Chapter 1: The Gilded Wreck
The wind didn't whistle this high up; it screamed.
Lyra hated the scream. It was a constant reminder that the only thing between her and a five-thousand-foot drop into the green, churning Miasma was a fraying rope and a rusted carabiner.
"And people wonder why I charge extra," she muttered, her voice whipped away by the gale.
She braced her boots against the slick, verdigris-covered bronze of the old spire. Below her, her home island, "The Rim," was a barely-visible crescent of rock and metal shanties. Above her, the prize: the underside of what the old maps called the "Gilded Wreck." It was a chunk of an island that had torn free centuries ago, a palace of bronze and marble now hanging upside down, its grand towers pointing not to the sky, but to the abyss.
It was also, supposedly, full of pre-collapse tech.
Lyra gave her rope a hard tug, testing the anchor spike she'd hammered into a crack. It held. "Right. Let's make rent."
With the practiced, simian grace of a scrap-diver, she unclipped from her main line and swung, hand over hand, across a network of guide-ropes she'd set earlier. The wind tried to peel her from the wall, a giant, invisible hand pushing her toward the endless, sickening void. She ignored it. Fear was a luxury. Fear didn't pay for crystal-filter cartridges or a ticket off this dying rock.
Her target was a circular viewport, its glass long since shattered. She hooked a new safety line to a nearby gargoyle, whose bronze face was frozen in a silent, moss-caked howl. Then, gripping the edges, she hauled herself through the opening.
She landed in a crouch on what had once been a magnificent ceiling. Now, it was a floor of cracked, upside-down mosaic tiles. The air inside was still and heavy with the smell of ozone and rust. Light lanced through gaps in the hull, illuminating swirling dust motes.
This was the part she loved. The quiet. The sense of history. The moment just before the discovery.
She unslung her pack, pulling out a glow-rod and her "tinker-kit." The Gilded Wreck had been picked clean by generations of divers. The main ballrooms and chambers were empty. But Lyra didn't follow the crowds. She'd spent a week studying the schematics she'd 'liberated' from the Rim's registry office. She wasn't here for chandeliers or scrap copper. She was here for the Architect's private study.
She navigated the inverted maze of hallways, her light playing over peeling frescoes of winged-lion creatures and forgotten constellations. Finally, she reached a heavy bronze door, warped in its frame. The lock mechanism was a mess of fused gears.
"Amateurs," she scoffed. She pulled a small vial of acidic jelly from her kit and began to daub it carefully onto the hinges. While the metal smoked and hissed, she pulled a half-eaten ration bar from her pocket.
As she chewed the tasteless, nutrient-packed brick, her gaze fell on a mural near the door. It showed the islands of Aethelgard, not as they were now, but as a perfect, glowing network, all connected by lines of light to the massive, central Anchor-Island. It looked stable. Safe.
A bitter laugh escaped her. "Propaganda. Must've been nice."
The hinges groaned and gave way. Lyra used her pry-bar to lever the heavy door open just enough to slip inside.
The study was a disaster. Books, charts, and strange brass instruments were piled on the 'floor' (the ceiling) in a high-impact slurry. But in the center, bolted to the stone, was what she'd come for: an Architect's work desk, still hanging stubbornly from its original spot.
She scrambled up the debris pile. The desk was locked. This one was different, not a simple gear-lock, but a puzzle. A series of concentric rings with symbols. She recognized them. Constellations. The ones from the hallway.
"You arrogant, brilliant bastard," she grinned. She spent ten minutes manipulating the rings, aligning the symbols to match the mural outside. With a heavy, satisfying thunk, the desk's main drawer shot open.
It was empty.
Lyra's heart sank. All this way. All this risk. For nothing. She slumped, banging her fist on the desk in frustration.
The impact made a high, singing sound.
She paused. Frowned. She knocked again, this time with her knuckles, tapping across the top. Solid, solid, solid... hollow.
She ran her fingers along the edge, feeling for a seam. There. A tiny, almost invisible line. She jammed the tip of her knife into the gap and twisted. A section of the desk-top popped up, revealing a hidden compartment lined with black velvet.
Inside sat a small, crystalline object. It wasn't a gem. It looked more like a piece of a larger mechanism, crafted from a smoky, opalescent material she'd never seen. It was roughly the size of her fist, a shard of three interlocking, imperfect triangles.
She reached out a gloved hand, her heart hammering. This was it. This was the score that would get her to Bazaar, get her a new life.
The moment her fingers brushed the crystal, it happened.
It wasn't a sound. It was a feeling. A cold, sharp crack inside her skull, followed by a blinding flash of white light. She wasn't in the study anymore. She was... everywhere. She saw the Anchor-Island, the heart of Aethelgard, and she saw a jagged, black crack split its core-crystal. She saw her own island, the Rim, its Aether-Crystal flickering like a dying candle. She saw islands, thousands of them, losing their light, their lift... and beginning to fall.
The vision vanished, leaving her gasping, back on the debris pile, the study plunged into darkness. Her glow-rod had shattered.
And the artifact in her hand was pulsing with a faint, sickly purple light.
A new sound joined the screaming of the wind—a heavy, metallic thud-scrape from the hallway outside.
Something else was in the wreck. And the "key" in her hand had just told it exactly where she was.