The stench of rendered waste and ozone clung to the alley walls, a familiar perfume in the Bastion of Karsus. Zakar pressed himself against a corrugated plasteel panel, its surface humming with latent energy, the kind that preceded a district realignment. Above him, the skeletal framework of the old market district, now rechristened ‘Sector Gamma-9,’ groaned and slid. Steel girders shrieked against their mounts, tearing the night sky into mobile geometric patterns. He counted the beats of the distant, heavy footfalls – three individuals, moving in sync. Wardens.
His hand drifted to the small pouch at his belt, feeling the worn edges of his few remaining drafting tools. They were as useless as his so-called ‘skill’ in this brutal new world. What good was knowing the precise vector of a shadow’s fall, or the geological strata beneath a rapidly disintegrating street, when every corner could sprout a maw of razor-sharp teeth?
The footfalls grew louder, metallic boots striking the uneven paving. “Sector clear, overwatch confirms no Glitch activity in Gamma-9.” The voice, tinny through a comm-bead, was young, eager. Zakar felt a familiar, bitter bile rise. They were always eager, these blessed youths, for the glory of purging a ‘Glitch.’
He watched their shadows ripple across the trembling ground, three distinct silhouettes armed with pulse-lances, their armor reflecting the sickly green glow of emergency lanterns. They passed his hiding spot, oblivious. Too focused on their comms, too reliant on regime-issued directives to truly scan their surroundings.
A deep rumble echoed through the city, the precursor to a major reconfiguration. The plasteel panel vibrated violently, threatening to dislodge Zakar’s grip. He knew the pattern. In moments, this alley would cease to exist, either compressed into a new wall or flung into the sprawling refuse chutes beneath the city. He needed to move, but where? Every path out was a gamble.
Then, the air shimmered, and a translucent blue rectangle bloomed before him, materializing with a low, electronic hum. The interface of Aethel. Its cold, impersonal text filled his vision, cutting through the grime and the fear.
[URGENT SYSTEM ALERT]
[PURGE QUEST INITIATED]
[TARGET: GLITCH IDENTIFIER ZAKAR (CARTOGRAPHER CLASS)]
[LAST KNOWN LOCATION: SECTOR GAMMA-9, SHIFTING BASTION OF KARSUS]
[THREAT LEVEL: MODERATE. ESCALATION IMMINENT.]
[REWARD FOR NEUTRALIZATION: 500 SYSTEM POINTS + CLASS UPGRADE MATERIAL]
His own face, a grainy, unflattering image from some forgotten registry, glowed beneath the text. A chill that had nothing to do with the night air settled in his bones. Moderate. It meant they were sending the bigger guns, not just the rookie Wardens. And “escalation imminent” was the regime's polite way of saying ‘you’re about to be swarmed.’
A guttural snarl ripped through the air, closer than the Wardens had been. The sound wasn't human. It was the wet, clicking hiss of a mechanical hound. Its multi-jointed legs rattled on the uneven flagstones, a grotesque parody of an insect, all chitin and whirring blades. Its single optical sensor, a pulsating orange orb, fixed on him.
“No, no, no,” Zakar muttered, backing deeper into the collapsing alley. The automaton was too fast, too durable for anything he possessed. His only active skill, [Lesser Appraisal], was for discerning material properties, not for fighting monsters. He was a surveyor, for pity's sake. What was he supposed to do, chart its weak points? Tell it its precise caloric intake requirements?
The creature lunged, its blades extended, scraping sparks from the metal panels. He threw himself sideways, a jagged piece of rebar tearing his jacket. He needed an edge, anything. His eyes darted around, frantic, landing on the crumbling brick wall beside the hound. It was old, pre-collapse, made of a brittle, reddish stone.
“Appraise,” he hissed, focusing his will, a strange, burning sensation behind his eyes. The blue window flickered, replaced by a new data stream, specific to the wall.
[TARGET: BRICK WALL (ANCIENT MORTAR BONDING)]
[COMPOSITION: FIRED CLAY BRICKS, LIMESTONE MORTAR, IRON REINFORCEMENT (DECAYED)]
[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: POOR (7%)]
[TEMPORAL FRACTURE DETECTED: 37 YEARS, 4 MONTHS, 19 DAYS AGO – SIGNIFICANT SUBSIDENCE DUE TO UNSTABLE FOUNDATION. CRITICAL STRESS POINT: LATERAL WEIGHT BEARING.]
Thirty-seven years. The network, in its infinite, tyrannical wisdom, recognized the exact moment of a minor structural defect from a forgotten era. Zakar’s mind raced, his cynicism momentarily forgotten. The wall had been weak then. Could it be weak *now*, in the same way, if he could just… prod that weakness?
The hound snarled again, already winding up for another strike. There was no time. Zakar ignored the monster, ignored the imminent blades, and channeled his entire focus, every atom of his will, into the [Temporal Fracture] data point. He didn't know how it worked, only that it *felt* like pushing, like nudging a memory into physical manifestation.
A low groan, not from the shifting city, but from the wall itself, echoed. Dust billowed. A spiderweb of cracks, impossibly fresh, spread from the precise point Zakar had focused on. The beast paused, its optical sensor swiveling, sensing the new instability.
Then, with a deafening roar, the wall disintegrated. Not a collapse from the current district shift, but an implosion, inward, as if decades of slow decay had suddenly accelerated into a single, devastating moment. Bricks, mortar, and rusty rebar cascaded down, a localized avalanche, engulfing the surprised machine. The beast let out a shriek, cut short as falling ancient stone crushed its armored form, leaving only a mangled heap of metal and dust.
Zakar coughed, swatting away the gritty cloud. His heart thrummed, a wild, triumphant rhythm. He’d done it. He’d weaponized a memory. The sheer absurdity of it made a weak, breathless laugh escape him. He had been a surveyor of dead maps, for god’s sake, and he’d just used architectural history to take down a monster.
A soft thud on the grimy paving stones heralded a new presence. A figure, cloaked in midnight blue, landed with a grace that defied the chaos of the grinding city. Her crimson-bladed chronospear, etched with glowing runes, was already drawn. Iona. Her face, usually a mask of fierce concentration, was etched with something akin to exasperation. Relief warred with anger in her eyes.
“Zakar, you can’t keep doing this. You just escalated your threat level.”