Steam hissed from copper pipes overhead, a constant companion in The Cog & Anvil. Kaelan sat in a dim corner, the metallic tang of cheap ale doing little to cut through the day’s lingering dust. He watched the ebb and flow of Glimmergate’s common folk, their faces etched with the grit of subterranean life.
His plate, now scraped clean of rehydrated rations and gristle, lay before him. Finding the Forge-Spirit he sought would require more than blind tracking. He needed a local’s insight, a map to the city’s heart and its hidden arteries.
Paying with a small, perfectly milled gear, polished to a dull gleam, he caught the barkeep’s eye. The man, broad-shouldered and scarred, pocketed the component with a grunt of approval. Kaelan’s hands, usually busy with the delicate dance of aetheric manipulation, felt oddly restless.
“A word, if you have a moment,” Kaelan murmured, his voice low over the din. “I seek the city’s heart. Where might one learn of… local disturbances? A particularly troublesome rogue construct, perhaps?”
The barkeep leaned in, his breath heavy with ale. “You mean the Vanehold, lad. Where the Writ-Keepers hold court. All the city’s business, big and small, gets hammered out there. Bounties, too, if you’re a Scavenger.”
Kaelan nodded slowly. The Vanehold. He filed the name away, a new piece of the city’s intricate mechanism slotting into place.
---
Before Kaelan could ask more, a heavy hand clapped onto his shoulder, smelling of old oil and sweat. He suppressed a flinch, turning to face a man with a wild, greying beard and eyes that held an unnerving clarity amidst their weariness.
“Scavenger, you say?” the man boomed, a wide grin splitting his face. “Looking to earn your keep, eh? Don’t tell me, you’re one of those who believes a touch of ‘Spirit-Grit’ can turn you into a Molder?”
Kaelan’s gaze sharpened. Molder. The term for those who could wield Aether like a smith wielded a hammer. A power he suppressed, a heritage he feared.
“A Molder?” Kaelan echoed, feigning ignorance. “What is that?”
The man chuckled, a rough, grating sound. “Bless your greenhorn heart. You must’ve crawled out of the Deep Scar yesterday. A Molder, boy, is a master of Aether. They say if you hunt enough Forge-Spirits, soak up enough of their raw Aetheric resonance, you can awaken the power within. Become one yourself.”
Three other figures emerged from the shadows behind him, their frames bulky, armed with pneumatic drills and heavy-gauge rebar picks. They were the man’s crew, the Bore-Hounds, their faces hard and unyielding.
“Roric, you old fool,” one of them grunted, a grin tugging at his lips. “Don’t go filling the boy’s head with tall tales.”
“Tales?” Roric scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. “I’ve seen it, I tell you. Folk who’ve gone out, tracked the beasts, and come back… changed. Not full Molders, mind, but with an edge. A resonance to ‘em.”
He pulled up a stool, settling beside Kaelan. “We’re Bore-Hounds ourselves. Hunt the wilder specimens that stray too close to the Outskirts. Keep the city safe, earn a decent scrap. It’s honest work.”
One of the Bore-Hounds, a burly man named Jorn, thumped his chest. “We’ve taken down three Grit-Crawlers this cycle! Almost there, hyungnim!”
Kaelan felt a tremor of unease. Three Forge-Spirits? The beasts he’d encountered in the Deep Scar, even the lesser ones, had been formidable. Could these men truly face them?
“Three?” Kaelan asked, his voice betraying a hint of his curiosity. “Does that mean one of you… has become a Molder?”
A burst of laughter erupted from the table, drawing stares from other patrons. Jorn slapped his knee, roaring.
“A Molder? Not a chance, lad! If one of us had that power, we wouldn’t be down here, sweating for our keep. There are but four true Molders in Glimmergate – the Architect, and his three Citadel Guardians.”
Another Bore-Hound, slender but wiry, shook his head. “We barely scraped by with those beasts. Lost a good drill-rig on the last one.”
Four Molders in a city of this size. Kaelan understood then. The true power of Aetheric Forging was rare, almost mythical, even here. His own quiet manipulation of Aether was an anomaly. He was a force disguised as a craftsman.
Roric’s eyes, though, drifted to Kaelan’s worn leather satchel, then to the smaller pouch at his belt. “You’re after Forge-Spirits, you said? Your gear looks light for it. No proper pick, no coil-launcher?”
Kaelan reached into his pouch, retrieving a small, weighted sphere of dense metal, intricately etched with almost invisible runes. It wasn’t a weapon for clashing, but for precision, for striking a critical point.
“A throwing sphere,” Kaelan explained. “It holds its momentum well. And a folding blade, for close work.”
The Bore-Hounds leaned in, their expressions shifting from skepticism to something like respect. Jorn reached out, carefully taking the sphere.
“Huh. Fine work, this. Heavy. You use this to crack the plates of a Grit-Crawler?”
“Or shatter the antennae of a Shaft-Striker,” Kaelan replied, retrieving the sphere. They clearly envisioned smaller, less dangerous Forge-Spirits than the ones he sought. He had no intention of correcting them.
Roric clapped Kaelan on the back again. “Say, lad, we’re always looking for another pair of sharp eyes. You look like you know your way around a tight spot. Fancy joining us? We’re heading for the Under-Reaches tomorrow, tracking a brood of Canyon-Beetles.”
Kaelan shook his head. “My thanks, but no. My path takes me elsewhere.” He wasn't about to reveal his dormant power, nor did he wish to chase after minor irritants when greater threats loomed.
Roric’s face fell, but he didn’t press. “Pity. But the offer stands, if you change your mind.”
---
Later, upstairs in his cramped cubicle, Kaelan lay on a thin cot. The sounds of the tavern below seeped through the rough floorboards. The Bore-Hounds’ voices, distinct in their boisterousness, reached his ears.
“Roric hyungnim, why were you trying to drag that quiet one along?” Jorn’s voice grumbled. “He looked like a startled cave-mouse.”
“Skinny as a pipe-cleaner, too,” another chimed in. “One good swing from a Shale-Fiend and he’d crumble.”
Kaelan felt no sting. Such dismissals were common, especially for those who didn’t openly brandish their strength. He simply exhaled, listening.
Then Roric’s voice, lower now, reflective. “Tsk. He reminded me of myself, years ago. Too much raw rock and not enough iron. Surviving out there with nothing but a sharpened stone and quiet resolve… that takes a different kind of strength.”
“You’re too soft, Roric,” Jorn retorted, though without malice.
A faint smile touched Kaelan’s lips in the darkness. He closed his eyes. The world, even in its deepest caverns, held both the harsh and the surprisingly gentle.
---
The next morning, after a meager breakfast of stale bread and thin broth, Kaelan made his way to the Vanehold. It stood at Glimmergate’s geometric center, a towering structure of polished basalt and gleaming brass. Steam engines churned within its lower levels, their rhythmic thrum vibrating through the ground.
Citizens bustled in and out, arguing over resource quotas, property deeds, and trade disputes. Kaelan navigated through a tight knot of merchants and alchemists, eventually finding the section dedicated to bounties.
“State your purpose,” a Writ-Keeper snapped, his spectacles perched precariously on his nose. He regarded Kaelan with an air of dismissive authority, as if Kaelan were just another fortune-seeker, likely to waste his time.
Kaelan suppressed the subtle hum of Aetheric Forging within him, keeping his presence as mundane as possible. Revealing his true nature would only invite trouble, drawing the attention of the Architect or the Citadel Guardians, entangling him in duties he wished to avoid. His goal was simple: find a powerful Forge-Spirit, understand its Aetheric footprint, and move on.
“I seek information on… particularly troublesome creatures,” Kaelan stated, his voice even.
Without a word, the Writ-Keeper slid a thick vellum scroll across the counter. “Look, don’t touch. And return it promptly.”
Kaelan carefully unrolled the Fallow-Scroll. It listed various Forge-Spirits: their descriptions, approximate sizes, reported behaviors, sighting locations, and the corresponding bounties. Weaker, non-aggressive species, like the subterranean Glow-Lice, earned a bounty only if captured alive. Aggressive, human-threatening constructs, such as the predatory Shaft-Strikers, paid for corpses.
“Be mindful,” the Writ-Keeper droned, his finger tapping the scroll. “Even if you slay a beast by accident, bring its remains back. If its Aetheric resonance isn’t properly dispersed, it could form a Revenant-Construct. Leaving an un-reverberated corpse is punishable by expulsion.”
Kaelan nodded, recalling the horrifying echoes of forgotten power he’d sensed in the Deep Scar. An un-reverberated Forge-Spirit was a festering wound in the Aether, a potential calamity.
“Some of these sound quite dangerous for common folk,” Kaelan observed, pointing to a particularly menacing entry. “Do the Citadel Guardians not deal with them?”
The Writ-Keeper peered over his spectacles, a look of profound astonishment on his face. “Are you mad? The Guardians maintain city order, protect against external threats, defend the Core. Hunting stray Forge-Spirits falls to Drifters like you.”
Kaelan’s gaze returned to the Fallow-Scroll, his finger tracing a description:
* **Canyon-Screecher**
* A winged horror, its hide fused with jagged shards of obsidian and quartz. Its screech can disorient, its razor-sharp claws can cleave through rock. Preys on children and unwary scavengers near the Under-Reaches, snatching them into the upper chasms to feed. Leaves no trace but a faint tremor in the rock and the lingering echo of terror.
His lips pressed into a thin line. If Molders were truly humanity’s shield, why were such horrors left for common hunters? The bitter taste in his mouth wasn’t from the thin broth, but from this stark reality. The powerful protected themselves, the weak fended for what they could.
---
Kaelan left the Vanehold, his steps firm, heading towards the city’s fringes. The polished basalt gave way to rough-hewn rock, the air growing colder, smelling of damp earth and distant, churning machinery. Beyond the last of the industrial complexes, Glimmergate opened into the vast, echoing caverns of the Under-Reaches.
Time to begin.
He sought the Canyon-Screecher. A creature that preyed on the vulnerable, a manifestation of brute hunger. Kaelan settled into a crevice, out of sight. He closed his eyes, focusing his will, extending his senses.
“Resonance Scrying: Screecher.”
An overwhelming wave of sensation crashed over him. Not silence, but a thousand tiny echoes. The low thrum of deep rock, the faint crackle of unseen mineral veins, the frantic scurrying of burrow-rats, the distant drip of water, the stress in fault lines, the whisper of compressed air through geological fissures.
Kaelan gasped, his eyes flying open, the onslaught too much. The Under-Reaches were alive with ambient Aetheric energy, a chaotic cacophony that rendered his precise filtering useless.
This method wouldn’t work. The sheer density of natural Aetheric presence drowned out any single target.
He tried again, narrowing his focus. “Resonance Scrying: Amplified Aetheric Signature.” He sought the distinctive, potent presence of a Forge-Spirit. But the Aetheric energy of a living rock formation, or a pocket of geothermally heated steam, was just as ‘amplified’ in its own way. The spell simply failed to activate, unable to differentiate.
Next, a different approach. “Resonance Scrying: Echoes of life-force, recent human.” Perhaps the creature carried the faint Aetheric remnants of its victims.
Again, a rush of data. Too much. The city’s waste, the discarded organic matter of countless inhabitants, the residual life-force clinging to discarded garments or tools… it all created a diffuse, chaotic field. His senses reeled from the ghost-images of mundane detritus.
The Canyon-Screecher would not be found so easily. Kaelan leaned back, a grim determination settling over him. He would have to forge a new path to his quarry.