Chapter 288: Victoria on the Ledger
Martin read the sponsor’s name twice.
Victoria had negotiated for Deadmaw after the Cascade Valley battle and returned the Legendary greatsword to Raze. She also led Just Die, and now her name occupied the sponsor line for an illegal laboratory trying to reproduce Raze’s Beastslayer path. The weapon deal and the hidden project both led back to her.
"She bought Deadmaw back for him, and now her name is on the damn lab," Martin said.
Rias studied the captured entry before closing the image window. "Visitors were never meant to see that line, but anyone with project access could. We need to be careful with the report. It has to separate what we proved from what we only suspect."
She led Martin to a consultation table inside the protected licensing hall. They sat across from each other while Crucible Concord security continued sealing the staff entrances and senior alchemists reviewed the evidence claim at the central desk. The crowded public hall was a terrible place to discuss secrets, but all those witnesses made it harder for Just Die to silence two outsiders.
Rias opened a blank mission record and began with the licensed appraisal. One destructive shaving had stabilized Clearthread Pair without raising its toxicity. Night Espresso owned the written result and the remaining crystal, but the single test had not given the guild a reproducible formula or proved that the crystal would stabilize anything else. Nothing in the assignment required them to negotiate with Crucible Concord again.
"The appraisal gave them no claim on our crystal or its source," she said after reviewing the licensing terms once more. "That part of the assignment is clean."
Recording the CC-L17 finding took longer. Just Die had concealed an active-bond blood carrier in two public formulas, then diverted customers’ recorded reactions into the hidden model without their knowledge to imitate the signals behind maximum bond. Formula Fragment 17 named high-density blue mana crystal as the missing stabilizer, and Victoria’s name remained on the project as its original sponsor.
Across the hall, a senior Crucible Concord alchemist ordered the tasting circuit’s reaction logs sealed for a separate internal review. The officials who appeared unaware of the laboratory were already pulling aside staff who might have known about it.
Martin glanced toward the inspection pouch in Rias’s inventory window. "We found a real use for the crystals and a very good reason not to sell them here."
"We found a reason to control every sample from now on," Rias said. Her hands hovered above the mission record before she continued more quietly. "The same property might work in paired equipment. It could improve recovery formulas or protect bonded beasts. This project doesn’t get to own the discovery just because its people found the worst use for it first."
Martin added Raze’s Beastslayer class and both Legendary greatswords to the battle record, then described the Ashjaw-shaped pauldron. When he reached his own defeat, he slowed down and discarded two versions of the same sentence.
Rias watched him begin a third. "You’re still writing around the part that matters. Raze was stronger than you in that room. Put that in the report."
Martin’s fingers stopped over the unfinished sentence. "I know."
"Then explain why he won. Worldshell still leaves your head and limbs exposed. Raze knew your build, kept the guards from strengthening the armor, and used Mangled to make those gaps harder to protect."
Martin leaned back from the report. "He came prepared for me. We came to investigate an alchemy facility."
Rias did not argue immediately. She waited for a pair of Crucible Concord officials to pass their table before lowering her voice.
"Preparation wasn’t the only problem. Your build still has a weakness when you fight alone, and Raze has seen enough of it to punish you." She turned the battle record back toward him. "If you decide he won only because he planned for you, you’ll meet him again with the same openings."
Martin looked at the unfinished third version. He let the sentence sit, then deleted it and recorded the defeat without softening the difference between them.
Rias stayed quiet until he finished.
"Holding the stairs was still the right call," she said. "It gave me enough time to reach the licensing desk. If you had turned it back into a duel, we might have lost the vial and the recording too."
Martin reread the completed battle summary and left it alone this time.
They attached the evidence package and Rias’s battle assessment to the report. After checking every file once more, she sent it through Night Espresso’s secured guild channel.
[Mountain Risen Investigation Report delivered to Guild Leader: Cassandra Selfmore.]
—
Cassandra Selfmore received the report inside Forest Hidden’s academy headquarters.
She had expected appraisal terms, access prices, and Rias’s assessment of whoever controlled Mountain Risen’s facility. The protected evidence notice at the top made her close every other guild window before opening the attached files.
The first pages confirmed that Martin and Rias had followed every restriction she gave them. They had protected the crystals’ source, promised nothing during the appraisal, and secured a licensed result Night Espresso could use. Under any other circumstances, Cassandra would already have been comparing research partners and calculating how much access to the stabilizer was worth.
Then she opened the captured sponsor field.
[Original Project Sponsor: Victoria]
Cassandra kept her hands still on the desk while she played Rias’s recording. Raze stood beside the cauldron with Ashy’s face worked into the armor on his shoulder. Deadmaw rested in his hand, the sword she had repurchased as Victoria for one hundred thousand dollars.
The recording moved on to the bonded-beast blood, the stolen reactions from public customers, and Formula Fragment 17. One successful batch would not hand every player a Beastslayer class. It would give Just Die a repeatable way to manufacture the bond conditions that came before the choice.
She had ordered the first choice.
Ashy was still dead. NineLivesLeft had nearly killed Kumoe with the class that followed, and now Raze wanted to turn the same betrayal into a recruitment process.
Cassandra opened a secured guild call. Martin and Rias answered from Mountain Risen’s licensing hall. Alexandra joined several seconds later from Endless Rain, with Kumoe crowded into the narrow live window beside her. The curious head sniffed toward the projection while the right watched Cassandra without blinking.
"Rias," Cassandra said, "explain what the completed formula would do. Only what the evidence supports."
Rias brought the fragment into the shared window. "It would imitate or accelerate maximum-bond recognition. A player would still need to trigger the Beastslayer event and choose to sacrifice the bonded beast, but Just Die could push far more players toward that event without waiting for a real bond to develop naturally."
Alexandra’s hand stopped in the fur beneath Kumoe’s middle jaw. "So they want to fake the bond and skip straight to the betrayal."
"Yes. The formula rushes players to that choice," Rias said.
Alexandra pulled Kumoe closer until white fur filled one side of the window.
Martin looked away from the sponsor entry and spoke through a clenched jaw. "Raze called Ashy pixels while wearing Ashy’s face on his shoulder. Now he wants a formula that brings more players to the same choice. Burn the method and lock up everyone who helped him make it."
"The records have to survive," Rias said. "If the formula disappears without the lineage and funding trail, they can rebuild somewhere else and claim Mountain Risen blamed the wrong people."
"Then preserve the records," Martin replied. "I don’t care if the cauldron survives."
Alexandra had not looked away from Kumoe. "Neither do I. NineLivesLeft rushed Nyxshade’s bond until she trusted him, killed her for the class, and then tried to do the same to Kumoe. If this becomes repeatable, every bonded beast becomes someone’s shortcut."
Cassandra listened to the anger Martin did not bother hiding and the quieter fury in Alexandra’s voice. Neither of them knew the first order had come from the woman asking them for a report.
"If the project is shut down before the batch is finished," Cassandra asked, "does that change what you want Night Espresso to do?"
Martin’s eyes returned to her. "It changes whether more beasts die. That matters. It doesn’t clean her name."
Alexandra stroked the fur behind Kumoe’s right ear once before answering. "She should stop it because it needs to stop. I will not thank her for noticing after Ashy died and Kumoe almost followed."
Rias closed the formula fragment. "A shutdown order will mean nothing unless the people in that room obey it."
Raze was still running the laboratory under Victoria’s seal. Cassandra closed the shared report.
She ordered Martin and Rias to preserve every original file and remain in the protected public quarter. Cassandra asked Alexandra and Kumoe to avoid Just Die’s routes and warn Night Espresso’s other bonded partners without spreading an unverified formula beyond the guild.
No one questioned why Cassandra wanted the laboratory contained before discussing retaliation. That was how she had always led Night Espresso. She collected the available facts, decided who could act, and moved before the meeting became an argument.
This time, telling them the rest would only fill the channel with questions while the cauldrons kept running.
"You completed the investigation," Cassandra said. "Stay where Crucible Concord can protect the evidence. I’ll handle what comes next."
She ended the call before Martin could ask what that meant.
Victoria waited inside the character-selection window with short white hair, emerald eyes, and the black hunter attire familiar to Just Die. Cassandra had used that character to keep her real name away from Just Die’s decisions. Ashy had still died on her order.
She selected Victoria.
[Switch Character: Victoria]