Today, it smelled like a litter box.
High Inquisitor Voss stood in the center of the atrium, wearing a heavy silk mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes, usually cold and composed, were narrowed in sheer frustration.
Around her, a squad of novice wind mages were frantically waving their staffs, trying to cycle the air. "Push it out!" an instructor barked. "Vent the upper gallery!"
"We can't, sir!" a student coughed, his eyes streaming with tears. "It's stuck in the curtains! It's in the carpets! The molecular bond of the gas is... it's sticky!"
Voss turned away from the chaos. The physical damage was minimal. No walls had collapsed. No one had died. A few dozen students and faculty were in the infirmary with chemical burns to their eyes and throats, but they would recover. But the reputation of the Academy? That was in critical condition.
She walked into her office and slammed the door, the heavy oak muffling the sounds of coughing outside. Her assistant, a pale young man named Elian, was waiting for her. He held a piece of parchment as if it were a bomb.
"Report," Voss demanded, her voice muffled by the mask. She ripped it off, tossing it onto her desk. The smell was fainter here, but still present—a sharp, stinging reminder of her failure.
"The barrier logs show nothing, High Inquisitor," Elian whispered. "No mana signatures breached the perimeter. No teleportation spells. No cloaked entities."
"Something got in," Voss hissed. "Seventy-five canisters of pressurized ammonia do not simply manifest inside our ventilation intakes."
"The artificers found... debris," Elian hesitated. "On the roof. Metal fragments. They look like... rivets? And skid marks. Something landed, dropped the payload, and left. But it had no magical core. To the Wards, it was just... a bird. A very large, metal bird."
Voss sank into her chair. A chill went down her spine that had nothing to do with the open windows. A non-magical delivery system. An enemy that understood their infrastructure better than they did. An enemy that could bypass the most expensive defensive wards in the kingdom by simply... not using magic.
"And the letter?" Voss held out her hand.
Elian handed it over. Voss read it. She expected a manifesto. She expected "Death to Mages" scrawled in blood. Instead, she saw a neatly written invoice.
SUBJECT: Unsolicited Security Audit & Ventilation Stress Test FEE: 50,000 Credits. TERMS: Immediate restoration of metal allocation.
She stared at the signature: Efficiency Solutions, Inc.
"The audacity," she whispered. But as she read it again, her anger cooled into something more dangerous: Respect. He wasn't trying to destroy them. He was negotiating. Terrorists kill. Businessmen leverage. If he wanted them dead, he could have filled those canisters with chlorine or mustard gas. He used ammonia—painful, humiliating, but survivable. He was sending a message: I can kill you. I chose not to. Now pay up.
"High Inquisitor?" Elian asked. "Shall I mobilize the Battlemages? We can scour the slums. Burn the Rust Yard until he—"
"No," Voss interrupted sharply. "If we march on the slums, he releases the next batch. Do you want to explain to the Arch-Mage why the entire faculty choked to death on nerve gas because you wanted revenge?"
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She pulled a quill from her desk. She signed the bottom of the invoice. "Pay him."
Elian's jaw dropped. "Ma'am? We're... we're funding a terrorist?"
"We are buying time," Voss corrected, her eyes cold. "He has exposed a flaw in our armor. Until the Wards are recalibrated to detect kinetic projectiles, we are vulnerable. Give him his metal. Give him his money. Let him think he has won."
She looked out the window at the white smoke drifting over the spires. "But send Kaelen to deliver it. Let him see the face of the enemy. And tell the artificers I want a counter-measure ready within the week. He calls himself an engineer? Fine. We'll see how he deals with a dismantling spell."
I woke up because my back gave a loud crack when I tried to turn over. I groaned, opening my eyes. I was on the lumpy couch in the corner of the warehouse. The ceiling was still blurry.
"Fourteen hours," Amelia's voice came from the workbench. "I checked your pulse twice to make sure you weren't in a coma."
I sat up, rubbing my face. My hands were stiff, and my tailbone felt bruised from the Ghost's metal seat, but otherwise, I felt surprisingly human. The bone-deep cold of the upper atmosphere was gone.
"Status?" I rasped.
"Rax is outside," Amelia said, sounding nervous. "He says there's a convoy. Academy colors."
My adrenaline spiked. I stood up too fast, and the room spun. "Soldiers?"
"Trucks," she corrected. "Transport trucks. And one very unhappy-looking student."
I grabbed my glasses and headed for the loading dock. The morning sun was bright. In the center of the Rust Yard, surrounded by confused Iron Guild workers, stood three heavy transport wagons bearing the golden crest of the Department of Logistics.
And standing in front of them, holding a clipboard like a shield, was Kaelen. The same Earth mage who had sneered at me in the barracks. The same guy who had led Voss to my lab. Now, he looked like he had swallowed a lemon.
I walked down the ramp. Rax stood beside me, his mechanical arm whirring softly, ready for violence. "Easy, Rax," I murmured. "This is a business transaction."
I stopped in front of Kaelen. He wouldn't meet my eyes. He looked at the mud on my boots, then at the sky, then at the clipboard. His face was pale.
"Delivery," Kaelen muttered, his voice tight. "For... Efficiency Solutions."
I didn't smile. I didn't gloat. I didn't say, 'Look at me now, you arrogant prick.' I just held out my hand. "Manifest?"
Kaelen handed me the clipboard. His hand was shaking slightly. I scanned the list. 10 tons High-Carbon Steel. 5 tons Copper Wiring (Grade A). 2 tons Lead Shielding. Credit Chip: 50,000.
"The steel," I asked, tapping the paper. "Is it the magical alloy or standard industrial?"
Kaelen flinched. "Standard. As requested. The pure stuff."
"Good," I nodded. "The magical alloy is brittle when you weld it. I prefer the cheap stuff."
I signed the bottom of the form with a flourish. Julian Thorne, CEO.
"You can unload it over there," I pointed to the empty bay. "And tell High Inquisitor Voss that her payment has been processed. The consulting contract is... paused."
Kaelen stared at me. For a second, I saw the rage behind his eyes. The desire to summon a stone spike and drive it through my chest. But he looked at Rax. He looked at the Ghost partially hidden under a tarp behind me. And he remembered the smell of the Main Hall.
He turned on his heel and barked orders at the drivers. "Unload it! Let's go!"
We watched them work. Within twenty minutes, the yard was stacked with enough metal to build an army. Kaelen threw a heavy leather pouch at my feet—the credits—and climbed back onto the lead wagon without a word.
The convoy rumbled away, kicking up dust.
Amelia walked over and picked up the pouch. She opened it. The gold glow of the credit chips reflected in her eyes. "Fifty thousand," she whispered. "Julian... this is more than my family made in a decade. We're rich."
"We're funded," I corrected, taking the bag. "There's a difference."
I looked at the pile of fresh steel. It gleamed in the sunlight. "You know they're going to patch the hole, right?" Amelia asked, closing the bag. "The Wards. Voss isn't stupid. Next time we try to fly the Ghost over the wall, they'll shoot us down. Kinetic or not."
"I know," I said. "The air war is over. We had the element of surprise, and we spent it."
I turned back to the warehouse. I looked at the corner, where the rusted, hulking chassis of an old siege golem lay half-buried in junk. It was a relic from the war—heavy, slow, and ground-bound. But with fifty thousand credits and ten tons of steel, it didn't have to be a relic.
"If we can't fly over the walls," I said, a new plan forming in the blueprints of my mind. "Then we have to go through them."
"Julian," Amelia warned, following my gaze. "That's a Siege Walker. It's missing its legs, its core, and its head."
"No," I smiled, touching the cold iron of the machine's flank. "It's missing an engine."
I tossed the bag of money to Rax. "Rax! Get your boys. We're going shopping for parts. I need pistons. Big ones."