The official records stated that Kaela Vane had been dismissed from the Bastion for "incompatibility with Guild doctrine," a lie that satisfied the prying eyes of noble families like the Corvus line. In reality, Kaela moved into a cramped, windowless room in the sub-levels of the Knight's Spire, a place where the air was thick with the smell of old stone and the hum of the tower's primary defenses. Dame Elara became her only point of contact, providing her with a set of dark, reinforced leathers that lacked any Guild insignia. The transition was absolute; Kaela was no longer a person, but a tool used to strike the targets the Guild could not officially acknowledge.
Her first mission came less than a week after the incident in the high tower. Elara met her in the dead of night, spreading a map across a scarred wooden table. The target was a prominent merchant lord named Orin Thal, a man whose wealth had exploded in recent months. While the Guild's financial auditors suspected simple smuggling, Elara's scouts had reported a more disturbing pattern: Thal was frequenting the "Silk District," a high-end district of Ostrum known for its exclusive Aura-therapy lounges. The suspicious part was not the luxury, but the fact that every lounge Thal visited suffered a sudden, inexplicable "depletion" of its stored spiritual crystals shortly after his departure.
"He's acting as a mule," Elara explained, her voice a low rasp. "Thal doesn't have the Aura capacity to be a Siphon himself, which means he's carrying an extraction device. We believe he is funneling concentrated energy from the Silk District directly to a cell of the Shadow Hand hiding in the city's lower sewers. If we send Knights, he'll be alerted by their Radiance long before we cross the district line. You are to follow him, identify the drop-off point, and if the device is found, neutralize the recipient." Kaela understood the unspoken part of the order: there would be no backup, and if she were caught, the Guild would disavow her existence entirely.
Kaela moved through the Silk District like a wisp of smoke. Using the Whispering Eye, she tuned her senses not to the vibrant, colorful Auras of the wealthy patrons, but to the cold, artificial void she now recognized as a Siphon's signature. She found Thal leaving a velvet-draped lounge, carrying a heavy, lead-lined briefcase. He looked nervous, his eyes darting around the cobblestone streets, but he couldn't see the girl shadowed in the rafters of the buildings above him. Kaela maintained her Black Core, ensuring that not a single spark of her Ember escaped to alert the merchant's hidden guardians.
The trail led deep into the sprawling warehouse district near the docks, far from the polished marble of the Guild. Thal entered a derelict tannery, the stench of chemicals and rot providing a perfect cover for illicit activity. Kaela slipped through a broken skylight, her movements fluid and silent. Below her, Thal was meeting with two hooded figures. They didn't speak; one of the figures reached out and took the briefcase, opening it to reveal six large, glowing crystals that pulsed with a stolen, golden light.
As the hooded figure touched the crystals, Kaela felt the sudden, violent surge of a Siphon's extraction. The man's grey, icy Aura flared as he began to "clean" the energy, stripping away its protective Guild signatures to make it untraceable. This was the moment of maximum vulnerability. Kaela drew Rust-Eater, the blade feeling exceptionally light in the presence of so much concentrated energy. She dropped from the rafters, falling twenty feet in absolute silence.
She struck before the Siphon could react. Rust-Eater didn't hit the man; it hit the briefcase. The moment the Void-Iron touched the glowing crystals, the Sin-Eater didn't just consume the energy—it acted as a lightning rod. The stolen Aura was sucked through the blade with such force that the briefcase imploded. The Siphon, his hands still linked to the crystals, felt his own spirit being dragged into the vacuum. He screamed, a sound that was abruptly cut short as Kaela pivoted and drove the pommel of her sword into his temple, knocking him unconscious before the blade could kill him.
The second figure tried to draw a blade, but Kaela was already moving, her Formless Style turning the cramped warehouse into a maze of leverage. She disarmed him with a single, sharp snap of his wrist and pinned him to the floor. The mission was a success: the energy was recovered, the mule was caught, and the Siphon was neutralized. As Kaela stood over the broken men, she realized that this was her life now—a silent guardian in the dark, using a cursed blade to protect a world that would never know her name. She sheathed Rust-Eater, its black metal vibrating with a satisfied, low hum, and vanished back into the shadows before the first Guild recovery team could arrive.