“One more point,” Vezza muttered, her voice raw, a bitter laugh escaping her throat. “One measly point. And you throw my colleagues to the deep for it.” Her gaze, usually so tired, sharpened to a spear-tip. She looked at Laro, still pale, still offering his very essence for her freedom. She looked at the sending stone, its anxious hum a faint echo of Tilla’s fear. And she looked at the phantom horizon, the quiet beach that was almost hers. Vezza’s eyes narrowed, a slow burn igniting in her chest. This wasn’t about Laro, not entirely. This was about *her* retirement. Her *peaceful* retirement. And Vharr, that desiccated, calculating barnacle, had just dared to threaten it. Oh, he was going to regret that. Her grip tightened on the sending stone. “System,” she hissed, a dangerous tremor in her voice. [Affirmative, Vezza. How may I facilitate your ongoing villain rehabilitation endeavors?] “I’m cashing in. All of it.” [A bold move! Your current balance is 9,999 Salvation Sparks. Please specify desired expenditure.] “Five thousand. For a temporary strength buff. Demigod levels. Now.” [Understood! Activating ‘Titan’s Grip Protocol’ (Tier IV: Demigod Augmentation). Cost: 5,000 Salvation Sparks. Remaining balance: 4,999 Salvation Sparks. Duration: One hour. Enjoy your enhanced capabilities!] A surge, hot and liquid, flooded Vezza’s veins. Her vision sharpened, the world around her gaining a crystalline edge. The humid air stiffened against her skin, yet her limbs sheared straight through the drag. Fatigue burned out of her marrow, replaced by raw leverage. The black mark on her wrist, Laro’s claim, pulsed with a sympathetic warmth. “Laro,” she said, her voice unnervingly calm, “stay here. Wait for me.” His cerulean eyes, still holding the faint glow of the deep, fixed on her. “No. I am coming with you.” “No, you’re not,” she countered, already moving. “You’re too important. If anything happens to *you*, my entire plan goes down the drain. Wait. Trust me.” She gave him a look that promised utter, uncompromising chaos. “I’m just going to sweep up a little.” She didn’t wait for his reply, though she felt his silent resistance, a thrumming tension in the air. With an almost imperceptible flick of her wrist, she manifested her weapon. Not a blade, not a trident, but the reinforced titanium mop she’d ‘borrowed’ from the Kraken-tank cleaning station. Its heavy metal shaft rested easy in her grip, the dense head forged for scraping leviathan grime. Outside the Grand-Preceptor’s antechamber, two sentinels in brass-scaled armor stood watch, their tridents crossed. Vezza didn’t bother with subtlety. With a single, explosive kick, she tore one of the ornate copper-faced doors from its rusted hinges, hurling it spinning down the hall like a deadly disk. It clipped one guard’s helmet, shearing it clean off, before embedding itself with a sickening *CRUNCH* in the polished coral wall. The remaining guard raised his weapon too late as Vezza lunged forward, swinging the pole in a silver blur. The flat of the mop head connected with his chest plate, not with a clang, but with a horrifying *THWACK* that seemed to compress all the air out of his lungs. He flew backward, a ragdoll in heavy plating, smashing into a prism glass vase before crumpling onto the tiled floor. Inside the vaulted hall, the scene was precisely as Tilla had warned. Grand-Preceptor Vharr, perched on a throne of fossilized coral, regarded the cowering maids with an air of amused disdain. Tilla, Mara, and a dozen other scullery hands were huddled near a massive, bubbling bioluminescent tank, their faces pale with terror. Several more copper-clad guards stood between them and the single exit. “Vharr!” Vezza’s voice boomed, amplified by the Titan’s Grip, echoing through the cavernous space. “You slimy, opportunistic bilge rat! Release them.” Vharr, his face a mask of grandfatherly benevolence that always made Vezza want to punch something, merely chuckled. “Ah, my little maid. You have returned. Just as I predicted. And so… *forcefully*.” He gestured with a skeletal hand. “Apprehend her. Gently, if you please. I wish to savor her despair.” “Despair?” Vezza snarled, feeling a vein throb in her forehead. “You think *I’m* going to despair? I’m going to clean this floor with your lackeys, you fossilized plankton-eater!” She moved. Fast. Too fast for the armored wardens, who saw only a rush of gray cloth and cold metal. The mop became an extension of her will, a devastating instrument of blunt force. One guard found the titanium head slammed into his knee, buckling his leg with a shriek of tortured armor and bone. Another received a sweeping horizontal strike to the midsection, sending him flying over the coral throne, a broken puppet. The maids scrambled back as Vezza drove forward. She parried an incoming thrust, shattering the wooden shaft against her metal handle. Then she swung the mop head back around, hitting the guard’s helmet with such force that his head snapped back, the clang of metal against metal echoing like a bell of doom. He dropped, unmoving. One guard skirted the fighting, hefting a heavy glass-tipped pike as he aimed for her flank. He moved for her blind spot. But Tilla, watching Vezza’s furious dance, felt a flicker of something she hadn’t known she possessed. Courage. Her gaze darted upwards, to the massive chandelier of glowing resin hanging directly overhead. With a desperate cry, Tilla grabbed the thick, braided hemp ropes that secured the chandelier to the ceiling, ropes meant for maintenance, and severed them with a stolen fish knife. “Vezza! Look out!” Tilla shrieked, her voice cracking with newfound bravery. The colossal chandelier, shedding brilliant green sparks, plummeted. The guard glanced skyward an instant before a thousand pounds of jagged stone and metal dropped on him with a splintering crash. He vanished beneath the glittering debris, instantly crushed. Vharr’s smile finally faltered. He looked at Tilla, a flicker of genuine irritation in his eyes. “Insolent maid. You’ve just signed your own death warrant.” Vezza, breathing heavily, but radiating an unyielding intensity, turned her mop on Vharr. “The only death warrant here is yours, Vharr. I’ll toss you into the Reef-Gullet myself.” Vharr, however, only laughed, a dry, rattling sound that grated on her nerves. He raised both hands, knuckles bent and gray. Salt-scented magic thickened across the room, humming against the stonework. The bioluminescent tank behind the maids began to glow with an ominous crimson light. “Foolish girl,” Vharr sneered, his voice dropping to a guttural register. “You think you are the only one with power in this chamber? This Conservatory is steeped in centuries of ritual. I activate the Blood-Ward of the Grand-Preceptors! Let the sunken depths of Murro-Vell itself grind you to dust!” The air thickened, pressing down on Vezza like an invisible fist. Her enhanced strength fought against it, but the force was immense, primal. Her knees buckled. The mop slipped from her numb fingers and clattered onto flagstones that spiderwebbed beneath her boots. And then, with a thunderous roar, the massive, broken atrium doors exploded inward, not with air, but with a torrent of black, freezing water. It surged into the chamber, carrying with it the scent of the crushing deep, and a figure, silhouetted against the dark deluge, its eyes burning with cerulean fire. Laro. His human form was barely contained; his skin shimmered with a dark, oily sheen, his shoulders broadening, his hands already morphing into clawed fins. Brine crashed against the columns, carrying a freezing, primeval dread that shook the chamber to its foundations. He had come.

Sweeping the Trash