"Let the record show," Gary muttered as they walked into the long hallway, "I was halfway through a bowl of roasted marsh-rat when we got pulled in for this. The really spicy kind."
Lamia shuddered, giving him a disgusted look.
"Let the record show you have terrible taste," Lamia replied, flicking her Dominion badge against her coat as the glass doors hissed shut behind them.
The corridors of Dominion Outpost 6–V didn't hum like the upper sector halls of Whiteglass Citadel, they roared. Low, pulsating thrum echoed beneath the masonry, like some iron beast was buried deep beneath the foundation, dreaming in chains and machinery.
Lamia's boots clicked their way across steel-tiled corridors with crisp, measured confidence. Blood sigils faded on her skin, still but listening. Gary followed alongside her, grumbling softly to himself, his gaze flicking to the blinking surveillance orbs embedded in the ceiling like silver eyes that had forgotten how to blink.
The walls in this place were cold steel and char-stone, covered in Dominion banners stitched in crimson and black, each one of them featuring the three-eyed crest of Absolute Remembrance, the symbol of the erasure authority. Flickering magelamps buzzed overhead, some cracked, others intentionally dimmed to "save power" in the lower sectors, although Lamia had always believed it was just to keep the mood unpleasant.
A pair of enforcers walked past them in the other direction, helmets closed, guns carried low, their armor hissing softly with internal pressure runes. They did not talk. No one ever did here, not unless you had something to report.
Gary yanked at the collar of his coat. "You ever get the feeling we're working inside a buried prison?"
Lamia didn't answer right away.
They turned a corner where a hallway split into three. One side led toward the interrogation block, the other further into the armory sanctum, the third, straight ahead, was marked by the Dominion glyph for Authorized Assemblage. The command wing.
"Prison?" she said finally. "No. A tomb."
Gary grimaced. "That's not more comforting, Lamia."
She smirked.
The hallway leading to the briefing chamber sloped slightly downward. The walls became narrower. The lighting dimmer. As if the outpost was folding in on itself the deeper you walked. Like the building didn't want anyone finding what was kept at the bottom.
A blood-smeared sign was etched above the meeting door in faded gold:
"Through obedience, the echo is silenced."
Gary stared at it, rubbing his jaw. "Inspirational."
Lamia didn't slow. "They put that above every room where someone asks too many questions."
The steel door at the end of the hall opened with a heavy hiss. Not automatic. Someone on the inside was watching.
"Grafford. Goldberg," came the voice over the intercom. "Inside. Now."
They stepped through the threshold into Briefing Room Theta-9, where the walls still remembered every order they'd ever been told to forget.
Briefing Room Theta-9 was carved from shadow and purpose.
Long and narrow, with a single table at its center, polished to the point that your reflection looked more like a ghost than a face. The walls were etched in containment runes, pulsing softly in the magelight overhead, giving the space an amber hue that always made blood look darker.
Three others were already seated.
Sub-Inquisitor Harel, half-machine, half-rulebook, his throat humming with Dominion-implanted voice mods.
Warden Verrick, silent as stone, fingers drumming softly on a closed folder.
And at the head of the table, the current sector lead, Marshal Syven, a woman whose face was all edges and discipline.
She didn't bother greeting them. Just gestured.
Lamia took her seat without flinching, setting her hands on the table, fingers ink-stained from earlier runework. Gary gave a lazy half-salute before slumping into the chair beside her, arms folded, eyes flicking between the gathered officials.
Syven tapped the file in front of her.
"Dominion Research Facility X-13 Vestige Core was compromised at 0400 hours two days ago. The containment grid failed. No trace of the breach until seven minutes after infiltration. No alerts sounded. No arcane residue detected. Our own sensors refused to register the intrusion."
Gary let out a low whistle. "Sounds surgical."
"Sounds impossible," Syven corrected.
"Didn't know there was a research facility there," Lamia said unbothered, to which Harel raised an eyebrow.
"Why are we needed now if it was attacked two days ago?" She then asked genuinly.
"Someone else was handling it until now." Syven answered as she tapped the center of the table. A thin pulse of white magelight rippled outward, and an image flickered to life, fractured, grayscale, filtered through smoke and residual arc-light.
"This is our confirmed lead," Syven began, her voice clipped, polished. "Darius Vale. Former archivist, Dominion recordist class. Vanished six weeks prior. Officially declared erased. Evidently, someone made a mistake."
The image showed Darius in profile, moving through a cracked hall, hands smeared in something too dark for ash.
"He accessed sections of the site no one should have had clearance for."
She swiped again. A second figure appeared, taller, moving with trained precision. A Dominion field coat flared briefly in one of the clearer frames. The face was turned away, but the shoulder bore a faint, almost scorched brand.
"Second subject: confirmed Dominion defector. Name redacted. We believe this individual provided Vale with inside access, likely under old credentials."
Gary gave a low whistle. "That's rare."
Syven didn't look at him. "That's treason."
Syven swerved her hand again.
"This third figure… appeared on only one camera. Camera 17. East stairwell. No sound. Minimal field echo. No weapons."
The image bloomed into life.
At first, only Darius Vale was visible, sprinting down a blood-streaked stairwell, cloak dark with soot, dragging a wounded shoulder. The time-stamp matched the core breach's midpoint. Just as he reached the bottom step, another figure slipped into view from the smoke above, quiet, effortless.
"Our detectors identified this person as a female, though we are not sure who." Syven explained further.
The figure moved with ghostlike grace, hands folded behind her back, barefoot, stepping where the blood was already drying. No weapon on her. No Dominion marks. But her posture was perfectly straight. Too calm. Too clean.
"She wasn't identified in any prior scans," Syven said. "Didn't appear in breach pre-footage. No records from entry checkpoints. And no biometric imprint left behind."
Harel adjusted the panel's filters, trying to enhance.
"The cloak is lined with memory-silk. Old rogue-mage style. She's either hiding her presence completely or…"His mechanical voice trailed off.
Syven answered for him.
"Or she's not really this age."
Lamia blinked. "Come again?"
"Look at the footage. Gait analysis suggests mid-teens. But height and shoulder width mismatch. She's manipulating how she appears."
Gary muttered, "Age-shifting? Thought that was broken tech."
"Illegal. Not broken," Syven said coldly. "But still functional, if you have access to mirror-skin runes and old bone lace."
As they watched, the cloaked girl paused mid-step. Just for a second. Her hood tipped to the side, not enough to reveal her face, but just enough to suggest she was watching. That she was aware and listening.
"She walks behind Vale like a shadow," Syven said. "But doesn't help him. Doesn't slow him down. She's not a subordinate."
"She's in control," Lamia said softly.
Gary nodded. "Or she's waiting to clean up if he fails."
The screen flickered, the moment ending as both figures slipped out of frame.
"What was taken?" Lamia said flatly.
"Classified," Syven replied without even a twitch.
"Facility records claim it was a support node," Lamia added, watching her.
"Then that's what it was." Syven's eyes locked onto hers. "And you're not being sent to question the furniture. You're being sent to clean the floor."
"The first perpetrator, Darius Vale is being dealt with while...,"Syven straightened up, pointing at Lamia, "Your job is to identify and cross match the energy-traces and find the other two."
From the corner, Harel's mchanical voice stirred as he added without turning his head, "Both perpetrators disappeared through a rupture vector into the Obsidian District. No resonance signature tracked past the southern wall. They had help. We just haven't found who."
Gary muttered, "Always the Obsidian."
"Authorization level is Black. Confirmation of death is acceptable, but capture is preferred." Syven let the silence drag. "You are not cleared to investigate the facility's original purpose. That includes what was or wasn't damaged. Eyes on the targets. Nothing else."
Lamia didn't speak, but the itch at the back of her skull crawled deep.
"Will we at least get to see the place where it happened?" It was Gary who let his frustration out.
"Ofcourse! That's how Lamia will be able to track." Syven gave him a judging look as if he didn't know how the powers worked.
"You are assigned because..."Verrick's eyes moved towards Lamia's hands. "...well."
"You are the only Bloodhound we have active in this quarter." Syven cleared further.
"What happened to the others?" Lamia questioned, though she knew there were not many to begin with.
"Dead. Reassigned. Or disavowed."
Classic Dominion shuffle. Lamia and Gary sighed simultaneously.
"Executor Noctis is overlooking this case personally, and she chose you." Syven added her words.
Lamia's spine tensed. That name. It was more than a title. It was a legend. And it made Lamia straighten in her seat. "She asked for me?"
"She asked for someone with blood tracking capabilities and no ties to internal compromise. Your name was approved by her directly." It was Verrick.
Gary raised a brow. "Sounds like she's been reading your fan letters." He whispered softly to her.
Lamia elbowed him. Softly. Maybe too softly.
Syven stood. That was the dismissal.
As Lamia and Gary exited the room, the door sealing behind them like a coffin lid, silence walked between them for a few steps.
Then—
"Executor Noctis," Gary said in a sing-song voice. "She asked for me personally, Gary. She breathes lightning and wears silence like silk, Gary. Honestly, Gary, I'd die if she just looked at me sideways."
Lamia rolled her eyes. "You're jealous."
"I'm just wondering if your blood magic includes simping."
"Would you prefer I swooned over you, Goldberg?"
He went silent for a beat.
"…Maybe."
She stopped walking.
He didn't.
Then she said, quietly, "Come on. We've got a trail to find."
But there was the faintest pink under her eyes.
And Gary noticed.