The elk screamed—like a ferry foghorn tasting iron—and reared. East-Ward held. A young harpooner’s line snapped.

The loose line whipped for Raina’s rooftop face-first.

“City’s Aegis.” Anastasia didn’t think about it; she simply took it. The lethal snap slid off Raina like a scolded thought and struck Anastasia’s shield instead with a thwack that made the Aegis laugh heat into the air.

“Thanks,” Raina said, heartbeat quick in her mic. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Please count your breath,” Anastasia said, just as calm. “You’re in our kitchen.”

“Copy,” Raina said, smiling now.

City’s Aegis ticked to Charge 1/2, CD: 45s → 40s (Miyu Mend synergy); Soft Armor hummed between them.

The wraith stream tried to set its own tempo—Peal of Submission, a compel-to-kneel mechanic. Knees buckled along East-Ward’s line. Civilians wavered at the edge of the plaza tape—very nearly going down.

“Count with me,” Anastasia said over open. “In four, hold, out four. You owe the ground nothing. Let it come to you.”

Panic Spread dipped from orange to pale green. Knees straightened. East-Ward shook themselves like swimmers clearing water from their ears and went in again, grinning like fools who had just remembered they were allowed to be.

“New tone,” Cloud Ladder said. “Low gate is… humming under us.”

Raina’s voice sharpened. “Conductor incoming. It’s using the stone ribs as organ pipes.”

The Conductor arrived like a bad idea made tall: a hollow frame, man-shaped only as courtesy, its ribcage strung with bell-threads, its head a crown of angled clappers. It stepped from the low gate onto the plaza, claiming the stone like a stage.

BELL-KING COMPOSITOR — Gold++ (Mythic Attempt).
Mechanics: Baton Call (sync), Bourdon Breath (wide low), Striking Hand (punish), Choir (adds synergy).
Mythic Marker: 1/3 (if markers hit 3, entity ascends).

“Hello,” Anastasia said to a thing that did not know hello. “We’re not doing that.”

She adjusted stance—tiny, efficient—and Provocation rang, not as challenge but as invitation to behave. The Compositor’s clappers angled toward her. Striking Hand fell with the force of a falling tram.

Chime. Perfect Guard nullified the first edge; Radiant Counter crawled along bell-thread ribbing and burned the note out of a bar.

“Kana, keep the wraith river penned. Raina, shoulders and wrist joints—bully the baton. Dragonspear, if you see the breath gather, cut the low line in its throat. East-Ward, elk stays off the pillars, please. Miyu—Soft Armor on me.”

“On you,” Miyu said, stepping closer. Sanctuary swell: +5m radius, +1% regen. You could feel the field thicken like polite honey.

The Compositor inhaled. You felt the plaza drop a centimeter. Bourdon Breath rolled—a bass pressure-wave meant to knock rows down like dominoes.

“Curtain,” Anastasia murmured, and Breakwater Vow leaned into the breath. Cloud Ladder caught the spill and combed it into sky. Numbers ticked: Absorbed 74%, Distributed across braced lines (East-Ward, Suncrest, Dragonspear); residual negligible.

“Window,” Raina said, voice suddenly gleeful. “Wrist hinge.”

“Open,” Anastasia said, tilting the clapper-hand with the rim of her shield like a doorman guiding an umbrella.

Raina’s shot whispered, and a clapper slid loose to clink sadly on stone.

HARMONIC BUILD: 31% → 24%. Mythic Marker remains 1/3.

“Conductor is cheating,” Cloud Ladder sang. “It’s trying to borrow the elk’s low tone via the stone ribs.”

“Then we break the bridge,” Dragonspear’s captain said. “Give me the step.”

Anastasia stepped. The Compositor hit her again; she did not move. She had learned to love that stillness the way a city loves the first click of a traffic signal at dawn. Radiant Maul climbed along the Compositor’s set chest and staggered it—just enough for Dragonspear to plant both blades at the seam where breath gathered.