System, please just shut up

The city did not sleep that night.

Even as the last, faint flickers of corrupted mana faded from the cobblestones, and the distant, hysterical screams finally died into silence, the great city of Elordia pulsed with a deep, unsettling unease beneath its luminous, enchanted facade.

The vibrant, celebratory energy of the festival had been replaced by a heavy, oppressive stillness, a collective holding of breath that settled over the city like a shroud.

Cleanup crews moved through the streets, their movements quiet and grimly efficient. They swept the shattered remains of celebration from the streets—torn banners, their intricate designs now ragged and meaningless; spilled food, now a sticky, forgotten mess on the stone; the glittering shards of a thousand broken mana-lanterns.

There was blood, too, a dark, coppery stain on the cobblestones. Mercifully, it wasn't much.

A minor miracle, a small blessing in the wake of the maelstrom of madness that had broken out. But it was there, a stark reminder of the violence that had been unleashed.

The real damage couldn't be seen.

It was a wound in the city's spirit, invisible and profound.

It was in the sudden, eerie silence of the market streets, which were usually alive with the voices of early vendors, their calls and haggling a familiar symphony.

Now, the stalls were empty, their owners too afraid to return. It was in the way people walked, their heads down, their gazes averted, flinching when a stray mana light flickered too brightly or when a stranger brushed their arm in passing.

It was in the faces of the city guards and faction students—their eyes wide, their movements sharp with exhaustion, their easy confidence replaced by a raw, brittle alertness. No one spoke of it directly, but they all understood the weight hanging in the air.

Something had slipped past the city's defenses, a poison released into its heart, and they were all now living in its shadow.

Still, the festival would not be stopped.

It couldn't.

Not because the people demanded it.

Not because it would restore morale.

But because the Moonwake Alignment—the once-in-a-decade convergence of the Three Moons—wasn't waiting.

The celestial event was a foundation of the continent's magical health, its defenses, its leyline stability. The ritual performed during the Alignment was crucial, a massive warding spell that reinforced the city's protections for the next ten years. A missed alignment wouldn't just be a disappointment.

It would be a disaster, a potential collapse of the very magical safeguards that protected the city from the wilds and the dark forces that lurked beyond. To falter now was to invite ruin.

So the celebration would continue. But everything else had changed. The festive facade remained, but it was now a brittle mask.

Overnight, patrol assignments were tripled.

Instructors once content to observe from a distance were now walking the streets, their flowing, academic robes replaced with sleek, reinforced armor. Arcane scouts and barrier specialists, their faces drawn with fatigue, worked without pause.

They moved in precise, hurried gestures, reinforcing key ritual sites with complex layers of overlapping enchantments, their spells humming with a new, urgent energy. They were sealing the cracks, hoping to contain what had already gotten through.

District Six, the epicenter where the corruption first manifested, was locked down by dawn.

Not to silence its residents, but to monitor every square inch of it, to look for any lingering signs of the poison that had been unleashed. Every citizen was questioned, every street was scoured for clues.

The city's leaders understood that this wasn't a contained incident; it was a contagion.

Several members of the Choir were caught during the chaos though.

They were low-level, unranked—little more than pawns, cultists driven by a blind, fanatical devotion. But they were dangerous nonetheless. And they were silent. No matter the method, no matter who questioned them—mages, mind-readers, even trained interrogators from the Royal Guard—they said nothing.

Not even their names.

They were a wall of silent, unwavering conviction. Still, their dark, plain robes were marked with a chillingly familiar symbol: a single eye crowned by three curved crescents, the disturbing emblem of their cult.

It became chillingly clear to the city's leaders—and the factions overseeing the event—that what had happened last night was not a random flare of madness. It was a probe. A test of timing.

Of response.

Of strength.

They were being measured, and the results were far from reassuring. The Choir was testing the city's resilience, finding its weaknesses, and they were doing so with a level of audacity that bordered on insanity.

And if that was the Choir's warning shot, a simple test... then no one wanted to imagine what came next.

To the public, the official story was swift and calculated. "A rare magical disruption in the city's leylines. Caused by an imbalance in pre-alignment energy. It has been contained. The alignment ritual must proceed for the city's safety." There were endless reassurances. Extra protection.

Elite enforcers brought in from outer districts, their polished armor a shining symbol of renewed strength. Seers were stationed at every major gathering point, their eyes closed in silent vigil, watching for signs of instability. Healers stood ready, their glowing sigils a promise of aid.

Night One had been shaken, a horrifying anomaly, but Night Two would be controlled. Or at least, that was the promise.

A promise made to a populace that was too scared to question it.

Behind closed doors, the tone was different. There were a hundred theories, whispered in hushed tones in rooms and command centers.

A thousand contingency plans were drawn up and then discarded.

The Choir had been growing bolder in the outer provinces, a fringe cult gaining power.

But this? An incursion during the Moonwake Festival itself, a direct affront to the city's most sacred ritual? That was more than audacity. That was a message. A declaration of war, delivered with blood and chaos on the streets of Elordia.

Still, the city braced for Night Two.

The Warding Ritual would go forward. Even if it meant doing so with hands on hilts and spells ready to cast. Because Elordia had always been a city of order, of strength, of unwavering defiance in the face of the darkness beyond its walls.

And no matter what crept beneath its streets, no matter what whispered through the cracks in its foundation—it would not falter.

Not yet.