Chapter 1
Courier at the Edge
The first thing Kael Orison felt was weightlessness—an impossible, floating calm that lasted exactly one heartbeat.
The second was pain, a jagged reminder that calm was a lie.
His eyes snapped open. Black-violet lightning webbed across the hollow sky above him. Netherdeep, he realised, stomach twisting. He was upside down, suspended mid-air—no, falling again. The gauntlet fused to his forearm glowed faintly, counter-gravity runes flaring and fading like a failing pulse.
System integrity … 14 %.
Structural supports: severed.
Recommendation: acquire stable surface.
"Working on it," he rasped.
A slab of inverted obsidian terrain rotated below, jutting out from the cavernous void like the underside of a floating island. He angled his shoulders, letting thin air stream across the torn remnants of his glide-wing. Fabric caught a stray eddy, slowing him just enough to crash rather than splatter. He rammed into the ledge, tumbled twice, and came to rest against a spire of crystal far taller than any tree he'd seen in Midveil.
For a long moment he lay there, counting breaths, inventorying bones. Everything hurt. But "hurt" meant "alive," and alive was enough.
Vector-0, the gauntlet chimed, voice hushed as if embarrassed by its own weakness, proximity alert: Fallen Archon signature approaching—seven hundred metres and closing.
Kael struggled upright. The landscape was a negative image of Midveil: gravity dragged upward toward the abyssal ceiling; rivers of molten blue spiralled through the air like reversed waterfalls; shards of ruined architecture floated, rotating in lazy parabolas. Somewhere in that impossible sky, a silhouette with torn wings circled—searching.
"Yeah, I remember her," he muttered. The corrupted angel who'd seized him in the storm was still on the hunt.
He needed altitude—down was up here, and up was where Midveil lay. One functioning glide-wing would get him there; half of one would get him killed. Options: find shelter, repair gear, or barter the gauntlet's secrets with the locals—if Netherdeep even had locals who didn't eat the souls of trespassers.
The gauntlet projected a translucent HUD. A single point of light blinked to the east: LOGOS NODE // DISTANCE 3.2 km // ENERGY RESERVE >70 %. Hope flared.
"Lead the way," he said.
He jogged along an inverted ridge, gravity tugging at his organs in unfamiliar directions. Bioluminescent fungi pulsed underfoot; each step released spores that drifted upward like sparks from an unseen fire. The air smelled of ozone and wet stone.
Minutes later, the ridge opened onto a chasm whose bottom dissolved into swirling void. Across it, a fragment of an ancient bridge hovered—marble fused with circuitry, severed cleanly by whatever apocalyptic force had sundered the planes. The gap between surviving segments was twenty metres—ten more than he could jump.
A soft rustle echoed behind him.
Kael pivoted. Figures emerged from the gloom: humanoids draped in patchwork armour, faces hidden by shattered mirror-masks that reflected warped versions of his own fear. Each carried an obsidian polearm crackling with indigo fire.
"Pilgrim," one hissed, voice layering male and female tones, as though two radios spoke at once. "Tithe the artifact and pass."
"I don't have a—" He glanced at the gauntlet. The mirror-masks followed the movement like seagulls scenting bread.
So negotiation was off the table.
He sprang sideways as the lead warrior lunged, blade slicing the air. A second thrust came low; he vaulted it, landing near the bridge's edge. Two metres of cracked marble provided no room to dodge a third strike.
Vector-0, the gauntlet advised, energy reroute possible: gravitational inversion burst—range five metres. Warning: 8 % remaining reserve.
"Do it."
A sigil wheel unfurled across his palm. He slammed his hand onto the bridge; a pulse of sapphire light rippled outward. The warriors—and, unfortunately, the bridge segment—shot upward, tumbling into the abyssal sky.
Kael had exactly one second to appreciate the solution before the slab under his feet followed. He hurled himself forward. The chasm yawned; for a heartbeat he was suspended between nothing and nothing.
Then fingers found an edge—ancient stone, coarse against bleeding skin. He hung, teeth gritted, as the world reeled. Muscles burned; loose debris rained past his boots, falling upward into darkness.
He hauled himself onto the opposite segment and collapsed, laughing despite everything. The mirror-masked warriors were now distant specks drifting toward the void-ceiling, limbs flailing in soundless fury.
Reserve power: 3 %. The gauntlet's glow guttered.
"Yeah, yeah," he whispered. "We'll find you a charger."
The Logos Node lay within a cavern whose entrance resembled the rib cage of a behemoth. Inside, crystalline stalactites emitted a low harmonic hum. At the chamber's centre hovered an icosahedral core of light—identical to the cube that had fused with him.
As Kael stepped closer, the gauntlet brightened in recognition. Lines of force arced between arm and node, filling the space with the scent of petrichor.
Synchronisation 23 % … 57 % …
Logos Pax-9 online.
"Pax-9?" he asked. "We've met."
Correction, the AI replied, voice sharper now, you met a fragment. I am the primary cluster. Host integrity assessed: 71 % viable. Query: do you wish to initiate uplift protocol?
"Protocol later. We're being hunted. I need a way back to Midveil."
Convergence is inevitable, Pax-9 said. Elevation path available, but it requires stabilising three Nexus spires—one per plane.
Kael massaged his temples. "Great. A fetch quest across realms. Can we start with not dying here?"
Incoming threat. A holographic cone painted the tunnel behind him crimson. The Fallen Archon silhouette booked across the display—fast.
Kael inhaled. "All right, Pax-9, show me everything this node can do."
Lightning flared at the cave mouth; shards of mirror-mask armour clattered inside, their owners hurled like discarded toys. The Fallen stepped through, wings sparking with corrupted charge, eyes burning white.
Kael raised his newly recharged gauntlet; runic circuits crawled up his bicep, across his chest. The node echoed with rising harmonics, as though the cavern itself prepared to sing.
The Fallen tilted her head. "Little courier, playing god?"
"Just delivering a message," he said, bracing. "Return to sender."
End of Chapter 1 — To be continued…