“Your posture is garbage, but your calculus is unmistakable… Nezera?” Nezera froze, the name a raw rasp on Cymri’s damaged throat, reverberating through the stale air of the service corridor. Her heart, a cold engine of calculation, stuttered. For a moment, the meticulous mask of Zura, the hunched, mute vat-cleaner, threatened to crack. She met Cymri’s gaze, a directness impossible for a cringing scrubber, yet necessary for survival. No, not Nezera. Not yet. “My name is Zura,” she rasped, her voice rough, a deliberate effort to maintain the disguise. The truth felt like a raw nerve exposed. Cymri’s grip tightened on her wrist, a fragile anchor in the miasma of the Crucible. “Don’t insult my intelligence. The figure-eights, Nezera. Only you could transform a cleaning solvent into an enzymatic counter-agent with such elegant precision. And only you would shatter a tray to save a former rival from an unhinged Chymist’s wrath.” A faint smile, tinged with pain, ghosted Cymri’s lips. “That was… surprisingly human of you.” Nezera’s logic circuits spun. Cymri was observant, intelligent, and now, aware. The system was designed to isolate her, to prevent alliances. But Cymri also knew the truth of the Tribunal, the plague. An ally, however dangerous, might be a necessity. “What do you want, Cymri?” Nezera asked, dropping the Zura pretense in the safety of their hidden alcove. Her voice, though still hoarse, carried a sliver of its old authority. “The truth,” Cymri whispered, her eyes burning with a melancholic fire. “The Tribunal framed you, Nezera. They silenced you because you were too close to uncovering the source of the Varkhas Blight. They wanted to blame Korzan, to isolate him, but the blight’s true origin… it’s far more insidious. I saw your old research. You were close.” She paused, her shoulders twitching. “And Korzan. He’s unraveling. The Tribunal uses him as a mad dog, a weapon. But his obsession with you… it’s not just grief. It’s a sickness. He thinks he’s protecting you by destroying everything else.” Nezera processed this, her internal calculus churning. Cymri offered insight, shared knowledge. She was a known variable, unlike the chaotic unpredictability of Korzan’s devotion. “I need something from his sanctum,” Nezera stated, cutting to the chase. “The Null Cipher. It’s my only way out.” Cymri’s brows jumped. “The Null Cipher? The mythic artifact of neural reconstruction? It’s real?” She let out a breathy, pained laugh. “Of course, you’d be after something impossible. What’s your plan?” “I need access to his personal bio-vault. It requires a biometric key.” Nezera’s gaze hardened. “Will you help me, Cymri?” Cymri hesitated, her gaze flickering to the grime-stained ceiling. “Korzan will kill me. The Tribunal will hunt me. But,” she met Nezera’s eyes, a fierce, desperate resolve in her own, “they already tried to silence me. I’m tired of living in their shadows. Yes, Nezera. I’ll help you.” Just as a fragile sense of purpose began to solidify between them, a blaring alarm shrieked through the Crucible’s vast arteries, echoing down to their hidden corridor. Heavy, armored footsteps thudded above, growing louder, accompanied by sharp, authoritative shouts. The air vibrated with a sudden, oppressive tension. “Magisterial Enforcers,” Cymri hissed, her jaw pulling taut. “They’re here for Korzan. For his unsanctioned wars, for the contagion he supposedly unleashed. This is either our chance… or our end.” Nezera’s pulse quickened, her mind already calculating paths. Chaos was opportunity. “The key,” she murmured, her eyes scanning the labyrinthine corridors. “Now. Where is he?” “In his main laboratory, likely cornered like a rabid beast,” Cymri replied, already moving, her stride favoring her injured throat. “They’ll be looking for evidence, for his blasphemous chymical designs.” They emerged into a larger service shaft, the din of the raid now deafening. Black-clad Enforcers, their faces obscured by polished brass visors, swarmed the main laboratory levels. Blue-green energy whips crackled, lashing out at anything that moved too fast. Senior anatomists, usually haughty and aloof, cowered behind reinforced workbays, their experiments abandoned. Korzan’s sanctum, once a place of terrifying solitude, was now a whirlwind of official intrusion. Nezera spotted him across the vast laboratory floor: Korzan, his frame rigid, surrounded by four Inquisitors, their energy whips arcing threateningly. He hadn’t noticed her. His attention remained fixed on Director Varrus, a portly man whose polished brass mask seemed to mock Korzan’s fury. The officer held a stack of confiscated schematics, gesturing derisively. “Your biometric access usually rests on his primary console, near the distillation towers,” Cymri whispered, pointing towards a chaotic cluster of gleaming brass and bubbling vats, currently being ransacked by junior officers. “But he often carries a secondary, a physical data-slate for quick overrides.” [Delay detected. Neural signature decay initiating. 29 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes.] A sharp, agonizing nerve-shock lanced through Nezera’s arm, making her flinch violently. She bit back a cry, her internal clock already counting, every second a step closer to oblivion. This was a system designed to punish hesitation, to force action. “I need to draw their attention,” Cymri declared, her eyes narrowing on Inquisitor General Varrus. “Buy you time.” Without another word, she strode purposefully into the hall, her tattered vat-cleaner uniform an incongruous sight amidst the armored guards and terrified researchers. She cleared her throat, then projected her voice across the chaotic space. “Director Varrus! Your analysis of the Symbiotic Vector’s cellular degradation… it is fundamentally flawed!” The workshop froze. Varrus, mid-sentence, turned, his brass visor reflecting Cymri’s defiant stance. Korzan, momentarily distracted from his confrontation, watched with a predatory stillness. Nezera used the momentary lull, her hunched form melting into the shadows beneath a colossal, dormant brass automaton, its limbs cold and unmoving. She scanned the workstations, her eyes darting, seeking. “And who might *you* be, lowly scrubber, to question the Ascendancy’s foremost Chymical Pathologist?” Varrus sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. He held up a delicate glass slide, presumably a sample of the pathogen. “This degradation pattern, my dear, is irrefutable.” “It’s a misinterpretation of residual necrotic enzymes, not a primary degradation,” Cymri shot back, her voice gaining strength, her intellectual fury a beacon in the oppressive atmosphere. “Your core assumption about the viral mechanism – the ‘Crimson Bloom’ phase – is based on outdated spectral analysis. Your entire model for containment is therefore baseless.” A murmur rippled through the cowering researchers. Varrus’s face, visible only through the slight parting of his mask’s plates, flushed a dark crimson. He began to sputter, enraged. “Impudent wench! I will have you flayed for this insubordination!” Korzan, still watching, allowed a slow, terrible smile to spread across his face, a silent acknowledgment of Cymri’s audacity. His guards, confused, glanced between the two. The distraction was working. Nezera moved, a shadow among shadows. The biometric data-slate. It wouldn’t be on the main console if Korzan was in a confrontation. He’d keep it close. Where? She spotted it then: a slim, metallic data-slate tucked into a recessed charging port on a workbench closest to where Korzan had been cornered initially. It was partially obscured by a pile of discarded schematics. A junior conscript, distracted by Cymri’s escalating argument, carelessly tossed items from the bench onto the floor. Nezera saw her chance. She darted forward, her hand reaching, her fingers brushing the cold metal. [Critical Delay. Neural signature decay accelerating. 29 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes, 50 seconds.] A savage, blinding nerve-shock ripped through Nezera’s torso, far worse than the previous one. Her muscles spasmed, her vision blurred with white-hot pain. A small, involuntary cry escaped her lips. Her hand twitched, grazed the sharp edge of a shattered beaker on the workbench. A bead of dark, rich blood welled up, then, almost imperceptibly, fell. It landed directly onto a clean glass slide, amidst a scattering of other research implements, a stark crimson bloom on the pristine surface. She ignored it, the pain overriding everything but the immediate objective. Her fingers closed around the data-slate. Got it. She tucked it deep into the folds of her apron, her body still trembling from the shock, her mind already calculating the next move. She needed to vanish. Cymri, her face bruised but her spirit unbowed, continued her relentless assault on Varrus’s theories, her voice rising in a crescendo of scientific disdain. The director, his skin a furious purple beneath the metal rims, stood humiliated, his authority crumbling before his own men and the witnessing academics. The raid had devolved into an academic brawl, the focus shifting away from Korzan and the shadows. With the data-slate secured, Nezera slipped back toward the service ducts. She risked a glance back. Korzan, a glint in his eye, seemed to silently commend Cymri’s intellect, even as his own predicament remained. The chaos was at its peak. This was her moment. She was almost clear of the main lab when the alarms suddenly ceased. The energy whips flickered out. A sudden hush descended. The Enforcers, their mission forgotten, looked toward their commander, who stood defeated, dismantled by Cymri’s sharp tongue. Korzan, no longer cornered, surveyed the scene with a quiet, terrible rage. His eyes, devoid of their earlier madness, swept across his desecrated lab. They landed, with unnerving precision, on the clean glass slide on the workbench, the single, stark drop of fresh blood shining under the harsh workshop lights. His head tilted, a subtle shift. His gaze, razor-sharp, focused. A flicker of something primal crossed his features. “Automated Chymical Analyzers,” Korzan’s voice, low and dangerous, cut through the quiet, making the remaining officers and anatomists freeze. “Sequence this DNA. Immediately.”

The Tribunal's Hound