NPC for Hire-[Gamelit|Simulation|Multi-genre]

The path to the command center was chaos—but controlled now. The squad pushed forward, cutting through the fortress's ruined halls, the air thick with scorched stone, ozone, and blood.

Shadows struck in waves—slipping from broken walls and fractured doorways in pairs or threes, their forms flickering and unstable. They weren't the massed slaughter from before. These were smaller, tactical. A delaying force meant to bleed time. But this time, Fen was ready.

There was no hesitation.

His blade sang, dark tendrils lashing out with every swing, hunting the shadows even as they slipped through the flickering light, trying to leap away.

Desmond flanked him, blade flashing clean through another, his movements sharp and efficient despite the blood trailing down his arm.

Seraph moved beside them now—on foot, Petrie left behind in the courtyard where the tight halls wouldn't allow his bulk. It didn't slow her—bolt after bolt flew from her crossbow, each shot finding its mark with unnerving precision.

Her eyes were colder now. Focused. Calculating.

The men followed their lead—back-to-back, eyes sharp, no longer prey. The first few groups of survivors they found—half-pinned behind wrecked barricades—fell in alongside them, swelling their numbers as they cleared hallway after hallway.

By the time they reached the final bend toward the command center, they were nearly three dozen—bloody, bruised, but standing. Many were staff and support personnel, pulled from side rooms and barricades where they'd been cornered. Most of the trained fighters had already been sent to the bridge, but desperation had armed the rest with crossbows and scavenged blades. Most weren't soldiers, but they were ready to fight.

The final shadows waited at the heavy blast doors—not clawing mindlessly, but working in unsettling, coordinated silence.

Fen froze, breath catching as his gaze took them in.

Not shadows. Not warped knights or twisted trolls. Machines.

Mechanical constructs squatted at the blast doors—sleek servitor rigs twisted for war, their frames studded with invasive tools glowing faint blue. Portable terminals hissed and sparked at their feet, cables snaking across the floor as lines of raw code streamed into the wards. They weren't breaking the locks—they were unraveling them, stripping the seals away line by line, rewriting reality with surgical precision.

And flanking them: two siege mechs. Heavy frames of dark alloy, built for battlefield breaching. Their shoulders hunched beneath banks of mounted actuators, plating scorched with heat and shrapnel scars. Each step exhaled a hiss of hydraulic pressure, the floor trembling under their mass.

One carried a shock lance, its tip crackling with condensed current, trailing arcs as it tracked across the corridor. The other's arms ended in pile-driver fists, hydraulics encased in grease-slick plating that dripped with hydraulic fluid. The lenses set into their heads whirred and focused, casting crimson cones across the hall. No eyes. No faces. Just cameras and targeting arrays.

Desmond growled. "Well… those aren't standard issue."

Fen's jaw tightened. "No. Whoever they are, they're not playing by the rules of the game. Or the Expanse."

Desmond spat, tightening his grip on his sword. "Then we stop them here."

Fen nodded once. "Hit them. Hard."

There was no plan. Just a signal.

He surged forward. Seraph vaulted overhead, bolts of shadow slamming into one of the servitor constructs, scattering its tools and spilling sparks on the floor. Desmond bellowed a hoarse battle cry and charged at Fen's flank, the soldiers rallying behind.

The hallway erupted into violence. Shadow and sorcery crashed headlong into machine and steel, the clash of two worlds tearing the corridor apart. Screams vanished beneath the thunder of metal on magic, firelight strobing against hydraulics and wardlight alike.

One of the siege mechs roared—not a voice, but the grinding shriek of stressed hydraulics venting under pressure—as it lunged, pile-driver fists smashing into the floor, shattering stone, scattering men like kindling.

Fen didn't think. Veil of Night surged through him, shadows wrapping his frame as he blinked forward. He reappeared inside the mech's guard, blade driving into a joint seam. Hydraulic fluid burst free, spraying across the walls in a scalding arc.

He had faced mechs and siege constructs before—plenty of them. Machines built to crack fortresses, to break armies. These were no different: siege units, pure and simple. Not another strike team of dwarves. Not transmuted into ogres or giants. Just machines doing what they were made to do. And yet here, in the heart of a fantasy sim crawling with wraiths and warped brutes, the sight jarred his mind—cold steel and pistons intruding on a world of swords and sorcery.

The mech staggered, whirring servos screaming as it tried to compensate.

Seraph was already there, sliding low, a bolt from her crossbow slamming straight into a targeting lens. The machine recoiled, sparks bursting from its head as the lens cracked, spilling red light like blood.

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The wraiths outside… Fen thought grimly, forcing his blade deeper. That was the disguise. The only attempt to sell this as another team. Smoke and glamour, just enough to trick survivors into thinking it was all still part of the game. They must have hoped no one would live past the assassins to see this—tech, not magic. Steel and circuitry, not sorcery.

His grip tightened. But I lived. And I see you.

"Damn thing's tough," Seraph growled, already reloading.

"Then we break it," Fen snarled, feeling the tome at his hip pulse.

His free hand shot out, the dark leather cover snapping open. A surge of void energy burst forth, raw and pulsing, arcs of purple and black lightning lancing into the mech's chest plating.

The construct staggered—but still it came, hydraulic fists raised like sledgehammers dripping coolant.

Fen twisted, shadows pooling along his blade, and drove it deep into the shattered lens where Seraph's last bolt had struck.

The discord hit. Dark tendrils burst from the wound, threading through its servos like invasive code. Gears locked, hydraulics spasmed, its whole frame convulsing. And Fen knew—he was still the one holding the reins. The power bent to him. But it didn't soothe. It scared him, every lash of control like walking the edge of a blade.

Metal screeched as the twisted harmony fed on it, chewing through circuits as though it were flesh.

Seraph didn't waste the opening. She pivoted low, crossbow leveled, and fired a precision shot straight into the exposed neck joint. The bolt cracked home, snapping sensors and conduits in a spray of sparks.

The siege unit shuddered once.

Then the dissonance finished it—ripping through from the inside, bursting it apart in a concussive wave of voidlight and shredded steel.

The remains collapsed with a thunderous crash, leaking hydraulic fluid that hissed as it hit the floor.

The corridor still shook with the sounds of battle—metal crashing against steel, men shouting, the hiss of sparking hydraulics. The second mech was still standing, but barely. Its pile-driver arms had already left a trail of broken bodies, soldiers lying twisted across the floor where they'd been caught in its charge.

Fen's chest heaved as he steadied himself, watching the survivors rally. They swarmed the machine from all sides, bolts and blades hammering into weakened joints. Desmond was at the front, bloodied and relentless, his blade carving deep into the back of the mech's neck. Sparks burst out in a shower, the machine's servos screaming as he wrenched the weapon free—severing something vital.

The mech staggered once, then collapsed in a thunderous crash, smoke and hydraulic fluid pouring across the stone floor.

Desmond met the eyes of the survivors nearest him. No words—just a hard nod of respect shared between battered fighters. Then he turned and strode for the blast doors, where the last servitors still clung to their unraveling task.

Fen's eyes met Seraph's—just a flicker of grim satisfaction between them.

"The mechs are down," Fen growled. "Time to move."

Seraph gave a sharp nod, slotting a fresh bolt without looking.

Together, they broke from the line, leaving the others to hold the corridor and guard the wounded, and made for the command center doors.

Desmond was already there, bloodied but still standing tall. Around him, the last of the servitor constructs lay in smoking heaps, their limbs twitching weakly. These were the machines that had been working to unravel the wards on the command center doors—but once the mechs were drawn away, Desmond had made short work of them. His blade had torn through their fragile frames with ruthless efficiency. They weren't built for combat, only for breaking seals, and against a veteran's steel they had fallen apart quickly, collapsing in showers of sparks and scorched alloy.

Desmond spared Fen and Seraph only a glance before turning back to the blast doors. Without a word, he drew a sleek access key from his belt—his personal clearance—and pressed it to the console. The wards flickered, locks disengaging with a low mechanical groan. The door was unlocked now, but still sealed.

Behind them, troops and support personnel moved quickly to fortify the corridor—dragging shattered barricades into place, resetting shields, and bracing crossbows along the line. The riders tightened formation, steel tips and spelllight aimed down the hall they had come through. Every man and woman found their place without hesitation, preparing to hold against whatever came next.

Desmond turned to his men. His voice cut through the din, low but steady. "Good work. Hold these ranks." His gaze swept the barricades and the fighters braced behind them—staff and soldiers alike, shields locked, crossbows leveled, discipline hardening into resolve.

He opened his mouth to order a sweep for survivors, but the words died on his lips.

At the far end of the corridor, movement stirred. Not wraiths. Not shadows. Figures stepped into view, their forms crisp and unmistakable now—sleek stealth suits glimmering with adaptive plating, visors glowing faint blue. Plasma pistols and pulse rifles glinted in their hands, raised and ready.

The illusion had dropped. The masquerade of monsters and fantasy was over.

Fen's gut tightened. He assumed this would be the last of the enemy troops. Two dozen, maybe a little more stood at the end of the corridor. Add that to the twenty assassins they'd cut down in the courtyard, the handful of ambush teams scattered through the halls, and the pair of siege mechs—and the picture came clear. The enemy had sent a strike platoon, lean but specialized. A hundred bodies at most, meant to cut the heart out of the fortress in one decisive blow.

And this was what remained of it.

The odds weren't good. Barely twenty defenders still stood in the corridor—bloodied, battered, clutching swords and crossbows that would struggle against plasma fire and pulse rounds. Steel and spelllight against rifles and energy cells. The math wasn't kind, and every man and woman here knew it.

So did Fen. So did Seraph. So did Desmond.

Desmond's jaw tightened. He turned to the riders—the hardened squad that had landed with them in the courtyard and fought at his side since the first charge. They were already forming up, shields braced, weapons ready.

"You hold this line," he growled. "Buy us the time we need."

The riders nodded as one, their formation locking into place. They knew what it meant. They weren't likely to be leaving this corridor alive.

Desmond turned back to Fen and Seraph, the torment clear in his eyes—the look of a commander forced to leave good men to die.

The three shared a look. No words, just a nod between them.

Then they moved, weapons up, ducking low as they slipped through the doorway. Their eyes swept the chamber, expecting to find Fisck holed up behind cover, waiting for them to secure and extract.

For a heartbeat, only silence greeted them.

The door hissed shut behind them, sealing with a final click as the crack of pulse rifles echoed from the hall outside. The floor trembled beneath a distant impact. Somewhere beyond the walls, the crystal loosed another blast, and the entire fortress shuddered around them.