Cool, damp air clung to the industrial taproom, thick with the scent of fermented grains and ozone. Silas, seated at a scarred table in the corner, nursed a tankard of tepid ale. He’d learned quickly that the quickest path to local knowledge was a quiet demeanor and a coin or two, less direct than his Stargazer insights but more socially acceptable. His fingers, still faintly tingling from the recent confrontation, drummed a silent rhythm against the pewter. He needed information on the shifting reality distortions, the anomalies that plagued Aethelburg’s underbelly.
A young woman with tired eyes and a flour-dusted apron wiped down the counter. Her name, he’d overheard, was Lyra. She leaned closer, drawn by the glint of the small silver piece Silas had slid across the wood earlier. “Looking for the Manifestations, are we?” Her voice was hushed, a slight tremor in it. “You’d best speak to the Guild. The Registrars at the Technocrat Hub keep track of them. Every reported incident, every bounty.”
Silas observed her closely. “The… Hub?” He kept his tone neutral, feigning ignorance. It was safer than revealing he knew little of Aethelburg’s formal structures, preferring to navigate by the subtle currents of the city’s unseen energies.
Lyra gave a short, almost pitying laugh. “You truly are new to the Sprawl, aren’t you? The Technocrat Hub. It’s the spire that overlooks the Lower Districts, impossible to miss. All civic matters, all Guild mandates, flow from there. You’ll find the Proctors—they’re the Guild officials—at the ground floor. They handle the public registries.”
Her explanation was succinct, her gaze flicking around the near-empty room as she spoke. Darkness had already begun to bleed into the grimy windows, painting the street outside in shades of charcoal and amber. He decided to wait until morning. The Technocrat Hub would be a formidable place, better faced with the cold light of day.
“But why seek the Manifestations?” Lyra continued, her curiosity outweighing her caution. “Are you one of those… Echo Seekers?”
“Echo Seeker?” Silas tilted his head slightly, a subtle shift that implied genuine ignorance.
“Aye, those who believe you can… absorb the energy of a Manifestation. That it’ll awaken your own dormant abilities, make you an Aether-Wielder.” She scoffed, polishing a glass with unnecessary vigor. “A fool’s errand, mostly. Just a superstition to get desperate folk killed. The Guild’s Enforcers are the only true Aether-Wielders, with their constructs and charged weaponry.”
But Silas knew better. He knew of the true power, the Stargazer bloodline that coursed through his own veins, a power the Technocrats sought to suppress, to brand as an anomaly itself.
A heavy hand clapped onto Silas’s shoulder. He flinched, not from surprise, but from the sudden, jarring intrusion on his quiet space. A man, somewhere in his late thirties, stood over him. Unkempt stubble shadowed his jaw, and his clothes were stained with grease and grime, yet his eyes held a unsettling, almost fanatic gleam.
“Lyra, lass, it’s no superstition! I tell you, it’s truth!” The man’s voice was gravelly, resonant. “I’ve seen it myself, with these very eyes! The power… it shifts you!”
“Gideon!” Lyra exclaimed, a mix of relief and exasperation coloring her voice. “You’re alive? We heard the Shard-Beasts got you out by the Foundry!”
“Got me? Not a chance! Not until I’ve felt the true pulse of the cosmos myself!” Gideon laughed, a rough, rattling sound. Behind him, three burly men shuffled into the taproom, armed with heavy stun-batons and crude, sharpened metal poles. They looked like grizzled, desperate men, their faces etched with the hardships of the Sprawl.
One of the newcomers, a giant of a man with a scarred brow, offered a sheepish grin to Lyra. “Sorry about him, Lyra. Boss always gets a bit… zealous.”
Silas gently shrugged off Gideon’s hand. “About what you said,” he began, his voice low, “about absorbing the Manifestation’s energy?”
Gideon’s grin widened, a predator’s smile. “Interested, are we, lad? You’ve got the look of a seeker. Listen, the Enforcers, they just contain the energy, channel it into their machines. But a true seeker, a *real* Aether-Wielder, they take it in! Make it part of themselves. I’ve seen men touched by it, seen their eyes glow with the raw light of the void!”
“We’ve brought down three of them ourselves, just this cycle!” one of Gideon’s crew boasted, thumping his stun-baton against the floor.
“Aye, close to cracking the code now!” another chimed in, his face alight with a dangerous hope.
Silas felt a prickle of alarm. The Manifestations he’d encountered were distortions of reality, dangerous to even glimpse, let alone *absorb*. He kept his expression impassive. “Three Manifestations? And one of you has become an Aether-Wielder then?”
The taproom, which had been silent, erupted in ragged laughter. Even Lyra chuckled, a sad, knowing sound.
“An Aether-Wielder? In *our* crew?” Gideon clapped Silas on the back again, harder this time. “No, lad. There are only a handful in Aethelburg, all within the Guild’s inner circle. The High Proctor, and his three Captains. If one of us had managed it, the whole Sprawl would know. We’d be running this cesspit!”
“We barely made it out alive from the last one,” the scarred man muttered, rubbing his ribs. “Lost two good men that day.”
Only a handful of true Aether-Wielders, all within the Technocrat Guild. Silas understood. The Guild maintained absolute control, stifling any independent awakening, branding it as a threat, as an anomaly. It was a stark reminder of the isolation his own latent power brought.
Gideon’s sharp gaze fell on Silas’s worn satchel, a simple canvas bag that contained his few necessities. “You’re hunting Manifestations, you say? But you’ve got no proper kit. No weapon?”
Weapon. Silas had no use for crude metal. His power was internal, woven into the fabric of his being. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small, intricately carved sliver of polished obsidian, a Stargazer charm, not a weapon, but a focus for certain minor sensory spells. He held it up. Its facets caught the dim light, reflecting it like distant stars.
Gideon’s crew leaned in, examining the obsidian shard with genuine interest.
“A charm, is it?” Gideon mused. “Used to ward off the void-sickness, or perhaps for aiming your throws?”
“Aye, a good luck piece, perhaps?”
“Looks like it’s seen some use,” the scarred man commented, turning it over in Silas’s palm. “Could be for targeting the smaller echoes, the skittering kind.”
Silas let them believe what they wished. They assumed he hunted the lesser manifestations – the fleeting distortions, the barely perceptible glitches that could still disorient or cause illness. They clearly weren’t tracking the true, dangerous anomalies, the reality-shattering events that claimed lives and twisted the very environment.
Gideon straightened, a glint in his eye. “Look, lad, we’re heading out to the Fallow-Lands come dawn. You got a sharp eye, maybe that little charm does more than just shine. Care to join us? We could use an extra pair of eyes, a marksman perhaps.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Silas said, his voice flat, “but no.” He had no intention of exposing his true power for a futile quest. His own goals were far more grave.
Gideon’s face fell slightly, but he didn’t press. “Pity. But the offer stands if you change your mind.” He turned to his crew, issuing gruff orders.
Later, Lyra handed Silas a key to a cramped room upstairs. The wooden floorboards creaked under his weight. Lying on the narrow cot, he could hear the muffled voices of Gideon’s crew from the taproom below. They spoke of him, their tones sharp with derision.
“Gideon, why bother with that scrawny kid? He looks like he’d collapse if a strong breeze hit him.” That was the giant. “He’d be dead weight.”
“Aye, a babe in the woods, with his fancy little trinket,” another sneered.
Gideon’s voice, though low, carried clearly. “Tsk, he reminded me of myself, once. Young, full of fire, but too naive for this city. Out here with nothing but a polished rock? He won’t last a cycle.”
“Still, Gideon, you’re too soft-hearted.”
Silas closed his eyes, a familiar ache settling in his chest. People, he mused, were a complex weave of shadows and brief, fleeting light. The world was full of both compassion and cruelty, often in the same breath. He simply sighed, accepting the truth of it.
---
Morning dawned grey and drizzly, as was typical for Aethelburg. After a sparse breakfast of stale bread and thin broth at the taproom, Silas made his way toward the Technocrat Hub. It loomed over the Lower Districts like a monstrous, metallic growth, its four stories of dull, obsidian-like material glinting under the rain. Steam billowed from vents near its apex, a constant exhalation from the city’s heart.
The ground floor was a cacophony of hushed murmurs and the click of Guild mechanoids. Citizens, faces drawn with worry, waited in long queues to resolve disputes or register complaints. Silas navigated a simmering argument between an elderly man and a rigid Guild guard over a property lease, eventually finding the section marked ‘Anomaly Registry – Public Access’.
A gaunt-faced Proctor, sharp-edged glasses perched on his nose, sat behind a reinforced counter. He barely looked up as Silas approached, his disdain evident in the curl of his lip. “Another seeker for the Manifests, I presume?” His voice was flat, bored. “Expect to be disappointed. Or dead.”
Silas felt the subtle hum of the Proctor’s Guild-issued gear, a faint echo of harnessed Aether. He could have revealed himself as a Stargazer, could have demanded respect, but the thought was fleeting. Such a reveal would entangle him in the Guild’s bureaucracy, turn him into a curiosity, or worse, a controlled asset. Best to remain a nameless drifter. His true purpose was not to serve their structure, but to protect the reality they so carelessly fractured.
“No taking it from the console,” the Proctor droned, sliding a data-slate across the counter. “Read it, then return it. Standard protocol.”
Silas took the slate. The screen displayed a stark list of anomalies: their appearance, estimated size, known characteristics, latest reported sightings, and the Guild’s paltry bounties. Weaker, less aggressive distortions were only rewarded if contained or pacified. The more hostile, dangerous ones could be destroyed, their residual energies nullified by Guild Enforcers, their physical remains brought in for verification.
A chilling line caught his eye: *Weak Manifestations, when slain, often revert to their pre-anomalous forms, making false claims easy. Proof of void-sickness or unique energy decay required.* The Guild was clearly aware of how desperate people were.
“A word of warning, drifter,” the Proctor said, his voice sharper now, a hint of genuine warning in it. “Should you somehow manage to neutralize a Manifestation, *do not* leave its remains unattended. Without a proper void-nullification field, the residual cosmic energy can congeal, twisting into a malevolent Void Miasma. Abandoning a Manifestation’s core is a capital offense under Guild Law. Keep that in mind.”
Silas’s jaw tightened. He’d witnessed the horrors firsthand, the lingering sickness and spatial tears left behind by uncontained anomalies. He had no intention of repeating that mistake.
“But some of these,” Silas gestured at the slate, “they sound dangerous. Don’t the Enforcers deal with these first?”
The Proctor scoffed, a dry, dismissive sound. “Enforcers have proper duties: maintaining public order, defending against larger incursions. Manifestation hunts are for the desperate, the foolhardy, and the drifters like yourself. We list them, you deal with them. That’s how the Sprawl operates.”
Silas’s gaze returned to the data-slate, settling on a particular entry.
~~~~~~~
Gloomwing Corvid
Avian manifestation. Feathers partially transformed into razor-sharp obsidian-like shards, capable of deflecting low-grade energy bolts and projectiles. Attacks from high altitudes, dropping hardened quills onto targets. Known to prey on stray hounds and unattended children near the city’s outer industrial sectors, often leaving behind scattered, dismembered remains…
~~~~~~~
A cold anger settled in Silas’s gut. If true Aether-Wielders were humanity’s protectors, why were such horrors left to prey on the innocent? Yet, here they were, listed as little more than a nuisance for desperate bounty hunters. He suppressed a bitter sigh.
Leaving the oppressive confines of the Technocrat Hub, Silas headed toward the specified outer industrial sectors. The buildings grew sparse, the grimy streets giving way to cracked asphalt and heaps of discarded metal. Beyond lay a blighted landscape, punctuated by the skeletal remains of forgotten factories.
‘Time to begin.’
Once he was sure no prying eyes or Guild monitors were present, Silas focused his intent. He pictured the Gloomwing Corvid, its jagged form a dark stain against the sky. He closed his eyes, reaching out with his Stargazer senses.
“Echo Resonance Scan: Corvid Manifestation.”
An immediate deluge of sensory input slammed into him. The fluttering of thousands of wings, the harsh caws of common ravens, the scuttling of unseen creatures beneath derelict structures. A blinding cacophony of life, each tiny ripple of energy overwhelming his focus.
“Ugh.” He winced, cutting off the scan. The sheer density of avian life in Aethelburg’s industrial zones rendered the focused detection spell useless. He couldn’t pick out one anomaly from the constant, mundane chorus.
‘This won’t work.’
How could he isolate the specific, dangerous energy signature? He tried again, refining his intent. ‘A Corvid touched by true void energy?’ But the ability failed to activate. His Stargazer senses could identify distortions, but not precisely filter them by their source or inherent quality, not with such broad parameters.
Next, he tried to narrow the search: ‘Corvids that have consumed flesh tainted by void-sickness.’ This time, the scan flared, but identified hundreds of targets. Likely, common carrion birds that had scavenged on the lingering, non-anomalous remains of unfortunate creatures, or perhaps even victims, near the Manifestation’s territory. The task of finding one specific anomaly was proving more challenging than he’d anticipated. He needed a more direct approach, something less subtle but perhaps more effective in this chaotic environment.