The crackling sound still lingered where the lightning had struck seconds ago. The blast that followed had been deafening—louder than anything Gruis had ever heard. It bounced from one side of the Abyss to the other, colliding with itself in echoes that grew more twisted each time.
Gruis gripped his flute. His fingers trembled.
To his right, Bakstein lay face-first on the stone.
To his left, Kiezel was hunched over. Not moving.
Gruis didn't know if either of them were breathing.
His ears rang. Not just from the thunderclap—but from the stress, the sharp pressure behind his eyes, the ache of something inside him trying not to fall apart.
Across from him stood the dwarf.
Gruis blinked.
His boots were still planted evenly—one slightly ahead of the other. His sleeves were smudged with ash, but the cuffs were still buttoned. The back of his belt was missing a loop. His hair was braided too tightly, one strand already unravelling down his shoulder.
His body hadn't collapsed.
He stood.
Sort of.
Something was off, but Gruis couldn't tell what—not at first.
His chest wasn't moving.
Gruis's gaze drifted up, slowly, like his brain was trying to delay the truth for as long as possible.
The neck was at an angle. Too far. Bent in a way it shouldn't bend.
The head was still attached.
Barely.
Gruis exhaled. It left his lungs like a secret escaping.
Why did no one ever tell him?
Never leave a head attached in the Abyss.
*** 2 days earlier***
Gruis put his hand to his eyes, shielding it from the burning sun. Even though it was early in the morning, the sun was already burning skins around The Great Abyss of Herto.
Nestled deep in the heart of the desert, Herto sprang up like a weed in a perfectly kept garden. Life made possible by the underground river Itak, surfacing near the edge of the city, its water rushing with great speed into the Abyss.
Gruis stepped, barefooted, onto the cold marble floor of the Stonequill Holdings Consortium.
The chill climbed instantly from the polished white tile into his ankles, like frost crawling up an abandoned window. He'd meant to wear his boots. He'd meant to wear the nicer shirt Kiezel had pressed for him. But in the end, none of it had mattered. When it came time to go, Gruis simply went.
The entry hall loomed around him like a cathedral built for the masses. The light above wasn't fire or sun—it pulsed, gentle and pale, from artifact-powered panels embedded in the ceiling's ribbed arches. Quiet energy hummed from them, soft as breath, but constant. Gruis could smell it—clean magic, filtered and refined, like the scent after a lightning storm.
More noticeable was the temperature shift. Outside, the world baked. Even in the early morning, the city of Herto cooked under a blazing sky. The stone streets shimmered. Skin burned by noon. But inside Stonequill, it remained cool. A clean, conditioned chill that clung to the skin and made your breath feel heavier. The kind of coolness that said: this place doesn't care if you're sweating outside.
Before him, the floor stretched in long, uninterrupted rows. Desks stood in formation, each manned by a clerk in slate-grey robes. The clerks barely looked up as citizens filtered in and out. Quills moved on their own, scratching on parchment with mechanical rhythm. Shelves rose along the walls in columns of stone and brass, filled with scrolls, ledgers, and flat files bound in artifact-sealed cases.
A woman stood at a podium near the entrance, stiff as the marble itself. She raised one eyebrow as her eyes slid to Gruis's feet—but said nothing.
He stepped forward, throat dry.
"Name?" she asked finally breaking the silence, the word clipped with years of repetition.
"Gruis."
She didn't write it down. She didn't need to.
"Purpose?"
"I'm here to... purchase property," he said, voice low. "Lot 12. Fringe line. North-northwest. Old inn."
The clerk blinked slowly. "Ah. Tier III-C. Expired Commercial Residential, adjacent to Dakem periphery." Her voice had no inflection at all. She might've been naming a fungus.
She motioned, not unkindly—not kindly either, to the inner hall. "Desk Twenty-Seven. Wait until called."
Gruis moved through the rows of polished stone, the echoes of his bare feet mocking his presence. People turned to glance—wealthy merchants in linen cloaks, a delvers company officer in gilded armour, a woman arguing with a scribe over a contested vineyard. Gruis ignored them, eyes on the number plaques above each desk.
Twenty-Seven was at the far end, beside a glass case that held a melted goblet labelled "First Claimed Property, Year 001 — Herto the Small."
He sat on a bench, back straight. His coin pouch lay heavy in his coat. A thousand gold. Every job, every sale, every scrap scavenged or earned.
His entire life.
He stared at the case across from him, at the way the goblet was warped, almost twisted. Not broken, but melted, bent by heat or pressure. A reminder that ownership came with cost.
His name was called.
At Desk Twenty-Seven sat an old half-elven man, hunched with long white hair pulled into a severe knot. His skin was papery, ink-stained at the fingers. He looked up once, nodded.
"You are claiming 12-NNW?"
"Yes."
The clerk pulled a drawer open without looking, withdrew a sheaf of brittle parchment bound with copper clasps, and set it on the desk. It smelled like old paper and a hint of ozone—artifact ink.
"Structure previously licensed as The Copper Rest, ceased operation seventy-six years ago. Original owner deceased. Successive owners bankrupt, disappeared, or died in delving incidents. Property condemned—but remains structurally intact. Land extends ten paces behind and six paces to each side. Cistern beneath is dried. Estimated magical contamination level: minimal."
Gruis nodded once. He already knew. He'd been there. Touched the wall. Counted the cracks.
"Do you have the fee?" The clerk asked.
Gruis set his pouch on the desk. The jingle of fat coin made one of the nearby scribes glance over.
The clerk untied the strings slowly, weighed the gold by hand—not bothering with scales—and pushed the pouch into a recessed drawer.
He pulled the deed forward, placed it in front of Gruis.
"Sign."
Gruis picked up the iron nib pen. It was heavier than he expected.
He pressed the nib to the line and wrote it clean. Gruis.
The clerk nodded.
A brief shudder ran down the desk, as the deed was magically sealed. Ink shifted colour—blue to black—and the copper clasps clicked shut.
"Congratulations," the man said flatly. "You now own failure."
Gruis blinked. "What?"
The old clerk smiled, just a little. "I meant the inn. Its name. The Copper Rest. It means failure. A tavern where delvers drank before they went down and didn't come back."
Gruis stared at the deed for a moment longer.
"Then… Then I'll rename it."
The clerk shrugged. "Do as you like. It's yours now. The city will send notice of transfer to any surviving claimants, though none are expected to still exist. You may collect the deed copy from the archive wing in two weeks. Until then, this writ will serve as temporary proof of ownership."
The clerk passed over a folded piece of thick parchment, sealed with a tiny emblem of a quill etched in stone.
Gruis took it. His hands shook a little, but only for a moment.
As he turned to leave, the hum of the artifact lights followed him back toward the exit. The polished marble chilled his steps the whole way.
He passed under the archway in silence, the door hissing closed behind him with a whisper of stone on stone.
For the first time, he walked with nothing.
No coin. No safety net. No fallback.
He blinked against the harsh light. Outside, the heat hit him like a breath held too long—dry, aggressive, and searing at the edges. His shirt clung to him almost instantly, the chill of the building's interior fading as if it had been a dream.
He was a thousand gold lighter.
In return—Gruis was a home richer.
He clutched the folded writ in one hand, thumb pressed firm against the seal so it wouldn't shake. Gruis started his walk back. Not through the plaza's centre where voices rose in mid-morning bartering, but around it—hugging the edge of the Abyss. Clockwise. The long way home.
The path curved gently, following the crater's impossible ring. On his right, the void yawned, the abyss seemed endless. A soft, cool, wind rose from its depths, always rising. A never ending exhale from the deep. On his left, Herto's lifeblood flowed: the irrigation channels of the Itak, fresh and clear, trickling alongside the stone-cut road. Even in the heat, the sound of the water soothed something deep in Gruis' chest.
Here, in the East District, the streets were paved in polished granite. Smooth and tight fitted. Sunlight caught in the faint metallic specks embedded in the stone, making the path shimmer like river rock. The homes here were tightly constructed: white limestone, flat rooftops, windows with carved lattice screens. Delver companies, supply shops, and artisan homes sat tucked between arching doorways of amber and blue-glass tile. Overhead, palm trees swayed, tall and proud, their thick trunks fed by the silver-threaded channels below.
The air smelled clean here—unreasonably clean. It was the water. You could always smell the moisture before you saw it: that soft, damp mineral freshness that pushed back against the heat. Mixed with it were the sharp notes of citrus fruit growing in small rooftop gardens, and the delicate perfume of flowering vines that hung from shaded balconies.
Gruis passed under one such palm and let the shadows wash over him. It felt like standing under a cleric's blessing—brief, cooling, and gone too soon.
People passed him. Well-dressed, well-fed. A pair of young apprentices from a mid-tier delver company debated the merits of bone-dense climbing hooks. A woman led a sand-coloured lizard on a leash made of silk, its claws ticking quietly on the stone. No one looked at Gruis twice.
As he walked, the buildings shifted.
The limestone gave way to paler, more porous stone. Still solid, but without polish. The facades became simpler, the ornamentation fewer, the windows less adorned. The path beneath his feet transitioned subtly—from granite to worn limestone slabs, the lines between —more visible, filled with dust and time.
This was the residential belt, where schools and homes intertwined. Gruis slowed his steps.
To his left, a tall rectangular building rose above the homes, its smooth dome roof painted with fading blues. A school. He remembered passing it countless times during deliveries. Children sat under the overhangs, reading by the shade, while instructors in dyed robes moved from group to group. One teacher sat on a low cushion, surrounded by pupils sketching the layers of the Abyss on parchment boards.
A breeze carried the scent of the parchment, charcoal, and a hint of baked bread from nearby homes.
Gruis turned his eyes forward again.
Small agora's marked the corners of the residential blocks—open squares where market stalls clustered under cloth awnings. One sold handwoven baskets; another had piles of ceramic dishes etched with local symbols. He passed a table covered in artifact pieces, sorted by magic power—dim blues and dull reds laid out on velvet cloth. A man stood behind it with a grin too wide for his sun-wrinkled face, waving at a passing family as if every piece held a secret just for them.
Gruis didn't stop. He couldn't afford to buy anything now. He caught a whiff of spice from one of the stalls—saffron and vinegar, sharp and alive—it made his stomach twist in memory.
The irrigation channels still flowed beside him, the trickling sound soft and steady. Palm trees kept lining the road, casting rhythmic shadows like the beat of a drum.
Slowly conditions started to change.
It began with the water.
At first, Gruis noticed the flow slowing—not stopping, but the pressure wasn't as strong. The clean edges of the channel walls gave way to rougher stone, some with cracks that hadn't been patched. One of the grates, that used to catch sediment, was bent at the corner, rusted slightly along its hinges.
Eventually, the palms thinned. Instead of thick, proud trees spaced evenly along the walk, they began to lean awkwardly, clustered too close or too far apart. A few had perished. One had a strip of bark torn away, the flesh beneath scarred and sun-bleached.
The road became cobblestone. Not intentionally laid, but patchworked—stones of varying shapes and sizes set unevenly into the earth. Gruis had to adjust his stride, so he didn't roll an ankle.
The homes here were shorter. Where before there were well-cut stone façades, now they were stone mixed with wood—cheap beams nailed into soft walls, often covered in mismatched plaster. The scent of fresh water had faded, replaced by dry dust, old rope, and the faint, unmistakable tang of sweat.
Finally, the water stopped.
The channel beside him ended abruptly, its edge broken and unsealed, choked with windblown sand. The last palm tree stood alone, bent sideways as if trying to grow away from what lay ahead.
Gruis paused.
Before him stretched the slums—home.