Dive Bars and Bound Favors

The dive bar smelled like spilled regrets and old grease—the kind of place that clung to your clothes and lungs like it had no plans to let go. It was jammed into the crooked guts of Valthara's underbelly, half-collapsed, half-forgotten, held together by rust, desperation, and sticky prayers that barely stuck. Neon oozed through cracks in the grimy windowpanes like bruised light, slow and dull, bleeding across warped floorboards and puddling in the corners as if hiding from something worse.

Inside, the air pressed against your skin—wet and too warm, stinking of sweat, rotgut whiskey, and that sharp iron bite of fear, like someone tried wiping away a bloodstain and only smeared the memory. Fluorescents overhead buzzed like dying wasps, flickering and humming uneven, casting patches of sickly blue and grimy yellow that made everything look sick. Holo-signs twitched on the walls, cracked and flickering, glitching like reality was unraveling if you stared too long.

Lucien Blackmoore stepped through the warped door without hesitation. The rusted hinge squealed, a warning no one around paid attention to anymore. His grin was already there—lopsided, a little too bright for this pit of misery. It sat on his face like armor, more for the folks around him than for himself. He yanked his collar up, trying to block the worst of the bar's stink, but it clung anyway—oily and thick, crawling into his skin. His boots stuck soft on the floor, tacky from spilled drinks and dried blood. Nothing in here felt steady. The walls leaned, the ceiling sweated, the floor groaned like it was remembering old fights and debts long unpaid.

LEDGER UPDATE: Target — Cal Vinthar. Status — active. Tribunal agreement pending. Primary favor: Valthamur's Judicator Boon. Collection route prepared.

Lucien moved slow—not lazy, but deliberate, like you do in places that could blow up for no good reason. All around him, the regulars hunched over chipped glasses and broken dreams—syndicate dropouts with twitchy fingers, credit junkies drowning in IOUs, ghosts of gamblers spent before the cards were dealt. No one met his eyes, but every single one noticed him.

At the far end of the bar, Kael Serpantwind was crumpled onto a stool, like he wanted to disappear inside it. His eyes were glassy and rimmed red, stuck on a busted datapad blinking weak under his fingers. His drink was half gone, leaving wet rings on the counter. Sweat slicked the back of his hand, shining under the bar's harsh light. Whatever dragged him here had stripped him down to nerves.

Lucien slid onto the seat beside him with a kind of casual confidence, smooth enough it almost looked lazy. His voice came easy, warm, but didn't hide the edge beneath. "Kael, my man. This place's a festering wound, but hey, I'm your salve." He tapped the corner of the leather-bound ledger poking out beneath his coat. Old, stitched, scarred, humming faint with ink and power. "Sign your name, you're mostly free."

The grin stretched wider. "Mostly's better than dead, isn't it?"

Kael didn't look up. His gaze stayed pinned on the scuffed bar like it might crack and swallow him whole. Then, slow as a man dragging himself out of a nightmare, he turned his head. His voice came hollow. "Free? From what? The syndicate? The debts? The damn weight of it all?"

Lucien shrugged, just enough to hide the fatigue beneath. "From the part that's got its teeth in you deepest. You still bleed a little, yeah. But I carry the worst now. That's the deal."

Kael snorted, but it was choked, ragged. "Everyone talks like that. They always want something."

Lucien's smile flickered for a beat, then widened, real and honest. "Yeah. But they're not me." He slid a simple pen across the counter, the kind that'd signed too many pacts and stained too many souls. "You write it down, I take the leash. You just gotta walk straight from here."

Kael's hand hovered over the pen, fingers twitching. The whole room seemed to lean in. Then, with a breath more like surrender than choice, he grabbed it. His signature came messy, uneven, raw.

Lucien felt it the second the name took root. The Ledger throbbed against his ribs. Not hot, not cold—just aware. Another bond added to its bloated gut. Another thread tying his hands.

LEDGER UPDATE: New mark acquired. Debt transfer initiated. Soul-bond encoded. Valthara network bypass cleared. Tribunal access: unlocked.

Then the door slammed open, hard enough that half the bottles on the back shelf jumped. The stink of street rain and dirty coats punched in. Two enforcers stepped inside—tall, thick, mean in that familiar Obsidian Veil way. Black coats, black gloves, black faces like carved stone. They scanned the room with dead eyes, the kind that'd already decided who was guilty.

Lucien didn't flinch. His grin flattened, sharpening. "Trouble's never polite anymore."

He leaned toward Kael, voice low and steady. "Head down. Let me handle this."

The bigger enforcer stepped forward, bootheels clicking like hammers. The bar fell into a hush thick with tension. One barked, voice jagged like it'd been dragged through ash-choked alleys.

"Where's the broker? Heard he's stirring shit where he shouldn't."

Lucien swiveled slightly on the stool, arms loose, eyes alert. "Depends. Who sent you? If you're here for conversation, I'm fresh out of niceties. If you're here to scrap, you're already late."

The goon snarled, stepping in, hand twitching near his coat. Lucien was faster. His palm snapped sideways in a clean arc, cracking the man's jaw with a sound like a dropped pipe. The man stumbled, swearing, blinking through stars. His partner froze, unsure what to do.

A sharp whistle cut through the moment. From the shadow of a busted booth, a kid stumbled out—barely twenty, panic crawling over his face like ants. He threw something on the counter. A scrap of paper, torn at the edges, with a cipher inked in smudged black lines.

Lucien grabbed it before anyone else could. His eyes narrowed. The mark was rushed, messy, a sloppy secret. "Another damn cipher?" he muttered, voice rough like sand rubbed on metal. "Guy's got no class."

Kael leaned over, trying to see. "Who's it from?"

Lucien folded the paper and tucked it inside his coat. He whispered low, "Cassian. The man's spreading fast. Sloppy, but bold."

Kael's face shifted. "Cassian? Heard rumors. Didn't think he haunted gutters like this."

Lucien's smile didn't reach his eyes. "He doesn't haunt. He infects. Like mold on old coin."

LEDGER WARNING: Unauthorized glyph signature detected. Source: Cassian Drayce. Ledger channel scarred. Recommend purge or counter-seed.

Lucien stood. The Ledger pulsed harder, pressing against his chest like a second heartbeat trying to warn him off the path he was already sprinting down.

He stepped away from the bar, away from Kael and the wreckage, and ducked down a side stair behind a loose panel. A glyph shimmered faint on the wall—sigil for Veilshade transport. He ran his thumb along the groove, whispered the access phrase.

The wall opened like a curtain being drawn aside. Cold air swept through, spiced with incense and the sharp tang of soul magic.

He stepped through.

The world shifted.

Veilshade swallowed him whole.

It wasn't the same kind of cold. Veilshade's chill wasn't natural—it came from memory, from lost pacts and broken trust. Light drifted like ghost-lanterns above tribunal spires, swaying on invisible currents. Echoes of lost contracts shimmered along stone arches, letters fading in and out as if trying to rewrite themselves.

Lucien walked steady through the empty plaza. No footsteps echoed. The stones absorbed everything.

He reached the outer tribunal gates where Judge Taryn waited beneath a twisted silver tree whose leaves murmured judgment. Her robe was deep indigo, stitched with glyphs that shimmered under her skin. Her eyes, always unreadable, narrowed when she saw him.

"Blackmoore. You're late."

"I'm never early," Lucien said, brushing raindrops from his coat. "That'd imply I trusted the schedule."

She scowled. "You brought the favor?"

He lifted the Ledger. Its glow darkened briefly, then brightened again. "Bound in full."

LEDGER UPDATE: Cal Vinthar—soul encoded. Favor trade approved. Tribunal favor coin: Valthamur Judicator's Boon. Request accepted.

The glyph pulsed between them, then vanished into the tribunal stone. Taryn studied him for a beat too long.

"Why him?"

"Because betrayal leaves a longer trail than fear," Lucien said.

The sigil on the tribunal steps burned suddenly. A jagged cipher—Cassian's mark—seared itself across the stone before fizzling into smoke.

Lucien stared, silent.

LEDGER PULSE: Betrayal breeds betrayal.

Taryn's expression tightened. "Was this Cal's doing?"

"No," Lucien said slowly, already calculating. "This was planted. Cassian's forcing hands. He wants chaos in the ranks."

"What's your move?" she asked.

Lucien stepped back, eyes locked on the fading glyph.

"I give him what he wants," he muttered. "Then burn the whole board before he gets to the king."

He turned away, coat flaring. Taryn didn't stop him. She never did.

LEDGER WARNING: Forged contracts detected. Market 7A—Valthara Prime collapse in progress.

Lucien exhaled, long and bitter.

"Cassian's burning souls," he muttered.

LEDGER RESPONSE: You're complicit.

His hand lingered on the Ledger's cover, cold and alive under his touch.

His voice came low, shaken but steel-edged. "Then let's make him bleed for every one."

The ghost-lights pulsed in rhythm with his steps as he walked back toward the threshold. The path back to the mortal world shimmered ahead.

He paused.

The memory of Cal's signature flashed in his mind. Shaky. Desperate. Trusting.

"Yeah, I sold him for a nod," Lucien whispered, jaw tight.

LEDGER PULSE: His trust stung.

Lucien stepped through the veil.

The warmth of Valthara Prime hit like a slap. Smog. Noise. Flesh.

He pulled the collar high. Already planning.

Cassian's cipher was sloppy.

But Lucien's weren't much better.

"Am I the villain?" he muttered.

LEDGER RESPONSE: You're bound to me.

He wasn't in the mood to argue.

He just got to work.