The horses were nervous.

  They were warhorses, heavy with muscle and scars, their nostrils flaring as they scented the ozone and fear in the air.

  I swung into the saddle of the horse Vasco had "gifted" me. It was a mottled grey gelding that looked like it had seen too many winters and not enough oats.

  "Don't look at me like that," I muttered to the horse as it tried to nip my knee. "I'm the Master of Coin. I can turn you into glue and sell you for a profit."

  Coin-Biter snorted, unimpressed.

  We rode out of the Citadel gates, a grim procession under the flickering, strobe-light sky. The white ships of the Anunnaki hung silently above us, casting long, unnatural shadows that danced with the changing light.

  Day. Night. Day. Night.

  "We need to move faster," Fenris growled from the front. He wasn't riding a horse. He was riding a massive, mechanical wolf-construct made of brass and steam one of his own creations. It clanked and hissed, its glass eyes glowing green. "Foxglade is three hours hard ride. If the mercenaries get there first..."

  "We will be there," Brandan rumbled, spurring his black stallion. The King looked like a thundercloud in armor. "And we will crush them."

  We left the Upper District, descending into the labyrinth of the Gothic Quarter.

  Here, the architecture changed. It wasn't just buildings. It was history carved in stone.

  Massive arches soared hundreds of feet into the air, supporting nothing but the weight of the city above. Statues of weeping angels lined the streets, their faces eroded by acid rain until they looked like melted wax.

  And everywhere... the Grotesque.

  They weren't working today. They were hiding. Huddled in the shadows of the great cathedrals, watching us with too many eyes.

  "Look at them," Bastian murmured, riding beside me on a white mare that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale. He adjusted his velvet cloak. "Do you know the story, Wilhelm? The real story?"

  "They are mutants," I said, adjusting my monocle. "Victims of magical fallout."

  "That is what the Church says," Bastian smiled, a sad, knowing smile. He pointed a gloved hand at a massive fresco carved into the side of the Cathedral of the Weeping Eye.

  The carving depicted a golden figure Enki being stabbed by beautiful, winged beings.

  "The Chronicle of the Broken Wing," Bastian whispered. "Verse 45. 'The Night of a Thousand Knives.'"

  "Save the history lesson for the library, brother!" Brandan roared from the front, turning in his saddle. His horse danced nervously on the cobblestones.

  "We ride to kill, not to read! The fox village is burning while you quote scripture!"

  Bastian didn't stop. He just raised his voice slightly, cutting through Brandan's bluster like a silk ribbon through smoke.

  "Context is ammunition, Brandan," Bastian said calmly. "If you know why the monsters hate us, you know where they will strike. Now, as I was saying..."

  Malachia floated up next to us, Flickering in and out of existence on her spectral pony.

  "Enki was a softie," she said, popping a piece of candy into her mouth. "He made them perfect. He gave them everything. The stars. The gold. The good sugar cake."

  "Beth-Elor," Gutrum said from behind us. His voice was heavy with the weight of old legends. "Before the Concrete Sky. Before the rust."

  He looked up at the grey ceiling of the world.

  "They say the sky used to be violet. And the stars were so close you could touch them."

  "And they got bored," Vasco Vane added, riding a sleek black horse that moved like oil. "Perfeciton is boring. So they decided to eat their dad."

  I looked at the fresco. The beautiful angels stabbing the god. Drinking his blood.

  "Ungrateful little shits," I muttered.

  "Ambition, Wilhelm," Vasco corrected. "They wanted the Spark. They wanted to be the painters, not the paintings."

  We rode past a group of Grotesque huddling around a fire barrel. One of them looked up. Its face was a mass of tumors, but its eyes... its eyes were a piercing, beautiful blue.

  "Enki didn't kill them," Fenris said from the front, his mechanical wolf hissing steam. "He did something worse. He re-wrote their biology."

  Fenris pointed a claw at the Grotesque.

  "He took their beauty. He took their symmetry. He turned their wings into tentacles and their skin into wax. 'If your souls are ugly,' he said, 'then wear your ugliness.'"

  "The Great Distortion," Baldur intoned, riding stiffly on a grey warhorse. "Justice. They betrayed the creator. They became monsters."

  "And now they suffer," Malachia said, her voice Flickering. "Every breath hurts them. That's the punishment. Eternal life in a body that feels like a cage."

  We rode in silence for a moment, the weight of the ancient sin pressing down on us. The city wasn't just a city. It was a prison. A prison built on the ruins of a paradise.

  "And Enki?" I asked, looking at the ground. "Where is he?"

  "Below us," Bastian said softly. "Deep below. In the Core."

  He gestured to the cobblestones.

  "The High Council the ones above the Anunnaki they punished Enki too. For destroying a world out of spite. They locked him in the basement."

  "He listens," Gutrum whispered. "He listens to their heartbeats. Every thump of a Grotesque heart is a reminder of his failure."

  "Propaganda," Fenris scoffed. "Religious nonsense to keep the masses afraid. 'Fear the mutant, for he tried to kill God.' It’s a control mechanism. It justifies the slavery."

  "Is it?" I asked, looking at a Grotesque that was dragging a heavy cart. It had three arms. "Or is it history?"

  "Does it matter?" Brandan growled. "They are here. We are here. And the Gods are watching."

  He pointed his hammer at the white ships in the sky.

  "They want us to finish the job. They want us to be the butchers Enki couldn't be."

  "They want a show," Vasco agreed. "They want to see if the 'New Children' us are loyal. Or if we are just as hungry as the Seraphim were."

  We reached the edge of the city. The Iron-Gate.

  Beyond it lay the Moonclaw Woods. And Foxglade.

  I looked back at the city. The gothic spires rising like blackened bones. The statues of weeping angels. The millions of distorted faces hiding in the dark.

  "We are living in a graveyard," I whispered. "A graveyard of angels."

  "We are living in a test," Malachia said, her eyes solid white static. "And we are failing."

  "Not today," Brandan roared. "Today, we save the fox."

  He kicked his horse.

  "RIDE!"

  We thundered out of the gate.

  Into the forest. Into the dark. Leaving the history of sin behind us, racing toward a future we probably couldn't afford.

  As I rode, bouncing painfully on Coin-Biter, I looked at the fresco one last time.

  The face of Enki. The god who was stabbed by his children.

  He wasn't screaming in anger.

  He was crying.

  And I wondered, as the wind whipped my coat...

  If we saved Foxglade... if we defied the Gods...

  Would Enki smile?

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Or would he just sharpen his knife for us too?

  The Moonclaw Woods didn't look like a place where things died. It looked like a place where dreams went to hibernate.

  As night fell, the forest woke up. The trees weren't just wood; they were pillars of silver bark that spiraled up into the canopy like frozen smoke. The leaves were translucent, glowing with a soft, bioluminescent blue pulse that matched the rhythm of the wind.

  Huge, floating spores like jellyfish made of dandelion fluff drifted through the air, illuminating the path. When Coin-Biter’s hoof struck a root, the ground rippled with phosphorescent light, turning the mud into a galaxy of green stars.

  "It’s... excessive," I whispered, adjusting my bone mask. "It looks like a theater set designed by a druid with a budget surplus."

  "It’s the veins," Fenris called back from his mechanical wolf. "The Enmagic Leylines run shallow here. The plants are high. Don't eat the berries. They taste like blueberry pie, but they dissolve your kidneys."

  "Noted," I muttered.

  I tapped my [Mana-Lens Monocle].

  The lens whirred. The beautiful, blue-lit forest turned into a grid of data.

  And there, ahead of us, hiding in the ferns. Red outlines.

  Heat signatures.

  "Company," I hissed. "Twelve o'clock. Low grade. Smell like cheap ale and bad decisions."

  Brandan pulled up his horse. "Mercenaries?"

  "Scavengers," I corrected, spotting the mismatched armor through the trees. "Looks like a freelance raiding party. Probably saw the Quest in the sky and thought they'd beat the rush to Foxglade."

  "They are in my way," Brandan growled. He slid off his horse. He didn't draw a sword. He unhooked his massive warhammer. "And I am in a foul mood."

  "Wait for the signal," I said, sliding off Coin-Biter. My leg screamed Click-Tap-Pain, but the adrenaline and the recent calorie surplus kept me upright.

  I drew the [Cinder-Cleaver].

  It felt different now. With my [STRENGTH: 11] plus the weapon’s [+5 Bonus], my total Strength was 16.

  The massive, rune-etched blade felt light. Manageable. Like an extension of my arm rather than a burden. The orange runes pulsed, hungry for fuel.

  "Malachia," I whispered to the floating child. "You take the left. Brandan takes the center. I'll play Spider."

  "flickering mode engaged," Malachia grinned, her body flickering like a bad signal.

  I aimed my wrist at a silver branch twenty feet up.

  "Thwip."

  The line caught. I yanked.

  "Up we go."

  I launched myself into the canopy, swinging through the glowing spores.

  The mercenaries were arguing over a map when the King of Storms crashed into their clearing.

  "WHO WANTS TO DIE FIRST?" Brandan roared.

  He swung the hammer. CRACK. The first mercenary a guy in leather armor didn't even get his sword up. He flew twenty feet into a thorn bush, his chest caved in.

  The others panicked. "It's the King! Kill him! The bounty is huge!"

  Three of them rushed Brandan.

  I swung from the branch, hanging upside down like a gothic pi?ata.

  "Physics!" I yelled from the trees.

  I fired a web line at the mercenary flanking Brandan.

  "Thwip!"

  The web stuck to the man’s helmet. I pulled.

  "Get over here!"

  The mercenary was yanked off his feet, flying upward. He dangled in the air, screaming.

  "Malachia! Alley-oop!" I shouted.

  Malachia glitched into the air above the dangling man.

  "Bonk!" she squealed.

  She slammed her scepter onto his head.

  CRUNCH.

  He dropped like a stone.

  I dropped from the web, landing in a crouch behind a guy wielding a rusty axe.

  He spun around. "Bastard!"

  He swung.

  I took the hit on my shoulder. The [Shadow-Weave Coat] blurred the impact, absorbing some of the kinetic force, but it still jarred my bones.

  "Rude," I hissed.

  I raised the Cinder-Cleaver.

  "Thermal Shock!" I channeled the spell into the blade.

  The blade flared white-hot, then flashed absolute zero. I swung.

  The Cleaver shore through the man’s axe shaft like it was paper, and continued into his chest.

  SHINK.

  The mercenary froze instantly, his armor shattering from the temperature shift. He fell in two pieces.

  "Two down!" I panted.

  The last mercenary tried to run. He turned his back on Brandan.

  Big mistake.

  Brandan threw his hammer. It spun through the air, a blur of black steel.

  THUD.

  It caught the runner in the spine.

  The clearing went silent, save for the heavy breathing of the King and the soft humming of the magical forest.

  "Clean sweep," Malachia cheered, Flickering back to the ground. "GG EZ."

  A faint golden glow warmed my skin.

  I leaned on my sword, catching my breath. Gutrum and the others rode into the clearing a moment later.

  "Clear," Gutrum noted, looking at the bodies. "Good work."

  Brandan went to retrieve his hammer. Gutrum began scanning the perimeter.

  This was my chance.

  I looked at the dead mercenaries.

  They were trash. Scum. But...

  I tapped my Monocle.

  "Waste not," I whispered.

  I checked Gutrum. He was looking at the trees. I checked Brandan. He was wiping his hammer.

  I knelt by the frozen corpse.

  My hands moved fast. Faster than my Agility should allow. It was muscle memory from a life of scraping by. I stripped the boots. I cut the purse. I grabbed the weapons.

  I moved to the next body.

  Swipe. Cut. Pocket.

  I felt a twinge of shame. Looting the dead while my noble family watched? It was low. It was... rat-like.

  But rats survive. And rats pay the bills.

  "Nice boots," a voice whispered in my ear.

  I froze.

  Malachia was floating right next to my head. She was watching me stuff a bloodstained helmet into my saddlebag.

  She didn't look disgusted. She winked.

  "Loot goblin," she giggled softly. "I saw that. +10 Stealth XP."

  "Shhh," I hissed, shoving a notched axe into Coin-Biter's saddlebag. "This is... evidence. For the... audit."

  "Sure it is," she smirked. "You owe me a candy bar."

  I stood up, wiping my hands on my coat.

  "Deal."

  "Let's move," I called out, trying to look lordly despite the fact that my saddlebags were clinking with stolen junk. "Foxglade is close. I can smell the smoke."

  We rode deeper into the glowing woods, leaving the naked dead to feed the beautiful, hungry trees.