The humming reached them before the shack did.
It was tuneless at first, just a low, wandering sound drifting through the trees, but as they drew closer Elias could make out a melody—old, circular, the kind of tune that repeated itself without ever quite ending. It wormed into the ear and stayed there. The shack squatted at the center of the clearing , its warped planks nailed together without care, roof sagging under the weight of moss and age.
Jamie lifted a fist and froze.
They both sank instinctively into Flow Suppression. Elias pulled his presence inward, folding it tight, compressing the faint ripple his existence caused in the world. Jamie did it faster, sharper—like snapping a door shut. The forest seemed to exhale once they were gone from it, insects resuming their rhythm as if relieved.
The humming continued.
Jamie crept forward, then stopped and turned just enough for Elias to see her hands. Her fingers moved with quick, precise confidence.
Target confirmed.
Left side.
You—right.
Pincer.
Elias frowned and signed back, slower, more cautious.
We don't even know if it's him.
It could be dangerous.
Lets observe first.
Jamie's grin flashed briefly in the dim. She reached inside her jacket and produced something dark and curved, metal etched with old Arrays dulled by use. A collar.
Elias's eyes widened.
The Gilded Nullbrand Collar.
Interlocking Enhancement Arrays layered so densely they hummed faintly against his senses. This wasn't meant for people though. This was a tool rated for beast all the way up to the Apex stage.
'She stole that,' he realized. 'From Roric's stuff.'
Jamie wiggled her eyebrows, utterly pleased with herself, and signed one last thing.
Relax. I planned.
Then she was gone, melting left into the shadows.
Elias exhaled through his nose and started right.
Up close, the shack was worse. Symbols had been carved directly into the wood—some shallow, some gouged deep enough to split planks. Talismans dangled from nails: Thin strips of bark like paper inked with spirals as well as bits of metal twisted into warding shapes. None of it was decorative. It was layered, overlapping, redundant.
Paranoia made physical.
Inside, firelight flickered. The air smelled of grease, smoke, and old incense. More symbols covered the interior—chalk circles layered over knife-scratched sigils, faded ink overwritten again and again. Elias stealthily enetred through the door. He saw Jamie crawl in through a window then edged along the wall and peered above a table.
An old man stood at a rough counter, humming the same looping tune while frying strips of meat in a battered pan. His back was bent, hair thin and white, an oversized tunic hanging from his frame. He looked… harmless. Oblivious.
Elias was however not focused on the man and his meat. No, something else had caught his attention.
There was a trapdoor under the table and from him radiated something wrong. Not loud, not aggressive—dense. Potent. Elias felt his internal Flow stir in response, like metal tugged toward a magnet. Anti-Flow too, whispering at the edges of his perception.
Curious, he opened up the trapdoor, raising his head to see if their host had heard the distinct Click as he opened it. Seeing that he hadn't been noticed he opened it fully.
The trapdoor was a small compartment with walls that continued the trend of talismans and had artifacts of all shapes and sizes arranged neatly. In their midst and covered by an especially large cloth with interlocking circles was a small, rectangular box made of dark stone veined with faint silver lines. Arrays crawled over its surface, intersecting, crossing, canceling and reinforcing one another in maddening complexity.
He heard a voice and looked behind him then at the oldman who still hadn't noticed the girl creeping toward him.
'What was that.' he wondered as he knelt and eased it out.
The moment his fingers touched the box, his Flow flared in response, reflexive and sharp. The arrays reacted instantly, tightening. He could feel a strong humming coming from it. Elias swallowed.
'How in the hell would you even open this?'
"Who the bloody hell are you?"
Elias raised his head in time to see something crashed into him from the left.
"Hold still, you daft old bastard!" Jamie snarled as she tried to put the collar on.
She'd misjudged him.
The man caught her wrist mid-swing with surprising strength, fingers like iron clamps. He twisted, sending her stumbling into a hanging rack of talismans. Jamie pounced on him again, manifesting ice and trying to pin him down.
Elias's heart sank as he observed orange colored Flow in their skirmish.
'Oh, a Votary.' he realized.
'This is bad.'
This wasn't what Lyle had said when discribing a senile old man. There was nothing senile about this old head.
Elias rose raised his hand, fingers cocked like a child's imitation of a gun. Energy gathered at a single point as he , compressed parameters into a tight electric charge—enough to stun, not kill.
A sharp whistling cut the air.
Instinct screamed.
Elias yanked the box up over his head.
Impact.
The shockwave shook the shack. Wood exploded outward, symbols flashing as they failed one by one. Elias felt himself lifted, thrown, the world spinning violently as the side of the shack disintegrated around him and he bounced on the snow covered ground like a pebble, landing hard several meters away.
Inside, something else arrived.
The door burst open.
A man stepped in, tall and broad despite the blood soaking his clothes. Bite marks marred his neck, claw rakes tore across his arms and chest. He held his side and wheezed.
"Bloody dumb animals," he muttered. "At least I put one of 'em down."
He spat blood and lifted his eyes.
They landed on Jamie and the old man. Then he exposed his bloody teeth in a grin.
"Well now," he said pleasantly. "What a fucking delight. Two birds, one stone."
He drew his sword, wincing.
"Didn't plan on killing the other one," he went on conversationally, advancing.
"But variables must be dealt with. Its his fault for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sure the leader will forgive me once I'm done with you."
Jamie faced the man and two ice blades manifested in her balled fists.
The old man clicked his tongue.
'Oh, fuck me sideways. I was having l a meal damnit.'
S.K.'s eyes flicked to a half-open compartment beneath the ruined counter. His jaw tightened.
'Can I make it,' he wondered grimly,
'Before he bloody kills me?'
He stepped in front of Jamie and raised his spatula.
Outside, Elias groaned.
He rolled from his back onto his stomach and spat blood into the dsnow. Pain screamed through his ribs, white-hot and nauseating.
'I wanted to die,' he thought hazily. 'But I can never get used to the pain.'
He felt something inside him knit together, bone grinding softly as it realigned. He even think about which parts got damaged. He was a considerable distance away from the shack, that was within the forest that surrounded it. he noticed a couple of broken trees along the path he just flew from.
'Oh, spine.'
Elias.
He lifted his head. He thought he heard something, a womans voice calling out his name.
Elias.
There it was again, just at the edge of his hearing.
The box lay nearby—torn apart. Not opened. Dismantled. Arrays peeled away like dead skin. Beside it rested a fox mask, white lacquer, crimson markings curling around the eyes and ears.
It hummed.
Softly.
Calling.
Inside the shack, the swordsman lunged.
Elias's gaze snapped toward Jamie's. She was too far and he was too slow.
His body moved.
He slid the mask over his face as he ran.
'Huh, when did I—'
A flash of something not his own burned across his mind.
A grin.
Fire.
Blood on snow.
Then everything went black.