Episode 1
Part I: Descending into the Machine
Kael's descent was a controlled, frantic scramble down maintenance shafts smelling of burnt lubricant and decay. The rifle, an angular, heavy-duty Syndicate issue, felt alien yet comfortable in his grip.
The panic from the Syndicate pursuit had solidified into a grim focus. He was a creature designed for forward momentum. He didn't dwell on the terrifying psychic Echo—the snow, the blood, the word Guardian—he simply logged it as data.
His choice was tactical: resources first. He had no currency, no identifying papers, and no idea how the hyper-technological slum of The Sprawl operated.
The stolen stun rifle was his only leverage. He needed credits for better gear and, more importantly, information.
He emerged not into a street, but into a crowded, dimly-lit maintenance level bustling with low-caste workers and unauthorized scavengers.
The Sprawl was a vertical city built atop the titanic, dead mechanisms of the Sundered Star. Levels stretched above and below him in a dizzying maze of rusting walkways, tangled power conduits, and illegally patched-in holographic advertising displays that flickered nauseously.
The air was humid, thick with a mix of fermented synth-ale, body odor, and the pungent metallic tang of raw Star-Dust being refined somewhere nearby.
Every few seconds, a massive, hydraulic pressure vent would hiss, bathing the nearest walls in a cloud of hot steam.
Kael moved like a shadow, hugging the walls. His body language was wrong for this place—too alert, too precise.
He moved like a predator, not prey. He needed to blend. He adjusted his posture, forcing a slight, clumsy slouch, but the cyan etchings on his skin still glowed faintly, reacting to the ambient Star-Dust. He had to suppress the energy.
Stabilize.
He consciously pushed the Star-Dust back, burying the energy in his core. The faint glow receded, turning the etched lines a dull, harmless black.
The act of suppression required concentration, a mental wall he had to maintain constantly, dulling his senses slightly but granting him vital camouflage.
He followed the flow of foot traffic, listening to the guttural patois spoken here. After thirty minutes of careful observation, he identified the signs of the illegal marketplace: a concentration of worn data pads displaying coded icons, heavily armed private security (not Syndicate), and a distinct lack of official city oversight.
He found the entrance hidden behind a stack of malfunctioning atmospheric scrubbers: a heavy ferrocrete door guarded by two enormous, genetically-modified bouncers known as Mules, their bodies covered in thick, keratinous hide.
Part II: The Broker and the Flare
Kael approached the Mules, holding the Syndicate rifle casually by the barrel.
"Business," Kael said, his voice flat and steady.
One Mule, whose head resembled a smashed anvil, grunted. "Price of entry. One digit."
Kael felt a chill. They were demanding a finger. He didn't flinch. He simply hefted the rifle slightly, letting the light catch the Syndicate insignia stamped near the muzzle. The Mule's eyes narrowed, recognizing the power behind the brand.
"Syndicate gear. Not standard entry." The Mule shifted, its gaze flicking from the rifle to Kael's face.
"Follow the pipe. Find Rix."
Kael pushed through the heavy door into a sprawling, cavernous marketplace known simply as The Grid.
Goods—illegal weapons, augmented limbs, black market data chips, and vials of refined Star-Dust—were piled high on temporary stalls.
T
he air here vibrated with power.
He located Rix at a corner stall. Rix wasn't muscle; he was a slender man hunched over a holotable, his face a patchwork of data ports and facial chrome.
He looked up, his augmetic eye focusing on Kael with unsettling speed.
"Syndicate rifle," Rix stated immediately, not a question. "Fresh kill. High payout, low-risk collateral. I like your timing, boy."
Kael placed the rifle on the table. "I need credits. And information."
Rix picked up the rifle, his long, chromed fingers tracing the insignia. "Standard payout for a Model-7 stunner, three thousand credits. Half price if you want untraceable dust-chips. Information costs more than credits, friend. Information costs trust."
"Untraceable dust-chips. Three thousand," Kael conceded, keeping his posture relaxed but his awareness total.
Rix began setting up the transaction. "What's the information? Got a name? A home address? Who put the etchings on you? Don't look away. I see the latent glow. You're a Stabilizer, aren't you?"
The word struck Kael like a physical blow. Stabilizer. It felt like another piece of the truth, heavy and sharp.
"What is a Stabilizer?" Kael demanded, his voice dropping an octave.
Rix chuckled, a dry, grating sound. "The fairy tale. The myth the Syndicate uses to scare its cadets. Someone who can filter the Star-Dust, make it pure. Everyone else is corrupted by the Chaos, you lot make it clean.
You should be hiding that ability, not walking around with the seller's brand."
"Where did I come from?"
Rix paused, his augmetic eye whirring as it scanned Kael. "You came from below. Everyone knows the deep vaults under The Sprawl were the crash site. That's where the Star-Dust is thickest, where the real old stuff is buried.
Only the Syndicate and the stupidest, or the most desperate, go down there."
Suddenly, the air pressure in The Grid dropped. A high-pitched, resonant whine cut through the market noise. The illegal holos flickered and died. A shadow fell over the stall.
"Speak of the devil," Rix muttered, eyes wide with alarm.
Kael's instincts screamed. The psychic barrier he had built around his power cracked. The Star-Dust in the environment—already dense—responded violently to the surge.
The culprit was standing ten feet away, flanked by four heavily armored Syndicate Enforcers. He was a man Kael hadn't seen before, wearing a pristine white and black uniform that contrasted sharply with the surrounding grime. His skin was pale, his eyes sharp and burning with zealotry. He carried no obvious weapon, but his hand was outstretched.
The air around the man was visibly warping, pulling the floating purple Star-Dust motes toward him like iron filings to a magnet. He was channeling it. And he was not a Stabilizer.
He was a Chaos Conduit.
"That is Syndicate property, thief," the Conduit's voice boomed, amplified and distorted by the raw energy he was channeling. His eyes locked onto the black etchings on Kael's arms. "You wear the markings of the ancients. You wear the lie of purity."
He threw his hand forward, not a simple gesture, but a concentrated discharge of raw, unrefined Star-Dust—pure Chaos energy.
Part III: The Untamed Power
The attack was designed to disintegrate, but Kael's training took over before his fear could paralyze him.
The energy slammed into him, but instead of tearing him apart, his body absorbed it. The black etchings flared blindingly cyan. The force of the blow was transferred not to his flesh, but to his dormant power core.
A massive, echoing FLARE erupted from Kael's chest, a dome of pressurized, purified Star-Dust that slammed the four Enforcers against a wall, cracking their ballistic armor.
The ground around Kael's feet turned to glass, the intense reaction temporarily sterilizing the very dirt. He looked down at his hands, watching the residual cyan energy dissipate.
He had not just resisted the Chaos; he had purified and re-purposed it into a defensive blast.
The Conduit recoiled, a look of profound hatred and shock twisting his face. "You… you stabilized my power! You filth! You violate the very nature of the Star!"
Kael felt the drain. The defensive Flare had burned a deep hole in his reserves. He had maybe one more powerful burst left, if he was lucky.
Rix, who had miraculously ducked behind a table, popped his head up. "Kid! We gotta go! He's Tier-3—he'll bring the whole damned Syndicate down!"
Kael grabbed the pouch of dust-chips from the table—the payment for the rifle—and shoved it into the pocket of his under-suit. He pointed the stolen rifle at the Conduit and fired a stunning shot.
The Conduit merely laughed, the Chaos energy around him acting as a shield. The stun bolt dissipated into purple smoke a foot from his face.
"You can't stun the Chaos, Stabilizer," the Conduit sneered. "But I can corrupt your life force."
The Conduit began gathering an even greater mass of power, the air growing hot and dangerously thin.
Kael looked left. An unofficial entrance to a ventilation network, used by scavengers, was barely wide enough.
"The price of information," Kael said to Rix, making eye contact. "Which way leads to the least heat?"
Rix, recognizing an opportunity or simply facing certain death, pointed wildly down the ventilation shaft.
"The Undercrawl! Used by the runners! Head to Sector 7, find the Blind Oracle—she deals in information no one else touches!"
Kael didn't thank him. He didn't even acknowledge the risk. He simply turned, fired a suppressing burst into the ceiling to shower the Conduit with debris, and dove headfirst into the pipe, the screams of the recovering Enforcers echoing behind him.
He was now hunted by a terrifying zealot, armed with limited resources, and sent on a dangerous path toward a mysterious figure in a deeper, darker level of The Sprawl.