They crested the final, shimmering salt dune, and the world fell away into a scene from a fever dream. The view was apocalyptic, a vision of hell rendered in fire and glass. Before them, stretching to the horizon, was the Molten Sea.
It was a vast, roiling ocean of liquid, glowing crystal. The surface was a chaotic, shifting skin of cooling black basalt, constantly cracking and reforming over the incandescent, white-hot magma that churned just beneath. Geysers of superheated steam and sulfurous gas erupted from fissures in the crust, hissing into the shimmering air. The heat was a physical presence, a palpable, crushing wave that rolled off the sea and washed over them, promising to cook them in their own skin. The air smelled of brimstone and hot rock, the scent of the world's raw, angry heart.
And on the very edge of this inferno, clinging to life like a desperate barnacle, was the town of Silt.
It wasn't built on land in any traditional sense. It began on a massive, kilometers-wide shelf of cooled, black magma that formed the shore, but the town proper sprawled out over the sea itself. A chaotic network of platforms, causeways, and shacks stood on thick, fire-scarred stilts driven deep into the semi-solid crust that extended over the churning magma. It was a grimy, sprawling testament to human tenacity, built from rusted metal, fire-blackened rock, and strange, driftwood-like petrified crystal that had been pulled from the sea.
This was a town of "Crust-Walkers" and "Sea-Striders," people who made their living on the most dangerous and unstable terrain imaginable. Kael watched, mesmerized, as a strange, flat-bottomed skiff made of a dull, heat-resistant basalt shot past below them, skating gracefully across a solid-looking patch of black crust. Further out, he saw daredevils with impossibly long poles made of some flexible, dark material, vaulting across glowing red cracks of open magma. The people he could see moving through the town's rickety-looking streets were hardened and lean, their skin weathered to a deep tan by the relentless, reflected heat. Their movements were quick, economical, and sure-footed. To live here was to be in a constant state of deadly negotiation with the ground beneath your feet.
"Welcome to Silt," Ria said, her voice dry. "Try not to fall in. They won't even find your teeth."
Unlike the desperate, cynical chaos of Barren, Silt pulsed with a different energy. It was a culture of brutal pragmatism. Survival here depended not on hiding or scavenging, but on raw skill, an intimate knowledge of the sea's dangerous moods, and above all, reliable equipment. Reputation was the only real currency. A good captain whose ship could navigate the magma flows, or a skilled resonant mechanic who could keep a heat-shield humming, was revered. A charlatan, a coward, or a fool was quickly cast out, their shoddy work or poor judgment leading them to a swift, fiery end. There were no Wardens here, no Chorus Masters imposing their perfect order. The sea was a far harsher and more impartial judge.
As they descended from the salt flats and into the town itself, Kael saw a different side of Ria. Here, in this town at the end of the world, she was not just a cynical survivor. She was known. She was respected. People nodded to her as she walked through the crowded, noisy docks. A merchant selling protective gear woven from some kind of glassy fiber called out a greeting, asking about her last run into the wastes. She moved with a confidence and purpose that had been absent in the desert. This was her world, a world of high stakes and practical solutions.
"This way," she said, leading him past stalls selling bizarre sea-creature parts and glowing, heat-radiating crystals. "Need to see Bren. My gear needs a tune-up after that salt-bath."
She led him to a large workshop set back from the main docks, its walls reinforced with heavy iron plates. The sign above the door was a simple carving of a gear and a hammer. Inside, the air was hot and filled with the sharp smell of ozone and cooling metal. A burly woman with a single, powerful arm was bent over a complex piece of machinery, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her other arm, from the shoulder down, was a masterwork of resonant engineering, a prosthetic made of interlocking brass and copper plates that hummed with a soft, internal power.
"Ria," the woman said without looking up, her voice a low growl. "Back so soon? Thought the wastes might have swallowed you this time."
"It tried, Bren," Ria replied, leaning against a workbench. "This is… a client." She gestured to Kael.
Bren finally looked up, her gaze sharp and appraising. She looked Kael up and down, her eyes lingering on the Jag-Wolf fang and his strange, scarred leg. She grunted, a sound that conveyed a complete lack of interest, and turned back to her work.
Kael, feeling awkward and out of place, drifted toward the workshop's open doorway, listening to the sounds of the town. He overheard conversations that confirmed his worst fears about the next stage of his journey. Two grimy-looking miners were talking about a recent "crust-quake" that had swallowed an entire dredging platform, taking a dozen workers with it. A ship captain was loudly complaining about a sudden magma swell that had nearly melted the hull of his skiff. The sea was a living, breathing, and profoundly violent entity.
Crossing it was not just difficult; it was considered suicidal for anyone but the most experienced Sea-Striders. And the name of his destination? Aethelburg? Most of the people he heard speaking had never heard of it. The few who had spoke of it in the same hushed, dismissive tones one would use for a child's fairy tale. It was a myth. A "ghost city" in the deeps, a fool's quest from which no one had ever returned.
The cold, hard reality of his situation settled upon him. He couldn't just hire a boat. He couldn't just pay for passage. He needed a specialist. He needed a madman. He needed a captain who was willing to sail a ship into a myth, off the edge of the known world and into a sea of fire. And in a town built on brutal pragmatism, he had a terrifying feeling that no such person existed.