Master says it out loud, not through the Bond, not filtered, not softened. “So my cat?”

The sound of his voice snaps my world into a single point. I stop dead. My head tilts slowly, ears angling forward, tail going still. Everything else fades. The square, the temple, the keep on its ridge, the guards, the market stalls, all of it becomes background noise. My eyes lock onto him, unblinking, focused with that unnerving, predatory intensity he knows so well.

He keeps talking, calm, tired, that familiar noir resignation threading every word. “We can do this two ways. First, we kick the front door in. Second, we put that animistic instinct of yours to use.” He exhales, slow, controlled. “But alas… these are mutually exclusive.”

I listen. Properly listen. Not just to his words, but to everything beneath them.

He doesn’t want blood here. Not yet. This place is different. Maw Graven is Dalkurharn ground, borderland politics stacked on top of old grudges and brittle alliances. They sent us here to find someone, not to ignite a border incident that ends with House Serrean asking uncomfortable questions. The guards didn’t recognise us, but that doesn’t erase the reality, technically, we are allies. Kicking the door in would solve nothing and poison everything that comes after.

I straighten slowly, stepping closer to him, close enough that my shoulder brushes his arm. My tail resumes its slow, deliberate motion, tip flicking once as I inhale deeply. The city smells old. Stone dust. Iron. Incense from the temple to the south. People who don’t travel much. People who watch. And underneath it all, faint but present, the thing we came for, movement, intent, something out of place. Someone who thinks they’re hidden.

I smile, small and sharp. “Master,” I say, voice low, steady, none of the earlier feral edge spilling over. “You already know the answer.”

I turn away from the keep, deliberately not looking at the front doors, the stairs, the obvious symbols of power. Instead, I lower myself slightly, posture shifting without thought. Not crawling, not submissive, just… hunting. My ears pivot, catching echoes off stone walls. My nose works the air, sorting layers the way only I can.

“We didn’t come here to make noise,” I continue. “We came to find someone. And whoever they are, they’re not living in that keep like a bannered idiot waiting to be announced.”

I take a slow step toward the northern edge of the square, where the clustered houses press closer together, where light thins and alleys begin. My tail points, subtle but precise. “They’re avoiding attention. That means routine. Habit. Scent trails that double back. Someone who thinks blending in is safer than hiding behind walls.” I glance back at him, eyes bright, fixed, loyal.“Let me work. No violence. No doors kicked in.” A pause, then a faint, dangerous curl to my smile. “Yet.”

I can feel him weighing it. He always does. He trusts me, but he never stops calculating the cost. That’s why we work. That’s why we survive. I turn fully now, committing to the hunt. My senses widen, the city unfolding into layers of information I can feed him piece by piece. Foot traffic patterns. Recent disturbances. Scents that don’t belong. The kind of quiet panic that clings to someone who knows they’re being sought.

I move first, slow and deliberate, never more than five feet ahead, always within reach. “Front doors are for people who want to be seen,” I murmur. “We don’t.”

I stay close to him, but my focus shifts outward, the city unfolding into a pattern instead of a place. Master doesn’t need theatrics, he needs signal. He needs the dirt under the nails, the quiet truths people don’t realise they’re leaving behind.

Black market work always leaves the same scars. It doesn’t matter the city, the clan, the faith plastered on the walls. You look for movement without announcement. Goods that don’t go through the market stalls.

I slow, head tilting, ears pivoting independently as the square breathes around us. I catalogue without staring. Noir work isn’t about charging ahead, it’s about letting the city confess by accident. What stands out immediately is what doesn’t belong. The temple smells pure. Incense, stone, old faith. Too clean. The keep reeks of iron discipline and old sweat. Expected. The market stalls are honest chaos, grain, fish, leather, animals.

But the northern cluster of houses… there’s a seam there. A thin, ugly seam running under the surface. I breathe in. Metal shavings. Not from smithing, not enough smoke or slag. Refined metal. Worked elsewhere. Stored here. Ledger ink, fresh. And something sharper beneath it all, fear that’s learned how to stay quiet.

This is where I stop thinking like an animal and start thinking like his animal.I focus.

Perception Check, 19. +5, Enhanced Senses +2, Yandere Devotio +2, Master's presence +1 = 31

The city gives it up. Three houses, not adjacent but linked. One near the northern edge of the square. One halfway up the slope toward the bailey. One tucked behind a tannery that’s “closed for repairs.” All Alderian owned. All with minimal foot traffic during the day and very specific movement at night.

I hear i,  boots that don’t linger. Doors that open only enough to pass something through. A cart with iron rimmed wheels that avoids the main road despite being heavy. Someone counting softly under their breath in a back room. A guard cough that happens at the same time every quarter hour.

I smell river mud on someone who hasn’t been near the fountain. That’s not coincidence. That’s routing. I step back to him, close enough that my shoulder brushes his arm again. I don’t look away from the houses as I speak. “There,” I say quietly. “Not the keep. Not the temple. Not the market.” A pause. “Mid-level operators. Local cover. They’re moving something valuable enough to hide but not valuable enough to risk the keep. That means steel, chemicals, or people. Given why we’re here… steel or production.”

I flick my tail once, precise.

“If we kick doors, they scatter and burn records. If we stalk, they lead us to whoever they answer to.” I glance up at him now, eyes sharp, steady. “And if the Crimson Swarm has a footprint here, this is how it breathes.”

I feel it the instant it happens.

Not words. Not images. Just// that cold, coiled disappointment sliding through the Bond like a blade drawn halfway and forced back into the sheath. He wants to break them. Wants to remind this settlement what happens when people play games with names like Crimson Swarm and think borders protect them. The urge is there, heavy and brutal, and I savour it for a heartbeat because it means he’s angry for the right reasons.

But then he reins it in. I feel his jaw tighten. I see it too, the way he swings his head slightly to the side, exhaling through his nose, the violence postponed but not forgiven. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t bark an order. He just lets the silence say fine.

And that’s my cue. I move. Not fast. Not dramatic. Just decisive. I slip ahead by a step, then another, leading him the way a shadow leads a man down an alley he swore he wouldn’t enter. The square falls behind us, the temple’s incense thinning, the open space closing in as buildings press closer, older here, meaner.

This part of Maw Graven doesn’t announce itself. It pretends to be respectable. That’s always how you know. We reach the edge of their turf without a sign, without a marker. Just a change. The lanterns here are closer together but dimmer, glass yellowed, flames turned low. Windows are curtained tight, not for warmth but for privacy. Doors are painted, but the paint is fresh over old scars. Too fresh. Like someone trying to forget what happened here last season.

Outside one narrow row of houses, the street widens just enough for a cart to turn around. Convenient. Too convenient. This is where they sit. It’s almost laughable how civilised it looks. A bench bolted to the wall. A notice board with old postings that haven’t been updated in weeks. A pair of men pretending to argue over dice on a crate, their laughter a second too late, their eyes never quite leaving the street.

Respectable crime. Polite violence. A place where men wear clean coats while deciding who disappears next. I slow, crouching just enough to read the ground. Boot traffic is heavy but selective. Same weights. Same tread patterns. In and out. No wandering. No children. No drunks. A delivery smell lingers in the air, wood, wrapped metal, cheap spirits used to mask sharper scents. And underneath it all, that same quiet fear I smelled earlier. Not panic. Not guilt.

Routine fear. I glance back at him, just once. “They’re small,” I murmur, voice low, controlled. “Local handlers. Not the head. But they know who feeds them.” My tail flicks, restrained. My claws stay sheathed. Every instinct in me wants to leap, to tear the politeness off this place and show him what it looks like underneath. I feel that same urge echoing in him through the Bond, frustrated and simmering.

But this isn’t the moment. This is the part where you watch. Where you wait. Where you let them make the mistake of thinking the night still belongs to them. I stay just ahead of him, leading him into the edge of their shadow, already mapping exits, windows, voices behind walls. The city doesn’t know it yet, but this neat little gang frontage is already bleeding information with every breath.

I feel his thoughts tighten and organise, the way they always do when he shifts from instinct to leverage. He’s not thinking about claws or blood right now. He’s thinking about words, about pressure, about which version of himself he’s about to put on like a coat.

Through the Bond, his mind brushes mine with cold arithmetic, pulling up the numbers the same way a detective checks how much pull he actually has left in a room before speaking.

He's effective in social presence when he leans into noir control rather than emotion. My charisma isn’t persuasive, It’s destabilising.

I feel him slot this into place mentally. He’s not disappointed anymore, not really. He’s choosing how to win. Whether he talks first and lets me loom behind him like a bad ending, or whether he lets me speak just enough to unnerve them before he delivers the quiet line that breaks their confidence.

He wipes his face with one hand, slow, deliberate, like he’s erasing whatever urge was clawing at the inside of his skull. The disappointment. The violence. The part of him that wants to make examples. When his hand drops, the mask is back in place. Calm. Professional. All business. The version of him that survives cities like this by talking steel without ever drawing it.

He steps past me. Not away. Past. A statement in itself. I stay half a pace behind, tail low, ears neutral, posture contained but unmistakably present. Not threatening. Not friendly. Just inevitable. I feel his roll settle in his thoughts before the words leave his mouth.

Charisma Check, 12 +1, Aliza's Presence +1, Tactical Genius +3, Calm Under Pressure +1= 18

Not overwhelming. Not sloppy. Just enough. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t posture. He talks the way men talk when they expect to be listened to. Steel. Supply. Movement. Discretion. No names. No accusations. No threats. Just implication.

The men outside don’t interrupt. One of the dice players stills his hand. Another glances toward the door behind them. There’s a brief, silent recalculation. These aren’t street thugs. They’re middlemen. They know when a conversation is above their pay grade. One of them nods once and knocks on a side door that doesn’t look like a door until you know to look for it. We’re waved in.

Inside, the noise of the street dies immediately. The room beyond is narrow at first, then opens into something deliberately understated. Clean. Warm. Lamp lit. Furniture chosen for durability, not comfort. Papers stacked neatly on a desk that has seen too many quiet decisions.

And behind it stands a woman. Older than the men outside. Not old enough to be careless. Her clothes are plain but well made. No jewellery. Hair pulled back tight. Eyes sharp, measuring, already cataloguing us before we’ve crossed the threshold.

She doesn’t look at me first. She looks at him. That tells me everything. “Sit,” she says, not unkindly, not warmly either. Master does. I remain standing, just behind his shoulder, still as a statue. My eyes don’t leave her. My ears track every shift of fabric, every breath. I can smell ink, oil, steel dust on her hands. She’s not a clerk. She’s not muscle.

She’s logistics. The kind of person who never carries the blade but decides where it ends up. Her gaze flicks to me then, just once. No flinch. No disgust. Just calculation. “This is about steel,” she says. Not a question. I feel Master’s mind settle into place. This is the room where answers live. Not the whole truth. Never that. But enough to point us in the right direction.

The room changes the moment he does it. No warning. No flourish. Master reaches into his coat and throws the badge across the table. It skids, spins once, then settles face up between them like a loaded weapon left unattended.

VANGUARD WARRANT.

Not Oak Road jurisdiction. Not local law. Not even close. But law has never just been about borders. It’s about posture. About who dares to act like they can end you and walk away clean.

The woman freezes. Not theatrically. Not visibly afraid. Just… still. Her pupils tighten. Her hand stops halfway to the edge of the desk. She recognises it instantly. Everyone in the trade does. Vanguard warrants mean someone powerful has decided you’re worth burning quietly rather than publicly.

Her breath slows. Her tone doesn’t. “That warrant doesn’t carry authority here,” she says evenly, but it’s thinner now, the confidence shaved down to procedure. Master doesn’t argue. He leans back slightly, calm as ever, voice flat and exhausted like he’s had this conversation too many times already. “It doesn’t have to,” he says. “It tells me how much you’ll bleed before anyone asks why.” That’s when the thought slips through the Bond. Not loud. Not emotional. Just clear.

Master he wants… That’s enough. My body moves before the sentence finishes.

Action: 

Dexterity Check, D20, 18 +4, Feline Agility +2, Enhanced Senses +2, Yandere Devotion +2, Master’s Presence +1 = 29

The desk explodes backward as I launch. One heartbeat I’m standing still. The next I’m on her. I hit her like a falling animal, all weight and intent, claws ripping fabric as I drive her out of the chair and into the floor. The sound she makes is sharp and involuntary, knocked out of her before she can think to control it. My knees pin her arms. My claws sink into her shoulders, not deep enough to kill, just enough to teach.

I don’t scream. I don’t laugh. I breathe. Hot. Slow. Close enough that she can smell me, feel the vibration of my growl in her chest. My eyes lock onto hers, unblinking, pupils blown wide, feral and utterly focused. “This isn’t a negotiation anymore,” I whisper, voice low, almost gentle. “You don’t get to decide what matters.” She tries to move. She can’t.

I rake one claw slowly along her collarbone, not breaking skin, just tracing where it could. Her breath hitches. Her control cracks just enough for me to feel it. Behind me, Master doesn’t move. Doesn’t raise his voice. His presence is there like gravity, absolute and unmoved. I lean closer. “You’re going to tell him everything,” I continue softly. “Names. Routes. Who pays. Who lies. Who thinks they’re clever.”

My tail lashes once. “And if you don’t,” I add, eyes never leaving hers, “I’ll keep you alive long enough to regret learning how quiet this room is.” I hold her there, perfectly still, waiting. Because now she understands. This wasn’t about steel. This was about who walks out of the room.