The rooftops of Vehrmath shimmered with morning mist, and beneath them, a different kind of storm was brewing.
Benedict stood atop a creaking metal canopy, a satchel of relay kits slung over one shoulder. Arden was beside him, bracing a relay mount with one boot while screwing down the stabilizer core with the other.
"You sure this node won't explode if we plug it into the gutter line?" Arden muttered.
"Only if you wired it wrong," Eline called from above. She crouched atop the chimney edge, already welding a pulse-armature into place. "Which you did. Again."
Arden grunted. "I think better drunk."
"Maybe try being sober and accurate, just once," Eline said without looking back.
The trio moved fast—three rooftops, six nodes installed, each one pulsing faintly in the distinct violet shimmer that had become the city's quiet heartbeat. From alleyways and balconies, the undercity watched.
The Pulse Surge Begins
Benedict's relay kits were modular, compact, and deliberately ugly—just pretty enough not to scare, just rough enough to feel real. Volunteers flooded the street grids, led by a newly formed unit calling themselves the Purple Pulse Couriers.
Some were runners. Others were messengers, laborers, and out-of-work tinkers. But all of them were fast. Nim Tealeaf rode rooftop to rooftop, leaving chalk markings: arrows, glyphs, and symbols like half-moons and slashes to indicate signal quality.
Benedict coordinated by bracer.
"Two relays per zone," he instructed. "No more than fifty meters apart. If they're seen—fine. If they're not? Better."
Arden sketched a route map using a piece of bent steel and grease.
"Vassian's team is claiming rooftops with permits and bribes. We don't have either, so we move before they do. Fast hands beat slow paper."
Guild Pushback
Guild enforcers aligned with House Arcten began rolling out tall, gold-inlaid towers along the leyline spine—monuments to corporate aesthetic. Each had a tiny crest affixed to its side: an eagle coiled around a rune.
"These are official," one enforcer declared as they installed a tower atop the Thistle Market. "Unauthorized tech will be removed."
In response, Benedict's team deployed portable scramblers—small brass cylinders that emitted subtle feedback loops, just enough to fuzz Vassian's relay signals in the surrounding blocks without outright disruption.
That same night, two of his nodes lit up in adjacent blocks. Their pulses spread like ripples.
Eline installed a stealth relay beneath a broken laundry chute while humming an old traveling tune. "If they want a tower war," she muttered, "we'll beat them with laundry poles and drainpipes."
The old Shrine of Hollow Light was a prime signal point—unoccupied, unguarded, and high. Both teams arrived at once.
Benedict's crew—Arden, Eline, and a teenage volunteer named Lura—moved first. Arden planted the core. Eline booted the pulse. Benedict rewired a bypass to the dome's mana grid.
Then Vassian's installers climbed over the parapets: two enforcers in guild robes, a noble mage with a silver-scarred staff, and Vassian himself.
"You're trespassing," the mage snapped.
"No, we're first," Arden said, stepping between the relay and the mage.
Eline crossed her arms. "Unless you brought a public permit with spectral clearance and a community rites stamp—this place is neutral."
Vassian's eyes narrowed. "What you're building undermines licensed infrastructure."
"And what you're building ignores people," Benedict replied.
A standoff.
Then from below, a crowd gathered. Traders, bakers, children with chalk-stained hands. One of them shouted:
"Purple speaks. Arcten leaks."
The others joined in.
Embarrassed, Vassian backed off. His team left, fuming.
Back underground, Drom Bristlewire and Shael modified relay nodes to piggyback on sewer junctions, chimney flues, and public lightposts.
"This one'll sing through the pipes," Drom said proudly. "Might buzz the rats, though."
Nim left glowing chalk trails across the rooftops—arrows, glyphs, sigils in purple.
Fira blindfolded herself and calibrated pulses by ear. "Each signal sings its own key. We just have to tune in."
Eline wrote firmware that allowed nodes to auto-detect Vassian signal interference and reroute traffic through tunnel-based anchors.
Arden jury-rigged a relay cart that could roll through the markets during peak hours, spreading sync pulses wherever it traveled. He dubbed it: "The Whisper Wagon."
The Pulse Couriers began calling out launch phrases: "One spark at a time!" or "Pulse and pass it on!" The slogans caught on. Some undercity bars offered free drinks to those who showed a working node.
A narrow alley near the Glass Crescent held one forgotten conduit—just long enough for one node.
Eline and Lura installed it under threat of rain and patrol.
When it came online, the pulse was visible across five districts.
Vendors cheered. Someone handed Eline a plum bun and said, "First taste is free if your pulse hits my house."
Later that day, a flashband musician rigged his sound system to pulse in rhythm with the purple signal—entire streets danced.
A mural went up overnight across a plaza wall: a stylized hand holding a violet flame, with the words: "We speak, therefore we exist."
Purple began to outnumber gold.
Vassian's frustration peaked. He hired a signal arcanist named Nerys Vale, known for pulse-hijacks and "silent sabotage."
Nerys worked without fanfare. Nodes began flickering in Zone K7. Then two went completely dark in the Cinder Flats. No noise, no fire—just absence.
Eline frowned at her bracer log. "Too clean. Someone's hijacking the core bindings."
Benedict leaned over. "Can you trace it?"
"Only if I rebuild a node with a fake pulse—make them bite a trap."
Benedict nodded. "Do it. But quietly."
That night, Fira began etching extra glyphs on a decoy node. "If they take this one," she said, "they'll think they've won."
"But they'll be broadcasting right back to us," Arden finished.
At the same time, Benedict, Arden, and Eline huddled in the relay hub.
"We've seeded fifty-seven zones," Benedict said.
"And thirty-three are outside guild trace paths," Arden added.
Eline smiled. "We're not building a net."
"We're becoming one," Benedict finished.
The three of them looked over the map—a glowing schematic of pulses now forming a constellation of resistance across Vehrmath.
Far above, Calder watched the pulse-grid shift. He traced the shape in the air: no pattern, no symmetry.
Just signal.
Free, unlicensed, and alive.