They met at first bell on the high terrace, where the city's glow looked like banked coals under a dark lid. No one brought weapons; for once, there was nothing to prove—only something to decide.
Texan planted his elbows on the rail and squinted into the distance like the horizon might answer for them. Recon kept shifting his weight and drumming two fingers against his thigh. Himmel stood centered between them, hands folded behind his back, eyes steady.
"We need to set a clock," Himmel said. "No more drifting. We also need a goal, for me, I hate seeing all of these orcs basically trapped under here. They're too afraid to even leave, they don't know what the world can be like. Let's go back to the capital to join a faction, or everything we've learned stays buried here."
Texan blew out a slow breath. "Alright, scholar. Lay it out."
Himmel glanced toward the vents where the city's heat bled into the tunnels. "We left the capitol one year and two months before the next treaty signing. If the orc king signs this time, we can walk off this continent without getting declared fair game every step. Not even just that, I want to be able to make a home for everyone here, so they can leave here. No longer fearing anything."
"And if he doesn't," Recon muttered, "we're gonna have way more troubles in any other continent. Also, these people seem happy here, they have families friends, food. Why shouldn't they just stay?"
"We won't give him the option, and your right. But it's the morals, I want them to have an option. But that's not even the hard part." Himmel said, matter-of-fact. "We'll need a voice at the table—one of the Thirteen Factions. We heard it in the capital from that hooded orc: you can join, but only if you're worth the trouble."
Texan turned from the rail. "So then what do you wanna do, stay here and train or head back to the capitol right now."
Himmel nodded. "We take ten months here. That leaves two months until the signing. One month is to travel back to the capital, and we arrive a month early to be seen, tryouts, favors, whatever it takes."
Recon's fingers stilled. He looked from Himmel to the city below. "Ten months makes it tight."
"Tight is good," Himmel said. "It's better than having nothing to do."
Texan barked a soft laugh. "You're 9 years old and you sound like my mother on debt day."
"Ha ha, that's just who I am," Himmel said, and something like humor tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Recon glanced at him. "You sure you're ready to lead this? You still don't have a soulbound weapon."
"I have a blade," Himmel said. "soulbounded or not I don't plan on relying on fancy tricks. I did it before without one, so I can do it again."
That quiet certainty settled them. Texan slapped the rail and straightened.
"Right, then," he said. "Ten months. We bleed, we learn, we don't die. After that, straight line to the capital, find a faction that'll let three uninvited maniacs in the door, and somehow talk a king into not being himself."
"Perfect," Recon said dryly. "Like nothing could go wrong."
Something eased in Himmel's chest at the familiar bickering. "Good. Then it's decided."
They shook—one palm stacked over the next, warmth grounding the plan—and the city went on humming beneath them like it had been waiting to hear those words.
Thorrak didn't change his methods. He never raised his voice or made speeches or promised victories he couldn't guarantee. He simply set the iron down and said, "Again." Being a smith wasn't the only thing Thorrak had, he knew how to fight. Every slam of the hammer, every dip of hot iron, it was to improve Texan.
Texan hammered until the ache in his forearms wasn't pain anymore; it was rhythm. His Wobbly Wombat style—once a flurry of improvisation—tightened into a sequence with breath marks, a private choreography only his spine and feet could read. The creature combat techniques he'd learned in scraps and instincts became a set of levers he could pull on command: the shoulder-drop that slid under a tusked charge; the heel-hook that tamed a beast's momentum; the elbow that turned fur and muscle into air.
His gauntlets learned him as he learned them. The soul within them—gentle voice, steady warmth—rarely spoke, but when it did, it sounded like a captain on a dawn march: Lower the elbow. See the flank. Live for them. When Texan wanted to show off, the pulse dimmed; when he covered a partner or took a hit so someone else didn't have to, the metal sang warmly against his skin.
He stopped going for spectacle. He started choosing the quiet win.
He and Thorrak developed a ritual: when the last bar cooled, Texan brewed the bitter leaf-tea the old smith liked; Thorrak pretended not to though, but he then still drank it to the dregs. Some nights Texan found him asleep on a stool, ash in his beard. He'd lay a cloak over the mountain of a man and bank the coals. "You can haunt me later," he'd whisper to the hammer. "I'm not ready to miss you yet."
Varan never said "good job." He said, "Not terrible," which somehow hit deeper. At first Recon bristled at everything—the critique, the silence, the way the older orc could see the thought form behind his eyes and knock it over before it hardened. But the bow demanded the same thing Varan did: presence. Draw, settle, breathe, release. Not six steps, but one unbroken movement.
The soul in his weapon still whispered, but it changed words. It stopped promising riches and started asking questions: What do you actually want? Whose life are you keeping? What will you trade to get there?
Recon began to answer with his body. He learned to count distances by the echo and the dust. He learned wind in tunnels by watching the filaments of fungus sway. He learned to hold a shot long enough to make a different choice, then take it faster than regret. The greed in him didn't vanish; he just stopped feeding it lies. He found something better to feed it: purpose.
On the ninety-fifth day, he split a target at an impossible angle and didn't smile. He just nodded like he'd returned a borrowed book.
"Finally," Varan said, and the corners of his mouth ticked upward. Later that night he left a coil of rare bowstring outside Recon's door and never mentioned it. Recon understood. Gratitude didn't need witnesses.
Himmel's strength didn't grow in leaps. It layered. Reading layered on drills layered on long walks alone through the city's upper rings, where the air felt thinner and the thoughts sharper. He learned his new greatsword like a patient language. Without a soul inside it, the blade had no opinions—only weight and edge and a willingness to do what its carrier could conceive. Himmel, meticulous and merciless with himself, refused to swing anything he couldn't explain.
Kirra watched, corrected, withdrew. She said little, but when she did it landed true.
"Your stance says fear," she'd remark, and a slight shift in his hips would strip the fear from his bones.
"Your mind is ahead of your blade," she'd murmur, and he'd slow until presence caught up with thought.
He kept reading. The subspace key opened to manuscripts no one in the city had seen in centuries. The old scripts taught him how enchantments weren't spells so much as contracts—agreements between will and world. He copied symbols until the tight loops of his handwriting matched the bones of the ancient ones. In the margins he wrote questions he couldn't yet afford to answer: What binds a soul to a vessel? What unbinds it? What debt does power incur?
On rare nights, when the city's glow dimmed to embers and rain patted somewhere far above the mountain, Kirra sat with him while the ink dried.
"What are you reading?" she'd ask.
"Who we were," he'd answer, "and what we promised not to become."
Over months, the space between them shortened by an inch that felt like a bridge.
Himmel was approached one day, suddenly, it was Angar.
"Himmel follow me." Angar walked the city while it's lights began to dim. "I am well over 400 years old, the only reason for that was because I was lucky enough to eat a special fungus. I've seen families grow, children into adults, entire generations pass. So when I say this, I mean it. My age is finally about to take me."
"Yeah, I've noticed. But what did you want of me?" Himmel was confused, this type of talk should be for Thorakk.
"Let me teach you the beginnings of soul smithing, how to extract a soul at least." Angar stood still, the world fell to a halt.
"I'm an outsider."
"You're an orc, you're different too. You weren't born that special. There are plenty of dark orcs, plenty with an affinity to lightning, plenty who can wield a blade."
"Ouch," Himmel was a little hurt.
"But, you're smart, you use what you have and you do the best you can with it. You don't complain about how the world treated you unfairly, you don't mind if the other person is a genius. You'll make a plan and work hard until you win, through thick and thin." Angar walked up to him, resting his hand on his shoulder.
"Meet me every night, you'll train with Thorrak, maybe you might enlighten him." With those final words from Angar, Himmel was left with a sense of debt.
In the ninth month, Angar summoned them to the elder's hall. He looked older—hands trembling a little more, voice a little thinner—but the eyes retained the same deep stillness.
"You've earned what you can carry," he said. "No more. No less."
He laid out what the city could spare:
For Himmel: a greatsword forged from layered, folded steel blackened to a dull, non-reflective sheen, its fuller etched with faint runes for resilience rather than edge. Not a soulbound weapon—Angar didn't look at Kirra when he said that—but a tool that would not fail. The hilt fit Himmel's hands like it had been watching him train.
For Texan: new armor with flexible plates at the joints for full gauntlet rotation, leather laced with treated fibers that distributed impact across his frame. The breastpiece carried no crest—Texan refused one—only a small hammer-mark near the heart.
For Recon: new armor cut for silence: layered cloth treated with resin for puncture resistance, a matte finish that swallowed light, bracers that wouldn't snag the bowstring. A hood light enough to ignore, dark enough to become a shadow.
"Use them. Don't worship them," Angar said. "Your bodies are the first weapons; your choices are the last."
Himmel bowed. "We won't forget."
"I hope you do," the elder replied, and almost smiled. "Forgetting pride is the only safe forgetting."
They gathered the morning they had promised to leave—ten months to the day—and the city felt like a held breath. The apprentices lined the walkway and failed to pretend they weren't watching. Smiths made a show of working but didn't lift their hammers. Even the molten rivers seemed slower, as if metal honored departures as much as arrivals.
They made their rounds.
Texan & Thorrak
Thorrak had the forge cold for once. The anvil, usually glowing, sat in the blue of unlit steel. He stood with his arms folded, as if someone had told him to look mean. It wasn't working. His eyes were too bright. Himmel's participation in soul smith training has shown its benefits. Thorrak has officially learned soul smithing and the village now has two full fledged soul smiths.
Texan carried a wrapped bundle and set it on the anvil. "Scrap bin treasures," he announced. "Every weird off-cut I hid when I thought it looked pretty. Don't pretend you didn't notice."
"I noticed," Thorrak said. "I thought you were stealing to build a terrible chair."
"Gift for you. A terrible chair."
They laughed, the same short bark.
Then the old smith stepped forward and pulled Texan into him. The hug was crushing. Texan's armor creaked.
"You gave me back the feeling," Thorrak said into his shoulder. "Like I could teach the mountain to breathe. That's rarer than ore."
Texan swallowed. "You gave me back a father."
They separated without looking directly at one another. Thorrak pressed a small black-steel pendant—a hammer rune—into Texan's palm.
"So the forges recognize your steps when the world forgets," he said.
Texan slipped it under his collar and thumped the breastplate near his heart twice. "They won't forget."
Recon & Varan
Varan waited at the high range. The targets were already reset: a thin disc directly above them, another hidden behind a slatted pillar, a third that could only be hit off a skip.
"You designed this to be annoying," Recon said.
"Instructional," Varan corrected.
Recon drew, breathed, and loosed three arrows in a single smooth line. The first nicked the disc and spun it; the second ricocheted off the slats and split the edge; the third skipped stone-like and embedded dead center.
Varan didn't clap. He nodded once. "You waited to want it."
"Wasn't easy."
"Nothing worth doing is," Varan said, then stuck out a hand.
They shook. The older orc leaned in a hair closer. "You still want too much. But now you know how to make that want carry someone else."
Recon swallowed. "You proud, or is that asking too much?"
Varan's mouth twitched. "Don't be greedy."
"Never again," Recon said, meaning it more than he expected.
Varan turned away and called without looking back, "Come home alive and I'll teach you the wind-find. Miss it and I teach Texan instead."
"Blasphemy," Recon muttered, grinning despite himself.
Himmel & Kirra
Kirra waited on the quiet ring above the city, where fights concluded and vows were sometimes made. She didn't wear her armor. She looked, Himmel thought, like a promise he had to learn to deserve.
"You look taller," she said.
"I am," he answered. "Seven feet. Barely."
"Show-off." The word didn't come with a smile, but it felt like one.
They walked the ring in silence, steps matching without effort. Himmel wanted to say a hundred things and believed none of them were useful. Kirra stopped at the outer rail and placed both hands upon it, watching heat bleed into the air.
"When I draw my sword," she said quietly, "it still feels like I borrowed it."
Himmel stood at her shoulder. "Don't, the blade chose you when it chose you, that was fate, let it be."
"But, it should be yours, not mine. It almost came out of its sheath to be in your hands."
The wind—such as wind existed down here—shifted the smallest hairs at her temple. Himmel didn't touch them. He spoke instead.
"When I come back," he said, steady as oath, "you and everyone here will live safely on the surface—not hunted for your craft, not forgotten for your history. I'll make a home for us. I know how you feel right now, but let me make a world where that's not something you'll ever have to worry about."
She turned. There was nothing dismissive in her eyes, no protective scoff. "Then I'll wait," she said. "No matter how long."
He leaned forward. She met him halfway. The kiss was brief and careful—two soldiers who had learned not to promise the future with their mouths—but it carried the weight of everything they didn't say.
When they parted, she reached up and straightened the leather at his collar—an excuse to linger. "Don't try to win everything alone."
"I'm bringing them," he said, glancing down toward where two silhouettes were already squabbling over pack weight. "That's my new strategy."
"You're learning," she said, and let him go.
Angar waited at the base of the ascent corridor. The entire path upward had been swept. Someone had strewn ground fungus along the first steps—bright flecks like starlight underfoot. The apprentices lined the walls, fists to hearts, eyes serious. They didn't clap. They watched, taking notes with their souls.
The elder lifted his staff, then set it down again, as if ritual felt heavy this morning.
"I could make a speech," he said, and a soft ripple of laughter answered him, "but I'd be reciting what you already know. Only this: you came to us as three shapes. You leave us as one intention."
He looked at Himmel last, not to single him out, but to settle something that had been unsettled.
"The world above may refuse to learn," Angar said. "Teach it anyway."
Himmel bowed deeply. "We will."
Texan clapped a hand to the elder's shoulder—careful, gentle despite the gauntlet. "Save a bench for me at the quiet forge."
Angar's eyes softened. "You never sat, lad."
"Right," Texan grinned, "then save me a hammer."
Recon inclined his head to Angar and, surprising himself, to Varan as well. "I'll bring back a story worth the telling."
"Bring back yourself," Varan said. "Stories can follow."
The apprentices stepped aside. The tunnel waited, dark at first and then wreathed in a paler glow as it rose. Texan adjusted his pack. Recon made a final tweak to his hood. Himmel slid the greatsword into place and touched the rail one last time, as if the stone could carry a goodbye up and down the city forever.
"Ready?" Texan asked, a grin cracking across his face like sunrise.
"Always," Recon lied, then smiled for real. "Let's go before I change my mind."
Himmel took the first step. They fell into formation without thinking—Himmel at point, Recon on the shadowed side, Texan carrying the warmth between them.
As they climbed, the city's hum faded into the bone-silence of the upper tunnels. After an hour the air thinned and cooled. After two, a breath of sweetness threaded the rock.
"Surface," Texan said, reverent.
"Month down, month back," Himmel reminded, but his voice had softened. "We'll be in the capital with four weeks to spare. Faction halls, tests, debts."
"Politicians," Recon sighed. "Can I start missing the cave yet?"
"Save it for the first banquet," Texan said. "If they serve cold cabbage again, I'm punching a duke."
"Don't," Himmel said.
"Fine," Texan huffed. "Viscount."
They laughed, easy and alive. The tunnel brightened ahead until the light wasn't glow but day—real day, unfiltered. At the mouth, sky poured blue and merciless across the stone. They stepped out and it felt like standing inside a bell about to ring.
Texan shaded his eyes and whooped, arms thrown wide. Recon blinked hard and pretended it was dust. Himmel turned his head slightly, measuring the wind, the fall of the land, the line the path would have to cut if they wanted to be city-side in four weeks with boots left on their feet.
He looked back only once. Deep within the dark behind them, he imagined he could still make out the ember pulse of the undercity, steady and waiting. If he stood very still, he could almost feel the echo of a kiss press cool against his mouth and the weight of a hammer-rune warm against a friend's chest; he could almost hear the low, patient voice of a teacher who refused to say proud until it meant everything.
"Let's make ourselves worth the trouble," he said.
Texan bumped his shoulder into Himmel's. "We already are."
Recon set an arrow lightly to his string, more habit than threat. "Then let's go convince the rest of the world."
They started down the mountain path, three shadows long in the morning light, carrying ten months of flame in their bones and a plan that sounded like a promise: train had; travel now; arrive early; join a faction; stand in the room when the treaty ink dried; make a home where no one had to hide.
Behind them, the mountain kept their secrets. Ahead, the road unfurled, bright and dangerous and entirely theirs.