The statement hangs in the chill Veridian air, a silent implication that Elias Thorne is willing to risk the fate of Clan Ironroot, the skilled artificer-dwarves who vanished beyond the treacherous Obsidian Peaks, a jagged scar across the southern continent. For Grak Stonefist, an artificer-dwarf whose lifespan often stretches three centuries, twenty years to secure his freedom might not seem an eternity, yet his scowl deepens. “Humans excel at deceit,” Grak’s voice grates, a low rumble from deep within his chest. “What makes you think I’d trust such flimsy words?” His distrust is palpable, a thick, coppery taste in Elias’s mouth, the resignation in the dwarf’s eyes unwavering. Elias understands. He has seen the broken promises, the shattered hopes, in his temporal echoes. He reaches into his jacket, his fingers brushing the cool, etched metal of a hidden compartment, and carefully withdraws a piece of parchment. It shimmers faintly with a blue, pulsating energy – raw Aetherium woven into its fibers. “Do you recognize this, Grak?” Elias asks, his voice low, even. The air crackles almost imperceptibly with the latent energy of the scroll. Grak’s eyes, usually as unyielding as the granite of his namesake, tremble. A flicker of something akin to awe, quickly masked by suspicion, crosses his face. “That… that’s an Aetheric Covenant, isn’t it?” he mutters, the question laced with a disbelief that warps his gruff tone. Elias nods. It is the very spare he prepared when binding Master Kendron, an ambitious apprentice, considering this very day, this very negotiation. A preemptive measure, a contingency against the ingrained skepticism of the enslaved. “You wouldn’t… you wouldn’t use that on *me*?!” Grak’s voice raises, a tremor of fear mixed with a dawning hope. “An astute observation,” Elias replies, the corner of his mouth twitching almost imperceptibly. “If your distrust of my word truly runs so deep, then I could, of course, draft a covenant for you. A binding agreement, witnessed by Aetherium itself, stipulating your freedom in two decades of service.” The transformation is immediate, radical. Grak’s stoic defiance shatters, replaced by a sudden, fervent eagerness. His hands, gnarled and powerful, clench and unclench as if reaching for an unseen prize. “Draft the covenant! Absolutely! I’ll forge anything you ask! Anything at all, Master Thorne!” The words burst from him, clumsy and raw, echoing in the bustling Indentured Labor Exchange. A faint, grim smile touches Elias’s lips. This, he knows, is the bait. He watches Grak’s face, etched with newfound hope, and begins the precise, intricate process of inscribing the Aetheric Covenant. He doesn’t rush, allowing the weight of the moment to settle, the visual spectacle of the binding scroll being meticulously prepared to sink in. This isn’t just a contract; it’s a promise, written in the very fabric of existence, for a people who have known nothing but broken oaths. As the final words are etched and Elias channels a controlled surge of Aetherium into the parchment, it flares, bathing both men in a soft, cerulean glow. The energy ripples outward, a silent, binding pulse that momentarily stills the surrounding cacophony of the market. Grak, usually a pillar of unyielding stone, lets out a choked sob. Tears, hot and heavy, carve tracks through the grime on his face, a stark, almost unbelievable sight. “You… you actually did it,” Grak whispers, his voice thick with emotion, his gaze fixed on the glowing parchment that now links them. “Thank you, human. No… thank you, Master!” The honorific, difficult for a dwarf, comes with a profound, almost reverent sincerity. It’s an incongruous sight: a man consigned to twenty years of forced labor, weeping with gratitude. Elias feels a strange disconnect, a flicker of amusement that quickly fades into his usual grim resolve. *If a single covenant can ignite such motivation, then it’s a sound investment.* The intricate weaponry he envisions requires more than just human skill; it demands the nuanced artistry of a master artificer, a level of craft attainable even by a disillusioned dwarf, given proper motivation. Elias’s decision to offer genuine freedom, to gamble on this covenant, is influenced by echoes from his past. A thousand years ago, during the cataclysmic event known as the Sundering, most artificer-dwarves vanished beyond the Obsidian Peaks. Consequently, master artificers, now rumored to exist only in the deepest, most secure dwarven strongholds, became an almost mythical rarity. And those rare masters, when enslaved, never truly unleashed the full breadth of their formidable skills. But Elias, in his temporal echoes, had witnessed it: the *true* capabilities of a master artificer. He remembers a magnificent piece, a clockwork marvel of unparalleled precision and destructive power, crafted with the raw, exultant joy of liberation. *The craftsmanship of a master artificer infused with genuine willpower. It was truly a sight to behold, a force to be reckoned with.* Such skill, Elias knows, is worth every calculated risk, every promise, if he can draw it forth. For his plans, twenty years is more than ample time. *Unless, of course, everything collapses before then.* He pushes the ominous thought away, the chilling whisper of a future yet to come, and turns his gaze from the now-elated Grak to Kaelen Vane, who stands silently behind him, a sentinel of quiet vigilance, his expression unreadable. *Anyway, the primary purpose of coming to Veridia today is fulfilled.* A flicker of grim satisfaction passes through Elias. The plan unfolds, piece by deliberate piece, each cog turning smoothly. He moves forward, a fraction lighter in spirit, assured by the meticulous unfolding of his intentions. But relief in Veridia is a fleeting thing. As they navigate the labyrinthine alleyways leading away from the Indentured Labor Exchange, the sounds of the city shift, coalescing into a raucous clamor ahead. “The indentured have escaped!” a man’s voice bellows, raw with fury and fear. “Catch them! Catch them, you imbeciles!” Elias pushes through the dense crowd, his gaze cutting through the bustling bodies. A gaunt, middle-aged man with a predatory, hooked nose and streaks of crimson staining his forearms points wildly into a chaotic pocket of the market. A blur of movement: a boy, perhaps no older than twelve, with hair the shocking color of a deep, cerulean Aetherium flame, sprints through the throng. He clutches a smaller girl, her face pale and drawn, a mirror image of him. Five or six hulking figures, mercenaries in mismatched plating, surge in pursuit, their heavy boots clattering against the slick cobblestones. The boy moves with a surprising, almost supernatural agility, his emaciated frame belying a coiled strength. He evades the mercenaries’ grasping hands again and again, weaving through stalls and dodging frantic pedestrians. But the chase, as always, is a finite thing. “You dare to bite me?!” the hooked-nosed man, Silas Grime, roars. His face is contorted in a mask of primal rage, blood dripping from his forearm where the boy must have bitten him. He lunges, his heavy boot arcing through the air, stomping down mercilessly on the boy’s back. Again and again, the kicks land, brutal and unyielding. Silas Grime’s spittle flies, his fury unbridled, a man who wouldn’t care if the child died beneath his assault. Yet, the blue-haired boy remains unbowed. He grits his teeth, his lips bitten until a thin trickle of blood escapes, staining his chin. His slender arms and legs remain stubbornly outstretched, creating a shield over the smaller girl beneath him. It’s an act of desperate, unyielding protection that, if anything, only fuels the enslaver’s rage. “Oh, brother, I’m… I’m okay,” the girl whispers, her voice a fragile, trembling wisp. She clings to the boy’s arms, her small body shaking. Elias, with his heightened senses, catches the words, though the cacophony around them should have drowned them out. The boy above her, battered as he is, likely hears them too. “Don’t concern yourself with the indentured, Master Thorne. Let’s move along,” Kaelen Vane advises, his tone flat, pragmatic. His eyes scan the surrounding crowd, noting the wary glances from the other merchants and onlookers. This is Veridia; indentured laborers are property, not people. Their owner’s treatment, no matter how barbaric, is not a matter for public interference. Moreover, the mercenaries are a formidable sight, their hands already on their weapon hilts, ready to deter any do-gooders. “Aye. I know, Kaelen, but… just one moment.” Elias’s gaze remains fixed on the beaten boy. It isn’t merely a surge of sympathy, though a cold spark of anger flickers within him at the blatant cruelty. No, it’s the boy’s eyes: one a searing crimson, the other a cool, glacial blue. An *odd-eye*, a genetic rarity, almost unheard of on the continent, and certainly unique to anyone Elias has encountered. It teases at the edges of his temporal echoes, a half-remembered thread from a tragic future. *Blue hair, red and blue odd-eye… an indentured escapee…* The clarity eludes him, a frustrating blank space in his grim memories. Then, as the boy’s desperate gaze flickers up, briefly meeting Elias’s, a long-forgotten memory surges forward, sharp and painful, piercing the veil of his self-imposed amnesia. “No, nothing. Just… wait here.” Elias’s voice is taut, almost a command. The memories surfacing bring a strange, dark pleasure of recognition, but they also lay before him a fresh, chilling concern. *To think I’d encounter the Noble Slayer here, in this time.* His eyes narrow, fixed now on the boy, whom he now suspects is *Corvus*. Corvus, the Noble Slayer. A powerful Warp-born, whose name would echo in fear and awe throughout the Veridian Commonwealth in Elias’s temporal echoes. His notoriety stemmed not from noble lineage or even commoner stock, but from his origins: an indentured laborer, a runaway who, in a desperate act of survival, slaughtered his enslaver. This uneducated combatant would later lay waste to his pursuers, becoming a fugitive responsible for the deaths of countless soldiers, Knights of the Cog, and nobles before vanishing into the urban sprawl. Nearly a decade later, around the time the imperial conflicts began, Corvus would resurface, a whirlwind of Aetherium-fueled destruction, systematically annihilating the entire lineage of his previous owners. He would become infamous as the Noble Slayer, indiscriminately murdering any noble or official with a connection to the enslavement trade. *That indentured escape incident happened about a year after I became a mercenary for the Crown,* Elias recalls, the temporal echo providing an approximate timeline. It was right after the brutal Siege of the Ashfall Spire. He couldn’t recall specifics – which family Corvus served, the exact date – but he finds him now, by pure chance. And if Elias were to intervene, to save this boy now? *A future Warp-born would be on my side. An undeniable asset.* The thought is cold, pragmatic. But there is a problem, a significant variable that gnaws at Elias’s grim resolve. Amidst Elias’s swirling thoughts, Corvus – or the boy he is presumed to be – unleashes a surge of feral desperation. He bites down fiercely, tearing into Silas Grime’s leg, drawing a fresh spurt of blood. The mercenaries, enraged, rush forward, their heavy boots and fists a flurry, trying to pry the boy off. But Corvus holds on, tenacious and unyielding, a cornered animal. The ferocity in the boy’s crimson and blue eyes evokes memories of ominous whispers from Elias’s temporal echoes. *An unstoppable, maniacal killer.* Elias needs reliable soldiers, extensions of his will, not unstable weapons that might turn on their own, dissolving into a maelstrom of unpredictable violence. *…If it’s a weapon, then isolate it. Prevent it from chipping away at the Commonwealth’s power, from becoming the Noble Slayer of my echoes.* The conclusion, born of grim experience and cold calculation, arrives with an embarrassing swiftness after only a brief internal debate. He needs control, not chaos. With that silent, chilling resolve, Elias Thorne makes his move. Silas Grime, still intent on delivering another vicious kick to the now-unconscious boy, is startled. A sheathed sword, its hilt plain, its blade gleaming dully, suddenly appears at his feet, precisely blocking his path. Elias, a blur of motion, has approached him, his crimson hair a stark contrast to the grim, soot-stained street. Not a single one of Silas Grime’s hulking guards notices until it is too late. By the time they are alerted, their hands fumbling for their swords, Elias is already standing before their master. Moreover, the imposing figure of Kaelen Vane, a renowned mercenary whose reputation precedes him throughout Veridia, has silently positioned himself, a looming shadow behind Elias. At last, Silas Grime’s gaze falls upon the small, intricately engraved Crimson Cog emblem on Elias’s jacket, a symbol of authority and ancient, forgotten power. He instinctively bows deeply, a nervous tremor running through his corpulent frame. “I… I failed to recognize someone of your stature, esteemed sir,” Silas Grime stammers, his bravado utterly gone, replaced by fawning terror. “Have I, perchance, given offense?” “Just passing by,” Elias replies, his voice devoid of emotion, “but I became interested in the merchandise you were treating a touch too roughly.” Silas Grime hesitates, then forces an awkward, gurgling chuckle, wiping a bloody hand across his face. “Oh, you’re a customer, then? What an… embarrassing time for you to see my… aha! My wares!” He attempts another chuckle, but it catches in his throat. “That’s enough,” Elias cuts him off, his voice sharper now, carrying an undeniable edge of authority. “Is this how you customarily treat your indentured?” “No, no, not at all, Master Thorne! Never! These ones are just… particularly stubborn! Ha-ha! I assure you, I showed a most unsightly side of myself. So, you’re interested in these siblings, then?” While continuing to bleed from both his forearm and now his shin, Silas Grime manages to rub his hands together, a desperate pantomime of obsequiousness. Elias, however, pays more attention to the slaver’s words than his hideous demeanor. “Customer, and merchandise… You are indeed a labor broker, then? Excellent. Can we proceed with the transaction now?” Elias asks, his gaze piercing. Showing eagerness would typically be a disadvantage in trade negotiations, but in this volatile corner of Veridia, with an enslaver desperate to appease, the situation is entirely different. The true cost, Elias knows, will be measured in more than coin.

The Aetheric Covenant