Falling through the under-mesh felt like plummeting through cold pitch. Below, the Spire's subterranean warren resolved into hard wireframes, then slapped into solid mortar.
Darab broke his momentum with a crouch-cancel, snapping his knees straight against the stone floor of the Low Undercroft. The physics engine failed to register his accumulated downward velocity by half a frame. His heel struck a heap of brass censers, scattering them with a metallic clatter that echoed through the reeking passage.
"By the seven weeping saints!" squawked a man in a greasy wool caftan, tumbling backward over an iron footlocker.
It was Zubin, frantically clutching a tray of fake warding-sigils.
A split second behind Darab’s descent, a dagger hissed through the dark. It sank two inches deep into the wooden post where Zubin’s neck had rested an instant before. A figure cloaked in gray raiment emerged from the cistern recess, curved ritual blade drawn, eyes milky with Ash-Rot cataracts—a Silent Hand zealot.
[Entity: Blinded Acolyte, Level 14]
[Action: Ambush Interrupted]
Darab did not possess a sliver of circulating ether. His calcified channels throbbed with a dry, gravelly burn, entirely dead to incantation. But the game’s collision volume remained gloriously stupid.
He caught the edge of Zubin’s overturned brazier, shoved it into the zealot's shins, and kicked the latch. The hinge wedged into the cultist’s ankle hitbox.
[Physics Conflict: Object Overlap]
[Resolving Vector: Impulse Force 880N]
The geometry snapped. The assassin launched sideways, repelled by the unyielding brass box, and slammed skull-first into the granite buttress. He slumped into the gutter, limp and unmoving.
Zubin lay sprawled among broken unguent vials, his rat-like face gray with terror. "You... you fell straight through the ceiling! You squashed my pickled mandrakes! But you... he was going to slit my throat! Who sends an acolyte to butcher an honest merchant?"
"Keep your voice down," Darab muttered, wiping damp mortar dust from his collar. His palms stung from the impact, but his health bar remained pinned at full. He tucked the Ring of the Twin Moons deeper into his cuff.
Heavy bootsteps thundered down the vaulted corridor, accompanied by the bright, clean chime of gilded plate armor.
"Fear not, citizens of the Spire!" bellowed a voice rich with theatrical bravado.
Roshan burst through the archway, his greatsword drawn and coated in smoldering black grease. His golden curls were barely disheveled, though the hem of his pristine white tabard bore singe marks from the vault's Mawlurker. Behind him, walking with stiff, silent grace, came Shirin. Her ceremonial silk veil was drawn back just far enough to reveal dark, watchful eyes and lips pressed into a razor-thin line.
"The beast is slain!" Roshan announced, striking a heroic stance before the alley's bewildered rat-catchers. "A fiend of the deepest rot ambushed the Grand Vault. It sought to devour the sacred relics. I held the line with righteous steel, though... alas! In the fury of battle, the Ring of the Twin Moons was dragged into the void when I cast the demon down the central shaft! A tragic sacrifice for the safety of our realm!"
Zubin blinked, pulling himself up by Darab’s sleeve. "The Ring of... wait, wasn't that the sacred relic locked behind three iron wards?"
"A terrible price," Roshan declared solemnly, sheathing his blade with a theatrical flourish that nearly took off Shirin’s ear. She didn't flinch. She simply stared at him, her fingers clenched so hard around her prayer beads that the knuckles shone white.
Then Shirin turned her head, and her gaze pinned Darab against the damp wall.
Her gaze shifted downward.
From Darab’s sleeve, the pale metallic luster of the Twin Moons peeked out, reflecting the torchlight with unmistakable, two-toned iridescence. She knew that crest. It belonged to the royal dowry her family had negotiated into the Spire’s keeping.
Her chest rose and fell sharply. She looked from Darab's pale, sickly face to Roshan’s beaming grin, the deceit instantly laid bare before her.
"Roshan," Shirin said, her voice smooth and chillingly level. "You are certain the ring vanished into the pit?"
"I watched it plunge into the black myself, my lady," Roshan said, puffing his chest. "None could have retrieved it. None! It was an act of pure, agonizing duty."
Darab felt the trap closing. If Roshan realized he had been robbed by an ether-crippled extra, the idiot would turn his sword on him out of sheer wounded pride, and the Engine would log a fatal confrontation. Worse, Zubin was squinting at Darab's sleeve with greedy curiosity.
Darab had to control the narrative before the Chosen Hero threw a fatal tantrum.
Moving with casual deliberation, Darab opened his inventory screen behind his back. He gripped an ordinary iron bolt, tapped the slot boundary, and triggered a quick-deposit frame swap against an empty pouch.
[Inventory Error: Item Duplicate (Iron Bolt x2)]
[Inventory Error: Item Duplicate (Iron Bolt x3)]
[Material Conversion: Glitched Scrap Silver x1]
A heavy lump of shimmering, duplicated scrap landed in Darab's palm with a soft ring. He discreetly caught Zubin’s wrist, pressing the illegal ingots into the peddler’s palm with enough force to bruise.
"Merchant," Darab said loudly, stepping between Shirin and the peddler. "Didn't you just tell me you saw the heroic Lord Roshan banish the beast from the ventilation grate above? How the relic shattered into ash as he smote it?"
Zubin looked down at the lump of silver—worth three months of his stall's swindles—then looked at Roshan, and finally up at Darab’s icy, warning gaze.
"Why... yes! Yes, by the Sun!" Zubin cried out, his voice cracking with theatrical devotion. "A blinding light! A roar like thunder! I saw the demon's claws snap right where the ring was, vaporizing it entirely as Lord Roshan struck it down! A noble sacrifice!"
Roshan swelled with magnificent pride. "You see, Shirin? Even the lowly vermin of the Undercroft bear witness to my deed!"
"Indeed," Shirin murmured, her eyes never leaving Darab. "A miracle of modern chivalry."
Roshan turned toward the upper stairs, eager to report his heroic loss to the Grand Preceptor. "Come, Shirin. The priests must prepare my purification bath. The rot-stink clings to my cloak."
"Go ahead, my lord," Shirin said, stepping into the deeper shadow beneath the arch. "I lost an amber pin during our flight. I shall find it in a moment."
Roshan waved a dismissive, gauntleted hand and marched off, his heraldic boots clumping loudly up the stone steps.
Zubin scampered away toward the sewer vents, clutching his glitched silver as though the walls might swallow it.
The alley went dead quiet.
Shirin stepped forward, moving until she stood less than an arm's length from Darab. Up close, the faint scent of dried rosewater and stale incense clung to her, masking the bitter rot of the Spire. Her gaze was sharp enough to sever bone.
"You don't have an ounce of ether in you," she whispered. "Your breath rattles like dry husk. Your veins are white with lime-stone sickness."
Darab stayed completely still, refusing to trigger an aggro state.
"Yet you walked out of the vault with the twin-moon bands," she continued, reaching out with a slender, ringed finger to tap the cold metal hidden beneath his cuff. "And you fed that loud-mouthed fool a lie just to keep his vanity whole."
"He's the Chosen Hero," Darab said quietly. "The world needs him convinced he's invincible."
"The world is rotting, and he is a vain, hollow beast who will sell my family's provinces to the church the moment we wed," Shirin hissed, her composed mask shattering into fierce, desperate venom. She leaned closer, her breath warm against his cheek. "I know what you did. I know you broke into the holy precinct. One word from me to the Inquisitors, and they will carve open your dry veins to see what foul demon animates your limbs."
Darab kept his voice steady. "What do you want, Lady Shirin?"
"Break my engagement," she said, her nails digging into the rough wool of his tunic. "Help me ruin him, or I will hand you to the pyre before the sun sets."