A whisper, faint as a moth-wing against obsidian, stirred the deep quiet. It wasn’t a sound truly, but a distortion, a ripple through the particulate ash coating Seraphin’s solitary hollow.
Seraphin’s eyes, ancient in their gaze, snapped open. No slumber ever truly claimed them in this dying world, only a lighter state of vigilance.
Silently, a shadow detaching from deeper shadows, Seraphin rose. Their dwelling was a natural fissure, shored up with carefully packed ash and interlocking crystalline shards, barely large enough to recline. No viewport marred its walls; the only egress, a heavy plate of fused obsidian, stood as a stark black silhouette.
Holding breath, Seraphin focused on the pressure-seal of the door.
A scrape, then a soft click-hiss, echoed. Someone worked the ancient locking mechanism.
The sound, amplified by the hollow’s confines, hammered against Seraphin’s preternatural senses.
A final groan, and the obsidian plate grated inward, just a sliver. A cautious eye, glinting with avarice, peered into the darkness.
A crystalline shard, honed by the scouring winds, glinted in the intruder’s grip. It was long, wickedly sharp, roughly the length of a grown man’s forearm.
Unaccustomed to the deep gloom, the figure edged inward, one hand outstretched, feeling for purchase.
Seraphin remained perfectly still, a statue carved from shadow, observing every hesitant movement.
Oblivious to the waiting doom, the intruder took another shuffling step.
*Click-whiss!*
A subtle tremor. Something beneath the man’s heavy boot fractured, releasing a latent tension.
A dull *thud* reverberated, followed by a choked cry of pain. “Ugh!”
A small, needle-thin shard of solidified ash, launched by Seraphin’s concealed trap, had found its mark. It protruded from the intruder’s flank, a dark stain already blooming around it.
The trap, subtly woven into the very floor, used the intruder’s weight to trigger a spring of compressed ash, propelling the weapon with silent force.
“Argh! What in the Maw…?” The intruder collapsed, writhing.
Seraphin moved. Swift as an ash-current, they sprang from their crouch.
A solid impact as Seraphin landed on the man’s chest, snatching the larger crystalline shard from his lax grip. Its point now hovered inches from the man’s throat.
Bewilderment warred with agony on the intruder’s face. “You… little aberration!”
“A stray dust-ghoul, I thought,” Seraphin’s voice was a low rasp, like ash on stone. “Just the scavenger from the adjoining pit.”
He truly was the scavenger from the adjoining pit, a cramped fissure barely a meter from Seraphin’s own. Seraphin had observed his shadowed movements last night. His aura, a discordant hum of greed, had been unmistakable.
Seraphin pressed the shard-tip lightly against the man’s cheek. “Elder. To raid a neighbor, even one as insignificant as I? Unseemly.”
“Raid? What could be here in this hollowed-out husk? Brat! Release me. Do you know who my kin is?”
“How would I know such a thing? Elder.”
Seraphin’s eyes, devoid of emotion, met the man’s grimace.
“He’s a Shard-Master. One who commands the Maw’s deeper energies.”
“Fabrications do not suit your current predicament. You expect me to believe a Shard-Master’s kin shelters in this forgotten crack?”
“It is truth. A temporary measure, for reasons unknown to you.”
“Then conduct your temporary measure with quietude. Instead of pilfering from those weaker than you.”
“Hah! Damn it, how could I ignore a raw spark-gem, gleaming like a fallen star? Right before my eyes!”
“Did you truly glimpse it?” Seraphin sighed, a wisp of ash stirred by the sound.
By chance, a small spark-gem, a concentrated core of solidified aether, had fallen into Seraphin’s possession. Seraphin had held it, marveling at its faint, inner radiance, when the scavenger from the next pit must have seen. A rare oversight. A bitter self-reproach twisted within Seraphin.
The Ash-Wallows, those sprawling, lightless slums clinging to the Scarred Rim of the Obsidian Citadel. A place where the discarded souls of Aethelgard clustered, where the Maw’s brutal laws reigned supreme. No protocols, no compassion. The strong crushed the weak, claiming all they desired.
Weakness was damnation; strength, absolution. Seraphin knew these truths, etched into bone and memory. Born amidst the ash-fields, exploited for what little they could scavenge from the moment of their first consciousness. No pleasant memories from the communal dens. Struck for meager findings, struck for taking too much sustenance.
So, when the time came, Seraphin had slipped away. Not just from a den, but from a life. Vanished into the ceaseless winds, leaving no trace. The old overseer likely still sought them.
Seraphin’s name was self-chosen, a whisper of a forgotten song. It held no lineage, no purpose other than to anchor an existence. A satisfaction, quiet and profound, in that simple act of self-definition.
Survival had demanded every illicit act save one. Pickpocketing, theft, scavenging from the dead. All were tools. Complacency in the Wallows meant erasure. Seraphin’s meticulous traps, born of such knowledge, had preserved them.
Seraphin’s thoughts turned to the fate of the man beneath them. If his kin truly was a Shard-Master, a powerful entity capable of wielding lightning-aether, the danger was immense.
Then, a glint of cunning flickered in the man’s eyes.
*Whish!*
A smaller, concealed blade slid from his sleeve, a desperate, final gambit.
“Die, you little wretch!” the man snarled, lunging with the hidden weapon.
Seraphin recoiled, a blur of motion, just as the blade cut empty air.
Driven by venomous desperation, the man pursued, swinging the smaller shard with murderous intent. He wanted the spark-gem, wanted Seraphin silenced.
“Ugh!”
Seraphin grappled, ash-like agility countering brute force.
*Plop!* A sickening sound, like a shard piercing hardened flesh.
“Argh!” The man shrieked, collapsing, the crystalline blade now buried deep in his chest. His eyes, fixed on Seraphin, widened in disbelief, then glazed over. He shuddered once, then stillness.
“By the Maw,” Seraphin breathed, slumping back. The tremor in their hands was not of fear, but of the profound, alien weight of what had transpired. This was the first. The vivid sensation of the blade sinking into flesh, the sudden extinguishing of a life, was an echo in the soul.
“Why did you come here…?” Seraphin whispered, gazing at the cooling corpse.
Seraphin knew, deep down, this day would come. To survive the Ash-Wallows, to avoid being trampled into dust, it was inevitable. Yet, the brutal swiftness of it, the unexpected now, left a chill.
Seraphin forced themselves back to clarity. If the dead man’s kin was a Shard-Master, there was no safety to be found. Concealing a body in the Wallows was impossible; too many eyes, too many opportunistic scavengers. Better to leave it and vanish.
Resolved, Seraphin moved. They secured the obsidian door, locking the dead man within. Then, they stepped out.
A labyrinth of fused ash-structures and stacked crystalline habitations greeted Seraphin. Streets twisted like open wounds, lightless and suffocating. A living maze, the Ash-Wallows.
Seraphin vanished into its choked passages.
---
“Damn it! A true Shard-Master. How could the winds turn so foul?”
Seraphin muttered, their voice a low rasp, from within the fortified crawler. Its plates, hammered from salvage metal and slag, groaned with every lurch.
The older kin of the man Seraphin had killed. A Shard-Master, indeed. Not just any, but a formidable B-rank. Even an F-rank Shard-Master would be a death sentence; a B-rank, a force of nature.
Among the few hundred known Shard-Masters in the Obsidian Citadel, barely a fraction attained B-rank. To the common, ash-born folk, a B-rank Shard-Master was akin to a demigod.
Capture meant more than death. His brother’s demise had ignited a furious pursuit. The intruder’s avarice, his attempted robbery – none of it mattered to the Shard-Master. His blood kin had fallen, and Seraphin was the cause.
“Today, I flee like dust before the gale. But hear me, Shard-Master Kael. I will return.”
The pursuing Shard-Master was named Kael. He commanded Lightning-Aether, a power notorious for its devastating force, even among his peers.
Kael, like Seraphin, knew the Wallows. Though now dwelling in the Citadel, he had risen from the ash, mapping its hidden routes and crevices in his mind. He had hunted Seraphin relentlessly, systematically closing off every bolt-hole.
Cornered, Seraphin had sought this crawler. An armored transport, bound from the Obsidian Citadel to the Vein-Deep Pits, far beyond the Scarred Rim. Once past the Citadel’s outer defenses, Kael’s ability to track Seraphin would wane, even for his power.
*To walk this path willingly,* Seraphin thought, a bitter taste on their tongue.
Beyond the Obsidian Citadel lay the Maw. An endless expanse of shifting ash and razor-shard formations, constantly scoured by tempestuous winds. No life, save for the most resilient and predatory, clung to this desolation.
Beneath the ash, colossal ash-wyrms and armored cinder-beetles lurked. Above, obsidian drakes soared, and cunning dust-ghouls hunted. Scavenger cults, desperate and brutal, preyed on any who dared traverse the wastes.
No haven existed. This was why the Ash-Wallows, despite their squalor, remained populated. The beasts of the Maw instinctively avoided the immediate vicinity of the Citadel. Staying near the colony, however wretched, offered a sliver of safety. But with Kael’s relentless hunt, even that sliver had vanished.
“If only I had also awakened…” Seraphin’s thoughts drifted to the ancient cataclysm.
A century ago, Aethelgard had shattered. Ninety percent of life had been scourged, the survivors clinging to existence amidst the volcanic ruins. The Shard-Masters had been the saviors. As if awaiting the cataclysm, a fraction of the survivors had manifested latent abilities. Some had bodies hardened, others commanded the very elements. They were the Awakened, the Shard-Masters.
They had become the architects of a new, grim world. Even the lowest-rank Shard-Masters received deference within the Citadel. Compared to them, Seraphin was less than ash, a ghost in the wind. Seraphin’s death would go unremarked.
Ultimately, the crawler to the Vein-Deep Pits was Seraphin’s only choice. These Pits, deep within the Dolsan Peaks, seventy kilometers from the Citadel, yielded the vital spark-gems powering the megacity. Extracting them demanded immense labor. The tunnels, narrow and unstable, forced miners to wield pickaxes by hand. The relentless dangers meant a constant drain on manpower.
Thus, the Obsidian Citadel accepted anyone willing to work the Pits. No questions, no identity checks. This desperation had allowed Seraphin passage.
*I will survive the Vein-Deep Pits. And then, Kael, I will have my reckoning.*
As Seraphin stared out at the blurring ash-scape, their face set with grim determination, the crawler filled with others. All miners. All desperate.
“Hey, ash-brat! Heading to the Pits too?”
A hulking figure beside Seraphin rumbled, his voice rough. He seemed built for the brutal work, his eyes scanning Seraphin with a predatory glint.
“And if I am?” Seraphin’s reply was sharp, a sliver of obsidian.
“Such fierceness in a slip of a thing. Be careful out there. The Pits are full of men who crave soft things like you.” His laugh was a guttural wheeze. His gaze raked over Seraphin, lingering, hungry.
*Filthy beast.* Seraphin knew that look. The Wallows had been rife with such appetites, many fixing on Seraphin. Seraphin’s frame was lean, their features etched with a delicate severity. Without the fierce alertness that burned within, they would have been prey countless times. Seraphin’s fingers tightened, brushing against the hilt of a small, concealed shard.