Ferrous Ash
The particulate corpse of failed miracles—a residue born from the collapse of combat nanites in the Drowned Trenches beneath the Ruins of Albany. Though once dismissed as toxic waste, it has since become the subject of obsession and speculation. Traders from Defiance barter with Wake Chemists for its filtered dust, said to whisper to those who inhale it. Veinwalker aspirants seek it not for its poison, but for its potential—claiming that, in the right electromagnetic resonance and within the bones of old-world infrastructure, it reveals the city’s memory and awakens latent phasewalk ability. Dangerous, volatile, and never quite inert, Ferrous Ash is not merely a substance; it is a lingering question, still waiting to be answered by those foolish or desperate enough to breathe it.
| Form | Description | Value (Camp Hope currency) |
|---|---|---|
| Raw ferrous ash | Unrefined, hazardous residue | 5–20 $ per pound |
| Poison-crafter’s extract | Filtered and ground for toxin synthesis | 80–150 $ per vial (black market) |
| Ritual “witchdirt” | Used in minor curses or spiritual poisons | 100–300 $ depending on demand |
It stains like blood, settles like rust, and never quite stays where you left it.
Composition & Appearance
- Color: Dark gray to rust-red, occasionally flecked with metallic blue or black specks
- Texture: Fine and flaky, but denser than soot; can clump when wet
- Smell: Faintly metallic, like blood mixed with ozone
- Magnetic Behavior: Mildly ferromagnetic; responds sluggishly to magnetic fields unless agitated
- Source: The ash is what remains when combat medical nanites within Thresher Mist lose power, deconstruct, or “burn out” following overexertion or decay. It is composed of oxidized nanometals—primarily iron, nickel, and cobalt—alongside traces of conductive substrate and corrupted molecular memory.
Ferrous ash is the price of remembering too much—it’s what’s left when a miracle rots in your lungs and forgets how to be holy.
Properties & Hazards
- Respiratory Risk: Inhalation causes metallic taste, throat irritation, and persistent cough. Chronic exposure may result in “metal lung”—a degenerative respiratory condition.
- Corrosive Interaction: Becomes mildly corrosive when wet, degrading certain polymers, synthetic fabrics, and organic tissues over time.
- Contamination Risk: Ash may carry trace quantities of neuro-reactive fragments, acting as a passive vector for hallucinogenic or memory-disruptive effects, particularly in the immunocompromised or cognitively unstable.
- Reactive Behavior: Rare reports suggest the ash may shift subtly in the presence of infected individuals or during magnetic surges, though this is likely the result of electrostatic or psychogenic responses.
- Persistence: Ash particles adhere to surfaces, especially porous or electrically active ones. Cleanup requires magnetic filtration or thermal incineration—manual methods often leave behind a lingering residue.
Cultural Views
The Church of Hope considers ferrous ash spiritually tainted refuse, the residue of failed miracles. It is never used in rites and is ritually burned when discovered.
The Syndicate calls it “Witchdirt,” and while most avoid it, a few poison-makers and Dreamtide adulterers use it to create neural disruptors or slow-acting cognitive toxins.
Wake Chemists treat it as a hazardous contaminant, carefully logged and sealed when encountered. Some believe it interferes with Mist purity and refer to it as “memory scum.” A few within their ranks recognize that the dream it provides the Vienwalkers and accomidate that dream like any other.
Scavengers view stepping into it as a curse—"the ground marking you for the next fall."
Veinwalker Theory
The city still remembers. The ash just makes you small enough to listenVeinwalker Split Mica
While Ferrous Ash is broadly known as a toxic byproduct of decayed nanotech, a fringe theory—widely discredited by formal Doctors but whispered among Awakened and fringe Engineers—claims the substance can unlock dormant phasewalk potential in certain individuals.
This belief, called the Veinwalker Theory, asserts that when microdosed under specific conditions, Ferrous Ash can initiate a partial reactivation of the buried neural-magnetic latticework that underpinned pre-Fall cities—effectively allowing the user to “step sideways” into broken infrastructures, walking the memory of the city.
The Ritual
The practice—called a Veinwalk Alignment—is equal parts mysticism and neurotech. Few survive it.
Preparation: The ash must be harvested from a known burn-rot cluster within the Drowned Trenches, a submerged tangle of twisted metal and half-flooded corridors beneath Albany, New York.
Processing: Wake Chemists process the ash into a stabilized injectable or inhalable form, referred to as “Alignment Dust.”
Execution: The aspirant must ingest the dust while exposed to overlapping EM field pulses—often generated by ancient drift beacons or jury-rigged resonance coils—within a still-functioning section of pre-Fall infrastructure.
Catalyst: Exposure must occur during a Drift Event or Mist surge. Without the correct ambient psionic pressure, the reaction fails. With it? They say time warps. Walls breathe. And the walker steps through.
Effects & Dangers
Phasewalk Induction: In rare successful alignments, the user reportedly phases partly into latent city structures—vanishing from the visible world and traversing forgotten paths between circuitry, data rails, or collapsed corridors.
Neural Imprint Fusion: Most survivors emerge mentally altered. Some speak in dead tongues. Some vanish entirely. Some return with glowing veins and flickering memories of “being a building.”
Physical Risk: Risks include tissue rejection, permanent anchoring to nanostructures, or transformation into semi-inanimate “echo shells.”
It doesn't just get into your lungs—it gets into your thoughts. I've seen interns stare at rust for hours after a bad exposure, whispering things like they're hearing traffic signals from a dead grid. You think it's dust? It's memory, broken loose from the system and looking for a host. And if it finds one... gods help them.Rell Soban, Wake Chemist
Logistics & Trade
Ferrous Ash suitable for mutagenic or mnemonic applications can only be harvested from a specific site deep within the Drowned Trenches—a submerged ruin beneath what was once Albany, New York. This mangled strata of flooded tunnels, half-toppled transit infrastructure, and collapsed pre-Fall laboratories is still thick with Thresher Mist and latent combat nanites. Even a moment of unshielded exposure can cause neural instability, hemorrhage, or recursive hallucinations. The ash here carries the strongest resonance signature—the trace mnemonic waveform required for the more esoteric applications of the substance.
Ferrous Ash is one of the few substances the Wake Chemists will barter outside of Camp Hope. Defiance, with its Veinwalker enclaves and appetite for forbidden experimentation, has become a primary buyer. The city pays well, offering rare and specialized goods in return. This exchange—dangerous, morally ambiguous, and fiercely protected—has quietly stitched a dark umbilical line between the drowned ruins of Albany and the experimental crucible of Defiance.
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