Chapter 4: Finis

Night descended swiftly upon 147 Copperwing Crescent, a narrow serpentine street coiled in the heart of the opulent yet eccentric Gearhaven District. Known for its steam-vented rooftops and cobblestone alleys alive with glimmering arcane lanterns, the district now lay still under the velvet hush of twilight. Though the structure of the safehouse was reinforced by both enchanted masonry and BAC field protocols, a creeping disquiet seeped into the bones of the building itself. The illusion of safety was like a thin sheet of wax paper draped over something much darker. Every ticking timepiece in the house echoed louder than usual. Every gust of wind scratching against the windowpanes felt like the breath of something ancient and watchful.   Within the modestly lit kitchen BYU, the home's ever-diligent housebot, glided quietly across the tiled floor with a mechanical grace that betrayed centuries of perfected design. His hemispherical eye pulsed a calm cerulean as he exchanged hushed words with Echo, the steel-clad cyborg who stood with one hand braced against the marbled counter, his other hand rotating slowly as he applied lubricant to a shoulder joint. Echo's voice, a low harmony of static and reverb, contrasted with BYU’s cheerful automated timbre. The housebot, tidy as ever, produced a small hexagonal container—a labeled capsule of dry lubricant refined from powdered stormglass and oil pressed from glimmer kelp. Echo accepted it with a nod of thanks and turned, his metal-plated feet clinking softly on the floor as he made his way down the hallway toward Blackaxel's workshop, each step a reminder of the hybrid existence he bore.   Within the grease-scented enclave of the workshop Lux leaned against a cluttered bench covered in curious common objects whose real purpose begged to be discovered. Her eyes caught the firelight as Echo entered, the two exchanging a few brief words before conversation swiftly pivoted to the topic looming largest in their thoughts—the cube. Lux, ever the persuasive force, pressed for ways to get in contact with the brilliant Dr. Topip. Her inquiries were laced with charm but driven by the gnawing weight of urgency. Eventually, Echo relented, his voice softening to a conspiratorial murmur as he provided her with the encrypted details. She wasted no time, swiftly withdrawing a palm-sized communicator from a hidden holster in her belt—its matte-black surface etched with a shifting sigil of anti-scrying runes. She sent the message without delay, her fingers flying across the device with practiced precision. The screen blinked once, then dimmed. There would be no reply. Echo, watching her, merely nodded. He had hoped once for a swift reply from his creator; He no longer did.   Elsewhere in the safehouse, in the vaulted living room with its ceiling supported by decorative iron trusses and mana-powered chandeliers, Kiíellièn found sanctuary in solitude. The pale elf, graceful and otherworldly even in repose, settled onto the cushioned piano bench nestled in the corner opposite a frosted window. With reverence and care, she unfurled her ethereal wings from the confines of her backpack—translucent extensions of her soul that shimmered like moonlit frost. Their quiet rustle stirred the air like whispers of an ancient song. Her slender fingers fell to the piano keys, and with the gentlest pressure, she began to play. Melodies poured forth, fluid and sorrowful, each note infused with longing, like fragments of forgotten memories drifting on the wind. The room softened around her. Even the mechanisms of the house seemed to hush, as though the gears and cogs themselves paused to listen.   Outside the front door, beneath the amber glow of a flickering gaslamp, Sergeant Jaxion sat immobile as a statue, snow accumulating steadily on the pauldrons of his reinforced armor and toes of his heated boots. His breath misted in the frigid air, joining the soft whisper of snowfall that blanketed the cobblestone walk. His posture was vigilant but introspective, his gaze fixed on the far reaches of the street where shadows congregated like conspirators. Though no immediate threat loomed, his instincts refused to rest. Too much had happened in too little time, and only one constant had remained—danger. It lurked in every corridor, every flicker of light, every broken silence. With military precision, Jaxion retrieved a shovel from the armory alcove near the door and began clearing the safehouse’s driveway. The rhythmic scrape of metal on stone echoed through the night as he worked with grim efficiency, the act both preparation and meditation. He cleared a wide path—wide enough for the C.R.A.V. and Hamborghini, wide enough for an escape. When at last the stone beneath the snow revealed itself, he straightened, exhaled, and returned inside.   There, the unexpected awaited him. Seated at the piano was a Keeper, the woman up until now he had known as Kiíellièn. Her wings seemed blurred by magic, here aura a strange mix of serenity and sorrow. Most mortals would have fallen to their knees in reverent fear; Jaxion merely blinked. Something about a Keeper’s presence felt inevitable now. Slowly, without a word, he crossed the room and joined her, producing a soft percussive rhythm with his palms on the armrest of a nearby chair. He hummed a low baritone note, harmonizing with the impossibly multilayered music Kiíellièn conjured in an unexpectedly beautiful duet. The melody twisted and grew, the house humming with resonance as unseen strings were plucked by unseen hands. The edges of Kiíellièn shimmered, the air around her bent with magical pressure. Time seemed to slow. When their moment faded and with it the majesty of the unexpected presence, Jaxion spoke. Not loudly, but with the kind of quiet that fills a room. He shared fragments of his past—the boy who sang and found passion in music, the son whose father saw softness as weakness. The teen who lashed out when his family was threatened. The inmate who never apologized. And finally, the soldier—reforged by the BRN, his rage now weaponized in the service of order. Two secrets danced in the fading tones of the piano, neither party willing to break the heavy burden of trust and both willing to accept the shady past that followed them like long shadows. Jaxion exhaled, long and slow. Then, one by one, the rest of the house gave in to the pull of sleep.   But not all would rest easily.   Hours before dawn’s light could creep across the ridges of the city’s copper-clad rooftops, a sound—a soft, startled breath—broke the silence of the house. From within one of the many small side rooms tucked into the safehouse’s intricate floor plan, Xhoya stirred violently from her slumber. Her chest rose and fell in a flurry of excitement rather than fear. In the stillness, her voice—normally cautious, uncertain—rose with clarity and a strange, almost jubilant intensity. Her tone lacked the panic of nightmares. Instead, she spoke quickly, piecing together revelations half-formed from sleep but sharpened in that liminal space between dream and waking. The cube—its mysteries unraveled like silk threads pulled free by invisible hands in her subconscious.   "I GOT IT!""   Her excited murmurs grew louder, rousing several members of the household. The mechanical whir of Echo’s internal sensors activated instantly. Jaxion, who had chosen to rest cross-legged in the hallway just outside Lux’s door—ever the sentinel—rose in a heartbeat, hand instinctively gripping the haft of his weapon. Gidget peered groggily from her bunk, hair splayed like a fan of copper wire across her pillow.   Xhoya paced now, her breath fogging the air, hands gesturing wildly. She explained, voice trembling with the thrill of insight, that the cube was not merely a container of magic—it was a living conduit, one that required mana not just to operate, but to survive. If deprived of this arcane sustenance, it would siphon life from its user instead. Her voice lowered, reverent and almost afraid, as she likened it to a prism—capable of splitting magic into refined, devastatingly focused results. That it could fracture enchantments, recombine elements, or possibly magnify a spell’s power tenfold.   Around her, the others gathered, their sleep forgotten, drawn into the gravity of her words. Echo’s optical sensors flickered as he processed each hypothesis. Lux furrowed her brow in concentration, fingers already dancing across a nearby touchscreen, taking notes. Gidget, still rubbing sleep from her eyes, murmured about component tolerances, fabrication possibilities, and tainting procedures to render the cube inert. Even Silas, silent in a far corner, seemed to lean forward.   Their planning grew fevered but structured. Talk of decoys emerged—constructs imbued with enough residual mana to lure Gazelle away from the true artifact. The cube’s affinity with the warforged also raised grim questions: what it meant to bond, how deeply it might integrate, and whether its removal was even survivable. Possibilities bloomed, urgent and terrible.   And yet, with no immediate threat pressing against the door, exhaustion eventually reclaimed its due. One by one, the group began to drift back toward sleep, or something resembling it. Jaxion, still clad in partial armor, returned to his post in the hallway outside Lux’s chamber, folding himself into a seated position with one knee propped, the other leg stretched out like a drawbridge. There, with his back against the wall and his eyes half-lidded but alert, he found the closest thing to comfort he would allow himself.   In the fragile hours that followed, the house exhaled once more, its tensions temporarily eased by the promise of understanding. But even peace, like safety, remained elusive.   When morning’s pale glow finally filtered through the frost-rimmed windows of 147 Copperwing Crescent, it found its residents already stirring. Plans formed over hastily brewed tea and dense blocks of protein rations. The Gazelle—if not already aware—would soon be drawn by the pulse of the cube’s power, and the group knew time was no longer a luxury. Their strategy hinged on the creation of one—or possibly several—replicas. The blueprints Silas had retrieved, combined with Echo’s archived technical data and Gidget’s innate need to tinker made the impossible merely improbable. They reviewed every diagram, every note. A consensus emerged: they would need metal infused with arcane porosity, a material capable of absorbing raw mana without immediate degradation. This wasn’t just rare—it was dangerous. Only in the proximity of active mana vents could such material be tempered and molded.   Echo, being partially inorganic and impervious to traditional magical feedback, emerged as the only viable candidate to withstand the forging process. But even he admitted that his organic tissues—few though they were—would almost certainly die. Silence followed the declaration. Heavy, respectful silence.   As the implications settled in, the conversation expanded to include ancient history—the origins of the original cubes, their rumored creation within Monokomanika, and the architects of their design. Gidget nodded, face set in quiet determination, and began breaking the blueprint into segments, designating tasks each of them could manage with the tools on hand. They determined that Scorpion Pointe, the mountain that loomed to the North like a sleeping titan, would have what they needed. It was not just likely—it was all but certain. Its subterranean cavities, potential mana vents and the likely non-abandoned excavation sites held promise and peril in equal measure.   Rufus Trout, still recovering from his wounds and balancing his responsibilities, pledged to meet them after the new year. In the meantime, scouting was to begin. Entry points had to be located. Hostiles had to be identified. And allies—if any existed in the region—had to be contacted discreetly. Before their departure, and with trembling conviction, Kiíellièn stood before them and peeled back the final veil of secrecy she had worn. She revealed the truth of her lineage: she was Avariel—not a Keeper, not even native to this continent. She was four centuries old, her wings not merely decorative but sacred, and her mission in this land personal and perilous. The room held its breath. And then, with a flourish of manic creative energy, Lux seized the moment. Within minutes, she was workshopping digital identities, social narratives, and public storylines. Her plan was brilliant in its simplicity: rebrand Kiíellièn as her chosen mentee, an Avariel with a destiny linked to stardom and virtue. With millions of adoring fans hanging on Lux’s every fabricated word, the fiction would become fact, and the eyes of the world would look elsewhere.   But danger was quick to respond.   Echo’s internal sensors detected a distress call—an SOS from Dr. Topip. Yet the signal, though exact in its encryption, pulsed wrong. Echo knew with grim certainty that the transmission was false. His connection to the doctor had been compromised. There were no safe lines of communication left. The realization hit like a thunderclap. In that moment, silence reigned—not the calm kind, but the charged kind that precedes a storm. Echo turned his head slowly, his optic lenses adjusting in microflickers, capturing everyone in the room. “That's not the doctor" he said quietly.   Lux, her face already pale from the stress of the last few days, turned even whiter. A flash of guilt crossed her face—barely perceptible but present—as she reached down, grabbed her encrypted communication device, and slammed it against the corner of the heavy table. The screen spiderwebbed, sparks flying. Not satisfied, she dropped it to the floor and crushed it underfoot with the heel of her boot until the circuits inside gave a final hiss of smoke. From her coat pocket, she withdrew a second device—an unmarked backup, smooth and black like obsidian. This one had no direct link to any network, only a built-in quantum replicator used for broadcasting pre-recorded signals. With a few swift strokes across its holographic interface, she began assembling a masterful social deception: a deepfake post of her apparent departure for Finis, the desert continent across the sea. To the world—especially to any watching eyes—she would be far away, too far to threaten or be threatened. A false trail.   Meanwhile, Jaxion’s brow furrowed as he thumbed open a secure BRN comms line through his armband. He relayed the SOS ping, carefully encrypting every word with protocols that predated most cyberdiviners. When his commanding officer responded, the General’s voice was steady, calm, but laced with cold understanding. The meeting with Dr. Topip was uneventful and no clues alluding to capture or sabotage were conveyed. Furthermore, the General's confidence that the Gazelle would not surprise them silenced all doubt that their mutual enemy had yet to find the BRN General.   The morning passed in a blur of silent preparations. Every room in the safehouse echoed with motion: gear being packed, items inventoried, spells prepared and reviewed. Agent Silas, ever methodical, swept through the supply cache and identified missing equipment. Using his clearance, he submitted a requisition request for restocking—rations, repair kits, mana cells, and even a new butlerbot to replace the affectionate BYU that would be accompanying them. Materials to construct a personal EMP were hunted down and gathered like the last scorpions from Preydrus; they too were ordered to be replaced by the ever-vigilant Agent Silas.   By breakfast time the group was loaded into the convoy. They left 147 Copperwing Crescent behind—its chimneys puffing quietly into the gray blanketed sky—as they descended northwest toward Talwyn. Their destination lay far to the north: Blackrust Canyon. But the snow slowed them. What should have taken hours began to stretch into the realm of days. Visibility dropped. The wheels of the convoy spun and groaned against ice-encrusted roadways, though the Hamborghini's hovertech expertly eluded such treacherous perils. With time as an enemy the group pressed forward until, through veils of snow, they caught glimpses of hope: speedsters.   Several of them. Sleek, low-profile performance models that hugged the icy roads like predators. They emerged from the snow squalls with a mechanical snarl and raced around the Hamborghini, engines roaring like living beasts. Silas tensed, every instinct honed to danger. Without hesitation, he jammed the throttle. But the racers were not ordinary. As the convoy pursued them around a sudden bend, they were gone. Vanished.   What remained was a strange indentation in the snowbank—an unnatural curve that revealed an entrance nearly invisible to the untrained eye. Echo’s scanners confirmed it: a hidden tunnel. Silas, intrigued and cautious, directed the convoy forward. They descended into the underground. What they found astonished even the most jaded among them: a ten-lane subterranean speedway, carved into bedrock and lit by strips of outdated arcane fluorescents. It stretched endlessly forward in a mechanical ribcage of forgotten engineering. This was no mere smuggler’s route. This was a superhighway of a lost civilization.   With throttles wide open, they raced through its heart. What would have taken twenty-four hours above ground took less than one beneath it. When at last they emerged, blinking against the brighter skies beyond the mountain’s reach, they found themselves in Blynde Junction—a city unlike any they had yet visited.   Blynde Junction did not announce itself. It imposed.   Built within the cleft of a fractured valley and reinforced by iron bridges and copper-boned scaffolding, the city sprawled upward in calculated chaos. Skyscrapers rose like titans from the subterranean floor, their exteriors forged from obsidian-black alloy, glassy windows protected by mana-shields that shimmered faintly in the artificial daylight and seemed to stretch through the ground into the surface. Above ground where the convoy rejoined, each tower bore the unmistakable sigil: a looping calligraphic ‘B’ burned in blue fire across their façades, rotating and flickering with illusory depth. Unlike other cities where streets bent around buildings, in Blynde Junction the architecture swallowed the roads whole—streets carved straight through the bellies of towers, with elevated steam-bridges and magnetic tramlines threading between spires like veins through a colossus.   Here, luxury and desolation existed not side by side, but layered like sediment. The upper reaches of the towers housed high-rolling casino empires, their domes filled with ambient illusion-magic, replicating skylines from forgotten worlds or painting entire ballroom ceilings with the auroras of the Celestus Rift. Below, at the city's base, the world was less kind. Rag-covered hobos with iron-forged crutches huddled around smog-belching barrel-fires, their eyes hollow and lined with soot. Street vendors hawked shimmering counterfeit relics beside BRN veterans still clad in half-armor, their medals glinting as they flirted with nobles and civilians alike. The city pulsed with artificial light, but it was not warmth that radiated from it—it was hunger. It was spectacle. Jaxion took several grainy holopics with his datapad, archiving the blatant disregard for BRN protocol and honor of her colors. Everything about Blynde Junction set his nerves on edge.   The party reunited on the city’s eastern exit ramp, their eyes flicking to the horizon where the cliffs of Scorpion Pointe jutted skyward like the fractured ribs of a fallen god. And as they drove east, away from Blynde’s neon shadow and into the grip of a bluer sky, something strange happened. The snow stopped.   Almost abruptly, the frostbitten ground gave way to sol-scorned stone and dry winds.The skies cleared, clouds parted like stage curtains, revealing a brighter sol than they had seen in weeks. The road turned from concrete to betrayed asphalt and silence returned—not the tense silence of danger, but the stretched, wide silence of absence. They saw no travelers. No patrols. Not even wildlife. The land was still, as if something ahead had frightened everything else away.   Eventually the road narrowed, curving toward the south before splitting at the rusted T-junction of Glasten’s Landing, the last breath of human habitation before the mountain swallowed the world. There, the buildings sagged under the weight of age and neglect. Wooden walls had lost their stain, their grains stripped bare by wind and grit. The Sculptor—the continent’s relentless sol—had leached all color from the town, leaving behind only sol-bleached skeletons of what once might’ve been thriving. Rail lines paralleled the road, running straight through the heart of town and then off toward the cliffs, as rusted and broken as the benches beside them. No engines moved. No whistles blew.   The group paused briefly at the fork. The signpost had lost its lettering, but a weathered map etched into the roadstone told them what they needed: left led to the shore, to forgotten wharfs and rotting piers. Right curved toward the scorpion’s limbs. They turned right.   The sudden gravel beneath their tires crunched ominously, a brittle chorus echoing through the empty silence of the forsaken landscape. Thick clouds of dust billowed upward, shrouding the convoy in a hazy veil that clung to windows and metal alike. Buildings along the road became sparse, their hollow frames watching silently as the travelers passed. Occasionally, a faint flicker of movement betrayed the presence of wary eyes, glimpsed fleetingly through cracked windows and partially boarded doorways.   Finally, amid the oppressive stillness, a solitary figure emerged from the swirling dust behind them. Hunched and wrapped in layers of ragged clothing, the resident approached with uneven steps. His face was weathered, etched deeply by years beneath the unforgiving sol. His eyes, milky and unfocused, searched blindly as he offered fragmented grunts and half-formed words that barely resembled common speech. Yet from the fragments, the group gleaned enough to understand there was a place for rest—a place that promised shelter, if not necessarily comfort.   They followed the stranger’s vague directions toward a depressed structure that seemed abandoned, looking more sorry than safety. Yet, stepping through its creaking door was like crossing a threshold between worlds. Inside, lush velvet carpeting muffled footsteps, antique Victorian furnishings stood impeccably maintained, and ornate chandeliers illuminated the interior in soft golden hues. The contrast to the decrepit exterior was startling, leaving each member momentarily breathless in surprise. At the heart of the elegant establishment stood its keeper, a woman whose presence was as enigmatic as the inn itself. Her features, though striking, carried a faint blur, as though viewed through fogged glass, a symptom of a fae curse that had stolen her true name. Kiíellièn, feeling an immediate empathy for the woman's plight, promptly gifted her the name "Petunia," an act which seemed to spark a glimmer of forgotten recognition in her cloudy eyes.   Petunia shared a cheerfully grim tale of the inn's peculiar past, her words drifting between amusement and sorrow. She spoke of the inn’s only previous guest—a hapless soul who became tragically lodged in a doorway and met his end unable to free himself. Her story were punctuated by strange behaviors: walking into closets only to vanish momentarily, consulting a pocket watch she couldn't recall acquiring, and repeatedly noting she never remembered ever leaving the inn's confines. Her existence was a looping mystery, trapped within the elegant confines of a beautiful cage.   After securing the only two available rooms, the group settled briefly, their unease soothed somewhat by the surreal charm of the surroundings. However, rest eluded Jaxion, whose restless spirit drew him back outdoors. Mounting his rugged C.R.A.V., he journeyed toward the looming, rust-colored mountains, their harsh silhouettes painted starkly against the twilight sky. The road soon vanished beneath him, forcing Jaxion to abandon his vehicle and continue on foot. Near the mountain edge, a weather-beaten shack stood isolated, a clothesline strung with garments frozen stiff by rust, a garden thriving under the watchful gaze of a miniature magical raincloud. From within the humble abode, eyes gleamed warily—yellow, slitted, reptilian. The inhabitant, a rust-hued dragonborn, watched silently, neither fear nor hostility evident, merely curiosity and cautious observation. The Paladin's apprehension drew him away from the dragonborn with resolve laser-focused on learning the secrets Scorpion Point and its Deremitru kept buried.   He ascended steep inclines and navigated sharp cliffs, each step more taxing than the last, his armor weighing heavily upon him. A pervasive metallic scent thickened in the air, growing stronger as he crested a final ridge. Below him sprawled a mining village, partially engulfed by clouds of rust particles that hung like a sinister mist. Driven by an explorer's resolve, Jaxion descended toward the village, his armor quickly collecting corrosive rust dust that ate aggressively into the metal, forcing him to retreat hastily. Recognizing the peril, he returned to the dragonborn’s shack, where the enigmatic figure finally emerged, cautiously welcoming the tiefling inside.   The dragonborn’s home was sparse yet lovingly maintained, decorated with aged mining equipment and faded photographs. Communication between the two was challenging, as the dragonborn spoke no common tongue, yet through gestures and expressions, Jaxion learned of the village's tragic fate—its workers long perished, victims of the same mysterious rust that now threatened Jaxion himself. In a quiet act of compassion, the dragonborn meticulously treated Jaxion's armor with a rustproofing substance derived from local flora, halting further corrosion. With twilight deepening, Jaxion departed, retracing his steps back toward the others, heart heavy with unanswered questions and newfound understanding.   When he rejoined the group at the inn, sharing his discoveries and the unsettling encounter, Kiíellièn urged caution and revealed yet another secret. From her pack, she produced a brightly colored plastic toy—"Polly Pocket"—and with a gentle click, opened a gateway into a miniature pocket dimension. Hesitantly, the group stepped forward, trusting in their companion's assurance of temporary sanctuary, and entered Polly’s surreal, vibrant world, a place of unnatural safety and unsettling comfort.