Nylessa moved silently, her soft-soled boots finding the gaps between creaking floorboards with practiced precision. She shifted from one pool of lamplight shadow to the next, each transition fluid and deliberate, her breathing shallow and controlled. The manor's upper corridor stretched before her, its walls lined with bronze sconces that cast uneven cones of amber light across the stone floor. She mapped each bright patch and threaded herself through the darkness between them.

  The spiral staircase wound upward in tight revolutions. She climbed with her weight pressed against the inner wall, where the stone steps were narrowest and least likely to groan under pressure. Her fingers trailed along the cold surface for balance, and the faint scent of machine oil and dried herbs thickened with every step.

  She emerged into an open atrium bathed in pale moonlight that spilled through a vaulted glass ceiling overhead.

  The atrium air felt thick and sterile; it carried a sharp, metallic tang of ozone mixed with the sickly sweet smell of alchemical preservatives. Along the far wall, she spotted a stack of bronze coffins, all child-sized, sitting on the terrace. Their polished surfaces gleamed dull, suspended at an unnatural angle by a tangle of pulleys and chains.

  A massive marble operating table dominated the room's center. A dwarf hunched over his work, his face hidden behind a wild mess of hair and beard. He wore intricate brass goggles with layered lenses; one lens flipped over his right eye, magnifying his precise movements. He mumbled continuously, a steady flow of technical jargon drowned out by the soft snips and clicks of his tools.

  The dwarf gave no indication he even registered her presence, his entire world narrowing to the small, unmoving figure stretched out on the cold marble. The boy’s pale chest, too white and fragile, offered a stark, unsettling contrast to the limbs attached to his shoulders and hips. His arms and legs were intricate bronze plates and whirring gears, a masterpiece of precise articulation, seamlessly joined where warm flesh belonged.

  A Tier 2 Artisan could create something like this, but I've never heard of a soul daring to use it on a child.

  Revulsion slammed through Nylessa's chest, cold and sharp. Her work had few boundaries; she'd seen horrors, committed them. This, however twisted her gut. The calculation required to turn a child into that construct, to remake him into brass and gears, violated something primal in her. Her skin crawled. Her breath caught.

  This is wrong.

  A momentary lapse in concentration betrayed her. The cold fury twisting her gut leaked out, a sharp spike of bloodlust that sliced through the stillness of the room. The dwarven Tier 2 Artisan stiffened. His technical mumbling ceased instantly as he snapped his head toward the rafters where Nylessa clung to the darkness.

  His brass goggles shifted; she reacted. She surged through the gloom, movements silent and fluid, and slipped into deeper shadow on the opposite side of the vaulted ceiling. Her heart hammered against her ribs, the frantic rhythm threatening to betray her.

  The artisan tilted his head, the magnified lens over his eye gleaming like a predator's. He stared at the empty space she had vacated, his brow furrowed in suspicion. After a tense, agonizing silence, he grunted and returned to the child’s brass-plated limbs. Nylessa held her breath, her lungs burning, not daring to release it. Too close. Mentally, she offered a frantic prayer to the gods, her skin still prickling with the narrowness of the escape.

  She traversed the shadows with deliberate care, each footfall silent as she positioned herself directly behind the artisan. The moment arrived. She surged forward, obsidian dagger aimed at the exposed gap between his shoulder blades.

  A pale blue barrier materialized around him in an instant, intercepting her strike. The impact sent sharp vibrations racing up her arm, the collision resonating through the chamber like a struck bell. Her fingers numbed from the force.

  The artisan chuckled, a low, knowing sound that made her stomach clench. "I thought I sensed something lurking about. Seems I was right." He turned slowly, the barrier covering him like a glimmering shield. "I assume your presence here means the two useless thugs I hired have been dealt with?"

  Nylessa's jaw tightened. She twisted away, muscles coiling to retreat into the nearest patch of darkness.

  The artisan clenched his fist. A rune etched into the bracelet on his wrist flared brilliant white. Magical light erupted from crystals embedded in the ceiling, flooding the chamber with harsh, unforgiving radiance. Every shadow dissolved. Every refuge vanished. Nylessa froze, exposed and vulnerable in the sudden glare.

  The glare stripped away her disguise, revealing the telltale blue cast of her skin where the mask’s edges failed to cover. His breath hitched. A slow grin split his face, lips peeling back from yellowed teeth.

  "A dark elf assassin."

  The words slithered out, thick with something foul. His fingers twitched, like a child eyeing an unguarded sweet. Then his pupils swallowed the irises whole, black and bottomless.

  "Never had one of your kind before." His voice dropped to a rasp, tongue darting over cracked lips. "So much potential. So many... possibilities."

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  Cold dread coiled in Nylessa's gut. The way he looked at her, like she was nothing more than raw material for his workshop, made her fingers tighten around the dagger's hilt.

  He clenched his fist again, and two more runes ignited on his bracelet, casting stark, angular shadows across his face. From the ceiling, a bronze valve spun open with a grinding shriek of metal on metal. A cone-headed construct descended, its three tripod claws crackling with arcs of blue-white lightning that hissed and spat in the dry air. The ozone scent of charged magic cut through the dust.

  Simultaneously, a second valve erupted from the stone floor near his feet with a heavy clunk of shifting gears. A spider-like machine scuttled free, its eight jointed legs clattering against the flagstones like a cascade of dropped knives. It moved with a skittering, insectile precision that made Nylessa’s skin crawl. Both constructs oriented on her, their blank, polished surfaces gleaming in the harsh magical light.

  The spider-automaton erupted from the flagstones with the fury of a thing that had never learned restraint. Eight brass legs, each articulated with pneumatic precision, clattered across stone as the construct scuttled toward her with insectile hunger. Above, the cone-headed flyer tilted on its mounting, tripod claws crackling with builds of blue-white energy that made the air taste like burnt copper.

  Nylessa moved.

  Her body transformed beyond flesh and bone. She twisted mid-air, her spine bending at impossible angles, her legs coiling beneath her as the spider's stabbing

  The spider pressed its advantage, driving her backward toward the wall. Nylessa reversed direction mid-dodge and launched herself at the construct instead of away from it.

  Her blurring daggers surgically severed segments. Oil sprayed as the first leg snapped. The second. The third. Her hands struck, lethal grace flowing. Twin Strike turned her arms into a dual-pronged instrument of dismantling.

  The spider shrieked, gears grinding. Nylessa severed the final limb; it collapsed, twitching in mechanical death.

  "Die then!" the Artisan shouted, eyes wide as he threw his hand upward activating Overload. "Burn her out!"

  Lightning struck Nylessa's shoulder, igniting pain, ozone, and burning flesh. Her muscles seized, agony threatening. She felt the searing heat, skin scorching, vision blurring, but she shrugged it off.

  Her eyes narrowing on the Artisan. "That's it, see how I dismantle your pet."

  She lunged toward the flyer with absolute commitment, her blade finding the precise copper filaments connecting the construct to its energy source. The Precision Strike killed the machine. The construct's light dimmed to nothing, and it crashed to the ground in a shower of sparks.

  The Artisan’s composure fractured. Grunting, he activated another rune on the bracelet. He snapped his hands together, thumbs touching, fingers fanned in a wide horizontal sweep. A thin, roaring sheet of orange-red flame erupted from his fingertips. The cone expanded instantly, fifteen feet of pure magical fire that turned the air into a furnace. The heat was sudden and complete; the workshop itself recoiled.

  Nylessa weaved through the inferno's rifts, her form defying natural law. She twisted beneath the arc's vanguard, slid sideways through the narrow passages betwixt the roaring fire torrents, and halted mere inches from the Artisan's shimmering ward. The flames vented harmlessly past her, blackening the flagstones where she had stood moments before.

  Her daggers struck the barrier again, but the barrier held. A translucent shell of reinforced mana hummed with an authority she felt in her bones; it was impenetrable, immovable.

  The Artisan's sneer returned. His breathing had quickened, but his voice remained steady, layered with contempt.

  "Impressive," he said, wiping blood from his beard. Debris cut him. "But you are still a Tier 2, same as me. This barrier withstands a Tier 4 strike."

  "Your strength, your speed, your precision... none of it matters. It won't help in destroying the barrier." He laughed. "The magical alarm notified the upper city. Reinforcements are arriving. My manor will be surrounded. You can't break this in that time."

  Nylessa reached for her chest. She paused, then pulled out a pendant holding an emerald. Her fingers shook as she gripped the pendant; she needed to use it or everything she had done would fail. The moment her palm closed around the stone, the world shifted. A low, rhythmic vibration pulsed from the gem, a thrum of ancient power that made the workshop's ozone and metallic tang feel newly forged and brittle. The vibration moved through her hand, up her arm, and settled in her chest.

  And her skin began to change.

  The bluish hue that marked her as a Dark Elf, receded like a tide pulling away from shore. In its place, her skin took on a pale verdant green, as if chlorophyll and ancient forest magic had been woven into her blood all along. The emerald light of the gem and her shifting skin tone bled together, creating an aura that seemed to bend the harsh magical light of the workshop itself.

  It felt like a mask within her blood was being forcibly stripped away.

  Nylessa channelled the energy humming from it into her dagger held in her left hand and thrust it at the shimmering barrier.

  Barrier shattered like glass. The Artisan's sneer collapsed into pure horror. His hand moved toward a backup ward, but he was too slow.

  The distance between them vanished.

  Her blade found its mark with the cold precision of a professional closing a contract. The Artisan's expression froze between shock and denial. He fell.

  Silence returned to the atrium. Nylessa wiped her blade on the corpse's robes with practiced coldness. Her skin reverted to its original hue. She gazed at the coffins lining the workshop's far wall.

  She looked at the coffins, wondering what would happen to the people inside. That kind of question didn't usually cross her mind; it didn't fit her life at all, but she couldn't shake it. She had no answer. Leaving the situation for the city guards felt like the safest move, better than trying to handle it herself.