Chapter 12: The Price of Warmth​Within forty-eight hours of the surface collapse, the intake bay of Level 1 looked like a processing hub for a fallen empire.​The initial trickle of frozen aristocrats had turned into a steady stream. Guild clerks, minor merchants, regional tax collectors, and disgraced knights were arriving at the outer gates of Sector 99 by the dozen. They stumbled out of the howling, sub-zero blizzard with frostbitten fingers, ruined clothes, and heavy bags of gold that no longer held any power.​Inside the climate-controlled intake center, Sylvia sat behind a sleek, reinforced steel desk, flanked by four heavily armored dwarven guards wielding runic shock-batons.​"Next," Sylvia called out, her voice crisp and entirely devoid of warmth.​A middle-aged man in a soaked, ice-crusted silk robe stepped forward, trembling violently. It was Chief Assessor Markos, the man who had personally signed the eviction orders for hundreds of blacklisted laborers in the capital jus

Chapter 14: The Echoes of Aethelgard​News of the massacre at Sector 99 or rather, the embarrassing thirty-second disarming didn't take long to crawl back up the mountain.​Four miles north, stuck like a broken dagger in the jagged peaks of Mount Aethelgard, the Sky Fortress was suffocating. Inside the grand solar hall, where gilded chandeliers used to hang, the air was thick with the reek of damp wood smoke and unwashed velvet. Frost crept up the carved marble pillars, and five hundred aristocrats sat huddling under threadbare tapestry blankets, their faces red-rimmed and hollow from cold.​Radiant Leon stood near the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, watching the blizzard rage outside. His legendary silver plate armor was covered by a heavy, grease-stained woolen cloak, and his breath puffed out in thick white clouds with every ragged exhale.​Beside him, Duchess Seraphina stared into a small iron brazier, desperately trying to warm her jewel-ringed hands over a handful of damp charco