Silas woke because the mattress tried to eject him into the ceiling.
Teleport sickness rolled him; bile surged up his throat. He swallowed hard, jaw locked. The floor pitched so abruptly his stomach lagged a half second behind his spine. Teeth clicked; a bruise bloomed where the bunk rail bit his hip.
Lantern light swung in jittery arcs across warped planks, tugging shadows like string-puppets. Each sway hummed nails against wood; somewhere beneath, machinery thudded in an off-beat tempo he couldn't map.
Something metallic clanged overhead. Cold, salted air poured through a crooked porthole, tasting of wet pennies, rope rot, and damp wool.
Tar and pitch bled through the salt, an old-wood stink that screamed centuries-old craft even if he couldn't name the place.
He hadn't gone to sleep in any room that groaned like this. Last clips in memory: Seattle asphalt slick with his blood; void intake; parchment eaten by flame; a sigil seared into his arm.
A sharp smack to the back of his skull when he agreed to transit—then blackout. One long dark tunnel spitting him into this swaying coffin.
His cheek brushed the pillow and came away gritty with salt. The walls creaked like teeth grinding; the room shifted like a drunk on bad footing.
Every sense shouted not Seattle, not the Citadel. The Citadel had promised a "city"; this was simply a shaking box.
A fist hammered the cabin door.
"Master Mora? Captain says we're a day from Stoneveil. Rise and shine, clerk."
The knock jarred his focus. Bile finally won; he spat bitter foam into a tin basin, stomach empty but determined to protest.
The name hit harder than the knock. Master who? Whose Mora? His brain flicked through every alias he'd worn and found a blank screen.
He let the silence stretch, forcing his breathing to quiet.
For one panicked second he thought they had the wrong room.
Instinct said arm up. Reality said he'd left the Riverstone on Seattle asphalt or the Citadel had confiscated it anyways. No gun. Only the hiss of surf and a stranger outside calling him by a stranger's name.
He swept the bedside table, heart hammering, until his hand closed on a plain dagger—functional, boring, sharp enough to prick a finger. It would have to do.
An overlay bled into view—clean serif letters hanging in the dark like a smug PowerPoint.
[Mission: Operation Stoneveil Silence]
[World Difficulty: 3 (Inferno Tier)]
[World Source: 0%]
[World Description: Rain-slick plazas, guillotines, rebel cells, government patrols.]
[Main Quest: Ensure Regent Varis Calder dies within seven local days.]
[Mission Information: Spark the Stoneveil uprising, exploit chaos, ensure Varis's death.]
[Mission Deadline: 7 days (168:00:00) local time.]
[Mission Reward: Enforcer identity fully unlocked; other rewards as per performance.]
[Side Quests: Optional. Accept or reject at encounter. Consequences apply.]
[Warning: Do not mention the Void Citadel; forced execution will be triggered.]
[Hint: Leaving Stoneveil city before completion drastically increases difficulty.]
[Hint: Auto-language sync active for 7 local days.]
[Rule: Equivalent Exchange. Value given equals value received.]
[Loot Notice: Only Citadel-certified items may leave current world (Thaloria); authorization requires payment.]
Silas let the text scroll, jaw clenched. The System always sounded reasonable when it was sentencing him. Seven days to stage an uprising and assassinate a regent. No pressure.
Fail and he got dead or demoted; succeed and maybe he got another shot at breathing Seattle air. The Citadel hung a price tag off every inhaled breath.
He squinted through the porthole: dark water silvering toward dawn, a smear of pale light teasing the horizon, white froth licking the hull. Definitely a ship. Somewhere overhead, crew boots paced. Seawater hissed against the hull in arrhythmic applause.
[Cover Identity Issued: Arlen Mora]
[Role: Crown supply clerk from the Belt auditing Stoneveil plaza storage logs]
[Access: Records office, storerooms, escorted plaza errands]
[Region: East Sea — Crown foothold city "Stoneveil"]
[Note: First disguise provided for free. Future identities require Void Coin payment; authenticity scales with cost.]
He rubbed the brand on his left forearm, feeling the faint thrum under the skin. Back in the void, the sigil had opened four menus; Personal Information had been one. Maybe the Citadel's new talent would even show up here.
[Contractor Number: 74121](To protect the Enforcer, this is a false number; the Enforcer cannot be located by any means.)
[Name: Silas Quinn (Enforcer)]
[Level: 1 (Rank 1)] (Every 10 levels constitute a tier. Leveling up provides no attribute bonuses but grants the Enforcer permissions within the 'Citadel,' corresponding to world difficulty, mission difficulty, etc.)
[Health: 100%](This attribute cannot be fully quantified and changes based on the degree of injury.)
[Mana: 60 (Recovery: 3 per hour)]
[Strength: 6](Related to attack power, carrying capacity, etc.)
[Agility: 7](Related to movement, attack speed, etc.)
[Stamina: 5](Related to health, defense, abnormal resistance, etc.)
[Intelligence: 6](Related to spell damage, mana, perception, etc.)
[Charm: 3](Related to social interactions, summoning, etc.)
[Luck: 1](Related to item opening, crafting, etc. This attribute is extremely difficult to increase. Enforcer, please cherish opportunities to improve it.)
[Talent: Devourer — After killing a target, devour ~1% of their total attributes (max 3 attributes per mission) and may drop a Skill Seed/Memory Shard.]
[Personal information is provided to help the Enforcer estimate their own strength and is unrelated to actual combat power.]
[The level of attribute values affects the Enforcer's physical fitness, but combat is not solely determined by physical fitness. Enforcer, please be cautious.]
"Strength six, charm three, luck one." He snorted. "Basically a snarky file clerk with a murder talent. Glad the System took time to roast me before flinging me into the sea."
Charm three meant he'd talk his way into as many friends as a wet cat. Luck one might as well be a curse. Devourer gleamed like a lifeline; he'd need to make every kill count if he wanted to grow.
Luck: one and a murder talent. Perfect kit for an early grave.
Telling himself he'd kill Evan Royce out of spite had been easy; now the Citadel wanted him to kill strangers just to punch a timecard home. Great career pivot.
White light washed across the cramped cabin, turning every bead of condensation into glare and every nail squeal into a pinprick along his spine.
The knocker outside tried again, more impatient this time. "Master Mora! Captain says Stone charts at dawn. You deaf?"
"Not deaf," Silas called back, pitching his voice calm. "Up in a minute."
He flexed his fingers until joints cracked, forcing his breathing toward steady instead of panic-spiked.
Silas scrubbed a palm down his face, half expecting to feel the mission text raised like braille. The letters refused to blur.
Every directive carried the cool authority of an HR memo stapled to a death threat. Don't mention the Void Citadel. Don't abandon the mission. Regicide in seven days. Easy.
He read it again, slower, letting each line click into its own ledger column.
Mission on top. Rules in the side margin. Unknown variables—Stoneveil, Varis, "Master Mora"—circling the totals like vultures.
He wasn't ready to say it aloud; naming things made them real, and right now he needed the illusion this could still be a nightmare.
"Master Mora," he echoed, tasting the foreign syllables. "Sure. Let's wear someone else's life for a week."
He rolled the alias around like a bad pill, hoping it kept him breathing long enough to get back to Seattle in one piece.
"One clerk, one guillotine-happy regent, seven days," he muttered. "What could go wrong?"
Silas let the bitter math settle, jaw working while the deck creaked beneath him.
"Awesome," he whispered. "Void Citadel drags me off Seattle asphalt and now I have to kill a regent in some fantasy tax hellscape."
The System apparently hated jokes. A directive slammed across his vision in angry white.
[Warning: Disclosure of the Void Citadel to native entities triggers forced execution.]
"Relax," he told the ceiling. "I'm not about to host a multiverse TED Talk."
He forced himself to catalog everything inside the cabin the way a good clerk should.
One sea chest with a symbol burned into the lid—a black laurel ring strangling a silver guillotine blade on a scarlet field. Even without knowing the exact heraldry, it screamed government.
One porthole admitting a sliver of moon and the occasional splash. One hook holding his dove-gray clerk tunic, complete with ledger-ready cuffs and brass buttons engraved with miniature versions of that same crest.
He was still in his Seattle clothes—hoodie and damp jeans. He stripped them off and pulled on the uniform to match whatever this "Thaloria" world the Citadel had dropped him in.
The fabric smelled of starch, mildew, and someone else's expectations.
He tucked the dagger into a hidden sheath sewn into his belt, palmed a small packet of waxed correspondences labeled "To Be Filed," and took one more look around the room like a thief memorizing an exit.
He paced the tiny space twice, testing his balance as the ship rolled, wrist bones counting each sway. Every creak and groan fed the anxiety loop. He exhaled, long and slow, and recited the facts aloud like a ledger entry:
"Name: Arlen Mora. Profession: Crown supply clerk shipped in from the Belt to audit Stoneveil. Mission: Kill Regent Varis Calder. Deadline: seven days. Penalty for slip-ups: guillotine, execution, or both simultaneously."
Stating it somehow made the insanity feel manageable. He set his hand on the latch; the knock he hadn't answered yet hung in the air like a held breath.
He opened the cabin door.
The corridor beyond swayed with shadows and lantern light, crew boots thumping overhead. Salt gusted in. This world waited on the other side of the ladder, and he had exactly zero seconds left to mourn the last one.
The ladder spat him onto the main deck, where wind slapped his tunic flat and salt air tried to peel the sleep from his eyes.
No exhaust, no hot garbage, no sirens—just salt and wind and the slow groan of timber. Seattle felt very, very far away.
A blue-and-ivory pennant snapped above the aft mast, the laurel-and-blade sigil matching the brand in his cabin.
Brass nameplates marked each hatch, polished enough to reflect the crew that hustled past. Even the tarred ropes wore official Crown grey instead of merchant brown.
Most of the sailors were sun-browned with salt-bleached hair and wind-chapped cheeks, a mix of River-district tans and deep brown skin that spoke of years spent beating storms off the Teeth.
Crates lashed to the midline were stencil-perfect—spiral crest on the left, the word STILLSTONE in block letters across the top.
He spotted a leather folio clipped to the nearest stack, pages tied off with Crown-red ribbon. The top manifest listed the shipment in neat block letters beside the STILLSTONE stamp.
The stencilled manifests called them cuffs, clamps, and reinforcement brackets, not raw ore. Too clean, too evenly packed. Only a Crown ship would advertise control gear that loud; maybe they thought shouting the label scared thieves away. Silas filed the question for later.
A hawk-faced officer in a Crown-blue sash prowled the bow, barking headings in clipped cadence. Crew whispered "First Mate Brell's in a mood" as they hustled past, and the name slotted in his mind beside the scar scoring her brow and jaw.
She ran the deck like a metronome—short commands, zero drift.
A broad-shouldered man waited near the helm, boots planted wide as if the deck were an extension of his spine. Short beard, weather-cut wrinkles, a spyglass tucked under one arm.
Every rope team deferred to him without a word, and Brell's gaze kept checking with him before issuing orders—captain, then.
The captain watched Silas long enough to weigh him, so Silas crossed the deck and stuck out a hand.
"Captain," he said. "Arlen Mora. I'm your problem until Stoneveil."
The man clasped his hand with callused fingers. "Captain Idran. And the Crown's problem, not mine. My job is to get you there with your head attached."
Silas managed a thin smile. "That aligns with my career goals."
Idran's gaze flicked to the dagger hilt barely visible under Silas's tunic. "Clerks don't usually carry steel. That new?"
"Call it a travel perk," Silas said. "Helps me sleep."
Idran grunted, then angled his spyglass toward the horizon. "Charts say we make the Teeth before first light. Fog burns off quick. Dockmaster fines anyone who stumbles in half-asleep."
Silas planted his feet to match the sway. "Appreciate the ride, Captain Idran. Does Stoneveil always look like a bruise on the horizon, or is that special for Crown auditors?"
Idran passed him the spyglass.
Through the lens a faint smudge rose from the sea—a jagged ridge crowned with bell towers and smokestacks.
"North side," Idran said. "Palace sits up there. South side's the Teeth—reefs, docks, and a harbor that'll chew a careless hull clean if you drift wrong.
"Out here in the East Sea, the Crown feels far away," Idran added. "Belt sits in the middle and pulls the strings; we just dance to whatever tune reaches us through the fog."
Silas handed back the glass. "Sounds charming," he said, mostly to keep Idran talking.
Idran shrugged. "Regent Varis runs a tight ship. Stoneveil's his seat of power. Lots of eyes, fewer friends."
Silas nodded, filing the detail. Every world had its own political geography; he needed to map this one fast.
Idran glanced down at the deck. "Regent Varis wants the stillstone quotas certified yesterday. You've got his log packet." He jerked his chin toward a tarred bundle lashed to the rail.
Silas kept his tone wry. "Nothing like auditing a regent who loves guillotines." The joke tasted like copper, but it kept Idran focused ahead instead of on Silas's nerves.
"Varis keeps the guillotine busy," Idran replied. "Means my charter stays paid." He paused, gave Silas a measuring look. "Last three Crown clerks I ferried in for audits didn't ride this ship back out. Eat more before you reach the plaza — they like feeding the blade a show."
The word guillotine lodged under Silas's ribs. Seattle history teachers had turned the French Revolution into flashcards; the Void Citadel had turned blades into real consequences.
Watching heads drop was one thing. Keeping his own off the block while plotting regicide? Different math entirely. He noted to stay off scaffolds and out of spectacle range unless he was the one calling the cues.
"Great tip," Silas said.
He inhaled deeply, letting the clean air scrape his lungs. The scent went into the mental ritual he was already building: clean air equals calm, calm equals accuracy.
He imagined Stoneveil stinking of mist and old blood—maybe it was just his nerves, maybe it was the way Idran talked about guillotines—but the picture stuck. Better to pocket one clean breath now before the docks proved the hunch right.
He drifted toward the tarred bundle and loosened the cords.
Inside waited waxed folios—rugged leather binders crammed with manifests, signatures, and sealing ribbons—plus a Crown stamp plate big enough to get him killed if he misused it.
He flipped through the manifest lines. The first entries were tight copperplate.
The next batch leaned slanted, ink darker and rushed. The final pages turned blocky and uneven as if the clerk had been scribbling while sprinting.
Change under pressure. Varis pushing quotas? Or someone forging numbers fast?
He tucked the stamp plate back, letting its weight remind him how thin his cover was. A wrong impression could get him hauled to a scaffold. A missing stamp could stall his mission timer. Even the paperwork had teeth.
Wind knifed across the deck. Silas shifted, aligning himself with the mast to keep balance as the ship rode a long swell.
Dawn smeared pale light toward the horizon; the moon retreated behind clouds like an eye closing. He tracked the light creep—pre-dawn edging toward morning.
The deck pitched. He grabbed a rope to steady himself and pretended it was just seasickness, not the reality of regicide homework.
Seven days to learn this world's rules, find Regent Varis, and figure out how to kill him without getting caught. Seven days to turn a borrowed identity into a weapon.
The mission clock ticked louder with every wave.
He swallowed hard.
Time to get to work.