Floor 20 – Eldrinor – Forest
The tavern stank of mildew and old violence.
Dust motes swirled in the slanted light cutting through broken shutters, illuminating the hollow cheeks of a corpse that had been rotting in the corner for weeks. No one had bothered to move it. In the Tower, corpses were as common as cobwebs.
At the center of this ruin, beneath a chandelier missing half its candles, sat Baron David Vossgard Eustass. His yellow-striped suit was a garish splash of color against the gloom, the fabric straining at his shoulders where a military coat hung like the wings of a carrion bird. The empty sleeves swayed slightly as he tapped one polished shoe against the table leg—three precise taps, then a pause. Three taps. Pause. The rhythm of a man counting down to something terrible.
His butler stood at attention, a study in monochrome perfection. The Oculus of Eternal Stewardship gleamed on his face, the lenses flashing opaque whenever shadows moved wrong. His wristwatch ticked—not the steady rhythm of a normal timepiece, but in erratic bursts, as if measuring something other than minutes.
The door screamed open.
Adonis entered, his boots kicking up dust that swirled around his ankles like ghosts. The butler's watch emitted a sharp *click*.
"Four minutes and twenty-two seconds late," the butler intoned. His voice was the sound of a coffin nail being driven home.
Adonis wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "An unexpected variable delayed me."
The baron didn't look up. His fingers continued their relentless drumming. "Did you bring the flower?"
With a flick of his wrist, Adonis summoned the interface. Blue glyphs shimmered in the air—blue for them, though he alone saw the truth: the searing, violent red pulsing beneath the surface. The flower's data packet transferred with a soft chime.
The baron's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Good Job." He waved a languid hand. "Pay him."
The butler's fingers danced across his own interface. When the notification appeared before Adonis, the numbers burned into his retinas:
**[500 TP Received]**
Half the agreed amount.
Adonis's hands curled into fists. "We had a deal for a thousand."
The baron leaned forward, empty sleeves swaying like hanged men. "There's been a... revision." His voice dropped to a whisper, the tone one might use to describe a favorite murder. "You failed to disclose your lack of guild affiliation."
A cold knot formed in Adonis's gut.
"Did you know," the baron continued, tracing a finger along the rim of a filthy glass, "that in the upper floors, we skin unaffiliated rats alive? Slowly. Starting with the fingers." He smiled. "Be grateful I'm paying you at all."
Rage ignited in Adonis's chest—white-hot and blinding. He felt it leak out, that killing intent he'd sworn to control. His muscles coiled—
Steel kissed his throat.
Adonis froze. The butler—who had been standing motionless beside the baron—now pressed a blade against his jugular. He hadn't seen him move. Hadn't even felt the air stir.
"Know your place," the butler whispered, adjusting his glasses with his free hand. The lenses flashed opaque. "Peasant."
A single bead of blood traced a hot line down Adonis's neck. In that moment, he understood the true architecture of the world: some men were giants, and others were insects to be crushed beneath their boots.
The baron waved a dismissive hand. The blade vanished as if it had never existed.
As the baron strode past, his coat brushed Adonis's cheek—a mockery of a caress. "Run along now," he murmured. "And pray our paths don't cross again."
The door slammed shut.
Adonis didn't move. Couldn't move. His head remained bowed, his entire body trembling with the aftershocks of terror. The taste of his own weakness was bile in his throat.
Slowly, painfully, Adonis uncurled his fists. The decision crystallized in his mind with terrible clarity:
*Never again.*
He would join a guild.
He would become strong.
And one day, he would make the baron bleed.