Gold.

The vision resolves into a room drowning in it. Coins stacked in towers that reach your waist. Ingots piled like cordwood. Gems spilling from chests that can no longer close. The air is thick with the smell of metal and ink and something sour – sweat, perhaps. Fear.

Aldric’s counting house. The heart of Eldermoor’s prosperity.

Aldric himself sits behind a desk of black oak, his cloth-of-gold robes straining against his bulk. His rings catch the lamplight as his fingers dance across an abacus. He doesn’t look up as you enter, but his shoulders tense.

“You wanted to see me?” His voice is carefully neutral, but you can hear the tremor beneath it. “About the… arrangement?”

You say nothing. You let the silence stretch.

Aldric exhales slowly. He sets down the abacus and finally meets your eyes. His smile is sickly, eager, hungry all at once.

“The Binding of Souls. I’ve been thinking about it, Varek. Running the numbers, you might say.” He rises, moving to a cabinet and producing a bottle of amber liquid. His hands shake as he pours two glasses. “Three souls to fuel your immortality. Seraphine, Thornwen… and one more.”

He offers you a glass. You take it but do not drink.

“Seraphine’s been asking questions, you know. Digging through her old texts. She’s getting close to figuring it out.” He laughs – a wet, ugly sound. “But she came to me first, can you believe it? Tried to warn me about what you were planning.”

His eyes meet yours, and there’s something desperate there. Greedy.

“I told her she was imagining things. Sent her away.” He drains his glass in one motion. “That’s worth something, isn’t it? My loyalty? My silence?”