Dhaurim City slept beneath a smog-soaked sky, its piston towers quieted to a low mechanical murmur, its rail lines humming faintly with residual heat. Steam drifted lazily from cooling vents, and the upper terraces lay still beneath a veil of soot-tinted mist.
Inside the Emberforge Guild compound, however, sleep had already fled. Chaos churned through its corridors in frantic ripples. Search teams rushed in and out of the iron gates. Orders were barked across courtyards. Boots thundered against reinforced walkways. Alarm bells clanged in shrill repetition, echoing off steel walls like anxious heartbeats.
Yet beneath all that noise, something else began to seep into the air.
It was not loud. It was not visible.
But it was oppressive.
A pressure, slow and suffocating, bled into the compound as though the entire guild had been placed beneath an unseen weight.
The first to notice them was the gate guard.
A cold wind brushed past him, unnatural in its sharpness. It slid beneath his armor and settled into his bones. He shivered and rubbed his hands together, muttering about the night chill. When he looked up—
They were standing there.
They had not approached. They had not crossed the courtyard. They had simply appeared.
Robed figures stood before him in absolute silence. The stone beneath their boots seemed to flinch, as if uncertain whether it should bear their weight. There were eight of them.
One wore a gilded mask etched with intricate runic circles that caught the faint glow of the gate lanterns. Two others were wrapped in layered talismans, bone-stitched satchels hanging at their sides, charms swaying without wind. Three were dwarves clad in sand-hued wraps, their exposed skin marked with swirling tattoos that glowed faintly like embers beneath ash.
A hunched old woman leaned on a staff that hummed with fractured light, its surface cracked like dried lacquer.
And at their center stood a figure clad in black-and-gold armor, the helm shaped like a prowling hound poised to tear flesh.
The guard's throat tightened. He nearly screamed, but discipline—barely—held him steady.
"Who… who are you?" he asked, fear trembling openly in his voice.
One of the tattooed dwarves smiled faintly. "We are here for business with your Guildmaster."
The armored figure turned his helm toward the guard. When he spoke, his voice was distorted, layered as though echoing from a chamber too deep to name.
"Fetch your Guildmaster."
The air around the guard constricted. It felt as if unseen fingers had wrapped around his throat, squeezing gently but with promise of more. Terror overwhelmed him. He turned and ran without another word, and he did not look back.
Inside the guild compound, oblivious to the arrival of his visitors, Varric paced the main hall in restrained fury. He barked commands at officers and snarled threats at subordinates who failed to move quickly enough.
The doors to the hall opened without a knock.
Varric turned sharply, ready to unleash another tirade before He froze.
The robed figures entered with measured composure, like surgeons stepping into an operating chamber. Their boots made no sound against the iron floor.
His voice shrank in his throat.
"…You."
One of the dwarves inclined his head politely. "Guildmaster Varric Steelmaul."
He stepped forward and spoke in a smooth, restrained tone. "We are here to fulfill our trade and take the relic."
"Please bring it here so it may be verified," he continued calmly, "and then we may proceed with finalizing the agreed price."
A tremor ran through Varric's hands. He recognized the speaker.
A Tazrik Clan elder.
They had come in person.
That unsettled him more than he cared to admit. He had not expected them to arrive accompanied by… whatever these others were.
He straightened, forcing dignity into his posture. "Of course. The relic is secure. Stored. Contained. There is no cause for concern."
The elder smiled thinly. "As expected from the Emberforge Guild. Then bring it."
Varric hesitated.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
The hunched mystic stepped forward, her voice crackling like burnt parchment. "Do not delay us, boy."
Varric swallowed. He could not show weakness. Not before them.
"There has been… a minor complication," he began carefully.
The robed figures tilted their heads almost in unison.
He continued, forcing steadiness into his tone. "Temporary. My men are in pursuit. The relic will be secured again shortly."
"It was stolen," the gilded mask said.
It was not a question.
It was a statement.
Varric stiffened.
The masked figure stepped forward, one measured step.
"Who?"
A single word.
Sharp enough to cut.
Varric's pride flared, brittle and desperate. "A traitor. A deserter. We are hunting him."
"You have failed the agreement, Guildmaster," the Tazrik elder interrupted, still polite, still pitiless. "And that relic was not something you were permitted to lose."
Cold sweat formed along Varric's neck. "We are tracking the thief. He cannot have gone far—"
The mystic took another step forward. Her presence bent the air.
"Your incompetence jeopardizes more than this city," she said. "You have lost something that does not belong to you."
Her voice lowered to a vibrating hum. "Do you understand the gravity of that, Boy?"
Silence filled the hall.
Varric's eyes twitched as desperation clawed up his chest.
"You cannot simply walk in here and make demands," But the always silent man wearing layers of talisman snapped out.
In a second his hand was gripping Varric throat with giant like strength. Varric gagged, boots kicking uselessly. The man lifted him off the ground effortlessly, the talisman glowing with golden sand-light.
"Guildmaster," the Tazrik dwarf said calmly, "your life is worth less than the box you lost."
The man released him.
Varric collapsed to the floor, gasping.
The armored figure stepped closer. The air tightened around him like invisible chains.
"Who took it?" he demanded.
In despair and distress Varric's fear shifted to defiance. Not courage just bitter pride.
"Why should I tell you?" he hissed, voice cracking. "You think you can threaten me? I am Varric Steelbrand, Guildmaster of_"
He had not finished when a hand settled on his shoulder softly, almost gentle.
The old mystic leaned down, her whisper sliding into his ear like a blade through silk.
"Your name means nothing. Your breath means nothing. Your life has already ended."
Something inside Varric snapped.
He lunged.
Mana erupted from him in molten-red fury. His blade ignited with furnace heat, the hall trembling under the surge of his Mortal Lord aura. He roared and struck at the mystic with full force—a blow capable of splitting stone and crushing armored carriages yet the strike never landed.
The old woman raised her staff and a ripple of pressure burst outward.
BOOM.
The floor dented while the walls cracked.
Varric was hurled across the hall like a discarded doll, smashing into a pillar hard enough to send dust cascading from the ceiling. He coughed blood, vision swimming. His sword trembled in his grip.
"No…" he rasped. "I will not die like this. I am not—"
The mystic blurred.
For a split-second she was in front of him. Then behind him. Then nowhere.
A cold presence pressed against his spine.
"You were dead," she whispered.
A flash of fractured light cut through the air.
Varric did not feel pain.
He collapsed in two clean halves.
His eyes remained open, frozen in disbelief.
Silence followed.
Then the armored figure raised one gauntleted hand.
"Erase them all."
That night the Guild screamed.
Flames not of fire, but of unraveling mana spread through every inch of the guild. The talisman-bearers moved like sandstorms given human form, tearing through armored guild enforcers without slowing.
The gilded mask unleashed relic-forged constructs—mechanical horrors that crawled along walls and ceilings, slicing through men and metal alike. Steel bent like paper and flesh split without resistance.
The mystic whispered curse like words, folding space into crushing distortions that twisted bodies into impossible shapes.
The Emberforge Guild, proud and fortified, stood no chance.
Within minutes, the main hall ran red.
Within an hour, the compound fell silent.
The three Tazrik dwarves watched without interference, their expressions unreadable as the massacre unfolded around them.
When it was done, no one remained alive within the guild's walls. They departed as silently as they had arrived.
As dawn brushed the rooftops of Dhaurim City, smoke drifted upward from the Emberforge compound.
And there was no one left alive inside to explain what had happened.