Sanctum, the Holy City of the West, was a place of blinding white marble, soaring arches, and absolute, crushing silence.
In Vayne City, the air hummed with the sound of reactors and commerce. Here, the only sounds allowed were the tolling of bells and the chanting of monks.
But today, the silence was broken by the roar of a fire.
In the Great Square, beneath the statue of the Goddess of Light, a massive bonfire raged. But it didn't smell like wood smoke. It smelled of burning lithium, melting plastic, and toxic chemicals.
The smoke rose in a thick, unnatural blue plume, choking the doves that roosted in the cathedral spires.
High Pontiff Ignatius stood on the cathedral balcony, his robes embroidered with gold thread, his face twisted in fanatical ecstasy.
"Behold!" the Pontiff screamed, pointing a trembling finger at the fire. "Behold the death of the False Idols! The metal that speaks with the voice of demons! The glass that steals your soul!"
Below him, a frenzied mob of believers threw their possessions into the flames.
Expensive VayneComs. Life-saving Auto-Doc units. Magitech heating coils.
They cast them into the fire, cheering as the devices sparked and died.
"The Merchant of the Void seeks to enslave you!" Ignatius bellowed, his voice magically amplified (ironically). "He offers you convenience in exchange for your piety! He replaces the miracle of prayer with the certainty of machines! It is Heresy! Purge it from your homes! Purge it from your hearts!"
Standing in the shadows of the balcony, Prince Lysander—the Second Prince—watched the spectacle with a cold, calculating gaze.
He wasn't a particularly pious man. He drank wine, kept mistresses, and rarely prayed. But he knew power.
And he knew that every time a citizen looked at a VayneCom, they weren't looking at him.
"If the people can talk to each other," Lysander murmured to his advisor, "they stop listening to the priests. And if they stop listening to the priests, they stop obeying me."
He watched a woman throw a VayneCom into the fire. It exploded, sending a shard of glass into the crowd. The mob cheered, thinking it was a demon leaving the device.
"Let them burn it all," Lysander whispered. "And then, burn the source."
Location: Vayne Corp Regional Office - Sanctum Branch
Manager Tibbs, a nervous gnome with thick spectacles, was hiding under his desk.
Outside the reinforced glass doors of the showroom, the mob was gathering. They weren't just peasants with pitchforks anymore. They were led by the Order of the Silver Flame—Battle-Paladins encased in heavy plate armor, wielding hammers glowing with holy light.
CRASH.
A hammer slammed into the safety glass. Spiderwebs bloomed across the surface.
"Open the door, spawn of darkness!" a Paladin roared. "Surrender your demons and prepare for judgment!"
Tibbs fumbled with his VayneCom, his fingers shaking so hard he dropped it twice.
"Boss! Boss, pick up!"
The holographic projector on the desk flickered to life.
I appeared, sitting in my office in Vayne City, eating a sandwich.
"Manager Tibbs," I said calmly. "I see customer satisfaction is at an all-time low in your region."
"They're going to kill me!" Tibbs squeaked. "They have Paladins! They're breaking the glass! Do I authorize lethal force? The turret drones are fully loaded!"
I chewed slowly, swallowing before I answered.
"Negative, Tibbs. Do not engage with lethal force. If we kill a priest, we make a martyr. If we make a martyr, we lose the moderate demographic."
CRASH. The glass buckled. The Paladins were through. The mob surged behind them, torches raised.
"Then what do I do?!" Tibbs screamed.
"Use Protocol: Non-Lethal Denial," I ordered. "Let's show them the difference between divine wrath and acoustic physics."
The Paladins stormed the showroom, knocking over displays of the latest VaynePad tablets.
"Burn it!" the lead Paladin commanded, raising his hammer to smash the front desk. "Leave no screw unturned!"
"Now, Tibbs," I said over the comms.
Tibbs squeezed his eyes shut and slammed his hand on the big red button under the desk.
[Defense System Activated.] [Mode: Sonic Suppression + Strobe.]
The showroom didn't explode. It didn't fire bullets.
Instead, the discreet speakers mounted in the ceiling—usually used for elevator music—emitted a sudden, focused burst of ultra-low frequency sound.
The Brown Note.
At the same time, the magi-lights in the room began to strobe violently at a frequency designed to disrupt the inner ear.
WHUM-WHUM-WHUM-WHUM.
The effect on the Paladins was catastrophic.
Their heavy plate armor acted like a resonance chamber, amplifying the sound waves. Their helmets turned into echo bells.
"GAAH!"
The lead Paladin dropped his hammer, clutching his head. He stumbled sideways, his equilibrium shattered by the lights. Then, the low frequency hit his stomach.
He vomited inside his helmet.
Behind him, the mob collapsed in a wave of nausea and disorientation. People fell to their knees, clutching their ears, unable to stand up.
The "invincible" warriors of the Church were reduced to a pile of heaving, groaning metal on the floor, defeated without a single drop of blood being spilled.
"Demons!" one of the peasants screamed, crawling toward the exit. "Invisible demons!"
"It's not demons," Tibbs yelled, peeking over the desk, feeling brave now that the Paladins were rolling on the floor. "It's the Vayne Corp Sonic-Dampener 3000! Available for home security next fall!"
Location: Vayne City Penthouse
I watched the feed, finishing my sandwich.
"Effective," Seraphina noted, standing beside me. "But they declared a Crusade, Lucas. The Pontiff just issued a Bull of Excommunication against you. He called you the 'Antichrist of the Gear'."
"Sticks and stones," I said, wiping crumbs from my shirt. "But I don't like ingratitude."
I pulled up the regional map of Sanctum. It was a bright cluster of active connections. Despite the bonfire, thousands of closeted users—doctors, secret lovers, rebel teenagers, and hypocritical priests—still had their devices on.
"They want to ban my tech?" I asked, my finger hovering over the console. "They want to return to the purity of the old ways? Fine."
I typed a command.
[Command: Geofence Lock.] [Region: The Holy City of Sanctum.] [Action: Service Blackout.]
"Let's give them a taste of the Dark Ages."
I pressed Enter.
Location: Sanctum
The effect was instantaneous.
In the secret chambers of the nobles, VayneComs went dead. The screens turned black. The signals vanished.
In the Royal Hospital, the Vayne Corp life-support runes—which the Church had secretly installed because prayer didn't cure heart failure—flickered and died.
In the Prince's palace, the magitech heating grid shut down. The lights went out.
Real, absolute darkness fell over the Holy City.
The mob in the square stopped cheering. The bonfire provided a little light, but the streetlamps—which were powered by a Vayne Corp substation disguised as a shrine—were gone.
Confusion rippled through the city. Why had the "blessed" lights failed?
Then, a sound cut through the darkness.
It came from the massive emergency speakers mounted on the city walls—speakers that the Church had used for announcements, unaware that I had manufactured them.
Screech.
My voice boomed over the terrified city. It sounded like the voice of God, if God was a bored CEO.
"Citizens of Sanctum. This is Baron Vayne."
The crowd in the square looked up, terrified. The Pontiff looked around wildly, trying to find the source.
"It has come to my attention that the Church finds my technology... heretical. Vayne Corp respects the religious freedom of its customers."
A pause.
"Therefore, we have honored your request. All Vayne Corp services in this region—including power, communications, and emergency medical support—have been suspended indefinitely."
The lights in the cathedral flickered one last time and died.
"Welcome back to the age of candles. Service will resume when I receive a formal apology. And when the Prince pays his outstanding bill."
"Vayne Corp: We own the switch."
Click.
Silence returned to Sanctum. But this time, it wasn't a holy silence.
It was the terrified silence of a modern city suddenly realizing just how dark the night really is.
Location: Vayne City
I watched the telemetry from Sanctum flatline.
[ System Notification: Trade War Initiated. ]
[ Reputation with The Church: Hostile. ]
[ Reputation with The People: Terrified/Awed. ]
[ Chaos Level: High. ]
"You just turned off the life support for a city of a million people," Seraphina said quietly. "People will die tonight, Lucas."
"People die every night, Seraphina," I said, turning away from the screen. "At least tonight, they know who holds the power."
I checked my schedule.
"Now, prepare the guest suite. With the Church effectively blinded, the Third Faction will be making their move soon."
"The Princess?"
"No," I smiled grimly. "Someone far more dangerous. The one person who thrives in the dark."
I looked at the empty spot on my desk where a certain ring used to sit.
"Kaelen is coming."