Souls Exchanged for Gunpowder

Ashen Hollow didn't rest. It held its breath.

The district squatted on the outskirts of Valthara like a forgotten warning. Burned-out factories slouched against rusted rails, their smokestacks sheared off like snapped bones. 

Lucien Blackmoore was on the move. Crimson coat flaring with every step, boots crunching through soot-thick gravel. Sigils shimmered faint under his collar, tucked against his pulse like secrets. He stood in what had once been a cargo yard, now a graveyard for rusted hulls and welded ghosts. Above his outstretched palm, a glyph-wheel spun in a slow burn, casting red light across his cheek.

Across from him, the rebel leader didn't blink. Garran Vale looked like a man shaped by violence and left in the mold too long—cheek scarred, eyes yellowed with suspicion. Scavenged armor hung off his broad shoulders, patchy and patched again. His fingers twitched at his side, like he wasn't sure if he should reach for a weapon or a prayer.

Lucien's voice cut through the wind. "Bet big, friend. Your soul buys firepower."

Behind him, half-veiled by ash and augmented shimmer, an array of ghost weapons hovered in projection—glyph-synced mines, modded plasma rifles, long-range phase knives that flickered with subharmonic hums. The kind of tools banned by every chartered Corp in the region. The kind of tools Garran's people could only dream of.

The rebel's lip curled, uncertain. "And you deliver? No trail back to me, no eyes from the towers?"

Lucien tapped the center of his palm, and the glyph-wheel flared. The augmented field unfolded—maps bled into view, each one a tangle of Corp patrol blind spots, backchannel beacons, secured drop points threaded through crumbling transit lines.

"With the right clause," Lucien said, "even the gods won't find your crates."

Garran squinted at the projection, then at Lucien. His soul glimmered faintly in Lucien's sight—an ember warped by desperation. Temptation, fear, and something close to hope twisted through the lattice of his being. That flicker... it made Lucien hesitate. Just for a breath.

The Ledger stirred behind his eyes.

Client Identified: Garran Vale.

Loyalty: Volatile. Risk Index: 7.4.

Boon: Material Weaponry. Potential Network Linkage: Mapping In Progress...

Informant Flag: Crow-4 Reports Recurring Contact With Unregistered Entities.

Lucien's jaw tensed. He adjusted his stance and narrowed his eyes. "Sign now, and you'll have enough fire to reclaim these streets before sunrise. Wait too long, and I take it elsewhere. Your move, Commander."

The silence that followed wasn't silence at all. The Hollow buzzed under the wind—old engines sighing in their sleep, pipes moaning like something forgotten trying to wake.

Garran stepped forward. He extended one battered knuckle, pressed it into the floating glyph. The sigils flared. Red light consumed his hand, bled into his chest, then snapped inward with a cold pulse.

The contract sealed.

And something beneath the rail lines stirred.

Two hours later, the crates landed exactly where Lucien said they would.

A warehouse drowned in shadow beneath the collapsed support beams of Line 12, just far enough from active transit to avoid Watcher drones, but not so deep that scavenger swarms would sniff it out. Garran's crew arrived first, riding gutted transport bikes with pulse shields flickering low. Their gear looked as salvaged as their trust—scavenged armor, jury-rigged rifles, cracked visors lit with green static.

Lucien watched it unfold from a perch above the loading pit, seated on a half-crumbled crane rig. He drank slowly from a steel flask filled with spiced nightroot, the taste bitter enough to keep his nerves taut. The crates, still sealed in sigil-wrapped wards, glowed faintly against the warehouse's rust-choked walls.

The Ledger pulsed behind his right eye, scrolling quietly.

Contract: Active.

Clause Verification: Secure.

Logistics: Complete. Payment Received.

Environmental Scan: Anomaly Detected.

Lucien frowned. He blinked into the augmented overlay. A flicker.

The HUD stuttered. Just for a second. A glitch in the dataflow. Normally, he would've brushed it off. But the Ledger didn't.

Intrusion Detected: Foreign Code Embedded In Glyph Container.

Signature Pattern: Non-Ledger. Source Probability: 97.2% Match – Cassian Drayce.

Status: Viral Curse. Effects: Contract Sabotage, Script Corruption, Potential Network Contagion.

Recommended Response: Isolation And Containment Immediate.

Lucien's grip tightened on the flask. "Of course," he muttered. "Cassian's bugs are alley filth."

He stood in one motion, coat fluttering down like a curtain. Bootsteps echoed along the beam as he vaulted to the ground, landing near the crates. The rebels clocked his movement, but too late.

"Back up," he barked. "Now."

The crew scrambled. Some instinctively raised rifles. Garran stepped forward, confused and annoyed.

"What the hell's your problem—"

Lucien's hand lit like a flare. He slashed the air with three glyphs—containment, inversion, weave. The scripts burned blue-white, searing into the augmented field as they locked around the corrupted crate.

The moment froze.

Then the crate screamed.

Not a sound exactly, but resonance. A low-frequency wail that thrummed in the bones and churned the gut. Reality twisted for a blink. The sigils spasmed, snapped inward, and then the virus collapsed. Static devoured it.

Silence returned, broken only by the hum of warding lines.

Lucien lowered his hand, sweat cooling along his neck. He didn't look at Garran.

The rebel stared at the remains of the crate. "What was that? Some kind of trap?"

Lucien pulled a shard from inside his coat, flicked it into his palm. The Codex flared to life, the contract overlay swimming into view. Garran's soul signature pulsed there—faint and fraying.

"You've got leaks," Lucien said. His tone flattened to iron. "Cassian's fingerprints were all over it. That virus nearly wiped the contract and took my logistics path with it."

He moved fast. Drew a red line in the air and spoke the clause that stitched itself into Garran's soul like thread through raw flesh. The rebel flinched as it bound.

"What did you just do?" Garran backed up, hand on his chest like he could claw the brand off his spirit.

Lucien finally looked at him. "Bound your soul to Valthamur. Temporary clause. If you didn't sabotage me, one of your people did. This keeps you from blowing the next job." He paused. "Assume it's kindness."

The Ledger stirred. Not just words this time, but a low thrum behind Lucien's ribs.

Heresy Index: Increasing.

Soul Binding Complete.

Associated Outcome: Rebellion Binds You.

Lucien blinked. The phrase struck deeper than it should have.

They left Ashen Hollow under cover of nightfall.

Crates secured, rebels scattered, and the market pathway preserved—barely. The air smelled like rain, but none would fall. Lucien walked alone along a service path that hadn't seen traffic in years, his boots echoing off collapsed iron rails.

But peace never lasted. The Ledger surged again, unbidden.

System Alert: Trade Route 8-F – Viral Contagion Detected.

Contract Pathway: Degraded.

Boon Channel Corruption: 17 Units Lost.

Cause: Contamination From Ashen Transaction.

Attack Pattern Matches: Cassian Drayce.

Market Stability: Compromised.

A glowing spiderweb spread across his overlay—trade routes bleeding red at the edges. Contracts flickering in and out. Entire deals that had nothing to do with Ashen Hollow now destabilizing from one corrupted clause. His whole network twisted just slightly off-center.

Lucien clenched his jaw, muttering under his breath. "Cassian's wrecking my game."

He activated the comm bead near his collar. "Ghost. Pull every rebel-linked clause. Crosscheck them against my entire chain. I want everything. Locations, nodes, trade bleed. Send it to my vault in five."

The line crackled. A familiar voice answered—Ghost, dry as ever. "Already tracking two potential backdoors in Veilshade. Someone's either sloppy or very good at pretending to be."

Lucien didn't respond. He stared into the grid, the Codex's glow reflecting off the wet concrete.

Behind his eyes, the Ledger pulsed once more.

Your stage burns.

Lucien shut the interface. The air around him felt colder.

Cassian wasn't just taunting him anymore. He was writing counter-scripts into Lucien's theater. Poisoning the audience. Tearing down the curtains.

And Lucien had no intention of handing him the spotlight.

Time to deal again.