."
"Continue."
"What about the rest of the Red Maw fleet?" Emma interupted, ignoring the glares. Blackwave was quiet for a moment then he spoke.
"The Red Maw fleet has forty ships. Most are scattered across the southern sea. Only three were with the flagship. The rest... I don't know where they are. We weren't supposed to be together. We were called."
"Called by whom?"
"I don't know. A mist came after we raided the merchant convoy. It swallowed our ships."
Emma felt his stomach tighten.
"What do you mean swallowed?"
"I mean swallowed."
Blackwave looked up at the lamp with a distant look in his eyes.
"We couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't think. It took the crew. I could feel it in my head, but I couldn't—I couldn't fight it."
His hands trembled.
"I remember attacking someone."
"Who?"
"Our captain."
"What?"
"The Leader of the Red Maw Fleet."
The room froze and blackwave laughed weakly.
"The poor bastard barely escaped."
Emma stepped forward.
"Where?"
"No idea."
"Where did he go?"
"I don't know."
The answer came immediately. Truthfully.
"What happened after the mist took control?"
The pirate's expression grew distant.
"I..."
He frowned.
"I just..."
The serenity wavered.
"Just what?"
"I wanted to go to Veridian."
"Why?"
"Treasure."
The answer emerged immediately.
"Take the treasure."
Dmitri leaned forward.
"What treasure?"
"The treasure." The pirate answered him.
Emma's eyes narrowed.
"The automatons. Where did they come from?"
Blackwave froze. The serenity had shattered as if it was physical glass.
CRACK.
The pirates body seized. His eyes rolled back as blood ran from his nose.
"No."
"Bartholomew..."
"NO!"
The pirate began screaming. Not words just noise and pure panic.
Then—
He collapsed.
Silence.
The Witness Lamp dimmed. Several moments passed.
The Inquisitors exchanged glances. Layl checked his pulse. Still alive. Still breathing. He groaned and woke up.
"Bloody hell,I feel like i was whacked in the head with a canonball." Blackwave muttered with a wince. Layl checked him with her firts resonant but there was no foulplay, he was genuinely confused.
She frowned.
'Interesting. Very interesting.'
"He doesn't know."
Emma looked toward her.
"What?"
"He's genuinely confused."
Blackwave stared iwhere he thought the voices came from.
"What're ya blokes talkin 'bout?"
No one answered immediately. Till Emma's patience finally snapped.
"We can force the information out." he said taking a step foward.
Layl immediately grabbed his shoulder.
The gesture surprised everyone. Including Layl herself.
"Captain Gable. With respect—force will not change the outcome. The seal is broken. He genuinely does not remember. Whatever was placed on him, it took those memories when it left."
Emma's jaw tightened.
"There has to be another way."
"There is not."
The room became awkward briefly. Then professionalism returned. Emma stared at the confused pirate for several moments then cursed quietly.
"Dammit."
Dmitri exhaled.
Yulan looked relieved.
Layl removed her hand. Slightly too quickly.
Emma pretended not to notice.
Dmitri absolutely noticed.
Yulan definitely noticed.
Blackwave noticed nothing.
"We're done here." Layl said.
She walked past him toward the door. Dmitri and Yulan followed. Emma stood in the chamber for a moment longer, staring at the pirate, at the lamp, at the shadows that still clung to the corners.
Then he left.
The door closed behind him.
Blackwave sat alone beneath the lamp.
The room was silent.
For several moments he simply breathed.
Then he frowned.
A strange feeling lingered in his chest. Like something important had been taken from him.
Something he could no longer remember losing. He had been...
...Changed.