The world smelled of sulfur, dried blood, and hopelessness.
In the southern reaches of Aethelgard, within the suffocating heat of the Wastelands, life was measured in the weight of ore extracted before one's heart gave out.
Rat stood knee-deep in the murky, toxic water of Gallery 4.
He was seventeen winters old, but the mines had stunted him, leaving him looking closer to fourteen. His body was a roadmap of misery; a cage of sharp ribs pushed against pale, ash-stained skin that had not seen the sun in years. His hair was a matted mess of black grease and stone dust, falling over a face that was too gaunt, with cheekbones that protruded like knife blades.
But it was his eyes that separated him from the living dead around him. They were dark, devoid of the dull glaze of resignation. They were sharp, cold, and unsettlingly intelligent.
"Faster, filth!"
The roar came from the wooden platform above the water. Overseer Grol.
If Rat was a spectre of starvation, Grol was a monument to gluttony. He was a massive man, standing nearly seven feet tall, with a belly that spilled over his leather belt like rising dough. His skin was flushed a sickly red, glistening with an endless layer of greasy sweat. Small, pig-like eyes were buried in folds of fat, scanning the workers with sadistic boredom.
"Number 7!" Grol bellowed, pointing his whip—a black leather lash tipped with iron barbs—at Rat. "Stop staring and hit the vein, or I'll feed your eyes to the beetles!"
Rat didn't flinch. He didn't argue. He simply shifted his stance.
'Three seconds,' Rat thought.
[Unique Trait: The Monarch's Soul is active.]
The world seemed to slow. Rat's gaze drifted to the rock face above the slave standing next to him—Number 42.
Rat didn't care what Number 42 looked like. To him, the man was just a trembling silhouette of exhaustion. What mattered was the microscopic fracture line running through the ceiling directly above the man's head. Rat saw the tension in the stone, screaming for release. He perceived the flaw that no one else could see.
'Two seconds.'
Rat took a calculated, silent step to the left. His bare feet found purchase in the mud.
'One second.'
Number 42 swung his pickaxe.
CRACK.
It wasn't the metallic clink of iron on ore. It was the wet, heavy snap of the earth giving way.
A slab of slate the size of a cart wheel detached from the ceiling. It fell with the crushing inevitability of gravity.
There was no time to scream. Number 42 was flattened instantly. The sound was wet—a sickening crunch. Dust and rock shards exploded outward.
Rat stood perfectly still. The dust cloud washed over him. A jagged shard of stone, razor-sharp, landed inches from his toe. If he hadn't taken that single step, it would have severed his foot.
He breathed in the dust, his expression unchanging. He felt no fear, only the cold calculation of survival.
"Damnit!" Grol spat, covering his nose with a silk rag. "Waste of meat! Two of you, drag the carcass to the disposal pit. The rest of you, keep digging!"
The other slaves wept as they returned to the wall, terrified the mountain would eat them next. Rat stepped back into position, looking down at the red slurry spreading in the water near his boots.
'A flaw in the stone,' Rat analyzed silently, his gaze shifting briefly to the fat Overseer. 'Just like there is a flaw in Grol's stance. Just like there is a flaw in this cage.'
He gripped his rusted pickaxe. He did not seek power for glory. He sought it for one reason only: Security.
'If I am at the top,' he told himself, swinging the pickaxe with precise, efficient force, 'no one will ever be able to step on me again.'
"I shall live," he whispered into the darkness.