Dungeon Games 5

The Imperial City's perfume of jasmine and marble dust turned cloying as Vell's team entered their assigned quarters. What might have passed for austerity elsewhere felt deliberately theatrical here, rough-hewn walls were framed by gilded doorways, and straw pallets were arranged beneath stained-glass windows depicting imperial victories. Ada's boot scuffed against a mosaic that was hidden beneath the grime, revealing a single golden tile shaped like a snarling wolf's eye.

"Charming," Sia drawled, tracing a finger along a suspiciously fresh bloodstain on the doorframe. "I will give the decor three days before it kills someone."

Lira did not look up from her workbench of scavenged floorboards. "Four hours," she corrected, soldering wires to a resonator crystal that hummed in dissonant thirds with the city's ambient magic. "The dampening field in these walls is not just for soundproofing, it is chewing through my circuits like a starved gremlin."