The grating sound of steam being forced through a maze of pipes and gears hissed in Solas' face as the metal doors before him slowly pulled apart, granting him entry to his private workshop at the Evanuris Co. headquarters. He was earlier than he anticipated.

"Wisdom, I have returned." He announced, crossing the expanse the room in the direction of his drafting bench.

Tugging on the collar of his finely pressed white button down shirt, he loosened he fastenings around his neck, allowing him to breathe more easily. He finally felt himself starting to relax, the tension he had been carrying in shoulders bleeding out with every step he took. Being called away from his work on such short notice tried his patience, but Mythal was not one to be ignored when she demanded an audience. The impromptu argument between himself and the other heads of the Evanuris Corporation had been, to put bluntly, ridiculous. It essentially was a half-assed attempt to resolve latest dispute between Falon'Din and the corporation's parent founders, and it certainly did not warrant everyone else's presence—especially when Mythal and Elgar'nan had much more crucial matters they could have discussing. Such as the sudden and drastic increase in lyrium production output by their biggest competitors, the Durgan'lin.

Solas had made it quite clear how he felt on the proceedings by striding out of the session midway through, after a carefully crafted statement of offense laced with agitation. It had been unnecessary for him to be there mediating a childish screaming match between some of the finest, most brilliant Elvhen minds and Innovators—who should have by now figured out how to solve petty disagreements. He already had a limited amount of tolerance for the group and their abusive reliance on Mechs to do all their actual work, treating them more akin to slaves than service providers.

When he had unintentionally created the Mechs, it was not his intention for the machines to become enslaved. He had stumbled across a major discovery by chance—that some of the automatons had evolved on their own to become sentient, developing artificial intelligence. Upon this enlightenment he built the first physical construct, an operating system so to speak, for the intelligence to inhabit, thus creating an entirely new population to Thedas. One that soon fell victim to indentured servitude, and worse.

The sheer immaturity of his founders astounded him, and he found he had no patience for it. Especially tonight. He was on the brink of a breakthrough on his latest undertaking, a classified project privy only to him and the All-mother of the company. Being drug out of his creative state had soured his mood considerably.

"Wisdom?" He called again, and stalled by his tool wall, straightening a hammer that had been left slightly askew.

Strange that she would not answer. She was almost always running fully operational, never taking down time unless she was self-upgrading her software. Perhaps it was a routine systems check, she was prone to do that when she was alone. Always making sure she was running at optimal speed. He smiled to himself at his friend's tenacity to constantly strive better herself, expand her consciousness beyond its current limit, to be the most efficient and knowledgeable Mech she could be. What more could one expect from the world's first ever evolved AI?

Turning away from his wall of tools, he cast his gaze over his drafting table where he and Wisdom had been brainstorming naught twenty minutes prior, and stopped dead in his tracks. Time seemed to slow as he registered the sight. His heart ceased to beat and dropped like bolt, heavy and cold into his stomach. His lungs fought against him as he struggled to take in air, a as if they were constricting themselves in his chest.

Wisdom was slumped over, knocked a few feet away in what appeared to be an inoperable state.

And his workspace was empty.

His prototype was missing.

Time suddenly resumed as he shot forward, his feet propelling them on their own accord towards his bench and the Mech pitifully keeled over against a piece of scrap beside it. His prototype, the gauntlet he had spent copious amounts of his time over the past year creating, tweaking, nearly perfecting yet was gone-leaving its holder empty and desk void of its blueprints. It still had much work to be done before being considered complete, and yet the efforts of months of tedious research and secretive planning vanished within in minutes. He haphazardly searched his immediate surroundings, though he knew that the frantic search would be for nothing.

Someone had broken in and stolen everything.

How?

He shuddered violently, trying to not think about the implications of his technology falling into the wrong hands and how devastating the consequences could potentially be. He quickly diverted his attention to the deactivated Mech, rushing to a stop and sliding on his knees against the steel floor before her. Gentle hands lifted her lifeless head, her body a dead weight that fell against his shoulder as he tried to move her into a sitting position. After repositioning her, he deftly opened her already tampered with circuit board on her chest, where her heart should have been, with careful precision.

Some of her circuits had been damaged, but not entirely destroyed. Just disabled. And only her vision unit.

Odd.

His thief had not destroyed her mechanics, but had done enough to incapacitate her. Clearly they weren't just some mindless thug. They possessed skill. They knew how to deoperationalize the machines. This was even more alarming information to process.

He reached over to his desk, plucking a few spare wire casings and respective tools and began mending the damaged pieces. Within seconds Wisdom restarted. The lights which posed as her eyes slowly blinked back on, various sectors of her system resuming their functionality one by one. Daintily, he closed her chest cavity, emitting a small hiss signifying it had locked itself again. Her security features were back online.

"Solas.." Her automated voice called to him, a slightly feminine cadence to it. One she had been so painstakingly tuning to suit her personality, her self-actualized identity.

"Lethallan," He whispered, unable to contain the pain from his voice, "What happened? Who did this to you?"

She gave a subtle shake of her head as if to chase away an unwanted thought, a notion so mortal, that had her features not been forged from metal, one could have mistaken her as flesh and blood.

"Routine maintenance check, it was to be a quick scan, but I was taken by surprise. I restored my systems to full capacity just in time to see her. And for her to see me."

"See her?" He pressed.

She turned her head and blinked once, eyes switching from a green glow to a pale blue, projecting a security recording on the floor to their left.

Solas watched as a lithe figure descended from the ceiling, using a grappling hook of some kind. Somehow. She had managed to bypass his security system and dismantled his alarms. It would have been no small feat to disarm, for he had designed the alarms personally. The thief landed with barely a sound against the metal ground, straightening to her full height and disconnecting the hook she used before crossing to his workbench.

Female, by the attire standards and figure. She wore a pale purple high collared dress with corset inlaid bodice, the skirts shorter in the front than in the back, shifting aside to reveal rather heavy industrial heeled boots. Not the most easily manueravble outfit for breaking and entering, he noted. It must have been a cover. A unique pair of goggles were drawn down over her eyes, obscuring a portion of her face. Her thick, golden hair was pulled away from her face in a thick braid that fell down the length of her back swaying while she walked, a determined swagger, over to his bench. She reached for it but then hesitated getting sidetracked by his blueprints he had so regrettably left out in the open on the table's surface. Her fingers curled back from the prototype as picked up the drafts with her other hand, and he saw her gasp, chest heaving and her tiny flinch back from the gauntlet.

So she understood, at least part of, its design. No simple thief indeed.

The high pitched scream of steam racing through the far walls startled her out of her shock. Her head spun towards the large door that served as the entrance to his workshop, the very door he would emerge from in just a few more minutes. Solas cringed as he watched her fold his meticulously drawn blueprints into a smaller, more manageable size and tuck them into her corset. She looked at the gauntlet and he watched as she made a rash decision.

Don't do it, he thought to himself, Don't you dare.

She dared.

She slipped her left hand into the prototype and it reacted violently. It emitted a cascade of sparks before the force of it knocked her back, sending her sprawling onto the floor in a layered heap of lace petticoats, mere inches away from Wisdom. Solas heard an unmistakable noise of surprise sound from Wisdom in her recording and the thief snapped her head up, a mouth that once had been contorted in pain fading into one of shock, and quickly twisting into one of visible regret.

This close, he could see her face had an elongated elegance to it, high cheekbones and sharp chin enhanced by the bulk of the goggles adorning the bridge of her thin nose. A scar graced her left brow and continued beneath the spectacles onto her cheek. She scrambled to her feet, barely paying attention to her ruffled state of dress and stopped in front of the temporarily vulnerable Wisdom

"Ir abelas Lethallan, I'm so sorry I have to do this." She lilted, her tone almost mourning.

Wisdom's video shut off.

"That was all I was able to capture."

Solas closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against his friend. "It is enough."

He might be able to hack into the other security footage from outside the Headquarters and gather enough evidence to track the thief down. He had to. There would be no other way. He had to catch her, before she did something incredibly idiotic. Or worse, catastrophic.

Wisdom seemed to read his thoughts.

"You might still be able to catch her, she could not have gotten far," Wisdom offered, and he leaned away once more to look at her, "She would have to disable all your other wards on her way out. She only bypassed this room's security, not the entire warehouse."

Hope blossomed in his chest. He stood, helping Wisdom up somewhat haphazardly, his mind racing far faster than his limbs could keep up.

"Which, need I remind you, which no mortal has been able to successfully deactivate." There was a hint of amusement in Wisdom's voice this time. She was the only one to have ever dismantled his other systems. He routinely had her try to break them for this reason alone. This would be the true test then.

She couldn't have gotten far.

Having only fled only seconds before he entered the room, and there was no way in the three minutes that had passed since that she would have made it out of his labyrinth, unharmed at least. The prototype was unstable, and would slow her down considerably.

He was moving again, towards the far wall where his tools were so carefully organized. He pressed a button below the wrench and activated a secret panel beside it. It slid apart to reveal a small hidden chamber. He reached inside and snatched the item he had stashed there. He only used his mask on certain occasions. He stared down at them, admiring the six crimson lenses reflected like rubies up at him in the brightly lit room before sliding it over his head and adjusting the headpiece into place. A simple press activated them, and the lenses glowed bright red. The largest of the six enhanced his sight, two more allowed for tracking and location, and the last two could switch between various settings, such as night vision, infrared, and heat-seeking. And he had plans on expanding its features, but alas now was not the time.

The Mask of Fen'Harel had its benefits.

Especially for when he was going hunting.