Varys Conclave Infirmary – Dawn After the Blast
The air smelled of burnt ozone and crushed hope.
Lyria lay suspended in a chrysalis of starlight, her body flickering like a failing hologram. Kaelan Thorne, his silver robes singed and pride ash-dusted, pressed a trembling hand to the shimmering cocoon. "Stubborn child," he muttered, though his voice cracked. "You've always hated following protocols."
Chancellor Lira Voss stood in the doorway, her reflection warped in the infirmary's enchanted glass. The sight of Lyria—heroic, broken, *young*—twisted something in her chest. *"You'll fail them,"* her doppelgänger's taunt echoed.
"The stasis spell will hold for a month," Kaelan said coldly. "No more. To revive her, we need a *Vitaespira*—a soulseed. They grow only in the Gilded Labyrinth."
"A month?" Lira's tablet buzzed with emergency alerts: riots in Marseille over fire-sprites in the metro, Dutch tulip fields now sprouting carnivorous blooms. "We can't spare resources for a dungeon crawl."
Kaelan's glare could've frozen lava. "Then let her die. It's what your kind does best—*efficiency*."
---
**EU Provisional Parliament – Strasbourg, 09:00 CET**
The debate devolved into a food fight.
"—sentient golems are *literal* tools of war!" shouted the Hungarian delegate, hurling a croissant at his Slovenian counterpart.
"Says the man using enchanted paprika to rig elections!"
Étienne Moreau ducked a flying *tarte flambée*. The newly formed *Committee on Non-Human Sentience* was off to a stellar start. At the podium, a 9-foot obsidian golem named **M-9R** (pronounced "Ember") waited, its lava-core eyes dimming with what might've been embarrassment.
"Honored fleshlings," Ember rumbled, extinguishing a stray baguette fire with a sigh. "My kin seek only to *burn*… ah, *earn* citizenship. Per Article 12 of your Charter—"
A tomato splattered against its chest. "Article 12 doesn't cover rocks!"
Ember's core flared red. "Incandescent take: You are all *very* flammable."
---
**Berlin-Eldryth Joint Lab – 14:30**
Dr. Costa had finally snapped.
"Play. The. Damn. *C minor!*"
The elven technomancer winced, plinking the lab's newly installed piano. The ley conduit shuddered, then stabilized—a harmony of quantum physics and jazz.
"It's working!" Costa whooped, dodging a drip of sentient coolant. "We're channeling mana!"
Across the room, a Polish intern whispered to an elven apprentice, "Why does the magic like jazz?"
"Same reason your coffee needs sugar," the elf shrugged. "Stupid human questions."
Their triumph lasted 37 seconds.
The conduit exploded, birthing a swirling vortex that devoured three microscopes and a very confused janitor. From its depths emerged a creature with the body of a wolf, the wings of a stork, and a voice like a GPS navigator.
"Recalculating," it droned. "Please make a U-turn at the next reality."
---
**Kaelan's Quarters – 19:00**
The High Magister was *viral*.
"This… *Tik-Talk*," Kaelan growled, jabbing at a tablet showing his face superimposed on a dancing cat. "Explain."
Lyria's replacement apprentice, a twitchy gnome named **Pip**, gulped. "You, uh, accidentally livestreamed your robe-fitting. Eldryth thinks it's a mating ritual. Also, the EU's youth think you're 'hot.' Here, this meme says you're—"
"*Silence.*" Kaelan's ears burned. "Can this weaponize?"
Pip grinned. "Ever heard of… *influence campaigns*?"
---
**Dead Wastes – Sunderborn Safehouse**
The Lira-doppelgänger studied her reflection in a pool of liquid void.
"Pathetic," she told the Chancellor's stolen face. "You cling to rules while the rift gnaws."
Her cultists knelt, awaiting orders. Among them, a figure in an EU hazmat suit—recruited not through fear, but through a whispered truth: *"They'll never accept you. Not fully."*
"Phase Two," the double ordered. "Infiltrate. Corrupt. Make them see the rot in their precious Union."
The cultist in the hazmat suit removed their helmet.
It was Ember, the golem.
---
**Epigraph Fragment – Gilded Labyrinth Inscription**
*"Beware the path that bends to light,
For mirrors there reflect not sight,
But truths that bite."*
---
**End of Chapter 3**
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**Next time on *Aegis Europa*:**
- *The quest for the Vitaespira begins—with a heist on a dragon's hoard!*
- *Ember's betrayal rocks the EU… but who's really pulling its strings?*
- *Kaelan vs. TikTok: Round Two.*