The city-state of Drenmire buzzed with its usual clamor of shifting loyalties and whispered deals, but this week's rhythm carried an undertone of urgency. Posters had quietly been nailed to workshop doors, tavern cellars, and university halls—promising the reveal of a revolutionary artifact: a device capable of transmitting thought across distance, defying distance and bureaucracy alike.
It was here that Fornos Dag arrived, dressed plainly but with posture like a blade. Flanked only by Park, the eternally silent combatant whose mere presence was a deterrent, and Brassheart, his towering six-foot golem butler clad in matte-black plating and ritual sigils, Fornos kept a low profile.
Low, but not invisible.
He stepped through Drenmire's Restricted Engineer's Market, the hidden quadrant where genius and criminality intersected, his boots tapping against cobbled ironwood.
The whispers followed him:
"Is that—?"
"No, he's too young…"
"I heard he planned the Uru-Maul retreat…"
"He was at Nevera, right? That incident with the nobles—"
Fornos didn't bother hiding his smirk. He had planted those whispers, months ago—seeding rumors about crystal resonance theory, describing how mental thought-text could be projected using harmonized mana coils and tuned cores. Most dismissed it as fantasy. But now, theory had become marketable.
He stopped at a bronze-framed arch leading into the auctioning floor, when a familiar voice cracked through the noise:
"How you doing, boy?"
Fornos turned. His sharp eyes locked on a towering figure in a silver-threaded mantle—Lord Anvar, head of the Northern Tallybank, a noble who had openly praised him during the Nevera Gathering, when no others dared.
"You're here too, m'lord," Fornos greeted with a tilt of his head—not a bow.
"This is an era-ending device," Anvar said, his tone warm but sharp, "Where else would I be? Besides, I thought that Gathering might've scared you off both ways."
"Nothing lasts too long," Fornos said, fingers brushing the scar just below his lip. "I've been… cleaning house while contemplating."
"And what did you contemplate, merchant?"
The voice came from the right. Crisp, grating, soaked in mockery.
Fornos turned slowly, meeting the pale eyes of Rimbo Gras, noble of the Eastern Trade Confederacy, with his entourage clustered like ticks behind him.
"What's wrong? Not going to bow?" Rimbo sneered. "Didn't your father teach you manners?"
Fornos didn't blink. "Do you want to die? Or are you asking me to kill you?"
Rimbo blinked, thrown off balance. "What—?"
"Is this what's happening in my absence?" Fornos said flatly.
Lord Anvar, with all the seriousness of discussing tea, gave a nonchalant nod. "Since the Gathering, some have mistaken silence for cowardice."
Fornos's tone turned colder. "I've been gone just a few months. And fools are already confusing absence for authority."
"Hey now—apologize or—" Rimbo began, voice cracking.
"First of all," Fornos cut him off, "shut up. You're annoying. Second, I'm not my father, Gras. I don't kneel. You've got too many servants and too little spine." He stepped forward, and Rimbo unconsciously took one back. "But rest assured, I'm going to give you a reminder—of why no one touched my share of the Dag Company while I was gone. Now scram."
Rimbo opened his mouth, then closed it. He turned away, spitting curses over his shoulder.
"You'll regret this, Dag!"
"I won't," Fornos replied calmly, "But you might."
Once the entourage was out of earshot, Lord Anvar sighed. "What are you going to do?"
Fornos didn't answer immediately. His expression had gone from irritation to eerie delight.
"After this auction, when I'm done…" he whispered, leaning slightly toward Anvar, "…his house will beg for supply. The only thing I'll leave untouched is his family name in the public records."
Park placed a quiet hand on Fornos's shoulder—not as a warning, more as a gentle restraint, as if reminding him where he was.
Fornos sighed through his nose and took a step back.
"This is why I don't give you full trade rights," Lord Anvar noted dryly, folding his arms.
They stepped into the auction chamber—a sunken arena surrounded by seats and wards. Tiers of guests filed in quietly, some wearing guild crests, others concealed behind veils or illusions.
At the center, a rune-glass podium held a sealed vaultbox, etched with spelllocking glyphs and ward-ink.
The device inside was not yet revealed. But its resonant hum could already be felt, like faint song in the bones.
Fornos took a seat in the third ring. He leaned forward, steepling his fingers as Park and Brassheart flanked him.
The auctioneer stepped forward. A tall, owl-eyed man in a silver robe, known only as Scrivener Hal, gestured for silence.
"Ladies and gentlemen, creators and thieves, nobles and heretics," he began. "What you see here is not merely an artifact. It is the tombstone of an age. The end of messengers. The death of silence."
There was a ripple in the crowd—some scoffing, some leaning in.
"We present the first functioning design of a long-range communication device, proven to transmit mental thought across distances of up to 800 kilometers with a mere tuning of its paired crystal arrays."
Gasps. Murmurs. Even Anvar leaned forward.
Fornos smiled to himself. The world didn't know it yet, but the gears had already begun turning months ago—when he whispered the theory into the right ears & left fragments in underground journals.
Now, he just had to buy the result.
But fate, as always, had a different plan.