You had to make a choice. The mage child was slipping away, disappearing into the edge of the forest. Every instinct screamed at you to act. But the weight of hesitation pressed you into stillness, as if the world itself held its breath alongside you.

The fog thickened, the boy vanishing deeper into its gray embrace. Then—

The cold press of steel against your cheek snapped your world into focus. You didn’t even have time to move before the sound of a gunshot shattered the tense silence. It rang in your ears like the toll of a death knell, deafening and final.

You didn’t need to confirm what had happened. The mage child was gone. The empty, fog-covered horizon told the story plainly enough. The ground where the boy had run was now still, void of life, the air suffocating in its eerie quiet.

Then, breaking through that oppressive silence, a voice.

"Misfire, Sentinel Vortasha?" The tone was cold, sharp, and almost clinical in its detachment. "Or did your aim falter at the moment it mattered most?"

The words cut deep, each syllable perfectly placed, laced with disdain. The voice’s owner leaned in close, his breath faint against your ear.

Dorian Szysznowski.

His crimson eyes, glowing faintly with that inhuman intensity, studied you like a predator sizing up its prey. He tilted his head slightly, a mocking curiosity flickering across his expression as the cigarette hung loosely from his lip.

“Perhaps a mechanical issue,” he continued, his tone maddeningly calm, yet dripping with mockery. “Or perhaps the issue... lies elsewhere?”

He let the question dangle in the air, as though savoring the tension, his smirk curling into something colder, crueler.