“Lali, what have you done?” Niko’s voice was a tight wire, stretched to snapping. He didn’t need to elaborate. The locked door, the chilling dismissal, the quiet pronouncement from the man whose name was synonymous with disaster – it all hung in the stale air of the hallway like a sentence. Lali felt her composure crack under the quiet tick of internal machinery deep within the manor walls.
“Done?” she echoed, her own voice betraying a tremor she struggled to suppress. “I’ve secured our future, you idiot. Or I’ve just managed to trap myself in a glorified dungeon with a deranged Artificer who sees through me like polished glass. Pick your poison.” She forced a brittle laugh, trying to inject her usual bravado, but it withered on her tongue. The cold truth was a lead weight in her gut: Kordian Sturua knew. And the implication of that knowledge was a gaping maw.
Before Niko could respond, a low whirring filled the silence. A large, multi-limbed clockwork unit, its brass plating gleaming dully, lumbered into view from a side corridor. Its optical lens glowed a faint amber. “Assignment: Guest Vashadze. Priority: Escort to assigned quarters.” The voice was a flat, mechanical monotone, devoid of inflection. This was Unit 7, the same drone that had confronted her at the gates.
Lali bristled. “Guest? More like prisoner, wouldn’t you say?” She muttered under her breath, but the machine gave no sign of hearing. Its metallic arm gestured down a long, richly carpeted corridor. She exchanged a glance with Niko, a silent agreement passing between them. Escape was out of the question for now. Information was their only weapon.
Their quarters were less a room and more a sprawling suite of interconnected salons, opulent and strangely deserted. Heavy velvet drapes blocked out the meager afternoon light. Dust motes hung in the meager beams, illuminating ornate, antique highboys and worn velvet settees. Lali walked straight to the window, tugging at a drape. It stuck, then gave way with a hiss, revealing a vista of overgrown gardens and high, spiked walls. No obvious weak points. Typical.
“Right,” she declared, clapping her hands together. “Operation: Inventory and Infiltration begins. You, Niko, focus on mapping the internal workings. Any loose wires, any hidden passages, anything that doesn’t quite fit. I’ll start with the valuables and whatever safeguards he set.”
For the next few hours, Lali moved through the Sturua Manor like a phantom. She ignored the obvious routes, opting for forgotten staircases and service passages. Her fingers, nimble and experienced, brushed against every surface, testing, prodding. Her eyes, sharp and calculating, cataloged. The gleaming silver candelabras in the dining hall? Genuine pre-Cataclysmic craftsmanship. The intricate, gem-encrusted music box in a parlor? A masterpiece of Artificer-era artistry. The manor was a treasure trove, a gilded cage designed to impress and imprison.
She found no immediate flaws in the conventional security. Every window was barred, every door of reinforced oak or steel, often with multiple, complex locks. The patrol drones, she quickly learned, were not merely servants but an extension of Kordian’s surveillance. Their optical lenses seemed to follow her, their whirring motors growing louder if she lingered too long in any given spot. It was unnerving, the feeling of being constantly watched.
Her exploration led her deeper into the manor’s neglected wings, where the air grew colder and the scent of ozone and machine oil intensified. Behind a frayed hanging woven with faded battle scenes, she found a concealed door set flush against the wainscoting. Her throat tightened. This felt promising.
With a practiced shimmy of a pick, the mechanism clicked. The door swung inward, revealing a descending stone staircase. Darkness pooled below, but a faint hum of pressure pipes beckoned. This had to be it. Kordian’s private domain. The rumored workshop. Lali descended cautiously, her senses on high alert. The air grew thick with the tang of scorched copper and static.
The workshop was an organized chaos of gears, pressurized lines, half-assembled constructs, and glowing power cores. Blue light pulsed from various terminals. Blueprints covered every available surface, complex schematics depicting impossible machines. Her gaze swept over an array of marvels: a self-folding umbrella, an automated calligraphy arm, a device that buffed spectacles on felt pads. He was brilliant, undeniably. A dangerous kind of brilliant.
Her eyes settled on a small, delicate contraption sitting on a workbench, bathed in the soft glow of a nearby Aether-lamp. It was an artificial songbird, carved from dark ebony and silver, its plumage etched fine, its eyes two cut rubies. It looked so utterly real, so fragile. So unlike the cold, hard man who created it. Lali reached out, compelled by an inexplicable urge, her fingers brushing its cool, metallic wing.
As her fingers made contact, a soft whirring began within the bird. Its ruby eyes flickered. Then, with a sudden jolt, a massive, arachnid-like iron chassis, previously camouflaged against the workshop’s dark rafters, dropped directly in front of her. Its jointed legs unfolded with a clatter, tipped in iron shears. A low rattle vibrated in its core casing. Its central optical aperture burned crimson.
Lali froze, every instinct screaming at her to run. But the thing was impossibly fast, its pincers already closing in, a blur of raw steel and calculated momentum. She could feel the rush of displaced air, the tremor of its movements. This wasn’t a mere guard unit; this was a weapon, designed for swift and brutal termination. The cold fear that Kordian *knew* her, that he anticipated her every move, solidified into a terrifying certainty.
Just as the pincers were about to snap shut around her, a sharp, high-pitched whine filled the air. The spider construct shuddered, its red lens dimming, its joints locking an inch from Lali’s chin. It collapsed with a groan of straining hydraulics, inert. The sudden silence was deafening, punctuated only by Lali’s ragged breathing.
A voice, devoid of any warmth, yet impossibly close, echoed from a hidden speaker mounted in the ceiling. “You are surprisingly predictable, ‘Nana’.” Kordian’s voice. It was everywhere, nowhere, surrounding her. “A hidden door, an unguarded invention. Classic curiosity. Did you truly think you could explore my domain unmonitored?”
Lali spun around, searching for the source, for any sign of him. “You—you set a trap!” she accused, her voice raw. “You intended for that thing to attack me!”
“A defensive countermeasure,” Kordian’s voice replied, dry and precise. “It responds to unauthorized contact with delicate prototypes. And yes, I am aware of every corridor and shadow within these walls. This manor is not just my home, ‘Nana’. It is my panopticon. Every gear, every circuit, every sentry answers to my design.”
He paused, and Lali could almost feel his cold gaze on her, even though she saw nothing. “Consider this a mild reprimand. Your suite is upstairs. Do not stray again. Dinner is in an hour. Be punctual.” The speaker clicked off, leaving Lali trembling, a phantom grip still on her throat.
Back in their rooms, Lali found Niko hunched over a collection of rough sketches, his pencil scratching rapidly. He looked up as she entered, taking in her pallor and rumpled sleeves. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Worse,” Lali retorted, slumping into a heavy armchair. “I’ve seen Kordian Sturua’s idea of home defense. The man’s utterly unhinged. This entire cellar is a butcher's rig.” She recounted her encounter, her anger slowly replacing her fear.
Niko listened intently, occasionally nodding. When she finished, he pushed a schematic across the table. It was a crude map of the manor’s lower levels, covered in his neat, looping script. “I’ve been tracing the blue-line piping,” he said, tapping a specific line. ““The main supply is standard, but there’s a secondary, heavily insulated pipe. It’s unusual. Too much capacity for just the manor’s needs. And it branches off in a very peculiar direction.”
Lali leaned closer, her initial annoyance fading as she saw the detail. “Off the estate? Where does it go?”
Niko traced a finger along the ink to where the lead casing burrowed past the boundary wall. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “It connects directly to a property owned by Irakli Makharov.”