The alley behind the cathedral stank of piss and incense. Eloy pressed his shoulder against damp stone, ledger pages crinkling inside his tunic, and watched Maya negotiate with a night watchman who looked like he’d rather be sleeping.

Maya’s fan hung half-open at her hip. She didn’t touch it. She touched the watchman’s elbow instead, leaned in, murmured something about House Alne’s gratitude.

The watchman’s eyes flicked to Eloy and Isolde, shadows against shadows, then back to Maya’s pale face catching torchlight from the street beyond.

"Apothecary’s closed," the watchman said. "Owner’s got a sick wife."

"For Lady De Alne." Maya pressed a silver disc into his palm. Stamped metal. Implied obligation.

The watchman looked at the disc. Looked at the alley’s mouth, where Temple Ward’s main thoroughfare hummed with distant patrol boots.

"Back door," he said. "Five minutes. You don’t exist."

Maya nodded. The watchman melted into the dark.

"Noble bribes," Eloy muttered. "Classic."

"House Alne maintains relationships." Maya’s eyes moved over his face, cataloging the bruise along his jaw, the mud caked to his knees, the way he favored his left ankle. "You look worse than before."

"I’m fine, really."

"You say that frequently."

Isolde stood at the alley’s corner, back to them, watching the street. Her silver hair had dried stiff with sewer water.

Eloy moved to her. His ankle rolled on a cobblestone. He didn’t hiss.

"Everything’s clear," he said.

Isolde’s head tilted. A small nod.

"Five minutes," Maya said. She led them along the alley’s edge, past stacked crates and a dead cat Eloy stepped over without looking down.

The apothecary’s back door was wood gone gray with age, iron bands rusted to orange flakes. It opened before Maya touched it, revealing a woman in a stained apron, eyes red from lack of sleep.

"Lady De Alne," the woman said. No warmth. Just recognition and flat acceptance.

"Mana potions," Maya said. "Low grade. As many as you have."

The woman disappeared into the dark beyond. Glass clinked. Shelves scraped. Eloy checked his HUD. Valen’s dot still sat in the maintenance shaft area. Still green. Still 28%. Still not moving.

[SpeedrunGod]: bro valen’s been 28% for like 20 minutes now

[ghostrunner_X]: thats either stable or dead and i cant tell which

The apothecary returned with three vials. Clear liquid, faint blue luminescence, the cheap stuff that tasted like copper.

"That’s it?" Maya asked.

"That’s it." The woman set them on a crate. "Word’s out. Academy’s buying everything. Some kind of purge. Last three." 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Maya’s jaw tightened. She handed over another silver disc. The woman pocketed it without thanks.

Eloy grabbed the vials. Three doses of barely-functional mana restoration. He cracked the first, drank it in one swallow. Copper hit his tongue, then cold spread through his chest, a trickle where he needed a flood.

[ MP: 17% → 22% ]

He stared at the number. Five percent. Five percent from a full vial.

"That’s pathetic," he said.

"It’s what exists."

Isolde didn’t move for the remaining two. She stood in the doorway’s shadow, hands flexing once, twice, like she was checking they still worked.

"You need it more," Eloy said. He held out a vial.

"I have no pathways to channel it." Flat. Factual. "It’ll be a waste on me."

"Your core’s not—"

"Depleted is not damaged, I know" Her eyes found his. "I will recover. Slowly. The potion won’t accelerate that."

Eloy looked at the vial. Looked at her face, the hollows beneath her eyes, the wire-and-spite way she held herself.

"We save them, then," he said. He tucked both vials into his belt pouch. "For when it matters."

Maya’s fan snapped open. She studied the alley beyond, wind affinity catching dust motes, maybe catching the metallic tang of Inquisition mana somewhere too close.

"We need to move," she said. "Patrol shift changes in twelve minutes."

They moved.

The alley forked. Maya took the left path, narrower, walls pressing close enough to scrape shoulders. Eloy’s boots found wet stone, then dry brick, then something sticky he didn’t examine. Isolde walked beside him now, steps silent even on uneven ground.

"Your arm," she said.

Eloy looked down. His right forearm, where he hit harder than he should have when triggering the collision glitch. He’d forgotten. The wound had crusted over, a dark line through torn sleeve, not deep enough to matter then but aching now, pulling with every movement.

"It’s nothing."

Isolde stopped. She reached into the apothecary’s small supply bundle. Bandages. Cheap linen. A tin of salve that smelled like pine and stung like hell.

"Sit," she said.

"Isolde, we don’t have—"

"Sit."

Eloy sat. His back against the alley wall. Isolde crouched in front of him, knees in the grime, and took his arm without asking. Her fingers were cold. Precise. She peeled the torn sleeve back, examined the wound with the same flat focus she’d applied to Caldwell’s ledger.

The salve hit first. Eloy bit down on the hiss. Failed.

Isolde didn’t look up. She worked the bandage around his forearm, wrapping tight, tucking the end with a twist she’d learned somewhere that wasn’t the Academy. Somewhere with war and field dressing and no time for gentleness.

But her fingers were gentle.

Barely. The barest modulation in pressure, the slightest hesitation before pulling linen taut. Eloy watched her hands move. Watched her face, the downward angle, the way her dark hair fell forward and hid her expression.

"You’re good at this," he said.

"I’ve had practice."

"Field medic?"

"Survivor." She tied the bandage off. Her fingers stayed on the knot for one second. Two. Then she let go and stood, knees cracking. "The war didn’t leave much room for specialization."

Eloy flexed his arm. The bandage held. The salve’s sting faded to a dull throb, manageable, something he could run on.

"Thanks," he said.

Isolde didn’t answer. She was already watching the alley ahead, where Maya had stopped at another junction, fan half-open, wind-sense reading the air.

Eloy pushed off the wall. His ankle rolled again. He caught himself on the bandaged arm, pain flaring, and Isolde’s hand found his elbow. Steadying. Just keeping him upright until he found his balance.

Her hand dropped. She moved ahead, not looking back.

[ Isolde Reichenbach — Affinity: 16.75 / 100 → 17.5 / 100 ]

[ +0.75: field dressing without being asked, maintaining physical proximity after shared trauma ]

Eloy’s HUD pulsed. He almost missed it, still feeling the ghost of her cold fingers on his elbow. The affinity tick. Small. Almost nothing. But it was there.

He shook his head. Focus. Speedrunner brain kicked in, cataloging resources, routes, threats. Three potions. One used. Two saved. Bandaged arm. Ankle functional but degrading. MP at 22%, enough for one clip-through dodge, maybe two if he was careful.

And Valen. Still 28%. Still green. Still not moving.

They reached the junction. Maya held up a hand. Eloy froze. Isolde stopped mid-step, weight balanced, ready posture from the tunnels.

"Checkpoint ahead," Maya whispered. "Three guards. Torchlight. Checking papers."

Eloy’s stomach turned. Papers. They had no papers. They had stolen ledger pages, a bronze Inquisition token that would get them killed on sight, and the word of a noble house currently being marked for erasure by the kingdom’s greatest hero.

"Alternate route?" he whispered back.

Maya shook her head. "This junction feeds all Temple Ward arteries. Backtracking puts us in the patrol path we just avoided."

"Then we go through," Isolde said, delivered in that flat register that made everything sound like a death sentence.

Eloy checked his HUD. Valen’s dot flickered. He stared at it, willing the image to stabilize, to show movement, to show anything.

The dot pulsed. Once. Green to amber. Amber to green.

Then the number changed.

[ Valen Croi — HP: 28% → 24% ]

Eloy’s breath caught. Four percent drop. Not blinking. Not the sick amber pulse from before. Just a clean subtraction, like someone had taken a bite out of a health bar.

[ghostrunner_X]: 24%????

[IsoldeSimp47]: no no no no

[wo1flion]: thats a damage tick. something hit him

[LMAO_cat]: OR SOMETHING IS DRAINING HIM

[coldfront44]: 28 to 24 is pretty exact tho hmmmmm

His HUD expanded. A new marker, faint red, pulsing beneath Valen’s status bar. Not Valen’s dot. Something connected to it.

A blood trail. Mana signature. Localized, faint, threading through sewer arteries directly beneath this street.

Eloy’s jaw tightened. Valen was in the sewers. Or under them. Something was draining him, four percent at a time, structured and patient.

"We need to get underground," he said.

Maya turned. "The checkpoint—"

"Is a wall. Walls have ways around them." Eloy’s mind raced, speedrunner logic finding the skip. "The sewers run beneath this ward. Every checkpoint, every street, every patrol route. If Valen’s down there, and something’s draining him, we can move beneath the patrols entirely."

"You’re suggesting we descend into the cistern network," Maya said. "The same network we just fled through."

"I’m suggesting we use the map the builders left behind." Eloy said. "House Alne built this city, right? You built the secrets. Maintenance grates, access points, emergency protocols. We don’t need to go through the checkpoint. We can go under it."

Isolde’s head tilted. "You know where."

"I know where Valen is." Eloy tapped his temple, the gesture for HUD that looked like thinking to anyone watching. "Or where he’s bleeding, at least. There’s a blood trail signature. Mana residue. Threading northwest, beneath us. We intersect it, we find him. Or we find what’s eating him."

Maya’s eyes narrowed. "You see things."

"Yeah." No evasion. Not now. "I see things. Tracks, trails, signatures. It’s what I do. And right now I’m seeing a red line that says our party member is dying slowly while we stand here debating."

The word party slipped out. Eloy hoped they heard it as group, or that this a common term in this world.

Maya looked at Isolde. Isolde looked at nothing, her flat stare fixed on the alley’s dark ahead, the checkpoint beyond, the guards with their torches and papers and orders to kill anyone matching their descriptions.

"Grate," Isolde said. "Ten meters ahead. Left wall. Water runoff channel."

Eloy stared at her. "How do you—"

"I memorized the inspection maps." Still flat. Still stripped. "During the war. Domain Generals needed escape routes. I was twelve. I had time to study."

She moved. No waiting for consensus. Eloy followed, Maya behind him, and they found the grate exactly where Isolde had said. Iron bars set into the alley floor, covering a shaft that breathed cold air and the faint metallic tang of old water.

Eloy gripped the bars. Rust flaked under his palms. The grate lifted with a groan that seemed too loud, seemed like it would carry to the checkpoint, to every ear in Temple Ward.

No shouts. No boots running. Just distant murmur of a city that didn’t know they were there.

"Down," Eloy said.

Isolde went first. She lowered herself into the shaft, found rungs, descended into the dark. Maya followed, silk whispering against metal, fan tucked against her chest.

Eloy last. He paused at the shaft’s edge, one hand on the grate, and checked his HUD one final time.

Valen’s HP: 24%. Still green.

The blood trail marker pulsed brighter. A red thread in the dark, leading northwest, leading to whatever was draining their veteran, their guide, the only person who’d known about the Mugen-Za before tonight.

Eloy descended. The rungs were cold iron, slick with condensation. His ankle twinged with every downward step. The two remaining potions clinked in his belt pouch, useless weight.

The shaft opened into a sewer artery. Wider than the cistern they’d fled through. Older. Walls were dressed stone, carved with symbols that predated the Academy, predated the kingdom, maybe predated whatever civilization had built this city on top of older bones.

Isolde stood in the center of the channel, water at her ankles, looking both ways. Maya crouched at the edge, fan open, wind-sense reading the stale air.

"Which way," Maya asked.

Eloy’s HUD answered. The blood trail glowed red in his peripheral vision, a breadcrumb path through the dark. It led left. Northwest. Toward the maintenance shaft where Valen’s dot sat motionless, bleeding in four-percent increments.

"Left," Eloy said. He stepped into the water. Cold bit through his boots, into the bone. "We follow the red."

His HUD reflected in the water at his feet. The red blood trail marker glowed back at him, a ghost-light in the sewer dark, promising nothing, counting down to whatever came next.