Chapter 001-The ash of men
The wind flows in a gentle breeze, carrying that acrid smell behind it.
Eryndor crouched, pressing his makeshift arm to the ground. Behind him, the walls of the damned city loomed, and smoke from the factories and machines twisted into the gray sky. Below that, the ground was filled with only blight, scrap, and ashes. "Nothing knew…" he mutters under his breath.
"I need to find an ash core and fast," Eryndor said, standing up, running deeper into the ruins.
His footsteps ring out in the echoing breeze. Eryndor looks everywhere, hoping to find a core.
eventually He pauses at a pile, a faint red light emerging from inside. "Yes, this is it" he says before rummaging through the pile. His prosthetic arm gripped the core and ripped it out.
Eryndor admires the piece. Suddenly, he hears a low echo from beyond the fog. He froze, "eyes so bright that they can pierce the thick fog, not good, a forgeling!" he whispers. -It has a human shape twisted by the ash and metals in the wasteland. Its claws, sharp as knives, scrape the ground, making a god awful noise. It snarled, dashing forward towards Eryndor, who put up his guard in time to fend off the forgeling's attack narrowly. He kicked the Forgeling back, sparks flying as it skidded across the scrap, giving him a chance to flee.
"Dammit! This is the last thing I need right now." Eryndor gritted his teeth. I need to lose him… or get out of here, looking around his surroundings. "The mounds of scrap and blight should make it easy to lose him," he turns to run zig-zagging through the piles of trash until he feels tired. Eryndor glances over his shoulder, not seeing the forgeling anymore, he stops to catch his breath. "That was close!" he says while panting
Suddenly, the forgeling charges through the pile of scrap effortlessly, which Eryndor was using as cover.
He turns in shock, his eyes widening, seeing the Forgeling slide through the metal like it was nothing. The Forgeling growls and dashes at Eryndor, swinging its claw towards him. It's too fast. There's no time to block or dodge… I'm dead… Eryndor closed his eyes.
The Forgeling never reaches him; instead, it growls in pain, eventually falling to the floor lifeless. Eryndor hesitantly opens his eyes to see the forgeling dead, and he's confused about how it happened.
A man jumps down from a pile of scrap, reeling in his harpoon and slinging his weapon from the dead Forgeling's body. "Wh-who are you?" Eryndor says in shock, The man begins scavenging the metallic body, "What are you looking for?" Eryndor asked, confused. The man looks over in the distance and then glances at Eryndor. "Run," the man begins to run towards the towering walls, never looking back.
"Hey, wait!" Eryndor yells while following.
"What are we running from!?" Eryndor asks, "That" The man points behind them.
The growls of Forgelings grow closer and closer. Eryndor braved a peak at one of the Forgeling, chasing them.
"Why does it look so-so?"
"Human?" the man blurts out, "That's because it is."
They continue to run, eventually making it to the creeping shadow of the walls where the guards open fire, the shots of the army's weapons ring in the air as well as the hurls of pain that follow.
"Damn metal bastards," a guard exclaims. In only a matter of seconds, all that remained was the smoke from the battle. Eryndor stood there at the edge of the gate wall, frozen, staring into the smoke. "Somewhere in there, they were human..." he musters, before entering the rustic city walls.