Turn 10 of 13

Demand that Ordwin finally tell you what he really wants from this

The crystal path glows before you, each pulse a heartbeat of invitation, and you turn on Ordwin with the full weight of Spite ninety-nine focused like a lens. His hand falls from your shoulder. Your bent spoon hangs at your side, ridiculous and insufficient, but your eyes hold something that makes him step back.

"Forty-seven deaths," you say, each word measured. "Three sabotaged Allocations you recognized instantly. A boy you trained in another life, dead of weeping. And now you're here, in this chamber, watching me crack crystals open with focused resentment."

You advance one step, and Ordwin's composure fractures like the crystal that held the Empathy woman. His back finds the chamber wall, goblin architecture pressing ancient patterns into his armor.

"You didn't follow me to observe," you continue. "You didn't guard this border for seven years out of professional curiosity. You want something specific, and you've been waiting for someone with the right stat to get it for you."

"I want her to stop," he admits, and his voice breaks on the verb. "The Allocator won't intervene—divine functionary, bored for centuries, remembers nothing and learns less. But Rachel Vance found a loophole. She's not killing people, she's recruiting them. Building something that requires weaponized human nature to function."

He pushes off from the wall, recovering his balance, and his eyes meet yours with desperate honesty.

"The Empathy victim felt the structure of it. The Stubbornness victim mapped its resistance. Guilt ninety-nine sensed its hunger. None of them could interact with it directly—passive stats, shaped by the environment. But Spite—"

"Spite shapes back," you finish.

"I need you to find its center," Ordwin says. "Not to destroy you. To destroy whatever she's building before it reaches completion. The preserved victims aren't dead, but they're not free either. She's using them as components, Cassie. Forty-seven failures who lacked the right stat, and three successes who became something else entirely."

The crystal path pulses brighter, and you understand finally: Ordwin isn't your mentor. He's your predecessor's predecessor's desperate hope.

"You trained the Guilt victim," you say slowly. "You loved him."

"I failed him," Ordwin corrects. "I told him stats weren't everything. I believed it." He gestures at your glowing red status, your Spite ninety-nine burning like a signal fire.

"I'm not making that mistake again. I'm telling you exactly what you are: a weapon someone else designed, walking into a trap someone else built. And I'm asking you to fire anyway."