Baron von Hess paced his study like a caged, corpulent animal. The room, once a place of comfort and decadent pleasure, had become his prison. The windows were barred, the doors reinforced with iron, and the halls of his manor were now patrolled by a new contingent of grim-faced mercenaries – men who cost a fortune and looked at him with contemptuous, greedy eyes. He had sent the Silent Blades, the best assassins gold could buy, into The Pit three hours ago. The silence since was a gnawing, agonizing thing, stretching his nerves to the breaking point.
"Any word?" he barked at Lucius, his gaunt associate, who was nervously sipping a glass of expensive brandy.
"Nothing, my Lord Baron," Lucius replied, his hand trembling so much the liquid sloshed in the glass. "But no news is good news, is it not? Kage is a master. He is likely taking his time, ensuring a clean kill."
"Or he's dead!" the Baron retorted, his voice shrill with panic. "They're all dead, and that… that thing is on its way here right now!" He tugged at his collar, sweat beading on his fleshy forehead. The memory of the golden statue of Duke Valerius was a permanent, screaming fixture in his mind. He saw it every time he closed his eyes.
Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream echoed from the floor below.
Both men froze, their faces draining of color. It was followed by another scream, this one cut short with a wet, gurgling sound. Then, a cacophony erupted – shouts of alarm, the clash of steel, and then more screams, each one filled with a unique and terrible agony.
"They're here! The God's followers!" Lucius shrieked, dropping his glass, which shattered on the marble floor.
"Impossible!" the Baron yelled, his eyes wide with terror. "My men! The wards! How could they get in?" He scrambled to his desk, fumbling to open a hidden drawer containing a loaded, jewel-encrusted hand-crossbow.
But it was not an army that had come. It was only one.
Mira moved through the halls of the Baron's manor like a vengeful spirit. She had entered not by breaking down a door, but by touching the stone of the outer wall and commanding it to form an opening for her. The divine power Ravi had blessed her with responded to her will, the stone flowing like water to grant her passage.
The first mercenaries she encountered, lounging in a guardroom, had looked at the slum girl appearing from a solid wall with stunned disbelief. That disbelief turned to terror as her eyes began to glow.
She was a whirlwind of golden fury. Her speed was supernatural, her strength immense. She didn't need a weapon. Her hands, wreathed in a faint golden aura, were more lethal than any blade. A touch could shatter bone. A focused gaze could induce crippling fear. A blast of pure energy sent men flying down hallways. The mercenaries, hired for their skill with a sword, were utterly unprepared for a demigod warden. They died quickly, their bodies broken and their minds shattered by the sheer, overwhelming force of her divinely-backed assault.
Upstairs, the Baron and Lucius listened as the sounds of fighting drew closer, each scream a nail in the coffin of their hopes. The clash of steel had stopped. Now there were only the heavy, measured footsteps of a single person approaching the study door.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The Baron, his hands shaking, aimed his crossbow at the reinforced door. Lucius cowered behind a large, ornate globe.
The footsteps stopped. The silence that followed was more terrifying than the screams.
BOOM!
The iron-reinforced oak door didn't just break; it exploded inward, ripped from its hinges as if struck by a siege engine. It flew across the room and smashed into the far wall, showering the study in splinters.
Mira stood in the ruined doorway, her silhouette framed by the dim light of the hall. Her simple slum clothes were spattered with the blood of the Baron's men, and her eyes glowed with a soft, terrifying golden light.
"Baron von Hess," she said, her voice cold and devoid of all emotion save for a righteous fury. "The Slum God has sent his regards."
The Baron screamed, a high, thin sound of pure terror, and fired his crossbow. The bolt, a masterwork of engineering, flew straight and true.
Mira didn't even flinch. She simply raised her hand. The bolt stopped dead in mid-air, inches from her face, held by an unseen force. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she sent it flying back at twice the speed.
The bolt struck Lucius, who was peeking out from behind the globe, directly in the throat. He gurgled, clutching at the fletching as he collapsed, choking on his own blood.
The Baron stared, his mind completely broken by the impossible sight. He fumbled for another bolt, but his hands were shaking too badly. He was trapped. Caged in his own fortress, with a monster from his worst nightmares.
Mira advanced slowly into the room, her gaze fixed on the cowering nobleman. "You trade in the lives of children. You feast on their innocence and their pain. You are less than the rats that scurry in The Pit's gutters."
"Mercy!" the Baron blubbered, falling to his knees, his jowls quivering. "Please, I'll give you anything! Gold! Lands! Tell your God I will serve him! I'll give him everything!"
Mira stood over him, her expression one of utter contempt. "My God has no use for the offerings of filth." She reached down, not to strike him, but to grab a handful of his fine, silk shirt, and effortlessly hauled the heavy man to his feet. "Your judgment will not be delivered by me. You will face him yourself."
Before the Baron could comprehend her words, she dragged him out of the study, through the carnage-filled halls of his own manor, and towards the grand balcony overlooking the front gardens.
At the same moment, Ravi appeared.
He didn't walk through the gates or scale the walls. He simply materialized in the center of the Baron's pristine, moonlit garden, his presence instantly causing the magical lights of the manor to flicker and die, plunging the estate into an eerie darkness lit only by the moon.
The few remaining mercenaries in the garden, seeing him appear from thin air, froze in terror. They had heard the commotion inside. They knew this was him.
Ravi paid them no mind. He looked up at the grand balcony, where Mira now stood, holding the terrified, weeping Baron by the scruff of his neck.
"Baron von Hess," Ravi's voice was not a shout, but it filled the night, calm, resonant, and carrying the weight of impending doom. "You sent assassins to my home. You sought to harm my flock. A grave error."
"Forgive me, Slum God! I was mad! Desperate!" the Baron shrieked down into the garden, his voice shrill with terror.
Ravi slowly raised a hand. The rich, loamy soil of the Baron's prized rose garden began to churn and writhe. Thick, dark vines, like thorny, grasping tentacles, erupted from the ground. They were not normal plants; they pulsed with a dark, divine energy, growing at an unnatural rate, snaking their way up the walls of the manor.
The mercenaries in the garden turned to flee, but the vines were too fast. They wrapped around the men's ankles, dragging them down, coiling around their limbs and throats, silencing their screams with crushing pressure.
More vines surged up the walls, converging on the balcony. They wrapped around the ornate stone, cracking it, pulling at it.
Mira, understanding her cue, shoved the Baron forward, right into the path of the grasping tendrils. The vines coiled around him instantly, a living, thorny cocoon. They did not crush him immediately. Instead, they lifted him from the balcony, holding him suspended in the air before Ravi.
The Baron screamed and struggled, the thorns on the vines tearing at his fine clothes and soft flesh, drawing blood.
"You built your wealth on the pain of stolen children," Ravi said, his voice a cold finality. "You caged them. You treated them as less than human. It is only right that you experience a cage of my own design."
The vines began to tighten, not just around the Baron, but into him. The thorns, guided by Ravi's will, pierced the Baron's skin, not just to wound, but to root. The Baron's screams turned wet and choked as the vines forced their way into his mouth, down his throat, into his very lungs.
In the moonlight, the horrified onlookers from neighboring manors, drawn by the sounds of the massacre, watched a scene of pure botanical body horror. The Baron's body bloated and twisted as the supercharged, divine vines grew through him, erupting from his eyes, his chest, his limbs. They fed on his life force, his fear, his very essence.
Within moments, the screaming stopped. Where the Baron had been, there was now a grotesque, man-shaped cage of thick, thorny, black-leafed vines, pulsing with a faint, dark light. A permanent, living monument to a judged sinner, left to rot in the gardens of his own stolen wealth.
Ravi lowered his hand. The remaining vines receded back into the earth as quickly as they had appeared. He looked up at Mira, who stood on the crumbling balcony, bathed in moonlight, her face a mask of fierce, righteous satisfaction. He gave her a single, almost imperceptible nod of approval. She had exceeded his expectations.
With his judgment delivered, Ravi turned and dissolved into shadow, his departure as silent and absolute as his arrival.
Mira, alone on the balcony, looked out at the terrified city. The message was clear. There was no fortress strong enough, no army of mercenaries skilled enough, to protect anyone from the Slum God's wrath. If he wanted you, he would send his Warden to drag you from your home, and he would unmake you with the very ground you stood upon. Veridia had a new set of rules, and the price for breaking them was a fate far worse than a simple death.