Ashen Gorge was exactly its name—a wound that had never closed, a scar on the Iron Anvil Kingdom that festered still. Its walls were not natural stone but the carcass of some vast metallic structure, torn and rusted by forces unnamed, then fused with rock into a grotesque hybrid. Oily streaks of red and green seeped eternally from its flanks, carrying a faint tang of corruption.
The valley floor was a fog of hydrogen-sulfide stench and spore-thick mists, sight swallowed beyond a dozen paces. The only vegetation was twisted husks of trees whose branches hung like snapped cables. The air itself carried the ceaseless drone of whispers—less words than static, grating against any unshielded mind.
The Academy's practicum squads were dropped into the outer gridlines of the Gorge. Elara's Seventh Patrol was a fragile balance: herself, a second-tier Pacifier; her assigned partner, Breck Ironanvil, a second-tier Riftsmasher infamous for his crude strength and contempt for "non-combat" roles; and two burden-bearers tasked with supplies and instruments. One of them—by Elara's own dangerous arrangement—was Leon Evans. The faint ember in his nascent core shivered uneasily as his boots crossed the Gorge's threshold.
Breck lumbered ahead in Academy-issue weighted armor, disdain etched into his sneer. "Keep up, Pacifier," he barked, his training chainsaw-sword whining as he hacked at rusted detritus. The teeth spat sparks and noise into the fog. "Your job is to sit behind us and sprinkle spirit-dust so the whispers don't drive me mad. Real fighting? That's for Vigils." He never once acknowledged Leon, treating him as moving cargo.
Elara answered with a nod, her emerald eyes sweeping the haze with the precision of a spirit-radar. Her sanctioned Weaver senses worked in tandem with the subtler, forbidden attunement she carried—a witch's ear for corruption. Two filters overlaid, parsing the unseen. She knew at once: this zone's corruption was far more active than the maps claimed. And beneath the sulfur and rot, another trace: the sour tang of cheap tobacco, the reek of machine-oil. Human, not abyssal.
Their objective was to clear the Seventh Dry Channel and log energy fluctuations. After an hour, her senses spiked—sharp as needles in the skull.
"Right flank! Behind the rust-heap! Three fast movers!" she hissed into the brass throatpiece at her collar.
Breck scoffed. "Nonsense, my scanner hasn't even—"
The fog erupted. Three shadows burst forward.
Not the shuffling Eroders the students drilled against, but Razor Hunters—smaller frames sheathed in natural plates like shattered metal shards, joint-lines glowing with violet crystalline conduits. Their movements screeched at the teeth, and their tactics were unmistakable: one pressed front, the other two fanned wide to flank.
Intelligence. Higher than the baseline horrors.
"Contact!" Breck roared, bloodrage swelling through his veins, muscles ballooning into clumsy power. He charged the lead beast with a scream, chainsaw-sword shrieking.
Elara snapped her will outward, weaving a Mass Mind-Barrier, ivory threads lacing for Breck's aura to steady his frenzy and blunt the Hunters' psychic rasp. But his subconscious spat her out—raw rejection, refusal of any tether.
"Keep your dainty tricks off me!" he snarled, distracted—and in that heartbeat, a claw raked his arm-plate open, sparks flying.
Then—another threat.
From the wreckage of melted pipes, two figures emerged, cloaked in greasy canvas, masks welded from scrap, movements quick and purposeful. Brotherhood scavengers. One hefted a spike-gun jury-rigged with crystal cartridges; the other carried a steel prybar fitted with high-pressure injector tubes dripping with acidic fuel.
"Oi! Academy pups!" one rasped, his voice buzzing through the mask. "This nest o' spikers is ours. Step back, or I'll oil your tin hides proper!" He shook the injector, and the stench said it wasn't oil.
Now: intelligent abyssals ahead. Human scavengers at their back. Breck floundering between.
"Form the line! Prioritize the abyssal threat!" Elara snapped, trying again to link threads.
But Breck, swallowed by rage and fear, made the worst choice possible. He wheeled on the scavengers. "You scavenger filth! I'll gut you first!"
His back lay open to the Hunter.
It struck like a shadow-catapult, crystalline claws scything straight for the vulnerable pack seals on his armor.
"Look out!" Elara cried, but distance and his rejection made her powerless.
Then Leon moved.
That fragile ember inside him flared. With desperate strength, he wrenched the spare battery crate from his shoulders and hurled it, intercepting the arc. Metal crashed against crystal claws, buying a single, precious fraction of a second.
Breck twisted away, but too late to avoid pain—his flank armor shredded, blood seeping. Alive, but shaken. His gratitude curdled instantly into rage.
"You worthless servant! Who gave you leave to touch battle kit? You nearly killed me!"
He ignored that Leon had saved him.
The scavengers struck in the chaos. One fired—the spike-gun coughing a bolt coated in virulent rust-acid, streaking straight for Elara.
Her pupils shrank. Instinct, deeper and older than this body, demanded she slip, dodge, vanish. But above them, a vast mind flared, cold and absolute—a spiritual sweep like a lighthouse beam scouring the fog.
Kaelan. Watching.
She could not reveal herself. Not here.
She swallowed the reflex, dove sideways on mortal speed alone. The bolt tore her shoulder, ripping cloth and searing her flesh with a spreading stain of chemical rust. Pain bit hot through her nerves.
And then the world fell further apart.
Breck, stumbling in panic, stepped onto a corroded pipe-mouth hidden under sludge. It gave way with a groan. He screamed as he fell into the yawning dark below. The stench of abyss rolled up. Then—the crunch of metal, a wet tearing, a scream that cut short.
Breck Ironanvil was gone.
The gorge went silent. Even the Hunters faltered, heads cocked, as if stunned by the suddenness.
"Bloody waste," spat one scavenger. He snapped a crystalline conduit from the wounded Hunter with pliers, then vanished down the ruin like a rat.
The two surviving Hunters turned back, their eyes like cold lanterns.
And in that moment, the field was reduced to this:
Elara, wounded and weary,
Leon, trembling but standing with his prybar raised,
and the abyss, hungry, advancing.
And overhead, the weight of Kaelan's gaze pressed closer.
Elara clenched her jaw. She would have to fight. But she would have to do it without betraying what she was.
The trial had only just begun.