An Architect's Honor

## The Approach

The morning air in the Dock Ward was thick with the familiar scents of salt, tar, and industry, but inside the Last Light Company's headquarters, the atmosphere was still and heavy. The core of the company stood in the cavernous main hall, the ambient sounds of the city seeming to keep a respectful distance. Veyra, Thorne, Marcus, Grimjaw, and Lyra were preparing to leave, and the weight of their task was a palpable presence.

"The direct approach is the only way," Veyra said, her voice echoing slightly in the large space. "This requires all of us. Anything less would be a disservice to them."

"It's a delicate operation," Marcus added, adjusting the fit of his simple but well-made tunic. "We're not just delivering information. We're delivering a burden."

Thorne, ever the pragmatist, had a leather satchel containing the copied architectural plans and Lyra's rubbings slung over his shoulder. "The truth is the truth. How they react to it is out of our control. Our responsibility is to present it clearly and honestly."

Grimjaw, who had been quietly inspecting the haft of his axe, finally spoke, his voice a low rumble. "Cid is... she's a force of nature. All energy and good intentions. This will hit her hard." He paused. "Korrath, though... his family's name is everything. For a Threnx, the work _is_ the honor. To learn that his work has been used for this... it's like telling a priest his temple is being used for blood sacrifice."

The comparison hung in the air, stark and uncomfortable. They were about to shatter the professional foundations of two brilliant, innocent people.

"Let's move," Veyra said, her expression set. "The sooner we start, the sooner we can begin to fix this."

They moved through the bustling Dock Ward streets, a small, somber island in a sea of morning commerce, then angled uphill toward the Castle Ward's artisan row. There, among precision workshops and specialty houses, the clang of hammers was a constant chorus.

## A World of Wonders

Cidrella Vexweld's workshop was not so much a building as a contained explosion of creativity. As she welcomed them inside, the team was hit by a wave of sensory information: the smell of ozone and hot metal, the hum of arcane conduits, the rhythmic clicking of a dozen half-finished contraptions. Blueprints were tacked to every surface, wires ran like vines along the walls, and in the center of it all, a massive, multi-jointed metal arm was delicately pouring tea into a set of mismatched cups.

"Veyra! Marcus! Come in, come in!" Cid bounced on the balls of her feet, her copper-red hair already escaping its braids. "I was just calibrating the new hospitality protocols on Unit 7. Still a bit heavy-handed with the sugar, but we're getting there!"

Her enthusiasm was infectious, a stark contrast to the grim purpose of their visit. She was a whirlwind of motion and ideas, her sharp brown eyes missing nothing as she took in her guests.

"We came to thank you for the ventilation work," Marcus said smoothly, accepting a cup of tea from the mechanical arm. "It's made a world of difference. We brought lunch, as a small token of our appreciation."

"Oh, wonderful! Just wonderful!" Cid beamed. "I love seeing a project through to its practical application. How are the airflow dynamics in the west wing? Did you notice the subtle ozone scent? That's a byproduct of the arcane purification matrix. Kills mold, you know!"

She wrinkled her nose with theatrical exasperation. "And before you ask—yes, the Guild made me sit a two-hour airflow standards consult last week arguing about bolt sizes. Necessary, but by the gods, tedious."

She was already leading them deeper into the workshop, pointing out a clockwork crab designed to clean sewer pipes and a device that claimed to translate the emotional state of houseplants. It was a world of joyful, chaotic invention, a testament to a mind that saw problems as delightful puzzles.

## The Unveiling (Cid)

They found a relatively clear space around a sturdy workbench, and as they unpacked the simple meal of bread, cheese, and cured meats, Veyra gently guided the conversation.

"Cid," she began, her tone shifting from appreciative guest to serious commander. "Your work is incredible. The systems you design... they're flawless."

Cid puffed up with pride. "I do my best! Every project is a puzzle, and I love a good puzzle."

"We've come across one of your older projects," Veyra continued, nodding to the others. Thorne unslung his satchel, Veyra retrieved rolled documents from her coat, and Lyra produced additional papers from her pack. Together they laid out a familiar set of blueprints on the workbench, pushing aside the half-assembled music box and various contraptions.

Cid's eyes immediately went to the diagrams, her engineer's mind recognizing the familiar lines and specifications before she even processed what they meant. "Oh!" she exclaimed, leaning forward with genuine excitement. "These are the Veridian schematics! Look at those integration points—Korrath and I were so proud of that design."

"Veridian Agronomics," Veyra said quietly.

"Ah, the Veridian facility! One of my favorites! Korrath and I really pushed the boundaries on that one. The integration of the hydro-magical systems with the atmospheric regulators was a career highlight. Did you know we managed to create seventeen distinct climate zones using only three primary power conduits? It was a masterpiece of efficiency."

Her voice was filled with the pure, unadulterated pride of a master craftsman. She was still studying the documents, tracing familiar design elements with her finger. Veyra opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then tried again.

"Cid... what we're about to tell you is-"

"They're using it to traffic children, lass."

Grimjaw's gravelly voice cut through Veyra's careful diplomacy like an axe through kindling. The words hung in the air, brutal and uncompromising.

Veyra kept her hands open, voice low. "Cid, we brought this to you because only you can help us undo this. We're with you—whatever you need."

Cid went utterly still. The only sound was the sudden whirring of her power pack as it automatically cycled to a higher output, responding to the spike in her emotional state. Energy began to arc between the conduits in her prosthetic arm and the pack mounted on her back, tiny blue-white sparks dancing across the metal surfaces.

"What?" she whispered.

The armature attachment connected to her power pack suddenly snapped to life with a series of mechanical clicks and whirs, joints extending and rotating until it was pointing directly at Grimjaw like an accusatory finger—or a weapon.

Veyra took a careful step back. "Cid—"

"What did you say?" Cid's voice was low, dangerous. The energy arcs were growing brighter, more frequent. Her copper-red hair was starting to lift slightly from the static charge building around her.

She slowly turned away from the documents, her brown eyes now blazing with a cold fire. "You walk into my workshop," she said, her voice getting louder with each word. "You drink my tea. You call yourselves my friends. You have me work on your headquarters, designing systems to keep you safe."

The mechanical arm fully extended now, its joints locked in position as energy coursed through it. "And then you come here and tell me—" Her voice cracked. "You tell me that my work—MY WORK—is being used to hurt children?"

The workshop's ambient magical field was responding to her fury, causing several unfinished contraptions to spark and whir to life on their own.

"How dare you!"

Cid's hand, the one of flesh and blood, went to her mouth. Her other hand, the gleaming metal prosthetic, clenched into a fist on the workbench, the arcane conduits within it pulsing with a faint, angry light. Her initial reaction wasn't denial, but a rapid, horrified re-contextualization. Her engineer's mind was running through the specifications, the schematics, and seeing with dawning horror how easily her creations could be perverted.

"The sluice gates," she breathed, her voice trembling. "The pressure regulators... the purification matrix..." Her eyes, once sparkling with creative joy, were now filled with a storm of anguish and fury. She looked at Veyra, and the brilliant, bubbly gnome was gone, replaced by someone who had seen her own past trauma reflected in the perversion of her work.

For a moment, the only sound was the crackling of energy and the hum of overcharged magical systems. Then Cid reached out with her prosthetic hand and gripped the edge of the workbench. The arcane-enhanced metal fingers applied pressure, and the thick wooden surface began to deform under the grip, the wood compressing and folding like clay beneath the unnatural strength.

She released the table, leaving deep finger impressions in the hardwood, and let out a short, bitter laugh that held no humor whatsoever.

"And now we get to go tell Korrath," she said, her voice carrying a dangerous edge. "Though if you think I'm letting any of you deliver this news, you're mistaken. You wouldn't walk out of his office alive. This is my mess to clean up."

"Who?" she asked, her voice low and dangerous. "Who is doing this?"

"An organization called the Silent Hand," Veyra replied.

Cid slammed her metal fist onto the workbench, the impact rattling every tool and gadget in the room. "Then they have made a mistake," she snarled, her voice shaking with a cold rage that was far more terrifying than any explosion. "They have taken my work, my art, and they have twisted it into a weapon. I will help you. No, I _demand_ to help you. I will take it apart. Piece by piece."

The walk to Korrath’s workshop was a study in contrasts. The bustling sounds of the Castle Ward’s artisan row, the cheerful clang of hammers and merchants’ calls, seemed to mute and draw away from their small, grim procession. Cid, who had bounced with energy upon their arrival, now walked with a rigid, focused purpose. She radiated a silent, crackling aura of fury that was a palpable thing, a storm cloud compressed into the form of a gnome. The rest of the company gave her a wide berth, their own somber mood deepened by the addition of her righteous anger.

## The Weight of a Name

Korrath Threnx's workshop was the antithesis of Cid's chaotic creativity. It was a cathedral of precision engineering, every surface a testament to methodical perfection. The walls were lined with meticulously labeled tubes containing blueprints, each one sorted by date, project type, and structural complexity. Precision tools hung from pegboards in graduated sizes, their arrangement so exact it looked like a military inspection. Stone and metal samples filled compartments of identical dimensions, each labeled with load tolerances, compression ratings, and thermal coefficients. Scale models of bridges and fortifications occupied perfectly aligned shelves, their miniature load-bearing points marked with tiny brass pins.

The furniture was heavy, functional, and arranged at perfect right angles—a massive oak drafting table dominated the center, its surface unmarred by so much as a coffee stain. Even the light sources were positioned at optimal angles to eliminate shadows while minimizing eye strain. When the group, now including a grimly determined Cid, arrived, they found the dragonborn engineer studying a complex structural diagram with a magnifying lens, his bronze scales catching the precise illumination.

He looked up at their approach, his scarred eye taking in the group with analytical precision. "Cidrella," he said with a formal nod, his bronze scales shifting as the light played across them. "And the Last Light Company. Your reputation precedes you." His voice was a deep, measured baritone that seemed to resonate from his chest.

His gaze settled on Grimjaw with what might have been recognition. "Ironbeard. My contacts in the northern mountains speak of you."

Cid stepped forward, her usual energy tempered by the gravity of their mission. "Korrath, we need to speak with you. It's about the Veridian project."

Korrath straightened, his full height impressive even in the spacious workshop. He didn't gesture to chairs or offer seats. Instead, he simply stood, his movements economical and precise, waiting. "I am listening."

Cid stopped pacing and faced her former partner. The energy that had seemed chaotic in her own workshop now appeared focused, deadly serious. "Korrath," she said, her voice carrying the weight of terrible knowledge. "The facility... it's not what we built it for."

Korrath's expression didn't change, but he placed the diagram he was holding down with deliberate care. "A fine piece of work. Structurally sound. Efficient. The integration with your systems was seamless, Cidrella."

"They're not using it for agriculture." Cid's prosthetic hand clenched at her side, residual energy from her earlier rage still crackling faintly through the conduits. "They're using it to imprison children. Children with magical abilities."

She moved to his drafting table, laying out the stolen documents with trembling fingers. "Every system we designed, every clever integration, every fail-safe we built in—they've perverted it all. The climate control chambers are cells. The irrigation network suppresses their magic. The ventilation system pumps sedatives."

The Last Light Company members remained silent, letting Cid deliver the devastating news to her partner. Her voice grew quieter but more intense with each revelation. "Our work, Korrath. Our masterpiece. It's become a prison for children."

## The Breaking of a Builder (Korrath)

For a long moment after Cid finished speaking, Korrath remained absolutely motionless. He stood exactly where he had been, tall and statue-still, his bronze scales catching the workshop's precise lighting. His gaze was fixed on the documents spread across his drafting table—blueprints that bore his family's seal, his life's work transformed into something monstrous.

The silence stretched, but it wasn't empty. The air itself seemed to grow charged, taking on a metallic taste that made everyone's teeth ache. A barely audible hum began to emanate from the metal tools hanging on their pegboards.

When Korrath finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, but tiny arcs of electricity danced between his teeth as he formed the words. "Threnx work doesn't collapse." Lightning flickered across his bronze scales, particularly bright along the scarred side of his face. "It was a statement of faith."

He blinked once, slowly, and when his eyes opened, small sparks of electricity played at their corners. The scent of ozone grew stronger in the air, sharp and clean and dangerous.

"I designed the security protocols." The lightning was more visible now, tiny branches of electrical current that traced the contours of his jaw as he spoke. "The door mechanisms. The structural integrity of the holding areas." A pause, and the lights in the workshop flickered in response to an unseen surge of crackling arcane charge. "I made it perfect. I made it inescapable."

The bronze dragonborn's draconic heritage was manifesting in his rage—not the explosive fury of a red dragon, but the controlled, terrible justice of bronze. The others felt the static charge raise the hairs on their arms and prickle their skin. Cid's own hair began to lift, and Marcus found himself unconsciously stepping back as the sharp tang of ozone, now thick enough to taste, stung the back of his throat.

Korrath's gaze finally lifted from the plans to meet each member of the group in turn. When he looked at them, small bolts of lightning arced across his bronze features like living veins of light. His voice, when it came again, carried the resonance of distant thunder, a low vibration they felt not just in their ears, but in the floorboards and in their very bones.

"The load-bearing points of the primary structure are here, and here." He pointed to the plans with one massive finger, and where he touched, the paper singed slightly. "The security systems are routed through a central conduit beneath the main hall."

A longer pause, and the electrical manifestations intensified. Lightning played across his teeth as he spoke, making his words seem to spark in the air. "This was built with Threnx hands." The lights flickered again, and somewhere in the workshop, a small piece of metal began to vibrate against a shelf. "It will be unmade by them."

Grimjaw gave a single, grave nod—builder to builder.

## The Debrief

The meeting reconvened an hour later in the war room at the Dock Ward HQ. The atmosphere had transformed. Cid and Korrath were no longer consultants or outsiders; they were the heart of the operation, their faces set with grim determination. Standing with them was Rill Vossari, the water genasi Speaker of the Tidal Courts, her presence a calm, steady anchor in the emotionally charged room. Veyra had summoned her the moment they returned.

"We have time," Veyra began, her voice cutting through the tension. "Our intelligence suggests we have roughly a month before the next major transfer. We will use that time to prepare, to plan, and to ensure we only strike once." She turned to the company's infiltration specialist. "Lyra, your assessment."

Lyra Kestrel stepped forward, her golden eyes gliding over the blueprints. "Your names get you through the front door, Korrath, Cid. But we need more than access; we need a diversion. What's a professional reason you could use to be on-site that would draw the senior staff into a long, boring meeting?"

Korrath's gaze met Cid's, a flicker of professional understanding passing between them. "Compliance audit against the Guild’s new airflow standards, and Cid's systems require periodic recalibration," Korrath stated, his voice a low rumble. "I could be delivering updated efficiency protocols for the atmospheric regulators. It would require a mandatory two-hour consultation with the facility manager to review the technical specifications. They will argue bolt sizes for an hour. They would consider it tedious, but necessary."

Lyra smiled faintly. "Perfect. While they're debating airflow dynamics, I'll have the run of the service corridors."

Veyra shifted the focus. "Rill, the water systems."

Rill Vossari rested her hand on the schematics, closing her eyes for a moment. "The water they're using feels... wrong," she said, her voice quiet but clear. "It's heavy, sullen. Like it's been put to sleep and is having a cold dream. It doesn't want to flow; it wants to settle. The magic is clinging to that stillness."

Cid's head snapped up, her eyes blazing with sudden insight. "Asleep! Yes! That's it!" She grabbed a piece of charcoal and began sketching furiously on a spare sheet of parchment. "If it's asleep, we don't need to change its chemistry—we need to wake it up! A tuned counter-harmonic. We can introduce an arcane vibration into the main conduit that will literally shake the magic loose from the water molecules. We'll ring it like a bell!"

She flashed a fierce, humorless smile. "We'll call it the Bellringer."

Rill nodded, her fingers splayed over the drawn conduit lines. As Cid’s furious creative energy filled the space, Rill reached over and briefly placed her other hand on the gnome’s arm—a quiet, steadying gesture of solidarity. "I can prime it with a binding of rain-song and copper," she said, her voice a calm counterpoint to Cid's fire. "Your resonance will ride the water farther and take hold faster."

Thorne, who had been processing the infiltration plan, spoke up, his voice the calm, steady tone of a commander. "Alright. So we have two operational prongs: Infiltration and Sabotage." He looked to Korrath. "You know the structure. Once you're inside, you become our eyes. Can you identify a secure location near the conduit where Lyra can operate, and a fallback position if you're compromised?"

Korrath responded without hesitation, his military engineering background evident. "There is a service junction, point seven-beta on the schematic. Redundant shielding. It would be secure. Fallback would be the main drainage sluice."

"Good," Veyra said, her voice firm. "That's our foundation. We have our infiltration vectors and a potential countermeasure. This meeting is a debrief, not a planning session. Take this information. Study it. We reconvene tomorrow at dawn to build the plan."

She glanced to Cid's pinned notes, the words from a workshop margin fresh in all their minds. "Every design has a failure mode. We choose how this one fails—and who it frees."