Chapter 1 -Shadow of the Fallen House
Friday, October 13, 7352
Veridia - Lower Sprawl District | Late Autumn
Gaston's comm unit vibrated once against his wrist.
Not a public broadcast. Not a commercial ping.
A distress signal.
He slowed his stride, eyes shifting toward the rain-slick street ahead. Neon light bled across the pavement, reflecting off puddles and the polished metal of passing drones. The Lower Sprawl never truly slept — it simply changed masks depending on the hour.
The signal pulsed again.
Encrypted. Narrow band.
Someone had gone to effort to make sure the wrong people didn't hear it.
Drones carved steady paths through the night sky, their undercarriages humming with arcane charge. Tram rails screamed somewhere overhead, and the scent of ozone clung to the damp air, sharp enough to taste. Gaston moved through it without hurry. Every district had watchers. The Lower Sprawl simply hid them better than the Upper Spires.
The tailored black coat he wore caught the drizzle but did not cling. Subtle glyphwork stitched along the inner lining pulsed faintly against his skin, responding to the ambient mana saturating the district. He could feel it here—raw, untamed, leaking from cracked infrastructure and forgotten conduits.
The Lower Sprawl was honest in its decay. No noble houses pretending control. No polished lies like the Upper Spires.
A streetlight buzzed above him, mana filament flickering unstable. Holographic advertisements shimmered through mist—promises of ascension to the Upper Spires. Lies, mostly.
His wrist comm vibrated, again.
Once. Twice.
He didn't look down immediately. Nothing urgent ever arrived without cost.
When he finally activated it, the projection fractured into static. Architectural schematics flickered in disjointed bursts. District overlays glitched in and out of alignment.
Then the voice came.
"Help me—"
Distorted. Distant. Torn through interference.
Coordinates flashed.
A timer ignited beneath them.
01:39:20
Gaston's eyes narrowed slightly.
Industrial sector. Ironworks district. Ironworks was not a place one visited by accident.
A thirty-minute drive on a clean night.
This one would not be clean.
The countdown pulsed faintly against his skin, syncing to something deeper than circuitry.
Within him, the shadow stirred.
Not instinct.
Recognition.
Trap or opportunity?
He was tired of the difference.
He stepped toward the curb and raised a hand.
Almost immediately, a sleek black hover-taxi glides to a stop beside him, its anti-grav plates humming softly. The window slides down silently, revealing a driver with cybernetic eyes that glow a soft amber. He gives Gaston a once-over, his expression unreadable.
"Where to?" he asks, his voice filtered through a vocal modulator. Gaston showed him the coordinates on his wrist comm. His cybernetic eyes flicker as he processes the data.
"Ironworks, eh? That'll be 50 gold. Upfront. And I don't wait around—drop-off only." The price is steep—highway robbery for a taxi ride—but time is of the essence.
"Forty gold," Gaston says low and smoothly, the kind of tone that carries weight without needing to rise. The air between them tightened, subtle but undeniable, lending an almost magnetic resonance to his words. The driver's cybernetic pupils contracted. Not fear. Calculation. Gaston holds his gaze. "And you forget I was ever in this cab."
The driver's cybernetic eyes flicker, processing. For a moment, he just stares—then a dry chuckle escapes his modulator.
"You drive a hard bargain, friend." He glances at the coordinates again, then back at Gaston. "But for forty... and a very poor memory... get in."
The door slides open silently. Gaston settles into the plush interior as the taxi lifts smoothly off the ground and accelerates into the neon-lit night.
---
Twenty-eight minutes later, the Lower Sprawl had given way to iron and rust. The taxi descends into a district of towering, rusted factories and silent refineries. Steam vents release ghostly plumes into the damp air. The streets here are wider but poorly lit; the only illumination comes from malfunctioning security drones and the occasional flickering hazard light.
Gaston's ride slows to a stop beside a massive, derelict warehouse complex. The coordinates point directly to its main entrance—a set of heavy reinforced doors, slightly ajar.
"We're here," the driver says flatly. "Remember our deal." Gaston hands over the forty gold Crown pieces. He takes them without another word. The door slides open, and as Gaston steps out onto the wet pavement, the taxi lifts off and disappears into the gloom without looking back.
Gaston stood alone now. The warehouse looms before him like a sleeping metal beast. Rain drips from broken gutters high above. His wrist comm's timer reads:
01:09:05
From within the warehouse, there's a faint sound—like metal scraping against concrete.
Gaston moves with practiced silence, keeping to the shadows cast by towering piles of scrap metal and rusted machinery. The warehouse's outer walls are lined with grimy, reinforced windows set high up—most are cracked or boarded over, but one near the corner has a broken pane.
Gaston studied the alley entrance.
Too quiet.
Places like this always belonged to someone.
He found a stack of corroded barrels, climbed carefully, and peered inside. The interior is vast and cavernous. Flickering industrial work-lights cast long, dancing shadows across heaps of discarded machinery and conveyor belts long since stilled. In the center of the open floor, he spots movement. Three figures clad in dark, armored trench coats are methodically searching through crates and dismantling what looks like a large arcane capacitor array. They move with military precision. A fourth figure—taller, wearing a long coat—stands near a makeshift workstation, examining something on a holoscreen. Crimson circuitry traced the man's coat in deliberate patterns. Not scavengers. Not freelancers.
On the far side of the warehouse, partially obscured behind a stack of metal pallets, Gaston could see a smaller shape slumped against a support column. It's hard to make out details from this distance and angle, but it looks humanoid—and not moving.
The wrist comm continues its silent count:
01:07:50.
Moonlight spilled through a collapsed section of roof. Too exposed.
Near the western wall, half-buried in scrap, a service hatch waited. Rusted. Forgotten.
Perfect.
He pauses for only a second before he slipped down from the barrels, unseen in the rain. The rain swallowed the sound of his descent as he made his way along the warehouse's western wall. The service hatch is set into the foundation—a heavy metal door, rusted at the hinges, partially concealed behind a mound of discarded machinery parts.
Gaston paused a few feet away, senses alert. The grime around the hatch lay undisturbed. No fresh scuffing. No recent traffic. He crouched and examined the hatch itself. The lock is a simple mechanical bolt, corroded but intact and untrapped. Gently, he tested the handle. It turns with a soft click—loud in the stillness, but not enough to carry over the
hum of distant machinery and the occasional scrape from inside. The hatch swings inward a few inches on groaning hinges… then stops, held by something on the other side.
Peering through the gap, Gaston could see that it was blocked by a fallen metal beam—not placed deliberately, just old collapse. His dagger is in his hand, cool and familiar.
01:05:30.
From inside, Gaston heard voices—muffled, but clear enough to catch snippets:
"—scan complete. No residual signature."
"The source isn't here. Could be a decoy."
"Check the subject again. If it's dead, we extract and burn."
He holds his breath, listening intently. A moment later—scrape… thud—the sound of a heavy crate being dragged across concrete echoes from inside. In that same instant, Gaston plants his shoulder against the hatch. With a heave, the metal beam groans and shifts, the hatch swung inward with a low, grating whine. The metal groaned — loud enough to betray him on a quieter night. The crate inside scraped again, swallowing the noise.
Gaston slips through the opening like a ghost, melting into the deeper shadows behind a stack of
rusted engine blocks.
He was in.
The air inside is thick with the smell of ozone, rust, and something sharper—like burnt copper. The three trench-coated figures are about thirty feet to his right, focused on prying open a large storage container. The taller leader is still at the workstation, back turned.
The slumped figure against the column is now clearer: a young woman in tattered work coveralls, her head bowed. She's bound at the wrists and ankles with glowing energy cuffs. She's breathing—shallow, but alive.
The three men were all armed. Energy rifles rode their backs. Sidearms at their hips. They were disciplined, but not equally alert.
Gaston's dagger feels heavy in his hand. The shadow coiled tighter, urging speed. Silence. Control.
Gaston picked his target. He was younger, more tense. The man kept glancing toward the main door as if expecting trouble. His attention clearly divided by the scanner in his hand, the main doors, and the scanner readout.
Gaston moved when the crate scraped again.
The sound swallowed his first step. Then the second.
The younger operative shifted, distracted by the flicker of his scanner.
Too late.
Gaston's arm locked around his throat. A gloved hand crushed over his mouth before breath could turn to warning. The dagger slid across flesh in a single, economical cut.
Warmth spilled over his fingers.
The man jerked once.
Gaston pulled him backward into shadow and drove the blade in again — between the ribs, angled up.
The body went slack.
No cry.
No alarm.
He lowered the corpse gently behind the crate.
Two remained.
The woman against the column stirs weakly, her head lifting just enough that her eyes meet Gaston's across the dim space. Her hazel eyes widen slightly—she's seen him. But she makes no sound, just holds his gaze for a tense moment before letting her head drop again, playing unconscious.
Gaston slipped from shadow to shadow, using the maze of crates and machinery as cover. One of the two remaining men is standing watch, his gaze methodically scanning the far walls and ceiling. He hasn't yet looked toward where his partner *was*. Gaston closed in behind him. Just as he was about to strike—
"Status?" The leader's voice cuts through the hum, sharp and commanding.
The man turns his head slightly toward the workstation. "All clear, sir. No contacts."
It's now or never.
The leader's head tilted — just slightly.
Gaston surged forward. His steel bit deep. Gaston grabs the man from behind, muffling his cry as his throat is sliced open. He collapses with a soft thud against a stack of empty canisters.
The body hit metal.
Too loud.
It was supposed to be a clean kill like the first one, but the sound—though slight—was enough.
The man who was prying open the crate, straightens up. "Hey," he calls out, not alarmed yet. "You hear that?"
He turns and his eyes sweep the area where the man Gaston just killed should have been standing. He sees nothing but shadows.
"Tobyn?" he says, hand drifting toward his sidearm. "Report."
The leader at the workstation finally turns around. His face is obscured by a high-collared coat and a half-mask of polished black metal, but his eyes glow with a faint crimson light behind a visor.
01:00:45.
Gaston snatches the sidearm from his most recent kill's hip—a sleek, arcitech pistol—and sling the energy rifle over his shoulder. In one smooth motion, Gaston raises the pistol and fires twice at the one by the crate.
Both shots ring out in the cavernous space.
Blue-white force slammed into the man's shoulder, spinning him.
The second shot hit center mass.
He dropped, his armor smoldering.
The leader doesn't flinch. He raises a hand, and crimson circuitry along his coat flares to life. The leader tilted his head slightly, studying Gaston as if evaluating a specimen.
"Intruder identified. Eliminate."
From the shadows near the ceiling, two sleek security drones detach and zoom toward Gaston, their single red lenses fixed on his position. They open fire with precise energy bursts.
From behind them a shimmering, crimson barrier materializes between the leader and the drones. The leader flicked his hand. Crimson force surged toward Gaston. With a deft roll, Gaston moves to the side just as the energy zooms by and scorches the floor where he had just been. But it hadn't been without a cost. One of the drones predicted the movement and fired a searing bolt of energy that grazed his side. The other drone's shot hit the same spot he had just been at. A faint whir fills the space as the drones recharge their weapons for another shot. No expression passes through the mask of the leader, but Gaston could tell that he was observing with cold intent.
The bound woman lifts her head again, her eyes locked on Gaston—pleading, urgent.
Gaston raised the pistol and fired two more precise shots. The first bolt strikes a drone square in its lens, shattering it in a shower of sparks. A lucky shot, but he would take it. It drops to the floor with a metallic clatter. The second shot hits the other drone's propulsion unit. It wobbles, emits a high-pitched whine, and crashes into a pile of scrap metal, twitching before going dark.
The leader doesn't move from behind his barrier. "Impressive," he says, his voice distorted by his mask. "But you're too late. The extraction is complete."
He gestures toward the bound woman. The energy cuffs around her wrists and ankles flare brighter, and she screams in pain as they begin to contract. Dark energy coalesces around his hand, then a bolt of shadow leaps towards Gaston like a fired arrow. Fear tries to take hold of his consciousness, but the shadow within him growls and shakes it off. Gaston quickly holstered the pistol and brought the energy rifle to his shoulder. It's a sleek, arcane-tech model with a selector switch. With a flip of his thumb, he turned it to three-round burst.
Gaston squeezed the trigger. A rapid crack-crack-crack fills the warehouse as three bolts of concentrated force slam into the leader's crimson barrier. The shield shimmered violently, rippling like disturbed water, but it holds. The leader staggered back a step, the glow of his circuitry dimming momentarily.
"Persistent," he snarls. "But this ends now." He raises both hands. The barrier dissolves, and in its place, a swirling vortex of dark energy forms before him. It lashes out toward Gaston like a whip of pure shadow, but he was already ducking behind some rusty machinery. The floor and a good section of the metal crates and shelving disintegrating as necrotic energy washed over the space.
The woman cries out as her cuffs tighten further. "The console... disable the console!" she gasps, nodding toward the workstation the leader was using.
Gaston collected his thoughts, then rose to fire two devastating bursts. The bolts strike true. The leader's long coat tears open, revealing armored plating beneath that glows red-hot from the impact. He grunts in pain, stumbling back against the workstation. The second set of three rounds smash into the glowing console beside him. Sparks erupt in a cascade of blue and white electricity. Panels explode, and the holographic displays flicker and die.
The energy cuffs around the woman's wrists and ankles sputter and vanish. She slumps forward, free but weak. The leader pushes off from the ruined console, his crimson eyes burning with fury behind his mask.
"You have no idea what you've interrupted," he growls. He reaches into his coat. Gaston wasn't about to give him a chance. Gaston runs up and fires two more bursts as the masked man reaches for something in his coat. The first tears through his armored plating, and he cries out—a raw, pained sound. The second catches him full in the chest. He's thrown backward against the sparking ruins of the console, then slides to the floor, motionless. The crimson glow in his eyes and circuitry fades to a dull gray. Silence falls, broken only by the crackle of dying electronics and the distant hum of Ironworks machinery. A small black box falls from where his hand was reaching into his coat and opens slightly with a grey button.
The young woman pushes herself up on trembling arms. She's tanned, about Gaston's shoulder height, with short-cropped dark hair and intelligent eyes that now hold a mix of fear and relief. "Thank you," she breathes. "I thought I was... they were going to dissect me."
Gaston checks his wrist device. The countdown has stopped at **00:56:20**. The holographic message changes from "Help me" to a simple: "Signal secured. Extraction point safe."
She notices your comm. "You're the one who answered," she says, her voice gaining strength. "I'm Dashiel. I'm a systems analyst... or I was, before I stumbled onto something I shouldn't have."
She gestures weakly toward the dead leader. "He's with a black ops division called Crimson Sigil. They're hunting people with... emergent abilities. Like yours." She looks directly at you, as if sensing the power within. Outside, you hear the distant wail of security sirens approaching—probably drawn by the gunfire.
"We can talk later. Right now we need to get out." Gaston muttered as he slung the rifle over his shoulder and moved to the hatch he had entered through. He knew of a hotel close by that wouldn't ask questions.
"Agreed," Dashiel says, pushing herself to her feet with a wince. She's unsteady but determined. Dashiel limps after you as you move quickly back to the western service hatch. Gaston gripped the door and pulled it the rest of the way open, the fallen beam moving scraping as it gave way. Cold drizzle greets them outside. The sirens are getting closer, their blue and red lights flashing against the low clouds a few blocks away.
Gaston knew this district. A few alleys over is The Rusty Cog, a flophouse that operates on cash and doesn't care about names or pasts. It's not glamorous, but it's discreet.
"Lead the way," Dashiel whispers, pulling her tattered coveralls tighter against the chill. He nods once and leads the way to where the Rusty Cog was. His attire screamed branch family and he knew the proprietor wouldn't ask questions.
The two of them move through the rain-slicked alleys like ghosts. Every shadow, every overhang, every route where the security drones don't bother to look becomes an extension of them. Dashiel sticks close, mimicking his movements with surprising agility for someone just freed from energy cuffs. They slip past two hover-cruisers scanning the main thoroughfare, duck under a leaking steam pipe, and emerge right at the side entrance of The Rusty Cog. The building is a squat, three-story structure of stained ferrocrete and rusted iron. A flickering neon sign depicts a broken gear.
In the meantime, Dashiel looks at Gaston, surprised. "You know this place?" she asks, trailing behind you. She seems hesitant, but follows his lead.
Inside, the air is thick with the smell of stale synth-ale, ozone, and cheap lubricant. The common room is nearly empty—just a grizzled old-timer snoring in a corner and a maintenance drone sweeping the floor. The proprietor is a large man with a cybernetic arm and a permanent scowl. He's polishing a glass behind a scarred bar made of reclaimed hull plating. He looks up as they enter, his one organic eye narrowing. Gaston approaches, his fine clothes—though now damp and spattered with warehouse grime—still marking him as someone from a different world. He sets down 50 gold Crowns on the bar. "Single room, single bed. Thirty-six hours." The proprietor looks at the gold, then at Dashiel standing nervously behind Gaston, then back at him. His scowl deepens for
a moment... then he sweeps the coins into a drawer with his metal hand.
"Room three. Top of the stairs, end of the hall," he grunts, sliding a keycard across the bar. "No noise. No trouble. You break it, you bought it." He turns back to his glass, clearly done with the conversation. Gaston takes the keycard and head upstairs. The room is exactly as advertised: small, dimly lit by a single flickering lumen-strip, with a narrow bed, a chair, and a small washbasin in the corner. The window looks out over a dark alley. Dashiel closes the door behind her and leans against it, letting out a long breath. "Okay," she says. "We're safe for now." She looks at you with those keen eyes. "Who are you? And why did you come for me?"
"My name is Gaston."
A long pause. The shadow within pulses slightly.
"Rudrick. Oldest son of Naston Rudrick. Branch family of the Rustuall family. Not that it
matters anymore."
Dashiel goes still and pale.
His pulse stutters — not fear. Something else. Something older.