The Manufactory Ward churned with a thousand metal hearts, a dizzying pulse of steam and steel that seemed to push the very air from Silas’s lungs. He found a low-ceilinged ale house, its windows filmed with soot, where the clamor was dulled to a persistent thrum. The scent of burnt oil and stale hops clung to the rough-hewn timbers. He needed information, something beyond the thrumming cacophony of the city.
A young woman, her apron stained with grease, slid a chipped tankard across the counter. Her movements were economical, practiced. Silas mumbled a question about bounties – ‘anomalies,’ he called them, hoping to blend. She blinked, a smudge of charcoal near her eye, then let out a sharp, amused laugh that cut through the low din.
“Anomalies, eh? You’re not from around here, are you, lad? Veridian Oversight handles all the official notices. Down by the Central Spire.” Her eyes crinkled. “Sounds like you’re looking for work.”
He nodded, pressing a few tarnished brass coins onto the counter. The Oversight, a bureaucratic leviathan, felt like a distant, oppressive hum, but it was his only lead.
“You after the flux-creatures, then?” she asked, leaning closer, her voice dropping. “Like those Scrap-Wardens, trying to get rich?” She gestured with her chin to a table in the corner where four burly men, their clothes smudged with industrial grime, clanked tankards.
Silas raised an eyebrow. “Flux-creatures?”
“Aye, the things that twist metal, gum up gears, siphon off heat. Some folk, they reckon if you take down enough of ‘em, you get… well, a sort of insight. Call it ‘the Brass Sight,’ they do. Makes ‘em better at finding rare salvage, or seeing weak points in the old automatons.” She scoffed, polishing the counter with a damp rag. “Just glorified scrap-pickers, if you ask me. Reckon it’s all superstition.”
A heavy hand landed on Silas’s shoulder. He flinched, a jolt of his recent trauma spiking through him. He fought the urge to twist away, to push back with the Aethelweft. A man stood over him, somewhere between thirty and fifty, his face a roadmap of hard living and steam burns. Unkempt beard, hair like a forgotten bird’s nest, but his eyes… they burned with an unsettling clarity, reflecting the distant foundry fires.
“Elara, don’t you be dismissing the truth,” the man rumbled. His voice was gravelly, worn. “The Brass Sight ain’t no superstition. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Seen men changed by it.”
Behind him, three other men, built like boiler-tenders, approached. They carried heavy wrenches, reinforced rebar hooks, and one even had a short, stubby steam-hammer strapped to his back. They were a force of crude, repurposed industry.
Silas gently shrugged the man’s hand off. “My apologies. I merely sought information.”
“No offense taken, lad,” the man said, a grin creasing his scarred face. “Midan’s the name. And you’re interested in the Sight, aren’t you? I saw that look in your eyes.”
“I’m interested in the… anomalies,” Silas corrected, his voice quiet. He didn’t want to draw attention to any perceived 'sight' within himself, especially not here.
Midan’s grin widened. “Same thing, young friend. You kill enough of those flux-creatures, absorb their residual energetic distortions, and something shifts. You see the world clearer. We’ve downed three ourselves.”
“Almost there, boss!” one of his companions boomed, thumping his chest.
“Just need one more big one, then we’ll be set!” another added, flexing a thick arm. His knuckles were raw, perpetually bruised.
Silas was taken aback. Three such entities? The ones he’d encountered had possessed a raw, destructive power, enough to shred through steel and stone. He couldn't imagine a group like this taking them down with such tools.
“So, one of you has already gained this… Brass Sight?” Silas asked, the words feeling clumsy on his tongue.
The ale house erupted in laughter. Elara, the barmaid, snorted into her rag. Even Midan chuckled, a deep, rumbling sound.
“Not a chance, lad!” Midan wiped a tear from his eye. “In all Veridia, there’s maybe a dozen with a true connection to the deep currents, the Aethelweft, and they’re either cloistered away or bound to the Archon’s service. Us? We just want a sharper eye, a bit of luck.”
“Nearly died a few times, we did, taking down those things,” one of the others muttered, wiping his brow with a greasy sleeve. “They bite back.”
A dozen people in a city of millions. Silas understood then Keorn’s lament about the world’s dwindling connection to the foundational energies. It was a stark reality.
Midan glanced at Silas’s worn cloak, his lack of visible gear. “You lookin’ to hunt these things, too? Your kit seems a bit… light. No tools?”
Silas hesitated. His 'tool' was his touch, his perception. He had no weapon, no augments. He simply spread his hands, palms up. “My hands are my tools.”
The Scrap-Wardens exchanged confused glances, then a few snickered. Midan, however, studied his hands, a thoughtful frown on his face.
“Bare-handed, eh? Brave, or foolish. What sort of anomalies do you seek, then? The small ones? The buzzing scarabs that chew through conduits, or the static-lizards that drain power cells?”
Silas realized. They were hunting minor energetic disturbances, not the greater, more dangerous Aethel-distortions that could warp reality. Things that were dangerous to an unarmored man, but not on the scale he needed to address. Things that wouldn't grant true 'Sight', just a heightened awareness.
“No, I’m afraid my targets are… different,” Silas said, shaking his head. “More substantial.”
“A shame,” Midan said, not pressing. His eyes held a flicker of something akin to pity. “We could use another hand, especially one so… confident. But let us know if you change your mind.”
Silas accepted a small, windowless room upstairs, the air thick with the scent of old wood and metallic dust. As he lay on the rough cot, the vibrations of the city a constant tremor beneath him, he heard their voices through the thin floorboards below.
“Midan, why were you trying to recruit that greenhorn? He looks like a stiff breeze would snap him.”
“Aye, ‘My hands are my tools’ – what’s that supposed to mean? He’d be more hindrance than help.”
The voices were derisive, mocking. Just moments ago, they had seemed so earnest, so welcoming. Silas felt no anger, only a familiar weariness. People, he knew, were often different in the light than in the shadows.
Midan’s voice, lower now, cut through the others. “He reminded me of myself, years ago. Wandering, lost, with nothing but a pipe dream. This city… it grinds down everyone, eventually. Some folks, you just want to give ‘em a chance.”
“You’re too soft, boss.”
Silas closed his eyes, the words echoing in the dark. The city was a place of endless shades, of kindness and cruelty woven tightly together.
---
The next morning, Veridia awoke with a shriek of steam whistles and the clatter of a thousand gears. Silas navigated the bustling thoroughfares, the air thick with coal smoke and the metallic tang of industry. Automated trams hissed past, their brass fittings gleaming, while grimy workers swarmed the colossal factories.
He found the Veridian Oversight building, a monolithic structure of reinforced concrete and wrought iron, crowned by a clockwork spire that chimed every quarter hour. Inside, it was a hive of activity: clerks shuffling documents, citizens arguing over property deeds, the pervasive scent of ink and old paper.
He eventually located the bounty office, tucked away in a dusty corner. The official behind the reinforced brass counter was a man with a perpetually furrowed brow and a disdainful sneer. He looked Silas up and down, clearly unimpressed by his travel-worn appearance.
“Another one looking for a quick tally?” the official grunted, not even bothering to make eye contact. “Seeking fortune in the waste-zones, are we?”
Silas decided against revealing his true perception, his connection to the Aethelweft. To do so would invite scrutiny, perhaps even conscription into city service, a fate he wished to avoid at all costs. He preferred to operate in the shadows, unburdened by Veridia’s rigid structure.
The official slid a thick folio across the counter, its pages filled with neat script and crude sketches. “Don’t take it out. Read, then return.”
The document detailed various ‘Structural Anomalies’ and ‘Aethel-Distortions’ – their observed effects, typical locations, and the bounty rewards. Weaker anomalies, like the 'conduit-gnawers', required live capture. More aggressive, human-threatening distortions, like 'flux-beasts', warranted extermination, their remains brought back for identification.
“Be warned,” the official droned, his finger tapping the page. “Leave any significant Aethel-distorted remains uncontained, and you’ll face severe penalties. Knights will disperse the residual energy, but it takes time. An unmanaged distortion can cause localized reality shifts, rapid material degradation, even catastrophic energy feedback loops in the local power grid. Abandonment is punishable by immediate detention and forced labor. Keep that in mind.”
Silas felt a chill. The official’s cold, bureaucratic tone couldn’t mask the genuine danger. He understood now why the city was so strict. Such events, if unaddressed, could cripple Veridia from the inside out. He filed the warning away, the image of the bandits’ bodies, and the twisting energies he'd left behind, flashing through his mind.
“Why don’t the city’s Wardens deal with these more dangerous creatures?” Silas asked, his voice low.
The official snorted. “Wardens maintain the integrity of our primary systems, the Spire, the Core Manufactories. The city proper. These fringe disruptions, the ones in the neglected outskirts? That’s for freelancers. Drifters like you.” He gestured vaguely towards the edge of the city on a vast, grimy map.
Silas’s eyes scanned the document. One entry caught his attention.
**Brass-Winged Scourge**
*A crow-like construct with feathers partially transmuted into sharpened, reflective brass. Its wings resonate with chaotic Aethel-energy, allowing it to deflect lesser kinetic impacts. Known to attack vulnerable systems and scavenge destabilized energy conduits, causing rapid structural fatigue. Has been observed preying on stray automaton-scavengers and even unattended children near the outer districts, leaving behind scattered, corroded remains…*
A familiar bitterness rose in Silas’s throat. The city, with all its mechanical might and scientific skepticism, turned a blind eye to the very foundational energies that threatened it, leaving the consequences to those it deemed disposable. He clenched his jaw, the grit of the city settling in his teeth.
Leaving the Oversight building, Silas walked towards the city’s periphery. The grand, ordered streets gradually gave way to crumbling brickwork, rusted gantries, and mountains of discarded metal. The pervasive smell of coal smoke deepened, mixed with the acrid tang of decay.
This was where the city ended, and the neglected zones began – a sprawling, mechanical wilderness. He found a relatively quiet spot, a stretch of derelict workshops overgrown with tough, oily weeds.
*Time to begin.*
He closed his eyes, focusing not on a spell, but on a tuning of his inner senses. He reached out with his Aethelweft perception, seeking the energetic signature of the Brass-Winged Scourge. He sought the metallic resonance, the chaotic hum, the subtle distortion in the very air.
An immediate, overwhelming cacophony assaulted him. The city’s ambient Aethelweft was a storm. The deep thrum of distant steam turbines, the frantic buzzing of thousands of automated systems, the grinding friction of gears, the faint, decaying currents from buried conduits – it all slammed into his awareness. Every pipe, every cog, every rivet had a ghost of energy attached. The air itself vibrated with untold, chaotic currents.
He gasped, his eyes snapping open. He pressed his palms against his temples, a dull ache throbbing behind his eyes. It was too much, an absolute riot of raw data. He couldn't filter it. It was like trying to hear a single whisper in the heart of a roaring foundry.
*This won’t work.*
He tried to narrow his focus: an Aethel-distortion connected to an avian form. Still too broad. The city teemed with life, even distorted, energy-feeding life. He could sense faint, animalistic currents everywhere.
He tried again: an Aethel-distortion specifically associated with metallic corrosion, with predacious scavenging of specific energy sources. Still, the underlying current of the industrial city, its own slow decay and constant energetic bleed, muddled everything. It was like trying to find a drop of oil in a vat of oil. He needed a different approach. A far more precise one. He would have to adapt. He always did.