The sub-crypt chill settled deep in Vessera’s marrow, sharp as lye. Heavy, iron-bound leather straps bit into her wrists and ankles, securing her to a contraption of polished obsidian and tarnished brass. Thin vitreous threads, fine as spider silk, extended from the headrest, their tips burrowing against the hollows behind her ears with a pale luminescence. The Memory-Extraction Chair. Its name was a polite euphemism for the agony it inflicted. Provost Nymm stood before her, his usually benign face warped into a mask of triumphant malevolence. The gaslight in the low-ceilinged chamber flickered, casting his elongated shadow against the damp, moss-streaked stone walls. He held a small, ornate vial, swirling a viscous, cerulean liquid within. “A pity, Vessera,” he purred, his voice a silken rasp. “All that brilliance, shackled by stubborn pride. It would have been so much simpler for you to just… share.” Vessera refused to flinch. Her gaze, though weary, burned with defiance. “Share what, Nymm? Your appetite for destruction? Your joy in suffering?” He chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. “Such dramatics. Always the martyr, aren’t we? But even martyrs break. The syndics assure me this particular engine untangles even the most guarded minds. It begins with gentle persuasion, of course.” He tilted the vial, letting a single drop of the cerulean liquid fall onto a brass plate embedded in the chair’s arm. A low drone hummed through the obsidian, and the fine tethers behind her ears flared brighter. Freezing needles stabbed through her temples. Her vision blurred, brief, disjointed images flashing across her mind’s eye: Pip’s terrified face, the glow of a corrupted core, Korien’s predatory smile. She bit back a cry, her jaw tightening. “The Crimson-Pulse, Vessera,” Nymm continued, circling the chair like a predator. “You were so close to perfecting it, weren’t you? So close to weaponizing its unique properties. It’s a shame you lacked the foresight to understand its true potential beyond a mere… ‘cure.’ Oh, don’t look so surprised. You thought I was merely interested in your stolen formula for its… academic value?” He paused, allowing a truly chilling smile to spread across his face. “Foolish child. The syndicates crave power, and what greater power exists than an army immune to pain, driven by primal instinct, capable of tearing through the strongest defenses?” Vessera’s breath caught. “You’ve been… spreading it? Deliberately?” The words were a strangled whisper. The pattern laid itself bare: the seeded outbreaks, the calculated surges across the lower wards, the syndic sweeps. It wasn’t containment; it was harvesting. Nymm wasn’t fighting the mutations; he was cultivating them. “Of course,” Nymm gloated, his eyes alight with a mad gleam. “The Ghest populace is a convenient testing ground. A malleable resource. The early stages were… challenging. Unpredictable. But with your perfected Crimson-Pulse, tailored to accelerate the transformation, we can mass-produce our Gilded Beasts. Imagine, Vessera, an unstoppable tide of Glass-Ghouls, responsive to our every command. The other syndicates will crumble. We will rule the Gilded Snare!” The glass tethers scorched her skin, boring inward until the pain turned white-hot. Her mind felt like a fragile pane, ready to crack under the relentless pressure, memories threatening to spill forth, unprotected. Nymm’s face swam before her, distorted by pain and disgust. The stone flagstones bucked underfoot. A low rumble grew into a deafening roar, echoing through the subterranean passages. Dust rained from the ceiling. Nymm paused, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features. “What in the blazes—?” The iron-bound double doors at the end of the chamber, thick and studded with rivets, buckled inwards with a thunderous *CRUMP!* A gout of molten iron and splintered pine blasted into the room, carrying scorching heat and sulfurous smoke. A guard posted at the portal crashed across the floor, motionless and charred. Another shrieked, clutching his face as he stumbled back, his uniform aflame. Through the swirling dust and smoke, a figure emerged, silhouetted against the fiery maw of the ruptured doorway. Korien. His usually immaculate clothes were torn and soot-stained, his face streaked with grime and blood from a gash above his brow. But his eyes, usually calculating and cold, burned with a desperate, singular focus. In his hand, a crude alchemical explosive, still smoking, dropped to the stone floor with a clatter. His other hand gripped a heavy, spiked mace, dripping with a viscous, dark liquid. He moved with a brutal, single-minded savagery. The remaining sentries, deafened by the concussion, barely turned before he struck. The mace swung in a deadly arc, crushing bone and pulping flesh with sickening efficiency. A gurgle, a choked scream, then silence. He did not stop until every sentinel lay broken across the stones. The stench of ozone, blood, and burnt flesh filled the air. Nymm, pale and visibly shaken, stumbled back, drawing a slender, poisoned dagger from his belt. “Korien! What is the meaning of this madness? You—you betrayed me!” Korien ignored him, his gaze fixed solely on Vessera. The mace clanged against the stone as he dropped it, then he fell to his knees, heedless of the glass shards and spilled blood. He crawled over the fallen watchmen until he reached the extraction seat, his palms shaking against the flags. He peered up at Vessera, blood dripping into his lashes as his jaw worked soundlessly. “Vessera,” he choked out, his voice raw, ravaged. “My — my unforgivable folly. I… I didn’t know. I never knew. Forgive me. Please, forgive me. Everything… everything I did… it was a lie. A gilded trap for myself. I would tear down the very foundations of Ghest to undo it. Just… just tell me how to fix this.” His head bowed, touching her strapped leg, his whole body shaking with violent, uncontrollable sobs. “I beg you. I am nothing without you.” Vessera looked down at him, her face impassive despite the torment still raging in her head from the chair. The glass threads still pulsed, digging toward her memories. She stared at the man who had meticulously dismantled her life, who had branded her a monster, who had delivered her to this torture. Her voice, when it came, was a brittle whisper, devoid of warmth, devoid of feeling. “You want forgiveness, Korien? After all of this? After giving me to *him*?” She gestured weakly towards Nymm, who watched with a twisted fascination. “You call it a lie? You *are* a lie.” The foundations groaned beneath them, vibrating up through the obsidian frame. The tremor intensified, rattling the very stones. From the depths of the fractured doorway, where Korien had made his violent entrance, a low, guttural snarl echoed. Then another, and another, a chorus of hungry, rasping breaths. Nymm let out a cackle, a manic, triumphant sound. He pointed his poisoned dagger towards the dark opening. “Oh, Korien, you fool. Did you truly think my vault had only one gate? Your distraction bought me time. The true beasts have been awakened!” Hulking, distorted shapes began to emerge from the shadows beyond the shattered portal, their forms vaguely humanoid, yet impossibly gaunt, their limbs elongated and tipped with jagged, obsidian claws. Their skin, once flesh, was now a horrifying patchwork of translucent, razor-sharp shards, catching the dim gaslight with a sickly luminescence. Their eyes, deep-set within their malformed heads, glowed with a feral, starved malice. A horde of Glass-Ghouls, their appetites roused by the scent of fresh blood, began to pour into the chamber, their rattling snarls growing louder, closer.

The Memory Chair