Orlandus's Voidforged Remnant

**[NARRATION]** The courtyard still burned with noise — clanging steel, spellfire crackling against armor, the guttural roar of Eveline’s wolf-form as she tore through another Forged. The group tightened their formation, blades and spells cutting down the enemies that strayed too close. Then the tide shifted. The Forged that emerged from the far archway was larger than the rest — taller, heavier, every movement a deliberate statement of Power. It wore no face, only a polished steel mask split by a single vertical seam. Beneath the metal, faint arcs of void-charged light traced through its frame. The name came uninvited to Nick Kremp’s mind. Orlandus Spokovich. What was left of him. --- **NICK** (quiet, to himself) …Orlandus. --- **[NARRATION]** They tilted their head, the movement almost human. Their voice, when it came, was not — deep, filtered, a machine interpreting memory. --- **ORLANDUS** Nick… you could be more. So much more. We could still run this floor. Let me carry you past your limits. --- **[NARRATION]** Around them, the battle slowed — even Eveline pausing in her slaughter to watch. Nick reached back beneath his robe and drew the chained scythes from their concealment. The infernal metal caught the light, the links rattling with a sound like distant laughter. --- **NICK** (calm, final) I already came to that conclusion. --- **[NARRATION]** The first clash was sudden, almost too fast to see. Nick’s scythe hooked the edge of Orlandus’s mask and wrenched him forward; the second scythe followed in a savage arc that bit through the seam and buried itself in the neck plating. The sound was steel splitting over bone. A hiss of void-energy escaped like a dying breath. Orlandus staggered. Nick pulled the scythes free, chains snapping taut, and in one motion brought both blades across in a decapitating sweep. The head fell — rolling once, twice — before coming to rest, its eyes still faintly lit. The body dropped to its knees, then toppled forward into the dirt.