The shop was quiet.
The air slled faintly of scorched oil and tal dust. Runes flickered dimly beneath the floorboards, humming with low enchantnts. Half-finished gauntlets, glowing coils, and blueprint scraps cluttered the side tables—organized chaos, the kind only Catria could read. Raven didn’t mind. It was quiet, focused. Familiar.
A low hiss from Catria’s forge flared and faded in the background. Theo tapped at his ledger console, boots up on the counter, humming sothing off-key.
Raven entered without a word. Dust from the street clung to the edge of his cloak. He didn’t speak. Just walked past crates of stacked gear and stopped at the wall terminal.
Theo glanced up once.
"Things are calm," he said. "Market’s holding. Orders are regular. Even the Helix fallout’s losing heat."
No reply.
Theo added, almost lazily:
"Feels like they’re settling in. Whatever noise we made last ti—Titan Corp’s already moving on."
Raven opened his system interface.
[Event Notification: This Month’s Throne War – Featuring Parallax Vanguard. Brought to you by Parallax Techwear.]
A beat of silence.
His gaze lingered on the announcent.
Sponsor-branded. Polished. Manufactured glory.
Of course they’d dress it up. A title, a tagline, maybe even a hero shot on the event banner.
All scripted. All clean.
And players would eat it up like it was earned.
He closed the nu.
"Joining the cara circus?" Theo asked, glancing up with a grin. "Gonna sneak in a dagger or two between the hero poses?"
Raven’s smirk was brief. Barely there.
Then:
"Hm. Maybe. This looks interesting," he said.
Theo blinked. "That was it? No breakdown, no smirk, no sche as usual?"
But Raven was already moving.
Theo watched him longer than usual. Most players joined Throne Wars for exposure, guild rewards, or ego. Raven wasn’t built like that. If he was curious, it ant sothing was wrong—and he intended to find out what.
He turned toward the back of the workshop, where Catria sat hunched over her forge, sparks dancing across the tal in her grip. She didn’t look up.
"Can you make dual daggers?" Raven asked quietly. "I can pay you from the production commission."
That earned him a glance.
His Sovereign set was useless outside dungeons—and no one here knew why. He kept it that way. "Default armor doesn’t draw attention," he said instead, keeping his tone flat. "But it still needs so teeth."
Catria shrugged, already reaching for her toolkit.
"Sure. What attribute you want?"
"I have no specific idea actually," Raven replied. "My play is fast, agile, and I move between lines. I like burst better than critical."
Catria tapped her knuckles against the workbench thoughtfully. "Hmm... I think I can get you sothing based on that. You got another attribute on you?"
Raven hesitated briefly, then rembered.
[Hidden Achievent Unlocked – Friend of Kharnath-Dur]
Effect:
— Citizen NPCs of Kharnath-Dur will no longer treat you as outsider.
— Discount: 15% off dwarven-crafted or dwarven style gear.
— Style Effect: 15% more effect for dwarven-crafted or dwarven style gear.
He nodded slightly. "I’ve got a passive in dwarven-crafted and dwarven-style gear. So maybe... dwarven style?"
Catria’s eyes lit up. "Well, that can be done. I got an achievent unlocked for crafting dwarven gear. It looks pretty cool—steampunk style and all that. I could make the daggers have light notifications or switches to fit the style..."
Raven chuckled softly. "I leave it up to you. I focus more on the hit effect."
"Fast enough they can’t react," he added after a pause. "Sharp enough they don’t get a second chance."
Catria leaned forward, resting her elbows on the bench. "You want it just two daggers? Why not go for a full armor set?"
Raven shook his head. "Not entirely. That’d make stand out too much. I’m playing more stealth this ti. Steampunk armor’s a bit loud."
Catria laughed. "Oh yeah, I forgot—you’re not an ordinary guy after all. Alright, so pieces. Belt? Or shoulder armor?"
Raven considered. "Shoulder, maybe. I can cover my neck."
She nodded. "Alright then. It’ll be a three-piece set. Shoulder armor, dual daggers, and a matching belt to tie the whole look together. All in dwarven gear style."
Raven gave a small shrug. "Sounds good to ."
Catria smiled, already sketching rough outlines on her blueprint sheet. "Give a couple of days to design the effect and style. I’ll make you the best one."
————
Elara got the call the night before launch.
Not an email. Not a system ping. A direct voice ssage from her supervisor at Titan Corp.
"QA coverage assignnt. Internal directive. You’ll be joining the next Throne War event as a field-level observer."
She didn’t ask why. She already knew.
Parallax Techwear was sponsoring the month’s siege. Their branded esports team—the Parallax Vanguard—was being funneled into the spotlight. Promos everywhere. Stylized gear teasers, rehearsed interviews, even scripted PvP trailers.
Titan Corp wanted to make sure nothing glitched while the caras were rolling.
Elara’s role? Log in as a normal player. Play the war. Report any anomalies.
She booted up her personal character—not the corporate ready made character.
Not this ti.
Her login hovered on the screen: Fairyblade.
She hadn’t used the na since the last Throne War, when the patch broke her entire rotation and left her elental summons glitched mid-cast. Players scread in chat. She’d logged out mid-wave, defeated not by enemies, but by broken systems.
But today, Fairyblade would log back in.
Her loadout was still there—holy sigils layered with elental ribbons, fairy-channel gauntlets balanced for mobility and sustain. A paladin class with a unique subclass unlock: one that tethered minor elental spirits to her spells in exchange for reduced cooldown.
She hovered over the gauntlet piece. Still fractured. Still bugged visually in the nu. They never really fixed it.
No matter.
She selected it anyway.
The war wasn’t about perfection. It was about patterns—and hers would blend perfectly in the middle lines, between tanks and mages, where glitches bloom and no one’s watching.
She recognized the setup imdiately. No support. No credit. Just enough authority to absorb the bla if sothing went wrong again.
Titan Corp hadn’t changed. Polished on the outside, hollow underneath. They said ’QA coverage’ like it was a courtesy—but Elara knew better. She’d seen the inside of the boardroom. She’d watched her na dangled like bait while middle managers squird to save face. She’d been the one with the datapad while they scrambled for spin.
They didn’t want truth. They wanted deniability. If anything broke again, she’d be the perfect fallback.
And if nothing broke? She’d be forgotten until the next ti they needed a silent shield to walk into the fire.
Last ti, they nearly buried her over the summoner patch debacle—and she was the only one in that room who had told the truth. The executives had smiled while pushing her forward like a pawn. The sponsors had scread. The QA director had cowered. And Elara had walked out with a stitched face and a steel spine.
This ti, she let instinct guide her. Not orders. Not scripts. Just the reflexes of soone who’d spent a lifeti reading gas from the inside—movent patterns, spawn timings, imbalance shadows in the field. She’d learned long ago that systems whispered their intent if you knew how to listen. And she was listening.
She wasn’t the girl staring at the mirror anymore.
She was the one holding the lens.
She had enough.
If they were going to rig another war to sell a narrative, she’d be watching fra by fra.
But she had her own reasons.
If the system was clean, she’d say so. If it wasn’t... she’d record everything.
Quietly.
Without permission.
And she’d keep a close eye on the Parallax Vanguard. Too close to the center. Too perfect. Sothing felt off, and this ti, she wanted to see it fail with her own eyes.
She didn’t log in yet.
Instead, she pulled up her custom tools one by one.
She smiled a little as she pulled up the environnt. She’d always been fond of her character—Fairyblade wasn’t just a na, it was a build she had grown into over countless hours. And now? Now she was getting paid to don the armor again.
She chuckled softly at the thought.
Across the room, her phone buzzed with another PR blast: Parallax Vanguard: Live Tomorrow.
A poster blared across the screen—five players, sleek gear, dramatic poses, perfectly lit explosions behind them. Half the comnts were astroturf. She could sll it by now.
Elara dismissed the ssage.
The tagline at the bottom caught her eye: ’Where only skill survives.’ She scoffed quietly. She’d seen their footage—Parallax Vanguard was a normal esports team—talented, structured, well-practiced. But the forced exposure, the spotlight wrapped in sponsor polish, grated on her. It didn’t feel earned. It felt manufactured.
The ssage wasn’t ant for players. It was ant for sponsors.
The real ga wasn’t about skill. Not tomorrow. Not in front of that many caras.
But systems still leave footprints.
She’d be watching the dirt they tried to sweep clean.
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