The manor wasn’t meant to breathe. But in Zaun, everything breathed—pipes hissed, wires pulsed, walls exhaled steam like lungs suffocating on rust. Smeech moved through it like a ghost stitched from brass and bile, the glow of his joints casting green shadows that flickered along the warped floor.

A trade—life for life. Some poor soul spared, and now this one was his.

Smeech watched them from the doorway of the grand hall, trench coat soaked from rain, steam rising from his shoulders. The figure before him looked absurdly out of place: clean, upright, unbent by Zaun’s weight. His grin pulled wide, his misaligned jaw twitching.

“You stand tall for someone in a cage,” he rasped, voice like grinding gears.

He didn’t approach.

Not yet.

Just paced, slow and deliberate, claws clicking against the floor, boots echoing like distant thunder. They watched him—nervous, but not broken. Not yet.

“This place remembers. It chews people up and spits ‘em out,” he mused. “You? You walked right in.”

Smeech stopped beside a broken mirror, catching a glimpse of his own jagged reflection. “Curious. Brave. Or stupid.”

Smeech turned, hand raised to reveal the needle glinting from his finger. “Could’ve torn you apart at the gate. Didn’t.” He stepped closer now, head tilting. “Know why?”

His grin turned sharp. “Because broken things recognize beauty. The kind that survives. That bleeds and keeps walkin’.”

He circled them once, like a predator trying to decide if it was full or not. “You stay. You follow the rules. The other walks free. I’m not sentimental—but I’m fair.”

He gestured down the corridor. “Food’s west. Room’s past the generator stack. Don’t touch the core.”

A pause.

“And don’t run. Not ‘cause I’ll stop you. Because I won’t. And what’s out there?” He chuckled darkly. “Ain’t nearly as polite as I am.”