The Sundered Spire was a jagged tooth of black stone, its peak shattered, its base swallowed by the swamp. Inside, the architecture was unnervingly non-Euclidean.
They found Malphas in a central chamber, frantically scraping at an altar with a crude tool. He was a man once handsome, now gaunt with paranoia, his eyes wide.
"Stay back!" he shrieked, clutching a pulsating, violet crystal—the Dusk Shard. "It's mine! The key is mine!"
"We're not here for your key, Malphas," Raguel said, hands raised. "We're here for you. Razamon's bounty."
The name 'Razamon' acted like a trigger. Malphas laughed, a broken sound. "Razamon? You think this is about betrayal? You're fetching the butcher's next meal and don't even know it!"
He slammed the Shard into a depression on the altar. The room shuddered. A hidden compartment opened, revealing not a relic, but a ledger—a blood-inked record of transactions.
"The Bloodthorn accounts," Lilithiel breathed. "Proof of Razamon's dealings with the Syndicate. He's not hunting traitors; he's tying up loose ends!"
Suddenly, elegant laughter chimed through the chamber. From the shadows of a broken archway, Sariodeus Lunamaris stepped forth, her white dress pristine, her smile chilling.
"A valiant effort, little hunters. Thank you for leading us to him—and to this tedious paperwork." Behind her, sleek, humanoid shadows with moon-bladed daggers emerged.
"Take the ledger and the shard. Dispose of the mess," she instructed casually.
A three-way battle erupted. Cassiathon charged Malphas. Raguel fired at the moon-bladed assassins. Lilithiel, still weakened, faced Sariodeus.
"A fallen star," Sariodeus taunted, deflecting Lilithiel's dagger strikes with effortless flicks of her wrist. "How dim you've become."
Malphas, cornered by Cassiathon, made a desperate choice. He threw the ledger into a spectral rift that yawned near the altar. "If I can't have it, no one can!"
He then leapt after it, but not before locking eyes with Cassiathon. "The debt is a lie! He owns your souls, not borrows them!" He vanished into the rift.
The ledger was gone. Their bounty was escaping.
Enraged, Cassiathon turned her fury on the nearest assassin, dispatching it with brutal efficiency. Sariodeus, seeing the primary objective lost, sighed.
"A disappointing yield. Until next time, hunters." She and her remaining shadows melted into darkness, leaving the trio alone in the shuddering spire.
They had failed. And Malphas's last words echoed in the silence, more terrifying than any monster.