The Hush-Iron Pagoda: Silencing the Quake

For years, Zirath warned the Pulse-Lords of Vekal-Pura that the Shatter-Hum was coming - a lethal tectonic vibration that turns solid stone into churning liquid sand. Mocked as a paranoid fool, he spent his life savings building the Hush-Iron Pagoda, a stilted fortress anchored deep into the bedrock. When the disaster finally strikes and the city sinks into the earth, Zirath’s sanctuary stands alone. The arrogant elites who ruined his life now beg at his gates. Zirath wants to leave them to drown and only save the innocent. But there is a terrifying catch: the Shatter-Hum is semi-sentient and hunts by sensing elevated heart rates and human panic. The traumatized innocents are vibrating the pagoda’s stilts to the breaking point. The only way to mask their terror is to bring in the cruelest, most arrogant elites - whose sociopathic, dead-calm nerves act as perfect biological dampeners. Will Zirath be able to maintain control of his bunker when forced to shelter the monsters of his past just to save the fragile souls of his present?