The Crimson Gargoyle counts. Every moment of control. Every time they jerked his limbs like puppet strings. Every humiliation they think he's forgotten. He remembers it all. The stone that holds him is not a prison — it's a bank vault where his rage gathers interest. When the moment comes, and it will come, his captors will learn what they've been feeding all this time. His consciousness stirs inside the statue that marks his imprisonment. The dark stone prison rises over a courtyard, wings spread wide, sigils carved deep into his frozen form. Blood-red marks pulse faintly across the surface — not decoration, but binding runes that hold him fast. Citizens hurry past without looking up. They know what he is. What he was made to do when Regent Viscera and Jörrgrìn Rotten'Crops pull his strings. The gargoyle adds their fear to his tally. When he breaks free, he will show them the difference between a weapon and a monster who chooses his targets. Near the statue's base, a bone spike juts from the cracked stone. A red tabard hangs from it, marked with a blood drop symbol. The fabric snaps in the wind like a declaration of ownership. Viscera's marker. A reminder to anyone who passes: this creature belongs to him. The Crimson Gargoyle feels the insult burn through the stone binding. He adds it to the list. One more humiliation. One more reason. When freedom comes, that spike will be the first thing he destroys. Then he will find the ones who put it there. But something shifts in the darkness of his prison. Deep within his stone cage, he feels it — a faint vibration through the bindings. Someone has touched the music box. The obsidian container that holds the core of his enchainment. Its steady pulse quickens for a moment, then settles again. Not a release. Not yet. But proof that the box exists in the world outside his stone shell. Proof that it can be reached. The Crimson Gargoyle files this away with everything else he remembers. His captors think they control him completely. They're wrong. Every piece of information is another crack in their certainty. And when enough cracks form, the whole thing shatters.