The port city of Eldrithas was a cacophony of sails, stone, and suspicion.
Nicknamed the Hearth of Murky Waters, it served as a vital artery of trade into the southern stretches of the Continent. Galleons and merchant barges swayed at crowded docks, unloading crates of incense, black powder, enchanted fabrics, and rumors from across the world.
Corvin arrived quietly by caravan, seated among a half a dozen hired guards as the convoy creaked toward the city gates.
A line of travelers stretched ahead, where city guards methodically stopped each group for paperwork verifications.
When it came to Corvin's turn, a broad shouldered guard with a bored expression took his papers. His eyes flicked across the name, then paused.
A slow smirk crept onto his face.
"Raven, huh?" the guard drawled, leaning in slightly. "Thought you'd come earlier."
Corvin said nothing.
The guard flipped the parchment back to him. "Word travels, even here. Lots of messy problems in this city. Would be nice if some of them started disappearing. You catch my meaning?"
Corvin met his gaze evenly, and after a pause, offered a slow, sharp smile.
"Crystal."
The guard chuckled and waved him through. "Welcome to Eldrithas, Raven."
The Mercenary Guild branch in Eldrithas was an opulent contrast to Veilthorn's brutalist bunker.
Housed in a fortified marble estate near the merchant district, its walls bore the banners of a dozen noble houses who funded mercenary enterprises.
Inside, polished wood counters gleamed under alchemical lamps. A dozen scribes and handlers worked with military precision.
Corvin approached the reception desk and handed over the stamped parchment from his last assignment.
The clerk, an older man with silver rimmed spectacles and a voice like dry leaves read the document in silence.
His brow arched slightly.
"You're the one from Veilthorn," he murmured.
He looked up.
"Corvin Blackmoor. Or should I say... Raven?"
Corvin inclined his head.
The clerk stamped the document with a crisp metallic seal and pushed a coin pouch forward.
"You'll find Eldrithas... noisier. But the right ears will hear you quickly. Keep your blades sharp, and your wings ready."
"Always," Corvin said.
He took the coin, turned, and disappeared into the Guild's inner halls.
On the board, dozens of recruitment notices bloomed like thorns.
Crusade calls from the Holy Verranate. Iron front contracts from The Iron March. And gilded, wax sealed invitations from the fractured merchants kingdom.
One caught his eye:
"The Ducal House of Vellgard seeks skilled individuals for protection, investigation, and sensitive field activities. Coin excellent. Service discreet. Influence inevitable."
Duchess Yvanna Vellgard, Gilded Dominion
Corvin's eyes lingered on the phrase: influence inevitable.
He folded the notice and slipped it into his coat.
More chaos meant more blind spots.
More blind spots meant more prey.
And within the gold veined heart of this fractured kingdom, the Raven would find fertile ground.
--
The Circle of Arbiters convened once more in the Nexus Bastion.
The chamber was quieter now, but not calmer. The sigil pulsing at the center of the hall glowed a slow, exhausted violet as the Inquisition's final report was projected into the air like drifting smoke.
A tall figure clad in plain black, face hidden by a cowl marked with the Inquisition's spiral crest, stood before the six seated Arbiters.
His voice was firm but weary.
"Our operations in the Verdant Shroud and surrounding regions have yielded no trace of the anomaly. Over sixty sweep zones established. Hundreds of deviations investigated. None match the spectral signature found at the fossil site."
Arbiter Solen Vaen'thal of the Elves steepled his fingers.
"And the... disturbances? The accidents?"
The Inquisitor's tone tightened subtly.
"The troubles never ceased. Every time we recalibrated, something shifted. Paths would collapse. Runes failed to activate. Scrying pools darkened. As if someone knew exactly where we were going before we got there."
A pause.
"We suspect interference. Intelligent. Coordinated. But we have no proof. No tracks. No witnesses. Nothing concrete."
The chamber fell silent for a beat too long.
Then Arbiter Malzarek of the Demon Seat scoffed, his molten eyes flashing under horned brows.
"So the mighty Inquisition chases whispers. And now comes home to report that the wind was hostile."
His gaze slid toward Solen.
"Perhaps it was merely elven incompetence... or perhaps your forests were never as loyal as you thought."
Arbiter Ysirael of the Aetherborn interrupted before the jab could escalate.
"Focus. The anomaly's absence is more telling than its presence. Either it never existed..."
"Or it existed and escaped," finished the Human Arbiter, Gareth of the Iron Mantle. His voice was colder now. "We've wasted months. Lost clarity. And now, we wait for word from the pioneers on the next plane."
Solen's expression remained unreadable.
"We deployed everything short of High Inquisitors. That may change."
No one openly disagreed.
But beneath the silence, tension crackled.
No names were spoken. No accusations made. But the implications were unmistakable:
The sabotage was real. Factions had interfered, No one would work to prove it. As they were the culprits themselves.
And if the Old Enemy has risen from it's grave it was clearly gone already.
--
Corvin moved through Eldrithas like smoke drifting through candlelight.
With his assignment complete and his name spoken in cautious tones, he began the second phase of his infiltration. Unlike Veilthorn, this city pulsed with coin, power, and politics. All tangled in a net of noble ambitions and merchant paranoia.
He rented a modest apartment in the lower east quarter, tucked between a weaponsmith and a tailor who sold enchanted silk to courtesans and spies alike. From here, he studied the city.
He mapped guard rotations, the flow of noble processions, and the symbols carved into trade wagons that denoted allegiance to certain houses.
But more than anything, he trained.
Every morning, before the streets stirred, Corvin sat motionless in the high window of his flat and reached.
Telepathy.
At first, just surface thoughts. A merchant thinking about debt. A courier lamenting her route. A young mage fretting over an exam.
Then he refined it. Probing gently. Planting stray notions to test how they took root. A whisper of uncertainty. A flicker of fear. A name they hadn't thought in days.
None noticed.
None remembered.
By the end of the first week, he could reach from one end of the block to the other without moving a muscle.
But power without purpose was wasted.
He returned to the Guild, seeking the contract he'd set aside.
The notice from House Vellgard.
He presented himself as a quiet, efficient mercenary with a record of clean completions and no surviving witnesses. The clerk at the counter glanced at the House seal and merely nodded.
"Your name was already forwarded. They requested you by alias."
"Then I accept," Corvin replied.
"Report to the duchess's envoy. Third bell. Eastern gatehouse. Be careful around humans."
Corvin's smile was thin and cold.
"Always do."
--
The Circle did not disperse immediately after the Inquisition's failure was laid bare.
The silence lingered long after the smoke of the report faded.
It was Arbiter Ysirael of the Aetherborn who finally broke it.
"Send High Inquisitors."
Her voice, more sensation than sound, rippled across the chamber.
"If this entity escaped detection, then standard operatives were insufficient. We must close the borders of Thalasien and conduct a deep sweep. With proper precision."
The word "precision" hung heavy in the air.
The Circle shifted.
High Inquisitors.
A force not deployed in over two decades.
Each one a weapon forged through pain, indoctrination, and mind breaking discipline. The lowest ranked among them were Arcanists.
Their captains were always Magus class, chosen for their mastery of Dark and Psychic magic. Disciplines meant not for flashy destruction, but for surgical invasion.
They specialized in extracting memories, breaking minds, rewriting truths.
To send them was not just a message.
It was a statement: We are done asking.
Arbiter Malzarek leaned forward slowly.
"So we silence the Elven forests to look for ghosts. Hmph. I wonder what your ancestors would say, Vaen'thal."
Solen Vaen'thal did not rise to the bait. His silver eyes glinted.
"They would have sent blades. I am merely sending minds."
The Demon snorted, but did not argue further.
It was Gareth of the Iron Mantle who spoke next.
"If High Inquisitors are sent, so too must we send observers. Embedded specialists to 'assist' the operation."
"To ensure neutrality," Ysirael added, though her tone lacked any illusion of sincerity.
No one said what they truly meant. That this was a chance to undermine Elven authority.
That once forces were on the ground, they would not leave quietly.
That this was the perfect excuse to sabotage their readiness before the next planar conquest.
The conquest was only a year away.
And they were still waiting on pioneer reports from the new plane.
But preparations had begun.
And daggers were already sliding between ribs.
--
The message arrived at the Eldrithas Guild sealed with wax the color of aged ivory, bearing no sigil but marked with three vertical slashes.
Corvin retrieved it in silence, broke the seal with one thumb, and read the elegant scrawl inside. The letter was brief, formal, and anonymous. Yet unmistakably from one of the major duchies. It offered a discreet meeting. No details. Only a time and location.
He didn't need to ask who had sent it.
Before attending, Corvin passed through an inn. Vellgard envoys were staying here. It was enough to bring him into proximity with several of the house's lower ranked soldiers.
He drifted through their thoughts like a wraith.
"Hope I don't get posted to that western manor again…"
"Did someone actually push Lord Ceylen's body into the river?"
"Heard the Duchess has her own space mage now. An Arcanists even."
The atmosphere was one of tension disguised as routine. Too much money, too little trust.
Satisfied, Corvin left for the meeting site.
--
Two weeks before Corvin ever set foot in Eldrithas, a quiet meeting took place.
In the shadowed upper chamber of a an high class inn, three mages of House Vellgard were looking for mercenaries, recruiting external assets capable of surgical, deniable action within the Gilded Dominion.
The Arcanists were:
Arcanist Maeryn, a psychic specialist with burn scarred hands and a flawless interrogation record.
Arcanist Belisar, a divination expert with half his face replaced by crystal grafts.
Magister Telraen, the eldest, a veteran strategist whose dossiers ended with bloodied wax seals.
Reports from Veilthorn had reached them via indirect channels. Same as the reports they get through their spies all over the continent. Not official records, but whispers. Dead officials. Clean kills. Perfectly executed with no residue, no noise.
"We'll need him," Telraen said. "One last sweep before we begin consolidation. The duchess requires solutions, not soldiers."
"And what if he doesn't come willingly?" Belisar asked, his tone dry.
"Then we make him an offer that suits his tastes," Maeryn replied.
Three weeks later, in a quiet receiving chamber behind Eldrithas's textile district, Corvin sat across from the same three figures.
The room was shielded, draped in silence wards and velvet. The Arcanists sat on a curved bench beside a rune marked floor basin filled with slow burning incense.
Telraen spoke first.
"Your reputation precedes you, though officially it does not exist."
Corvin gave a faint smile. "Strange isn't it."
Maeryn folded her hands. "The Duchy has... obstacles. Men and women who lack the wisdom to retire quietly. She needs discretion, efficiency and finality."
Corvin didn't blink. "I don't work for noble titles or favors. If you want this done, I have terms."
Belisar arched a brow. "Name them."
"Gold. Immunity within Dominion borders. Full access to the duchy's information network. And unrestricted passage to the capital when needed."
A pause.
None refused.
"Agreed," Telraen said. "One condition: no collateral damage."
Corvin nodded once.
"Then we have an arrangement."
Later, as Corvin walked alone through the moonlit streets of Eldrithas, he traced the winding path that had led him here: from a fossilized tomb beneath a battlefield, through Veilthorn's blood slick alleys, across ocean winds toward a continent on the brink of a silent war.
And soon, the Gilded Dominion would remember why shadows feared the Raven.
--
They arrived not in battalions but in pairs.
Across the Elven continent, at key watchpoints and border strongholds, cloaked figures stepped through conjured gates beneath silent moons. They carried no banners. No heralds announced their presence. But their arrival sent quiet ripples through every garrison and noble court.
The High Inquisitors had come.
A unit of twenty four, each one an Arcanist by baseline, half of them Magus. Specialists in dark and psychic magic, they did not burn cities or break walls. They slipped behind eyes, unraveled truths, erased secrets.
At their head stood Magus Cael Rethmar, a gaunt man with sunless eyes and a voice like chilled iron. His cloak bore the triple spiral of the Order, marked in black thread so fine it could only be seen at an angle.
He addressed his assembled operatives within a sealed obsidian hall outside Vaelthir, the Elven capital.
"You were not summoned to kill," Cael began, his tone flat. "You were summoned to silence."
The room was quiet, every Inquisitor poised with ritual discipline.
"The anomaly evaded standard detection. That alone justifies our presence. But what evaded our hunts also evaded our assumptions. That makes it dangerous. It may not be a beast. It may be something far worse."
He let that sink in before continuing.
"Our task is not to confirm the fears of bureaucrats. It is to cut out the root before the forest rots."
A thin smile ghosted his lips.
"Invade carefully. Speak sparingly. Think faster than they scream. If it thinks, make it forget. If it hides, unmake its shadow. If it resists, unravel its will until all that remains is obedience... or ash."
He raised one gloved hand and snapped his fingers.
Sigils flared on each agent's wrist. Dark memory brands encoded with false identities, clearance permissions, and modified soulprints. They would walk the cities unmarked.
"You leave now. One week. Silent sweep. Every anomaly, every irregular soul signature, every whisper of distortion, bring it to me. Alive if possible. Dead if convenient."
Without a single farewell, the High Inquisitors turned and vanished into shadow.
The Circle did not send them to ask questions.
They sent them to erase answers.
--
The journey to the Human Continent began aboard a towering galleon named the Verdict of Vellgard, its hull painted in midnight lacquer and etched with silver runes for protection against storms and sea wyrms.
The ship bore the flag of House Vellgard, a black field with a gold vulture perched atop a crown of broken laurels. It cut through the waters like a blade, escorted by two smaller courier ships that darted ahead and behind like silent wolves.
Corvin stood near the bow as the Elven coast receded into mist.
The deck was wide and clean, crewed by disciplined sailors who answered only to the ship's silent captain. Below deck, a contingent of fifteen mercenaries had been contracted from various races. Each recruited under vague promises of noble work, hazard pay, and "possible discretion."
They came from across Valtheris: a fire elemental from the Aetherborn frontier, two former Iron March scouts, a pair of brothers who claimed to have hunted demons in the southern bogs.
Corvin shared a few idle conversations. He kept his tone warm, his words measured. Stories were traded over salted meat and rationed wine.
A tall woman with storm grey eyes him where he'd worked before.
"Veilthorn," Corvin said simply.
She whistled and nodded. "That place eats people. Glad to see someone was able to rise enough to made it out."
He smiled, faint but sincere.
They left him alone after that.
The voyage was calm. But every evening, Corvin would lean on the railing, eyes fixed on the horizon, and reach out faintly with his mind and spores, brushing past the surface thoughts of the other mercs, testing their instincts, fears, and reactions to danger.
It wasn't malice.
It was preparation.
And by the time the shores of the Human Continent came into view, he had already decided which of them would be useful and which ones would be liabilities.
--
As the last High Inquisitors vanished into the veiled woods, orderly cities of High Elves, chaotic tribes of Dark Elves and merchants of the Light elves of Thalasien, the Continent slid into a silence far more dangerous than war.
The Circle had deployed its sharpest tools. Minds trained to cut truths from shadows. But they were not the only ones who moved unseen.
From the eastern canyons, agents of the Demon Courts crept along, infiltrating vulnerable Elven estates with whispers and blood.
From the sea trade city of Dravess, Human saboteurs arrived cloaked as merchants, sowing distrust in provincial courts, bribing minor lords, and dismantling supply chains from within.
And from the frozen southern highlands, Feralis packs stalked borderlands, releasing plague beasts and corrupted familiars into the river valleys. Not to conquer, but to disrupt, disorient, and drain resources.
It was not conquest. It was calculated destabilization. Elves were vulnerable now.
Every dead archivist, every burned shipment of enchanted steel, every vanishing patrol was another fracture in Thalasien's foundation.
All for one goal:
The planar gates would open in one year, and when they did, each faction's readiness would be measured.
Thalasien had to stumble for the rest to rise.
The Circle knew of course, Arbiters were still greeting the Solen Vaen'thal warmly. Solen on the other hand was ready to slaughter the Arcanist and Magisters of the Arcanum. Even the faintest whisper of the old enemy has brought enough devastation to his homeland.
But knowing was not the same as stopping.
Across the sea, the Verdict of Vellgard slid into port beneath a slate colored sky.
Corvin took his first step onto the Human Continent Argyll.
It was colder here. Sharper in the wind, louder in its streets.
Unlike the tall, graceful Elves of Thalasien, humans were short and compact by comparison, averaging barely 175 centimeters. Their eyes moved faster, their speech clipped, their posture tense.
He moved among them without effort.
This was the Gilded Dominion, a kingdom of coin rather than crowns. They have no real army. Soldiers were of the noble houses lent soldiers to the throne only when it suited them and took favors in return like interest owed in blood.
There were no paladins or priest kings here.
Only smiling liars with sharp ledgers and sharper knives.
The duchy he agreed to work for, Duchy of Vellgard ruled the south river lands and controlled the glasswork foundries that enchanted half of Argyll's finer wares.
And the Duchess, cunning even by Dominion standards, had secured something far more valuable than titles.
She had found a Space Mage.
A spellcaster who could bend rooms, collapse distances, turn corners into traps.
Corvin had seen enough coin hoarders and throne chasers.
But this woman, this mage was worth observing.
And if her power was real?
Then she was worth stealing.