*Date: 33,480 First Quarter - Chalice Theocracy*
*2 Days Ago*
Lyra had always hated being sidelined. "Firing me for speaking truth," she muttered, her voice low and bitter as she slipped through the narrow alleys near Chalice's Grand Canal. "You're hiding something, High Priestess. And I'll drag it out of you, ledger by ledger if I must."
The city loomed around her like a painted mask. Marble bridges arched gracefully over canals where gondolas glided, lanternlight dancing on black water. Statues of saints and guardians stared down from rooftops, their stone eyes empty, their wings chipped by centuries of weather. Chalice pretended to be holy, a shining city on the water - but Lyra had crawled through enough gutters to know rot when she smelled it.
"I am not a spy, just a mere engineer in a world that doesn't need engineers. But I have to uncover the truth. After a thousand years, we severed ties from our puppet masters. We cannot let tyrants take over."
Her form tonight was halfling: round cheeks, soft features, short legs hidden under a borrowed cloak. No one looked twice at a halfling servant scurrying across a bridge with a basket on her back. Shapeshifting was her greatest gift - a trick she had engineered with her own body and stolen tech from the creators. "Who cares? It's my power now," Lyra thought.
And tonight, that gift was going to crack open the High Priestess's secrets.
The mansion rose at the edge of the canal like a marble cathedral, three stories tall, its façade carved with winged figures that seemed to sneer down at her. Wide windows glowed with amber light. Guards patrolled the balconies - templars, their swords gleaming even without armor.
Lyra crouched under the shadow of a bridge, fishing a small brass spider from her pouch. She wound its tiny gears, set it on the stones, and whispered, "Climb." The spider whirred softly, its legs clinking as it scuttled up the wall.
Through its eyes - linked by a polished crystal in her hand - she saw the guards' routes. Predictable. Lazy. Arrogant. She smiled thinly. "Even angels can't hire competent meat shields."
She scaled the wall on the blind side, her gloves gripping stone grooves. A narrow window opened onto the second floor. She hooked her grappling line, swung, and slipped inside with the silence of a whisper.
The room smelled of ink and candle wax. A study. Shelves sagged under the weight of tomes and scrolls. On the central desk: neat stacks of ledgers bound in red leather, their spines marked with golden wings.
Lyra's pulse quickened. She cracked one open.
Her eyes flicked over names: students from the Ivory Gate Academy. Dates of entry. Columns of numbers that didn't match. Entire rows missing. She turned the page. More names - some crossed out, others marked "reassigned" with no explanation.
Her lips tightened. "Missing students."
Another ledger. This one worse. Not numbers - descriptions. Rituals. Surgical notes. Bloodlines. Incantations in ancient script. She recognized the style - illegal experiments. Someone was cutting into children to "unlock" their potential.
Her hands curled into fists.
She opened a third. The pages were stained, not with ink, but something darker. She forced herself to read: blood donations, binding circles, contracts with things that weren't human.
Blood magic. Tied directly to the office of the High Priestess.
Lyra slammed the book shut, chest heaving. "You hypocrite," she whispered. "You preach guardianship, sacrifice, protection - all while bleeding them dry. You'll fall, and I'll be the one to cut the rope."
She gathered the ledgers into her pack. Heavy, incriminating, damning. But her moment of triumph lasted barely a heartbeat.
The door creaked.
Lyra froze.
Two templars entered, murmuring. Their eyes landed on the desk - the open books, the faint smear of blood Lyra hadn't noticed.
"Who's here?"
Lyra ducked under the desk, cramped beneath it. Her heart hammered as boots thudded closer.
A blade scraped against the desk's edge.
She rolled out, fast - knife flashing. The first templar yelped as her blade slashed his calf. She dashed past them, twisting through the doorway before they could pin her.
"Thief!"
The mansion erupted.
Lyra darted through hallways of marble and stained glass, the ledgers heavy in her pack. She ducked under tapestries, vaulted over railings, slid down polished banisters. Behind her, templars thundered like war drums.
One lunged at her near the grand staircase. She whipped a vial from her belt, smashed it under his feet - a burst of smoke, acrid and blinding. He coughed, stumbled. Lyra grinned through her teeth. "Engineers make better assassins."
Another guard cut her off near a gallery. She flung a brass disk - it clanged against the wall and exploded in a spray of sparks. His armor caught the light, blinding him for a second. She darted past, kicking him square in the gut.
Still, more came. Too many.
She ducked into a servants' corridor, narrow and low. Her halfling form barely squeezed through, but it bought her seconds. She burst out near the canal-side balcony - and found herself face-to-face with the High Priestess herself.
She was as radiant and terrible as the day Lyra had first met her. Overdressed in silks and jewels, wings shimmering faintly with divine aura. Her face was beautiful, ageless - and furious.
"You dare steal from me?" her voice rang, cutting like a blade.
Lyra hissed between her teeth. "You dare pretend to be holy while bleeding children dry."
The High Priestess raised a hand. Power shimmered. The air itself grew heavy. Lyra's knees nearly buckled.
"Not yet," she told herself. "Not here."
She hurled another vial - this one shattering into a burst of searing light. The High Priestess recoiled, shielding her eyes for the barest instant. Lyra bolted past her, vaulted the balcony, and seized a rope that dangled from a moored gondola below.
She swung down - but templars were already waiting. They clashed in the narrow street, blades flashing. Lyra fought dirty - knees, elbows, gadgets. A spring-blade flicked from her wrist, catching one man across the cheek. She jammed another with a smoke-bomb straight to the mouth.
But there were too many. She ran again, weaving through streets, the canals glimmering on either side. Gondoliers shouted as she shoved past, knocking barrels into the water.
She darted into an alley, skidding over wet stones - only to find it a dead end.
The templars closed in.
She cursed under her breath. Her hip throbbed from a scrape against the wall earlier, but she couldn't stop. She climbed the wall, fingers bloody on the stone.
A templar grabbed her ankle. She kicked, hard, and his grip slipped - but so did hers.
Lyra fell.
Concrete edge slammed into her hip, white-hot pain exploding through her body. She hit the canal with a sickening splash, the cold water crushing her lungs. For a second she sank, the weight of the ledgers dragging her down.
She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Pain screamed through her.
And then instinct took over.
She connected her device - a stolen gift from the gods. Her skin shifted. Scales rippled down her arms. Her face elongated. Her tail unfurled.
In the dark water, Lyra shed her halfling disguise - and became lizardkin.
The templars on the bridge above shouted, pointing into the canal. But she was already gone, slipping into the current, the ledgers clutched tight against her chest.
---
*Date: 33,480 First Quarter - Isles of Selqua*
Lyra sat in elf form at the cabin table, spooning soup with careful precision. Her transformation back to her "real" form had been seamless, but Aris could see the exhaustion in her eyes.
Aris burst through the door, dropping unwashed vegetables on the table. "Good morning, Master. Good morning, Lyra. You're awake! You promised to explain everything when you rested."
Lyra took another spoonful, rolling her eyes. "Good morning to you, Aris. Like I was explaining to your master," she gestured vaguely, "I changed my form to lizardkin to survive the attack. Now I'm back to my real form. I'm not a shapeshifter. I have set forms for every race. Almost every race - I can't become a dragon, obviously."
"Stop beating around the bush. Tell me everything, please. It might be my only way of developing skills that will keep me alive."
Nebu looked up from his herb sorting. "What is my apprentice talking about, young Lyra? You have secrets beyond your shape?"
"We all have our secrets. Like you, great Nebuchadnezzar, Arbiter of Luck. We all have pasts we hide."
Master Nebu turned his back and continued weeding out dried herbs. "I guess you can't run away from your past forever. How did you figure it out?"
"You all are implying something I'm not following," Aris said, frustration creeping into his voice.
"I saw your apprentice's title screen. There's no way after the Freeze Law anyone can attain that title unless the master accepted them as apprentice."
"So he has the curse now too," Nebu said quietly.
"What is going on?" Aris demanded.
Fox entered through the window, unable to stand just listening. "I'll tell you what your master is. He's not just a master healer - he uses his healing to cover up his misfortune."
Nebu was calm against all accusations but wore a sad expression. Finally, he dropped the herbs and sat back at the table.
"Aris, like they say, I am not only a healer. After the founders left me alone to wander, I learned healing myself. They created me in the early days of Aethyros. As Arbiter of Luck, I was bringing luck, storing misfortune - but with a twist. Eventually releasing all stored misfortune to people."
"I'm guessing now, after all those years, they think I shifted narratives randomly. But after a while, it became unwanted. I saw several players yelling in disgust to the founders about my stupid mechanic."
"So you started living in secluded places like this?" Aris asked.
"Yes, I got sidelined."
"How long until another devastating accident?" Lyra asked bluntly.
"I don't know, but I have a feeling it's close. It's been four years."
Then it hit Aris.
"The bridge accident. Was it your..." He couldn't finish the question. He didn't want to say "was it your fault." How could someone he'd seen help people for the last four years cause that kind of pain?
Nebu bowed his ancient head with an almost crying demeanor. "Yes, it was me. And I'm afraid if you continue to stay here, this time misfortune will find you."
"How could I leave you? Where will I go?"
"About that, I have a proposition for you, Aris the healer. I have a plan where you can learn tons of spells."
"What's the catch?" Fox interjected.
"Is he your manager?" Lyra asked.
"I'm his big brother. Spill the beans."
"Just casual spy work. Snoop around where I place you, steal some documents. That kind of stuff."
"Where?" Aris asked.
"Ivory Gate Academy."
The words hung in the air like a challenge and a promise rolled into one. Aris felt his future shifting, the safe life he'd built with Nebu suddenly seeming like a cage he needed to escape.
But Fox's earlier warning echoed in his mind: "Make sure she doesn't become your end."