Your head is buzzing… again. Just another Monday.
A man wakes up in the middle of the sidewalk, in a world where what was new yesterday became old the next day. It was three in the morning. There, in the shadows of a crumbling city, someone with no true name, no identity, awoke. To passersby, he was just another drunk… or a junkie? He was both. A tiny ant in the urban hell known as NowaGen — a suffocating megacity of cutting-edge technology, where the Arcane had been almost entirely abandoned in the name of scientific advancement.
Amid the chaos — flying machines, roaring turbine-powered vehicles, grotesque implants, deformed mutants, and modified bodies — stood someone nameless. Just another among millions. An ant in a burning anthill. Even more now, with the city under mass attacks from a new, violent terrorist group. He was no one. This wasn't his first time at rock bottom. Just another day.
— Damn it… again… heh. Whatever. After all, it's just another Monday, right? Besides… there's that, huh?
With a subtle motion, he reaches for his belt — curiously, the only valuable item he had. A dark, gothic, ornate model. Its brand: Igyris. A beautiful name. Touching the worn-out fanny pack, he checks something.
— Yeah… maybe my head's clearing up… damn it…
Walking through that city, surrounded by strobing lights and visual pollution, he begins to notice his own condition — covered in bruises and scratches. Around him, fresh wreckage from the attacks. People in ruins. But he ignores them. The cyberpunk city lights sting his eyes. Turbine engines roar nonstop. Rude, hostile-looking people cross his path — and he was one of them. Arcane users try to sell their gifts for scraps, dirty circuit coins. He avoids them all.
At the center of the chaos, the great Powermagi tower. He didn't understand how it worked. Maybe he had forgotten. Maybe it didn't matter.
— Come on… don't those idiots realize this isn't their place? So many paradises where the Arcane reigns… and they choose to live in NowaGen? Hah… Maybe it's even worse out there. I've never left this place, have I? Either way… my allergy's acting up…
He had an "allergy." Every time he got close to Arcane energy, his skin itched, cracked, burned. He didn't know why. He didn't know anything.
Before him, a rundown bar — neon sign shattered, and a low-res hologram of a woman stripping. Bait to lure the desperate. He ignores the image and enters.
— HEY, BELT GUY! LOOK AT THAT, YOU'RE ALIVE!
A man shouts upon seeing him.
— HAHAHA! NO WAY! THE BLAST FROM THE ATTACK WAS RIGHT IN YOUR FACE! YOU'RE IMMORTAL!
— It's true, man! Talk about bad luck for us… the job lined up right with those crazy attacks. But you're one lucky bastard — survived the flames!
Five men were in the bar, all laughing, chatting. The memory lit up: the last robbery. The explosion. The chaos. The pain. And then, consciousness. That bar wasn't ordinary. It was the gathering point for a criminal faction — more than thirty heavily armed men. Brutal robbers. Killers. All chasing a better life in the digital metropolis. And he was one of them.
On the last mission, there was an item. A jewel. Something important. And he had been swallowed by the explosion from one of the terrorist attacks. A miracle he was still standing.
— Igyris, come here, kid.
An older man, leaning on the counter, calls him. But by what name? Igyris — the name of the belt? He steps forward.
— Look, kid, heh… you've been real useful since we pulled you out of that pile of shit. Seriously, you've been a big help in the jobs. Faster, stronger than most even with that junk you call equipment. But you know: to be one of us, you have to earn it. Did you bring the thing? You get it, right, Igyris?
That was it. He remembered. He was no one. Woke up months ago in a landfill. No memory. No name. No face. No story. Empty. The only thing that caught his attention that trash-filled morning was the belt in a shattered display window. Nameless, he took the belt's name as his own.
— Heh… the handsome guy here, besides being immortal, brings presents.
Igyris responds, unmotivated, with a tragic, sarcastic smile. He opens the pouch and pulls out a small object: a stone embedded in a cybernetic device.
— Holy shit, he actually did it!
— The son of a bitch survives the blast and completes the mission! Best recruit we've ever had!
Igyris feels the pain. That object burned him. His skin sizzled like it touched hot coal. The allergy. The damn Arcane energy allergy.
— Perfect… so you brought the battery. The plan will go as expected.
— HAHAHA! OUR BIG HEIST, MAN! OUR OSCAR!
The stone Igyris brought was a Lesser Devil Stone — a high-powered Arcane object, inaccessible to almost everyone, only to Arcane nobility. Getting that thing was his mission. Now, attached to a technological device, the stone could be drained and redirected for various purposes.
— Okay… this is the big heist. This little thing's gonna power our Gullbriser. One shot and we take out the entire escort and rear guard. The bastards won't even have time to react. And, luckily, the vehicle's gonna pass right over the sewer station…
All part of the plan. An ambitious mission. A major robbery. The artifact would power a heavy weapon: the Gullbriser, a military-grade Arcane disintegrator. Stolen in a previous mission. Now, finally ready to be used.
— The heist's happening in the morning, right?
— When the kid "died," I thought it was all screwed. But look at that… our biggest weapon is immortal. Zero percent failure! HAHAHA!
A weapon. That's how they saw him. And that was fine. He didn't see himself as anything more either. He didn't care. His existence was an echo. A blur. A walking void. Just… a specter.
He grips the belt and the other object he carried in his pocket tightly. His only bonds. His only charms.
— Alright. Prep everything. Tomorrow's the big day. That filthy noble's gonna bleed. This'll be the biggest payday of our lives.
The meeting ends. Igyris leaves the bar. He walks through the dark, twisted city. The moon hidden beneath a sky choked with toxic clouds. The only light comes from neon signs, billboards, and vehicles cutting through the skies at hypersonic speed. NowaGen wasn't ugly. It was corrupt. Life there was made of metal, circuits, and wires.
Igyris lights a cybernetic cigarette. With one hand, he shakes off his dirty denim jacket. With the other, he adjusts his outdated devices. And finally, with both hands, he clutches the charm in his pocket and his belt. Two objects with no great meaning… but that somehow calmed him deeply. It was all he had. The only things that were with him… when he was born in that cradle of garbage.