Several weeks passed in a blur of quiet, meticulous work and whispered ambitions, the days folding into one another as the wheels of power turned.

  Lea shadowed Princess Dawn wherever she went. At markets, during private dinners, and through the courts of the capital. Always at the edges of the crowd, her eyes scanning, her mask shifting faintly with restless inkblots, recording every movement, every whisper, every hidden tension.

  She even intercepted a few assassination attempts, letting Hastur taste blood.

  At Baron Veynar's manor, the slow dismantling of his defenses continued.

  She observed patterns in the staff's movements, noted the blind spots in the corridors, and strategically pnted talismans in the gardens and service passages.

  Each ward, each subtle whisper of sickness, was a carefully pced stroke in a masterpiece of invisibility. Veynar grew restless.

  Small things went missing, servants compined of fatigue or strange sickness, and the air in his halls felt off, but he could not find the cause.

  Meanwhile, the Argonauts gathered at the end of the week happening as usual. No world-shattering revetions from Lady Keter tely.

  Jim moved like a living storm, mastering the raw, uncontrolble speed of his Fourth Step. He could streak across the countryside without leaving more than a blur behind, his yellow-and-bck sparks trailing like firecrackers across the nd, each day more precise, more deadly, more controlled.

  Eric, newly anointed Bishop by Saintess Olivier, took up his responsibilities in the Renlou Empire. His prayers guided towns, resolved disputes, and blessed key strategic locations with subtle influence.

  Back in Ryteline, Lea continued her Third Step, each day honing her methods.

  Talismans were pced, observed, and adjusted.

  The Baron's paranoia began to bloom in a subtle, invisible, and insidious way.

  Lea moved in silence, unseen, letting her maniputions ripple through the manor like water through hidden channels. Each night she cataloged reactions, noted weaknesses, and pnned the next sequence.

  The thrill of control, precise and detached, tempered with a sense of ritualistic devotion to her craft, grew with each passing day.

  Dawn, ever vigint, pursued her own Fifth Step ritual. In quiet chambers behind the pace, she had nearly perfected the creation of a communication device, yet it was still raw and unappealing.

  She experimented with design, circuitry, and enchantments, iterating rapidly to enable mass production.

  Her amber eyes glimmered as she envisioned the future, a network connecting the kingdom instantly, her power extending invisibly through lines of sound. Knowledge and innovation are intertwined, and every breakthrough made her sharper, more influential, and more capable of maniputing events from afar.

  All the while making progress on the God of Absolution investigation, involving not only mystical but also mundane research institutions. They had located and retrieved many bone fragments; the more that were collected, the more she could feel the divinity of the god these bones belonged to.

  And through it all, the city of Renar churned around them. Smokestacks belching, gears turning, wheels of politics grinding ever onward. While Lea's shadow stretched quietly through the cracks, unseen, waiting for the perfect moment.

  ...

  Lea had been moving silently through Baron Veynar's manor for weeks, watching, listening, pcing talismans, and observing patterns.

  Each night brought small victories... a distracted servant, a poorly locked door, a whispered argument overheard. But tonight, something felt different.

  The house was quiet beyond the usual hum of servants and distant clocks.

  Shadows pooled in the corners, and the moonlight painted silver lines across the polished floorboards.

  Lea's ink-mask shifted with restless energy as she made her way to the Baron's study, a pce she had never dared explore fully.

  Her fingers traced the edge of a hidden compartment beneath the rge mahogany desk. It gave way with a careful push, revealing a stash of papers she hadn't expected to find.

  Heart hammering, she pulled them out and scanned the contents.

  Illegal contracts. Names, ages, addresses. Children, servants, and common folk were sold under the guise of charity, their futures bartered for gold. Her yellow eyes narrowed, pulse quickening.

  "Yes... This is it...", a thrill ran through her.

  These papers were gold, the final proof of the Baron's crimes, the leverage she needed for her Third Step.

  She carefully tucked them into a small satchel hidden beneath her cloak, ensuring they wouldn't be discovered by prying eyes.

  Then came a sudden shift in the air, and the door opened wide.

  The Baron himself. His silver csp gleamed faintly in the moonlight, his eyes wide in disbelief at the sight before him.

  "W-What are you?!"

  Lea froze for the briefest instant.

  Her hand brushed Hastur's handle hidden under her dress, but she didn't strike.

  Instead, she let the mask work. The swirling inks twisted and writhed, shadows crawling across the floor. And then... she vanished.

  The Baron's startled breath cut through the silence. He reached for her, but she was gone, nothing left but the faint scent of smoke and the whispering of ink across the walls.

  On the desk where she had been standing next to, a single note fluttered in the breeze from the slightly opened window. In elegant, looping script, unmistakably hers, it read:

  Praise be to Akasha.

  A final stroke of misdirection. She bmed the Akasha Monodrama, the cataclysm that targeted her, letting the Baron quake in fear at a phantom enemy he couldn't understand.

  Lea's eyes glinted behind the mask as she slipped through the shadows, contracts safely in hand, already plotting her next move. The Baron would wake tomorrow feeling that invisible pressure she had been slowly applying... but he would never know the true source.

  This was the art of Malediction: unseen, precise, unavoidable. And tonight, she had mastered another step.

  Yet even unknown to Lea, lightless eyes were following her movement, smiling at her. Lips curled up into a wicked smile, enjoying a once-honest person dive deeper into degeneracy.

  ...

  Moving through the streets of Renar under the cloak of night, her ink-mask shifting into a smile, full of malice and brewing plots. Embracing Malediction makes her feel better about herself, as if this was what she was meant to be, what she need to do.

  The satchel containing the contracts was secure at her side, heavy with the weight of secrets. She had no intention of keeping them locked away.

  Baron Veynar needed to be exposed, subtly, anonymously.

  An evil pointed at other evils, an Avenger whose fme would burn everyone.

  Her first stop was a small, reputable newspaper agency tucked into a quiet alley.

  She slipped inside while the night clerks were finishing te paperwork, the smell of ink and paper thick in the air.

  From the shadows, she pced a handful of contracts onto the editor's desk, leaving no trace of her presence except a small note in flowing handwriting:

  Dantes sends a warning.

  She repeated the process at two more agencies, each time selecting ones with influence over the capital's discourse, each time leaving another piece of paper signed with the same alias.

  Dantes, a name meant to evoke vigince, secrecy, judgment. Yet unknown to this world.

  Lea lingered in the alley for a moment after the st drop, her yellow eyes scanning the quiet streets. The thrill of the operation made her pulse quicken, but she remained calm.

  Every move, every pcement of paper, was precise, surgical. She had no desire to confront the Baron directly; her role was to guide his ruin without leaving herself exposed.

  By dawn, the contracts would be in the hands of reporters who would question, investigate, and publish without ever knowing her face or the truth behind Dantes.

  And Baron Veynar would feel the first tremors of the pressure she had been applying so meticulously.

  Lea vanished back into the morning mist, her mind already calcuting the next steps... which talismans to activate, which whispers to pnt in servants' ears, and how to continue weaving the web that would leave the Baron undone while she remained untouchable.

  The city slept, unaware of the shadow moving among its alleys, carrying justice in the ink of contracts and the subtle cruelty of unseen hands.

  And Lea, smiling faintly beneath the mask, walked on.

  Dantes' work was only beginning.