The gnawing ache in her gut was a familiar clock, its hands ticking relentlessly toward starvation. But a new sensation had joined it: a cold, prickling paranoia that crawled over her skin like a thousand unseen insects. The Curse of the Sieve was a fire in her soul, but Seraphine's bounty had set the whole world ablaze. Every shadow was a hunter. Every gust of wind was a whisper of her name, a promise of pain and profit.
Veridia scrambled over a ridge of rusted, jagged metal, the skeletal remains of some ancient war machine from The Sweeps. The air in the Slag Crown tasted of ozone, grit, and the distant, metallic scent of blood. Her brief moment of triumph, of fullness and power savored in the quiet sanctity of Asterion's library, was a fading dream, a cruel joke. Fame had been her shield in the Infernal Court, a measure of her untouchable status. Here, Seraphine had twisted it into a target painted on her back in glowing, demonic runes.
She dropped low, pressing herself against the derelict chassis. In the distance, two Waster Marauders stood silhouetted against the bleak sky. They weren't moving toward her, not yet. They were arguing, their angry gestures sharp and clear even from a hundred paces. One pointed in her direction, then shoved the other.
"She's mine! I saw her first!" one's faint, angry cry carried on the wind.
"The bounty's for humiliation, you fool, not a quick kill! We need a plan!" the other shouted back.
They weren't fighting over territory. They were fighting over her. Over the best strategy to claim the prize. This wasn't a hunt; it was a competition, and she was the trophy.
"It must be thrilling, dear sister," a voice of silken poison purred in her ear. Seraphine's illusion shimmered into existence beside her, perfectly composed against the backdrop of filth and decay. "To finally have the entire world desperate to get a piece of you." Her smile was a beautiful, venomous thing. "Literally."
***
Veridia ignored the ghost, her mind a frantic whirlwind of calculations. The marauders were a nuisance, but the real threat was what she couldn't see. She needed to put distance between her and the open badlands. Ahead, the terrain folded in on itself, forming a narrow canyon—a dark slash in the rock that promised a direct, sheltered path.
Her instincts screamed. It was too perfect, a channel cut by a lazy god for the express purpose of an ambush. But the hunger was a physical weight in her stomach, and the paranoia was a grinding exhaustion that frayed her nerves. Caution was a luxury for the well-fed and the unhunted. She chose speed.
She sprinted for the canyon mouth, her ragged boots slipping on the loose scree. The moment she entered the passage, the oppressive silence of the badlands was replaced by a different kind, a close, heavy quiet that swallowed the sound of her own ragged breaths. The walls rose on either side, sheer and smooth, offering no handholds, no escape.
She was halfway through when the world fell. A deep, grinding roar echoed from behind her, the very stone vibrating through the soles of her feet. A boulder the size of a longhouse crashed down, sealing the entrance in a choking cloud of dust and finality. Almost simultaneously, another followed, thundering into the path ahead, its impact a gut-punch of sound. Trapped.
Two massive shapes detached themselves from alcoves she hadn't seen, their bulk seeming to drink the light from the narrow passage. Ogres. Clad in crude plates of scavenged metal and wielding clubs that looked like uprooted trees. Their stench hit her a moment later—a foul wave of unwashed hide, rotten meat, and stale sweat. Their eyes, however, held no trace of mindless savagery. They were filled with a greedy, calculating intelligence.
The larger of the two grinned, revealing a row of broken, yellowed tusks. "Big bounty," he grunted, the sound like rocks tumbling down a cliff. He nudged his partner, who was drooling slightly. "The Gilded Host promised a personal boon for the one who bags the Vex princess. Live." They advanced slowly, savoring the moment, their eyes flicking upward as if to a camera only they could see. They weren't just hunters. They were performers.
***
Veridia backed away until her shoulders hit the cold, unforgiving stone of the rockfall behind her. There was nowhere left to run. The two Ogres closed in, their sheer size blocking out the sliver of sky above, plunging the canyon into a deep twilight. One of them swung its massive club, not at her, but at the rock beside her head.
The impact was a deafening explosion. Stone shattered, spraying her with sharp fragments that stung her skin like angry wasps. The force of the blow threw her from her feet, and she landed hard, the air knocked from her lungs in a painful gasp. Before she could move, before she could even process the pain, a colossal, iron-shod boot planted itself firmly on her back, grinding her face into the dirt and grit. She was pinned. Utterly, humiliatingly immobilized.
The familiar taste of earth and shame filled her mouth. But just as a fresh wave of despair threatened to drown her, a new sound echoed through the canyon—Seraphine's voice, amplified, booming, and filled with the saccharine excitement of a game show host.
"A spectacular capture!"
Veridia twisted her head, spitting out a mouthful of dirt. High on the canyon wall, Seraphine's illusory face appeared, magnified to a monstrous scale, her features glowing with condescending amusement.
"But our Patrons are divided on what should happen next," the spectral mouth boomed. "So, in the spirit of audience participation, we're trying something new! Welcome to the very first 'Patron's Choice Poll'!"
A shimmering, holographic interface materialized in the air above, visible to her, the Ogres, and the entire demonic realm. It displayed two options, their percentages climbing in real-time as unseen viewers cast their votes.
**Option A: The Humiliation (Break her pride.) - 78%**
**Option B: The Harvest (Take the Essence.) - 22%**
The Ogre with his boot on her back looked down, then up at the glowing poll. A low, greedy chuckle rumbled in his chest. "Looks like they want a show," he grunted to his partner.
Veridia's blood turned to ice. A cold, clear rage burned away her fear. This was the true trap. Not the canyon, not the Ogres. This. This interactive violation, this crowdsourced degradation. Her fate was no longer in the hands of her captors. It was being decided by a live audience vote, and the show was just getting started.