"Come on in—come on in! New wares straight out of Kovara!"
"Bone-crushing artifacts! Magical scrolls and tools from the depths! Straight from the last expedition!"
The market roared like a beast. Vendors leaned over crooked stalls, each one bellowing lies sweeter than the next, their voices colliding in the hot morning air. Ethan shouldered his way deeper. The gear was worthless, most of it—cracked tools, trinkets with painted runes, scrap metal sold as relics. Yet even the junk seemed to hum with a strange aura, as if the shadow of Kovara itself had seeped into them.
Maybe today, Ethan thought, I'll find something worth keeping.
He stopped at a stand where glass fragments shimmered like frozen lightning. Another table held knives whose edges looked melted, as if caught halfway between steel and wax. He let his fingers brush one, but the merchant snapped at him, and Ethan moved on.
The city or Arkens was always like this—restless, feverish. The outpost had started as a camp of wanderers decades ago, a place where explorers nursed wounds and sold scraps. Now it was a city of thousands, hemmed in by steel walls and hunger. The wasteland was barren, but foreign trade flowed in on a great trainline that screamed across the flatlands, hauling grain, cloth, and fuel in one direction and hauling relics out in the other. The train's whistle still echoed faintly in the distance, a reminder that Arkens lived and died by Kovara's bones.
A heavy shape blocked his path.
"You looking for something particular, young man?"
The shopkeeper was enormous—seven feet at least, broad as a wall. He grinned and hefted a hammer as if it were a toy. "The latest expedition brought fine things. Here—look."
From behind the stall he pulled a crystal the size of a brick. A faint light shimmered inside its depths, like molten stars trapped in stone.
"This here is mechanactile," the vendor shouted. "Sturdy as the Machine itself!"
He raised the hammer high and swung with all his weight. The crack rang out sharp as a bell—DIIINNGGG—and echoes rattled down the row of stalls. Ethan flinched back. The crystal sat untouched, gleaming innocently.
"Not a scratch," Ethan whispered.
"Not one!" The man laughed. "And yet, melt it in a Core Smelter, and you can shape it however you like."
Ethan's reply never came.
---
The sound hit first—a shrill, piercing screech that stabbed through his skull like a blade. His vision blurred, his knees gave way. The market dissolved into black.
For what is a mask if you do not wear it?
The voice was everywhere—around him, inside him, splintering across the walls of his skull. Ethan clutched his ears, but there was no shutting it out.
For what is an echo, if you do not hear it?
He staggered in darkness. No market, no people. Just a cavern of grinding gears and shifting walls, the air thick with the taste of rust. A strange light pulsed faintly in the distance, beating like a heart.
The ground shifted beneath his feet. Shapes twisted on the walls—symbols, hundreds of them, runes carved deep, sliding and turning as if alive. They blurred together until one emerged sharp and clear: a mask. Hollow eyes, a slit mouth but inhuman in shape. Waiting.
For what are you, if you do not take it?
---
The symbol burned white-hot. Pain lanced through his hand, and he screamed—
"YOUNG MAN! Are you alright?!"
Ethan's vision rushed back. The vendor was crouched before him, huge hands gripping his shoulders. Ethan blinked. The pain was gone, the sound too. His legs shook like wet paper.
"I—I'm fine," he stammered. "Just tripped."
The merchant frowned. "You were out cold, five seconds at least." Then he laughed, shaking his head. "As long as you're breathing, that's good enough news!" He paused, then added: "If you're feeling off, you should rest. The Inkers Pub is just around the corner—cheapest ale in Arkens, and the beds don't bite. Well, not often."
But Ethan's gaze had already wandered. His eyes locked on a wooden crate stacked with small objects. They hummed faintly, almost invisible—but he felt them calling.
"What's in those boxes?" he asked.
The vendor followed his stare and shrugged. "Ah. Just ritual packs. Worthless little things." He reached into the crate and pulled one out. It was no bigger than a cigar box, carved with twisting runes.
"Need special rituals to open each one. Even when you do, nine out of ten are empty, or hold nothing but worthless trinkets. Can't melt them either - mechanactile but the ritual keeps them from being destroyed" He tossed the box into Ethan's hands. "Junk."
But Ethan wasn't listening. His fingers traced the runes, each one etched with deliberate care. The boxes varied—some heavy, some hollow, each humming faintly like they contained a heartbeat. He shifted through them one by one until his hand froze.
There it was.
A rune shaped like a mask—eye sockets gouged deep, a slit mouth beneath. Exactly as he'd seen in the vision.
Ethan's breath caught. "How much?"
The vendor laughed. "Free, if you want it. I can't sell the damn things anyway."
Ethan slipped the box into his pocket, his heart hammering. The weight of it pulled at him like an anchor.
For what is a mask if you do not wear it?
The words whispered again, softer this time, as if from inside his chest.
He wandered the market in a daze, voices and colors fading into background noise. The box pressed against his side with every step, its runes warm through the fabric. He barely noticed when the market road bent and opened into a wide square, and there, towering beyond the outer walls, he saw it for the first time.
Kovara.
The Machine-City - the World Engine.
It rose from the wasteland like a mountain made of bone and steel, stretching so high its spires vanished into the clouds. The walls were blackened with rust, scarred with the weight of centuries. Towers leaned like broken teeth, vast bridges jutted out only to crumble halfway, leaving arches that led nowhere.
Even from here, Ethan could hear it—the faint grinding deep within the stone, like some enormous gear slowly turning. The sound of something too vast to stop.
The stories hadn't lied. Kovara was not a ruin. It was a body—a carcass of a god-machine, its bones forged from stone and brass, hollow yet alive. And it was watching him.
Ethan's breath caught. He wasn't alone. In the corner of his eye, half-lost in the crowd, stood a silhouette clutching a box identical to his own. The figure didn't move, didn't blink—just stared.
When Ethan turned to face them, the space was empty. Only the press of merchants and wanderers remained, bustling and blind. Yet the weight of Kovara loomed heavier above him, and the box at his side seemed to thrum in answer, as if it knew.