The forest floor was a carnage of copper-colored blood and tattered grey feathers. Albert Whitelight knelt in the dirt, the internal mechanisms of his heavy suit whining as they adjusted to his shifting weight. He was completely absorbed in the biological puzzle before him, his attention narrowed to the millimeter. He remained entirely oblivious to the five pairs of elven eyes fixed on him from the dense canopy above.
He didn't offer a prayer for the fallen or perform a ritual to ward off curses. Instead, he triggered a switch on his Machined Gauntlet, extending a surgical blade of high-carbon steel that shimmered with a sterile, blueish tint. With a single, fluid motion, he opened the Harpy from sternum to pelvis.
"Fascinating," Albert's voice echoed flatly, muffled by the diaphragms of his Goggled Helmet. "The thoracic cavity suggests a high-altitude respiratory adaptation, yet the cardiac muscle is structurally identical to a mountain lion. A biological contradiction."
Hidden in the silver-barked pines, the elves whispered in frantic, melodic tones, their bows trembling in their grip. "He carves it like a pig," one hissed, his face pale. "No," the elder replied, his voice a ghost of a sound. "He carves it like a map. He is looking for something inside the soul."
Albert continued his work, unaware of the audience. He pulled a handheld brass cylinder from his utility belt that hissed with escaping air. A fan of amber light swept over the remaining corpses, the device clicking rapidly as it recorded the specimens. He moved with cold, rhythmic efficiency, snapping glass vials of ichor and clipping tissue samples for his centrifuge.
Once his satchel was full, Albert stood. His Metal Boots crunched over a Harpy's skull with a heavy, final thud as he grabbed the most intact specimen by its wing-joint. He dragged the carcass toward the Steam Buggy, the heavy vehicle idling with a low, rhythmic growl that vibrated the very trees. He tossed the specimen into the rear compartment, climbed into the leather-bound seat, and engaged the gears with a heavy metallic clack.
The buggy roared, venting a triumphant plume of white smoke as it churned through the mud.
The Elves did not let him go. They moved through the trees like shadows, following the thrumming "Metal Beast" through miles of dense wilderness. They tracked him until the trees gave way to a clearing that stopped their breath. There stood his sanctuary—a Labyrinthine fortress of glass and brass, a giant laboratory that climbed the mountainside like a Steampunk Citadel. Its chimneys belched white smoke into the teal sky, and its massive glass windows glowed with an eerie, artificial light.
The next evening, the silence of the North was broken in a different way.
In a soot-stained tavern within a nearby human settlement, the air was thick with the smell of roasted meat and cheap ale. Usually, the races kept to their own corners, but tonight, the atmosphere was electric. A group of the elven hunters, their nerves frayed and their cups filled with potent spirits, had finally let their tongues slip.
"It was no Mage," the lead elf slurred, his eyes wide as a crowd of humans and halflings pressed in. "And it was no Witcher. It was a man of hissing iron."
A burly human blacksmith scoffed, leaning over the table. "A golem? Some sorcerer's puppet?"
"No," the elf snapped, his voice rising in terror. "It moved like a man but sounded like a clockwork mill. When the Harpies dived, he didn't draw a blade. He raised a black iron tube—longer than a crossbow but with no string—and the world shattered. There was a crack like the sky breaking, and the Harpy... it was simply erased. A hole appeared in its chest before the sound even reached our ears."
The tavern went silent. The blacksmith's smile faded.
"He caught the second one with a Gloved Hand of Steel," the elf continued, staring into his drink. "A hand that whirred like a grindstone. He crushed its bones as if they were dry kindling. Then he threw the body into the back of his Metal Beast and roared away toward the mountains, to a castle made of glass and smoke."
The news began to ripple outward, jumping from table to table. By midnight, the story had reached the Dwarven Mining Camps in the foothills. By dawn, the Gnomes were whispering about a master of metallurgy who could forge "moving metal." Even the Halflings were sharing tales of the "Steel Sage."
The legend of Albert Whitelight was no longer a secret. The inhabitants of the Unclaimed North were realizing that the rules of their world had just been rewritten.
******
Inside the Labyrinthine heart of the palace, the air was heavy with the scent of formaldehyde and the hum of a thousand spinning gears. Albert Whitelight stood hunched over a galvanized steel table, his Machined Gauntlet retracted as he used a fine silver needle to probe the optic nerve of the Harpy specimen.
"Fascinating," he muttered, scribbling a note in his journal. "The ocular structure suggests a predatory adaptation to high-frequency light. This isn't magic; it's evolution on an accelerated curve."
His curiosity, however, was no longer confined to the dead. The strange, silver-barked trees and the translucent amber sap he had seen in the forest haunted his thoughts. He needed to map the flora of this world—to understand the chemical properties of the plants that fueled such impossible biology.
A sharp, metallic clink from outside broke his concentration.
Albert looked up, his brow furrowed. He checked his internal monitoring system. A series of pressure-sensitive plates along the outer walls were vibrating. Someone—or something—was attempting to scale the brass-domed exterior of his laboratory.
"Children," Albert sighed, his voice thick with annoyance. "Even in another dimension, the youth have no respect for private property or high-pressure steam vents."
He didn't bother with his full suit of armor this time, opting instead for his reinforced leather duster and his Metal Boots, which clicked sharply against the marble floors as he headed for the main balcony. He intended to give the local delinquents a stern lecture on the dangers of industrial trespassing.
He stepped out onto the balcony, looking down at the group of small figures clinging to the copper piping of his ventilation system.
"That is quite enough!" Albert called out, his voice ringing across the courtyard. "The boiler exhaust in that section is currently reaching two hundred degrees. If you wish to keep your skin, I suggest you descend immediately."
As he stepped closer to the edge, his Goggled Helmet (which he had reflexively donned) zoomed in on the intruders. He froze. These weren't children.
The "kids" had thick, braided beards that reached their belts. Some wore heavy leather aprons stained with coal dust, while others sported colorful waistcoats and oversized spectacles. They were muscular, weathered, and distinctly adult—despite standing barely four feet tall.
Albert crossed his arms over his chest, his expression shifting from anger to deep confusion.
"I must say," Albert remarked, his voice dripping with dry disdain, "aren't you all a bit too old to be engaging in such childish antics? I expected a gang of unruly adolescents, not a group of vertically challenged men playing at mountain climbing."
The intruders stopped. A stout figure with a massive ginger beard—a Dwarf—looked up at Albert with wide, golden eyes. Beside him, a Gnome with a pointed nose adjusted his spectacles, staring in awe at the brass joints of Albert's balcony. To their left, a Halfling nearly fell off the pipe in shock.
Albert stood there, staring down at them, completely unaware that he wasn't looking at "short humans," but at the master engineers and craftsmen of the North. To him, they were a biological anomaly he had yet to categorize.