"The collapse of the exhausted Dungeon on the outskirts of Soar has brought with it many opportunities," Director Nuroon said. "This isn't the first time Archaeologists have stumbled upon an untapped goldmine, mind you—unclaimed Loot Table rewards, ripe for the taking and the like. But," he paused, "this is the first time I’ve had the capital to outbid every other museum on the continent and secure first refusal on what’s been uncovered."

He stopped, his eyes flicking briefly to Karolen as though she were just another fly in the ointment. "It’s only fitting," he said, his gaze now sweeping the shadows of the vast chamber, "that the finest pieces come to the one who can truly appreciate them. Most of what we have unearthed is... mere scraps, really. But for those who understand the finer points of acquisition and curation?" He gave a short laugh. "Well, the treasures we have accumulated here have the potential to reshape the entire cultural landscape of Soar."

Karolen couldn’t help but think that, in Nuroon’s hands, those "treasures" had likely already been reshaped into something far more lucrative than anyone might guess.

She, like everyone else with a functioning pair of ears, had heard about the destruction of the old Dungeon just beyond the city's walls. The story at the time was that the Mayor was considering expanding Soar in that direction and that empty real estate was required.

But the word 'collapse' had not been part of that narrative. Similarly, while there were rumours that exhausted Dungeons retained the rewards they generated for delvers, to have it so casually confirmed was a bit of a shock.

But any further consideration of the broader implications had to be put on hold, as it was the final part of the Director's monologue which had truly caught the Auditor's attention.

Nuroon obviously saw her 'interest' antennae flare. "Yes, indeed. I thought that might perk you up a bit, my dear. I have been fortunate enough to attract some unanticipated sponsorship from . . . sources. The largesse of these interested parties has enabled me to secure all of what you see in this room."

With that, Kregg raised his hands and executed some sort of showy, dramatic lighting Skill that suddenly illuminated the sheer scale of the room they were in.

Despite herself, Karolen felt her breath stolen from her by the sight.

As a child, Karolen had often lost herself in the rich, winding stories of Soar’s folklore. And the legends of dragons—ancient, terrifying, and awe-inspiring—had always been her favourites.

She’d lie on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, and imagine glittering hoards of treasure guarded by those same mighty creatures. In her mind, vast mounds of gold piled high, chests overflowing with priceless jewels, and rare artefacts from forgotten civilizations lay scattered about, haphazard yet magnificent, within the deep recesses of the dragons’ shadowy lairs.

Now, standing in the heart of this vault—a place that seemed more akin to a myth than a reality—Karolen couldn't shake the feeling of déjà vu.

It felt almost as though the grandiose stories of her childhood were bleeding into the present, taking physical form in the space around her.

Nuroon must have a small army of employees Skilled in spatial manipulation, because what she was seeing here was impossibly larger than any structure should be from the outside. The sheer scale of it was dizzying, an architectural contradiction that defied logic.

The cavernous space before her stretched out like an endless sea of shelves and glass cases, each containing what could only be described as a mountain of the extraordinary.

Curators moved in and out of her field of vision, huddled around crates and boxes that were piled high and labeled with a variety of inscriptions: “Enchanted Cloth,” “Unsocketed Jewels,” “Growth Armour”—each label a tantalising promise of some mystical, otherworldly prize.

It was like stepping into one of her childhood dreams, except this time the dragons had been replaced by men in overalls and tight smiles, their hands carefully handling the relics of an age long past.

If her initial impression had been of a dragon's hoard, now that her eyes had adjusted to the sheer scale of the space, what she was seeing reminded her of nothing so much as a roiling termite mound.

"You received sufficient sponsorship funds to purchase all of this?" Karolen asked, her voice slightly strangled.

Nuroon flicked his hands dismissively, as if the entire matter were beneath him. "Yes, yes, of course. Everything above board, I assure you." His voice was smooth, honeyed."And I’ll be more than happy for you to sift through the receipts, if that will put your busy little mind at rest."

He paused, turning towards the vast expanse of the vault, his arms sweeping out in a grand gesture. "But, just for a moment, my dear, allow your mind to rise above the gutter of numbers and formulae," he said. "Leave the mundane concerns of ledgers and balance sheets behind. Just... bask in the glory before you. Let your soul soar, if only for a second. You won’t regret it"

It was like he were some kind of high priest inviting her to join him in reverence of something far greater than any mortal concern. There was something off about it, though—something artificial in the way he gestured to the gleaming treasures. It was too rehearsed, too polished, as if he were waiting for her to fall in line with his little performance.

Karolen couldn't help but feel that the only thing soaring here was Nuroon’s ego.

Nuroon wasn’t just playing to an audience—he was orchestrating a symphony of illusion, and Karolen was far too aware to fall for it.

Kregg appeared to have generated a little background music to come into being as the Director spoke, which actually allowed her to ground herself in reality rather than be carried away with the majesty of the moment.

"Yes, this is all very impressive," she said, looking around in an attempt to calculate the emperor's ransom in gold the contents of this vault represented.

Clearly sensing a potential for awe passing, the Senior Preservationist cleared her throat. "If I may, Auditor, I would note that it is not just the volume of material the museum has been able to secure from the collapsed Dungeon, but also the quality of unusual artefacts. Why, just yesterday we uncovered . . ."

"Yes. Yes. Yes," Nuroon interrupted, sliding effortlessly into Karolen's line of sight, cutting off Culloden mid-sentence. The shift in his tone was immediate—imperious, dismissive, as though he couldn’t bear to waste another second indulging in the pleasantries of bureaucracy. "We don’t need to waste this young lady's time with any of that, do we?" His gaze flicked back to Culloden with barely concealed annoyance before he turned to Karolen."Follow me, please."

With that, he spun on his heel, a blur of motion as he made for the far left-hand side of the vault. Karolen, unwilling to let him out of her sight, followed closely, even as her eyes were drawn to a small cluster of Curators huddled around a massive stone sarcophagus.

The instant Nuroon’s entered their space the Curators froze.

The shift in their body language was unmistakable—three professionals, seasoned enough to handle ancient artefacts with delicate reverence, now paralysed with fear. They didn’t acknowledge Karolen or anyone else in the room; instead, they stiffened under the weight of the Museum Director’s presence. Their eyes flicked up to Nuroon as if they were caught in the gaze of some predatory beast, trapped, unwilling to move for fear of provoking something far worse than a reprimand.

The sole woman of the three, a slight figure with a nervous habit of tugging at her sleeve, seemed to shrink even further into the shadows, while the two men stood stiffly, like statues.

Nuroon’s smile was still there, but it had morphed into something that resembled the satisfaction of a hunter watching his prey squirm in the trap. ."Now, what have we here?" he barked, glaring at the man who was awkwardly trying to prise the lid free. “This looks suspiciously like an exhibit that you were expressly forbidden from opening unsupervised.”

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The Level 14 Curator was wearing heavy overalls that must have been stained with sweat even before he began the difficult work of lifting the top off the heavy stone chest. He was, Karolen realised, older than she would have expected for someone of such a comparatively low Level. A middle-aged change of Class, she wondered? Unusual, but not massively so. He was compact and dark, with just the first sign of grey appearing at his temples.

"We think it might be the pair to the one we uncovered yesterday, Director," the woman in the group, a Level 21, supplied. She stepped forward to lay a hand on Nuroon's forearm - a gesture Karolen found surprisingly disturbing in its intimacy.

Nuroon paled, cocked his head this way and that, as if decided whether the short, blonde woman was worth devouring, and then abruptly turned to Culloden. "Well? Is she right?"

The Senior Preservationist stepped forward and the female Curator stumbled backward with a yelp, her eyes wide in alarm as she scrambled to avoid being trampled underfoot.

"Really, Isadora," Culloden snapped with barely contained irritation, "I was quite specific that no further explorations should occur without me being present!" She gave the younger woman a withering look, and Isadora’s blush deepened.

Martha’s gaze snapped to the older man at the sarcophagus.."Preece, put that bloody thing back down!" she barked, her tone leaving no room for argument.

The older man, flustered, did as he was told, fumbling with the heavy stone lid before letting it drop with a deafening crash. The sound of it reverberated through the vaulted space, causing several of the nearby Curators to jump in alarm.

"Is there not one of you with any sense?" Culloden continued. Her eyes narrowed as they fell on the third member of the group, a pale, thin man in green-lensed spectacles,who had been standing in the background. His shoulders stiffened, and his hands twitched nervously at his sides, a hint of guilt flashing across his face at the sharpness of her reproach.

"I'm surprised to see you involved in this, Harker" Culloden said, disappointment thick in her voice.

“I’m sorry, Senior Preservationist. We just didn’t think we should wait any longer. The scrolls were clear that time is of the essence when powering these things up. If this really is the pair for the Dreadnaught armour from yesterday then . . .”

“Be silent!” Grackle boomed.

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence. It was clear to Karolen that this wasn’t just about what the sarcophagus contained; this was about something far more delicate—something the Curators were desperately trying to keep hidden.

Even those curators too far away to have seen him enter to stop what they were doing and turn around.

And then the Director really lost his temper.

Over the next few minutes, such was the invective that the Director unleashed on the three Curators that Karolen wondered if she should intervene.

He lambasted their abilities, timekeeping, personal hygiene, and even the lineage of their families. The younger man - Harker, was it? - was almost instantly reduced to tears, with both the woman and the older male Curators left white-faced and stammering apologies.

If the Auditor had any lingering doubts about the veracity of some of the HR reports she had come across, they were more than dispelled.

However, it wasn’t just the vile sting of the Director’s verbal assault that struck Karolen the hardest. No, that was the reaction of Kregg—and even more so, the unmistakable submission of Culloden. The gleam in Kregg’s eyes as he savoured every moment of the scene played out before him . .. well, Karolen could practically hear the man’s blood rushing to his face in perverse delight. He practically fed on it.

It wasn’t a surprise to her.

Kregg had a reputation. One that had echoed through the murky alleyways of Soar’s social circles long before she’d ever laid eyes on him. His name was a staple in the undercurrents of conversation, passed around with that knowing glint in the eyes of the people who had the stomach to listen.

The gossip—what little Karolen had managed to pick up through the cracks—was a constant. Kregg’s personal life wasn’t exactly a carefully guarded secret. He was notorious for his ‘GNWW’ label: Go Nowhere Without Witnesses. Three of her closest friends had recounted sordid tales were far too chilling for comfort.

But it wasn’t just Kregg.

No, Culloden’s reaction cut far deeper than Karolen could have expected. The Senior Preservationist, a woman whose professionalism Karolen admired, now stood there, visibly shrinking under the weight of the Director’s mockery. Karolen expected better. In fact, if the Senior Preservationist was not going to do something to intervene in this public shaming, then she was certainly going to . . .

However, as if sensing Karolen's tolerance for the performance was at an end, Nuroon suddenly halted his theatrical aural assault and plastered on a sickly smile. "But, let us say nothing more of it, eh? Mistakes happen, and we were all young and enthusiastic once, weren't we?" His predator's eyes flicked to Curator Preece, "Although, for some of us, it is longer away than others, am I right?"

There was an awkward silence, and then Culloden finally spoke up. "Well, you've broken the seal, so we might as well get on with it." Her hands flared with light—Karolen assumed she had activated a Skill—and then she gestured at the sarcophagus lid. It shivered as if the stone had suddenly become very cold and then rose in the air to hover about ten feet above its base.

"Secure that!" Nuroon said.

A couple of Curators scurried into action at once, pulling ropes and rigging from nowhere, their hands moving quickly as they wrapped them around the levitating lid, holding it in place as though it might spring free at any moment.

"Do you have it?" Culloden asked. A small flicker of light pulsed around the lid, an aura of mana that seemed to hold it steady, just long enough for confirmation to be given and the rigging to be secured against the all.

"Now, let us see what we have here," Culloden said in a tone Karolen had heard before, usually reserved for things that were meant to be cherished, protected, and preserved. "Isadora, would you care to do the honours?"

The young woman responded as if on cue. She practically leapt into the sarcophagus—like a child eager to dive into the depths of something forbidden. Karolen, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine anything less likely to interest her than crawling into a stone tomb, and there was something about Isadora’s sudden enthusiasm that struck her as both uncanny and absurd.

The sarcophagus was enormous, far too large for one person to stand upright within without being swallowed up by the sheer size of it. And sure enough, as Isadora dove in, she vanished completely from sight, her form obscured by the depths of the dark, hollow container.

For a moment, the room was silent, the only sounds being the hushed breaths of the Curators and the faint rustling of fabric as they hovered anxiously around the edge.

Karolen felt there was an odd finality to the moment, as if everyone were holding their breath in anticipation, waiting for whatever revelation lay hidden in the stone chamber.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, a voice broke the stillness.

“It’s... it’s not what I expected,” Isadora’s voice echoed from within, muffled by the stone carrying a sharp, almost indignant edge. “There’s something... wrong with it.”

Karolen’s heart skipped a beat. Wrong.

An odd atmosphere settled around the group, punctuated only by Isadora's heavy breathing and - oddly - occasional squeals of pleasure. Whatever she was finding within the massive coffin was apparently making her day.

And then something happened.

Karolen heard the Director give a little gasp, and then he was striding forward, reaching into the massive stone casket as ifto pull Isadora out.

The smell hit Karolen first—a pungent, sickly-sweet odour of decay and . . . something else. Something unnatural. Her stomach churned as she watched Nuroon peer into the sarcophagus and then reach down with trembling hands. His fingers closed around strands of hair, and a horrific realisation struck them all as he pulled upwards.

The woman's hair came away too easily, sliding through the Director's grip like wet seaweed. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Nuroon pulled harder, his breath hitching as a sloshing sound filled the chamber, and Isadora's body began to emerge.

Her form was utterly liquified, flesh reduced to a gelatinous mass. Her skin had turned a mottled, bluish-grey, stretched thin over the skeletal remains that floated within a slurry of her melted tissues. Her eyes, wide and glassy, stared vacantly, suspended in the soup of her face.

But, what was worse, she wasn't dead.

Her lips, a thin, ruptured line, spread into a wide smile, leaking viscous fluid as they ripped and tore.

Then Nuroon's hand slipped, sinking into the gelatinous substance that had once been the Curator’s head. He gagged as his fingers penetrated the gooey mixture, encountering the sharp resistance of bone fragments, the fibrous remnants of her brain oozing between his fingers.

Karolen didn't know what possessed him, but for some reason, he pulled again, harder this time, and Isadora's upper torso emerged with a squelch. Her ribcage was exposed, bones slick with the same dense material, flexing unnaturally as they were drawn up and free.

Nuroon staggered back, falling to his knees, dry heaving, leaving Isadora's remains sprawled across the edge of the sarcophagus.

And then there was a terrible tearing sound as the floating lid of the stone casket tore free from the ropes that had secured it in the air and fell, crushing what was left of Isadora under its immense weight.

A shocked silence descended, broken by Kregg clearing his throat. "My word," he said, his magically enhanced voice reaching every corner of the room. "There has been the most terrible of accidents. Can someone please call the healers? Oh, what an appalling tragedy! What a horrendous accident!"