Kazimir stared at Katarzyna, lantern light carving angular shadows across her cheekbones. The audacity of her request was breathtaking. Rostov’s command post was a fortress, not just against the Skverna, but against anyone with ambition. And the Soul-Forge schematics? That was the core of his power. This wasn't just a favor; it was a suicide mission disguised as a negotiation. “Are you insane?” Kazimir’s voice was a low growl, lost among the rows of clouded specimen jars. “You’re asking me to walk into the Hound’s den and steal his crown jewels. He has Kolyada’s fiercest brutes guarding that place.” Katarzyna merely arched a brow, unperturbed. “And you’re asking me to vanish into the smog with a target on my back, Kazimir. Rostov isn’t known for his leniency. He’d flay me for sheltering a ‘glitch’.” She glanced at the Echo-Reader clutched in his hand. “Besides, you’re the saboteur who brought down the Svyatogor Foundries and left Volkov’s enforcer looking like an amateur. You’re more resourceful than you let on.” Kazimir gritted his teeth. “Resourceful, not suicidal. Mila needs a safe place, not an orphan’s home. And I need information. What’s driving Rostov? He’s not supposed to be hunting me with this kind of fervor, not this early.” Katarzyna leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “That’s the interesting part. His brutality… it’s new. More focused. Almost like someone wound him up tighter. Before, he was a hound on a leash. Now, he’s off the chain.” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “And word travels from the outer districts. Of a shadowy figure, not Skverna, not human, hunting… anomalies. Things that don’t quite fit the pattern.” Nausea stirred behind Kazimir’s ribs. Anomalies. Glitches. Was Vorotnik already making his move? It was too soon. Far too soon for the final boss to be involved. “A safe house for Mila,” Kazimir stated, pushing past his unease. “Somewhere undetectable, out of the Rusted Quarter. And your best intel on Rostov’s movements, his weaknesses, his habits. Not just general gossip, Katarzyna. Details. Who breathes in his shadow? Who cleans his boots? Who despises him enough to sell him out?” Katarzyna’s smile was thin. “A tall order. But if you bring me those schematics… I have a place. An old crypt, deep beneath the Sunken Market. Abandoned for decades. No one goes there. As for Rostov… I’ve been tracking him. It’s a hobby.” She tapped a finger on the stack of tinctures. “You have two days. After that, my price for disappearing goes up, and my information grows cold.” Kazimir gave a curt nod. “Two days.” The words felt like lead on his tongue. He turned, the gloom of the shop seeming to press in on him. This was it. A direct confrontation with his own narrative, but twisted beyond recognition. He had written the Hound, but this new Hound was rabid, its fangs dripping with the unexpected. Far from the Rusted Quarter, in a forgotten sub-level of the Svyatogor Foundries, Lyudvik, Volkov’s battered lieutenant, cradled a splintered forearm. His face was a bruised mess, soot-stained and streaked with dried blood. He had failed. Not just failed, but been made a fool of, caught in a trap that felt less like luck and more like a malicious, personal joke. His men, what few remained from the chaotic retreat, kept their distance, muttering about cursed steam vents and demon traps. The lieutenant knew better. That villain, Kazimir, had orchestrated it. But how? The power surge, the precise timing… it defied explanation. A chill, colder than the foundry’s perpetually damp air, seeped into the cavern. Wick flames sputtered low in their grease basins, smothered by an oily darkness. The air itself began to shimmer, like heat haze over molten metal, but with an inverse chill that set teeth on edge. The lieutenant jerked his chin upward. A figure coalesced from the distorted air, a shimmering outline of a man, indistinct and wavering. It pulsed with a sickly green light, like decaying phosphor, and its features constantly shifted, reforming and blurring. It was neither solid nor entirely translucent, a ghost of code made flesh. “You failed,” a voice echoed, not from the figure’s shifting mouth, but from everywhere at once, a resonant hum that vibrated in the man’s marrow. It held no anger, only an unsettling, clinical observation. “Your actions were… inefficient. Not to standard.” He scrambled backward, his uninjured hand clawing against slick flagstones for a pipe iron. “Who… what are you?” “I am the Unwritten,” the phantom replied, its form momentarily solidifying into a stern, gaunt man with eyes of pure, cold light. “And I observe.” The green glow intensified, and tendrils of light reached out, probing the stale draft around the officer. “The Markovic boy… he did this,” the officer stammered, saliva spattering his chin. “He set the traps. He used… the pipes. It was impossible. He knew. He knew how to trigger it.” The Unwritten’s head tilted, a movement that seemed to ripple through its entire form. The tendrils of green light pierced the lieutenant's skull, digging into fresh memory. A shriek tore from his throat, muffled instantly as the entity sifted through boiler ruptures and deliberate pressure spikes. The phosphor halo around Vorotnik shuddered violently, then locked into a rigid pulse. Its form solidified, no longer wavering. Its face, though still inhumanly composed, held a nascent fury. “He… altered the flow. Rerouted the latent Soul Echoes. Manipulated the very fabric of this… scene.” Vorotnik severed the link, the luminous threads retracting into his skin. His thrall collapsed onto the slag, gasping violently. “This… is not how it was meant to proceed,” Vorotnik mused, its voice now sharper, colder. “The narrative… it deviates. He is interfering.” The phantom fixed pale, luminescent eyes on him, pinning him to the floor. “You were a vector for his… influence.” The enforcer opened his mouth to plead, but his tongue locked rigid. The Unwritten simply extended an open palm. Emerald light surged, and the kneeling soldier dissolved into drifting motes that spiraled straight into the phantom’s chest. The absorption was swift, complete. The Unwritten pulsed with renewed vigor, the green light deepening, solidifying its form further. It stood alone in the dark foundry, a sentient glitch, now more aware, more powerful. It closed its eyes for a moment, processing the raw data, the residual impressions of Kazimir’s unconventional tactics. When it opened its eyes, they blazed with a terrifying understanding. It looked past the empty slag floor, staring upward through stone ceilings and smog-choked rafters. Its voice, flat as grinding gears, vibrated through the cavern. “…An Author’s touch. I am being edited.”

The Author's Signature