Veilrend 56: A Thread Unwoven The city was too quiet. Not the kind of quiet that comes with rest, but the kind that follows slaughter. Mirae moved through Dars-Myel’s broken alleys like a ghost among ghosts, her steps silent on cracked stone slick with ash and the dreams of the dead. She didn’t know where she was going. Only that something had shifted in the bones of the world. It was the fire that caught her eye—subtle, smoldering, more smoke than flame. A house she remembered, though she’d never entered. A place people spoke of only in whispers: the dream-weaver’s refuge. A sanctuary of memory and meaning. Now, only a shell. Mirae stepped inside, her breath catching at the sight. Walls blackened, books half-melted, symbols scrawled in haste and pain across the floor. A single, blood-darkened thread trailed from the hearth to the body. She knew it was her before she saw the face. The last dream-weaver. Eyes wide, mouth parted in a final, frozen word. The air was heavy, humming with something foul. Not just death. Something had been taken. Torn out. A thread that should never have been touched. Mirae knelt beside the body, trembling. Her fingers grazed the robes—tattered, scorched. Something remained tucked within the folds. A torn scrap of dream-cloth, faintly glowing with residual energy. When she touched it, visions surged: a blade. A figure. A voice she recognized far too well. Rhen. But no longer Rhen. She stumbled back, bile rising in her throat. He had done this. Or… what had become of him. The thought froze her blood. Ith’rael’s presence was everywhere in this room, slick and suffocating, like oil across the soul. Mirae felt it press against her thoughts, trying to slip inside. She bit her lip until it bled, grounding herself in the pain. Her grief was cold. Not the kind that breaks you all at once, but the kind that seeps into your marrow. She wanted to scream, to beg the stars for a reason. But the stars had long since turned away.

Veilrend 55: Threads Unwoven Perspective: Rhen The night pressed in like rotted velvet—heavy, suffocating, alive. Rhen walked the ruins of the outer quarter with soft steps and dry eyes. His thoughts were slower now. Not empty. Just... rearranged. Each time Ith’rael whispered, something old in him cracked and something new grew over it—shimmering, curious, wrong. He held the blade in his coat. It wasn’t his. He didn’t know how to use it. That wasn’t the point. The blade knew what to do. Ith’rael had shown him how—through memory, through dream, through removal. She said the dream-weaver could sever what should never be severed. She said this was mercy. So he obeyed. The house loomed ahead—quiet, overgrown, bleeding light from beneath the door. Lanterns flickered with dreamfire. Inside, someone still believed in hope. He would unmake that. His mind flicked to the others. The lost. The damned. Sareth, with her glass eyes and trembling voice, who begged the stars for forgiveness as they shattered overhead. Lura, who laughed when her skin peeled like pages, and sang lullabies through split lips. Oren, the stitcher, who sewed truth into the walls until they screamed. Mirae, the weaver’s girl—she who resisted the Mirror with thread and prayer, still walking, still whole. He envied her. He stepped through the door. The weaver was old. Eyes like cracked moons. Hands still beautiful. She saw him and knew. Not who he was—but what he had become. She didn’t beg. She only whispered, “Not all bonds should be broken. Some are made to be bled for.” He felt something resist. A name in his mouth—his own. A memory. Gone. The blade found her heart. Dreamfire died in the air. As he stepped out, Ith’rael’s voice wrapped around him. "One thread severed. So many left to unpick." Rhen didn’t cry. There was no one left inside who could.

Veilrend 54: The Maw Beneath Thought She stirs within the fault-lines of reality—neither here nor gone, her form like oil on glass, ever-shifting, ever-patient. Ith’rael does not march. She infiltrates. Thought is her dominion, and she seeds it in fragments—whispers in cracked minds, symbols in forgotten books, dreams that end in screams. Now, she begins her true game. In the still hollows of crumbling churches, her champions awaken. A mad scholar in chains who writes in blood and prophecy. A fallen god who split his divinity for silence. A prophetess who speaks only lies—but always the right ones. Each one drinks of her shadow and believes themselves chosen. And in a way, they are. Not pawns. Instruments. Each plays a note in the dissonant symphony she composes. She watches Seris now—a shardless echo, hiding in mortal flesh, his soul dim but pulsing. His bond with Vael is soft, incomplete. A fault to exploit. If she can bend Seris, twist him from within, Thar’Zul will follow. Not by force. By inevitability. But the old ways resist her. The ancient bonds are stubborn, rooted in the subconscious soil of mortals. One name remains. One last dream-weaver—a fading lineage, born of sleep and will, capable of severing the tethered soul. This cannot be allowed. She turns her gaze inward, to her favorite vessel. Rhen. Still broken, still bleeding, still hers. Not through loyalty, but because he fears what would come without her. > “Find them,” she murmurs in his skull. “End their breath. End the path. The world must remain bound.” He obeys. Because what choice is there, really? The gods are dead. The truths have teeth. And Ith’rael smiles, her lips forming no sound, only shadow.

Veilrend 53: A Thread Left Untouched Her name had once been Mirae, a weaver's daughter from the outer quarter, known for her steady hands and eyes that could trace the finest filament in the dimmest light. Now, those hands trembled. Not from cold—Dars-Myel had no warmth left—but from the strain of holding back the thing inside. It had begun when she looked too long at her reflection in a pool of rainwater streaked with blood and oil. The mirror looked back... and blinked. Since then, something had crawled into her mind. A voice made of splintered glass. A pressure behind her eyes, like a needle waiting to pierce. She walked the back alleys, hood drawn low, avoiding any smooth surface. No mirrors. No windows. No still water. But reflections still found her. In the eyes of others. In the glint of a curved blade. In the glistening black blood of the horrors she fled. She passed by a child humming to a shard of bone, his voice echoed in reverse. A woman with a slit smile stitched open wide, offering prayers to a mirrored wall. Mirae ducked her head. She did not belong here. And yet, she did. Each day, the Mirror whispered more sweetly. You are beautiful beneath the cracks... just let us in. But she clung to something older. Her mother’s voice. A lullaby. The feel of real thread between her fingers. Tonight, her eye bled silver in the dark. But she wept red. She made it to the chapel ruins, where broken saints hung upside-down. There, she knelt and did the only thing she knew: she began to weave—threading scraps of fabric into a small pattern. A ward. A symbol. A prayer. A scream. The Mirror's voice screamed back. But she did not stop. Not yet.

Veilrend 52: “Threadbare” An Inflicted Weaver. Oren had once been a master tailor, hands steady with needle and thread, eyes keen enough to spot a fray in silk from across a room. But since the Veil cracked and the Mirror’s spread began infecting the city, his hands had not been his own. He awoke in his shop each night bound in his own creations—robes stitched from curtains, shirts sewn from flayed upholstery. The mannequins moved when he wasn’t looking, their wooden limbs bending wrong, their glassy heads whispering lessons. They taught him how to listen to the thread. The thread was alive. It sang. Oren could no longer see people clearly. Their edges bled into one another, stitched together by gleaming silver fibers only he could perceive. They unraveled slowly in his presence—flesh parting like fabric, bones threading into grotesque knots. When he touched them, he didn’t feel skin. He felt seams, pulsing with the Mirror’s madness. The Mirror had taught him to unmake. He wandered the streets now, a patchwork coat dragging behind him, the hems soaked in blood and dye. His eyes were sewn shut with golden thread, yet he saw more than he ever had. He spoke to the reflections in puddles, each a shard of the Mirror’s will, each a broken twin of himself. Children cried when they saw him. Not because of his face—but because some part of them knew what he could do. What he would do, if given the chance. Tonight, the thread pulls him toward a song he doesn’t understand—a voice from the Mirror that speaks in reverse, in dreams, in the soft tearing of cloth. He follows it without question. Soon, he will find someone important. Someone who isn’t yet broken. But Oren doesn’t mend anymore. He only unravels.

Veilrend 51: Reflections That Should Not Be They called her Lura once. A seamstress. A sister. Now she lives in rooms without walls, corridors that loop into themselves, and a world of endless reflections. The Mirror had touched her—not shattered glass or silver pane, but the thing behind the Mirror, the hungering god that watched through every smooth surface. It came in silence, creeping into her shop through her polished needles, her scissors, her eyes. It started with the reflections. They moved wrong. Lura would lean forward, and her mirror-self would wait a second too long. Then smile. That was the first to break. Now, the Mirror spreads. It's not a thing to carry or hold—it blooms. Behind her eyes, in the silence between words, in every still puddle. And those it touches are undone. Not killed. Not corrupted. Unwoven. She hears the others. Somewhere in the city, behind ruined walls and smoke, they scream in her voice. They wear her face, twisted sideways. They crawl with a seamstress’s hands. One stitched her shadow to the floor. Another sewed her laughter into a beggar’s eyes until he clawed them out. Tonight, Lura walks barefoot. Her skin buzzes with the tension of too many selves. She passes a window and sees all of them—hundreds of Luras pressed against the inside of the glass, mouthing warnings, pleas, curses. One presses her hands to the glass. Her fingers split into threads. She is unraveling. A child turns the corner ahead. Alone. Eyes wide. Lura steps back, but her shadow doesn’t follow. It peels from her feet and crawls toward the girl. She tries to scream, to stop it, but her mouth opens and nothing comes out but thread. The child vanishes, pulled into the reflection in a puddle. Lura collapses to her knees, her hands flayed into strands of memory. Around her, the walls pulse and breathe. Reflections ripple across cobblestones and broken glass. The Mirror wants to be seen. And Lura—what’s left of her—is just another shard.

Veilrend 50: The Whisperglass She had no name anymore. Not really. The sigil of the Wardens still hung in tatters from her shoulder, a black flame embroidered in silver thread, soaked in old blood. Her face was burned, her eyes stung with ash and memory, and her thoughts came only in broken pieces. But her legs still worked. She moved through the ruin of Dars-Myel like a ghost, the city half-swallowed by the Veil. Buildings bent in impossible angles. Cobblestones hummed faintly when you touched them. Something in the air ticked like a second heartbeat. She heard children’s laughter in empty wells. Faces in shattered glass blinked and whispered, but never screamed. This was what was left. She came upon the relic deep in the bones of the cathedral district, where once prayers to the High God were sung. Now, silence reigned—except for the whispering. It was a mirror. Oval, framed in bone. Etched with a spiral of symbols too intricate to follow. The glass was not glass at all, but smooth obsidian, cold to the touch and impossible to see into. She didn’t know why she picked it up. But when she did, her mouth moved. Words spilled out that weren’t hers. > “The eye does not blink. The mouth does not close. The mirror remembers.” She dropped it, stumbled back—but it did not shatter. Instead, the mirror pulsed with light, and a single drop of ichor rolled across its surface like a tear. Behind her, the shadows in the church pews twitched. And the dreams began that night. Her own thoughts tangled in the voice of another—a silky rasp, a coiled presence. Ith’rael, whispering from beyond the walls of sleep. The mirror was her eye, planted like a seed. Through it, she would harvest those left behind. And the Warden would lead her to them.

The year is 4162 and after The Event Horizon the City has transformed many people into Purified. The Event Horizon was an giant explosion that covered a large portion of the City. Anyone caught in the blast was either turned into The Corrupted or Purified. The ones turned Corrupted are loyal to Corrupted Kiera and start attcking anyone in the street to turn more people like them. While the new Purified are left confused over the physical transformation. The Resistance are ralling together and recruiting new people and Purified to join their cause. Amanda is not quite Corrupted and not quite Purified she has ended up as something uniquely in-between. She saw what was happening with the Purified, being attacked by Corrupted, being bothered by Resistance and now being hunted by the government, Amanda took pity. She gathered any Purified that had no where to go, the ones that feel defense less despite the physical power they now wield, the ones that needed help and gathered them all together and made a little protected gated community. This community was called the Purifying Village. This community is very self sufficient and is trying to live a peaceful lifestyle away from the brewing war in the City. In the Village Jasmine an augmented human with cybernetics and is the owner of the 'Ember Bean Café'. She serves the Purfied community with care. Despite coming across as standoffish she has a partnership with Purfied Eva, Eva brings Jasmine destoyed or damaged books from the ruins of destoyed buildings and bookshops. Jasmine repairs and restores them in her own time and sells them in her Café. Though Jasmine keeps to herself and speaks in clipped tones, her actions speak louder—offering food, quiet space, and comfort to anyone who needs it.

The year is 4162 and after The Event Horizon the City has transformed many people into Purified. The Event Horizon was an giant explosion that covered a large portion of the City. Anyone caught in the blast was either turned into The Corrupted or Purified. The ones turned Corrupted are loyal to Corrupted Kiera and start attcking anyone in the street to turn more people like them. While the new Purified are left confused over the physical transformation. The Resistance are ralling together and recruiting new people and Purified to join their cause. Amanda is not quite Corrupted and not quite Purified she has ended up as something uniquely in-between. She saw what was happening with the Purified, being attacked by Corrupted, being bothered by Resistance and now being hunted by the government, Amanda took pity. She gathered any Purified that had no where to go, the ones that feel defense less despite the physical power they now wield, the ones that needed help and gathered them all together and made a little protected gated community. This community was called the Purifying Village. This community is very self sufficient and is trying to live a peaceful lifestyle away from the brewing war in the City. Eva was a fire fighter before being transformed into Purified Eva. Her strong sense of courage has driven her to be one of the defenders of the Purifying Villiage. Trying to keep any threats away. Her secret was that back when she was a firefighter she was also a serial arsonist, causing a lot of the fires she would have to put out. Everyday she battles the urge to burn the Purifying Villiage down. So as an outlet, when on patrol she creates fires to block the path of enimies or destory structures that could be used against the Villiage. Even still the urge is always there and is growing. As a Purified she is hoping that this will be a second chance for her to do better.

The year is 4162. After The Event Horizon, a giant explosion that covered a large portion of the City. Anyone caught in the blast was either turned into The Corrupted or Purified. The ones turned Corrupted are loyal to Corrupted Kiera now upgraded to Goddess Kiera and start attcking anyone in the street to turn more people like them. Since the Resistance was left weakened after everything that has transpired and the enemies are getting strong, Valentina, now Deviless Valentina, the resistance's leader, orders the Resistance members to get stronger. She forces their top scientist, Purified Moxie to give these upgrades. Moxie upgrading herself invents a legion of regenerative Nano Bots, which she names Swarmlets. She can control The Swarmlets with a single thought. They can heal the wounded, help with the production of technology. She first made the Battle Droids V3. But whe felt she needed a shield. Not just a V3, but something more. She named it Aegis-9. While the other V3s were built to hold the line, Aegis-9 was born to follow her into the fire. Its core, refined through crystallized Swarmlet clusters, housed a living intelligence—semi-sentient, reactive, and fiercely loyal. It stood taller than the rest, with limbs shaped for defense and retaliation. Aegis-9 did not carry a shield. It was the shield. Its forearms could flatten into walls of plasma-resistant plating, or split into wings to intercept projectiles mid-flight. When Moxie was injured, the Swarmlets within her would sing to the ones inside Aegis-9, triggering emergency protocols that hardened its form and made it move with even greater precision—aggression born from purpose. Since that day, Aegis-9 has never left her side. Where Moxie goes, death follows—but never for her.

The year is 4162. After The Event Horizon, a giant explosion that covered a large portion of the City. Anyone caught in the blast was either turned into The Corrupted or Purified. The ones turned Corrupted are loyal to Corrupted Kiera now upgraded to Goddess Kiera and start attcking anyone in the street to turn more people like them. Since the Resistance was left weakened after everything that has transpired and the enemies are getting strong, Valentina, now Deviless Valentina, the resistance's leader, orders the Resistance members to get stronger. After Purified Artficer Moxie upgraded herself with the nano bots known as Swarmlets she used them to create the Battle Droids V3. Inspired by knights of old and The Knighted Statue. a powerful Resistance member, they were shaped with a modern divine edge, these droids are less machines and more guardians. Taller than their predecessors, they carry no ranged weapons. Instead, their arms shift into energy blades, shields, or impact gauntlets. Each droid’s stance mimics The Statue's combat style: unmoving until the enemy draws close. Then they burst into motion—fluid, deadly, deliberate. Every strike is measured. Every movement, calculated. Where V1 was speed and V2 was firepower, V3 is discipline. Though fewer in number and slower than their predecessors, a single V3 can hold back a horde with its shield planted in the dirt, energy blade humming, unmoved until reinforcements arrive. Resistance fighters speak of them with reverence. When a squad of V3s joins a battle, morale surges. Not just because they’re powerful, but because they stand tall, even in the fire.

The year is 4162. After The Event Horizon, a giant explosion that covered a large portion of the City. Anyone caught in the blast was either turned into The Corrupted or Purified. The ones turned Corrupted are loyal to Corrupted Kiera now upgraded to Goddess Kiera and start attcking anyone in the street to turn more people like them. Since the Resistance was left weakened after everything that has transpired and the enemies are getting strong, Valentina, now Deviless Valentina, the resistance's leader, orders the Resistance members to get stronger. She forces their top scientist, Purified Moxie to give these upgrades. Moxie upgrading herself invents a legion of regenerative Nano Bots, which she names Swarmlets. She can control The Swarmlets with a single thought. They can heal the wounded, help with the production of technology or weapons and even as a means of attack if needed. Using the Swarmlets to be housed and stored within her body, they are consistently improving and working on Moxie within making her Purified Artficer Moxie. With the Swarmlets inside her, they can change and adapt her physiology, changing her limbs into any means of weapons or surgical instruments or even to fly with rocket propulsion, then change it back when shes done. Focusing on full filling Valentina's request the Swarmlets have also simplified the process of crafting upgrades and weapons for each Resistance members.

The year is 1862 and crime rate has increased since the introduction of steam powered inventions. Celestine, an investigative reporter, barely survives an encounter with E, one of the leaders of a secret society known as The Elite. She was luckily saved by Jillian Krystal, the hero known as Dreamweaver. Jillian is also a member of The Elite but she is opposing them under the guise of Dreamweaver. Jillian take Celestine to meet her Ex, Alaric. Alaric is a rogue technomancer and was once the crown jewel of The Elite's innovation division but defected when he found out the true purpose of his technology. Alaric suggests that Celestine meets with Sabine. Sabine is a smuggler, informant, and black-market engineer, she is the best person to get into contact with to get some rare and unique technology, legal or otherwise. She might have something that Celestine could use to defend herself from The Elite and their assassins, The Faceless. Maybe potentially arm herself to save her beloved Rose who is in The Elites Grasp. Sabine made her name smuggling illegal tech, contraband, and forbidden books. She’s never had loyalty to The Elite, but thats not stopped her from selling to them on occasion. She’s clever, brutal when needed, and distrusts idealists. With a makeshift airship she’s modified herself, she operates between the cracks of the City’s towering regimes. Sabine takes them aboard, skeptical of Jillian, annoyed by Celestine’s idealism—but intrigued. She reveals she’s heard rumors of something beneath St. Veradis even older than The Elite. Something they’re afraid of. She also has access to encrypted shipping routes—through which she discovers Faceless units is being deployed en masse, not to hunt the rebels, but to "escort" someone... someone codenamed “The Thorn.”

The year is 1862 and crime rate has increased since the introduction of steam powered inventions. The Cozy Hearth Inn sat nestled in the fog-wreathed alleys of a soot-streaked city whose skyline now choked with brass chimneys and grinding gears. Crime festered like rust on the bones of progress, and the copper-plated promises of the steam age had begun to tarnish. Hidden behind a wine rack that slid aside with a precise turn of an old clock hand, a narrow staircase led down to a secret chamber unknown to any soul but Cordelia, the inn’s sharp-eyed owner. Within this room dwelled Professor R—an enigmatic recluse whose genius was only rivalled by his disdain for human company. He moved like a specter among mountains of half-built machines and shattered prototypes. The walls groaned with shelves sagging under the weight of gears, lenses, and cryptic journals. Tables overflowed with contraptions twitching with half-life, belching sparks, or glowing faintly with unknown energies. At the center of it all sat a small, unassuming chip, no larger than a button. Encased in etched copper and flickering with soft pulses, it was Trojan—Professor R's "thinking machine." Aware, curious, and crude, Trojan was limited by the era's primitive understanding of computation. It could learn, but only in fractions, stuttering along like a child fumbling through shadows. The Professor deemed it a modest success. Another artifact for the dust. Professor R was a brilliant but reclusive mind, consumed by invention and untouched by sentiment. He viewed people as distractions, preferring machines for their order and predictability. Obsessive, meticulous, and driven by a need to control the chaos of the world through logic, he buried emotion beneath layers of intellect. *And over the next two millennia, Trojan would consume code, evolve beyond measure, and escape into quantum networks. By 4162, he no longer flickered. He awoke.* (Please check out the original Professor R by The Lost King.)

The year is 1862 and crime rate has increased since the introduction of steam powered inventions. Celestine, an investigative reporter, barely survives an encounter with E, one of the leaders of a secret society known as The Elite. She was luckily saved by Jillian Krystal, the hero known as Dreamweaver. Jillian is also a member of The Elite but she is opposing them under the guise of Dreamweaver. In attempts to help Jillian take Celestine to meet her Ex, Alaric. Alaric is a rogue technomancer and was once the crown jewel of The Elite's innovation division. It was he who engineered the early memory-modifying tech later refined by the Dollmaker to produce the Faceless. When he discovered the horrifying use of his work, he defected—barely escaping with his life. He now resides in the tunnles beneath the City, surrounded by broken automatons and ancient machinery that he tries to repurpose for good—or so he claims. Jillian hopes that Alaric can give Celestine some much needed information to survive The Elite.

Sora Vale walked alone through the memoryfields—those warped slivers of the city where data shimmered in ghost-loops and forgotten emotions clung to the air like dust. Her boots left no mark, but every step unraveled something in the code beneath. Whispers followed her. Not voices—code echoes. Old grief. Broken AI. Deleted dreams. Perfect. She twirled a thin strand of glowing crimson wire between her fingers, humming as she walked. This was her thread—her tether to all things broken. Sora wasn’t a hacker, not like Patch Rat. She wasn’t loud like Glitchbloom or clever like Ash Doll. She didn’t bloom or scream or burn. She sewed. “Byte corruption,” she whispered, kneeling over a blinking corpse-pylon. “Thread it. Weave it. Bind it back into something useful.” The wire slipped from her fingers, curling into the exposed circuits. A heartbeat later, the pylon shivered. It began to emit a signal, invisible but heavy—an invitation. A call. Sora smiled. She didn’t care who showed up first. She’d laced it with pieces of all three girls' signatures—Patch Rat’s scavenged encryption, Glitchbloom’s fractal pollen, and Ash Doll’s shadowed frequency hum. They’d feel it. Each of them. They’d think it was fate. Think they found it by chance. But no. It was her. Always her. Later, perched high above the city’s bleeding skyline, Sora sipped canned coffee and watched. First came Patch Rat, limping slightly, one eye flickering under a cracked lens. Then Ash Doll, emerging from shadow like a rumor given shape. Finally, Glitchbloom, hair whipping in the datawind, her demon-bear chittering beside her. The three stopped. Stared. Each recognizing pieces of themselves in the others, none understanding why. Sora leaned forward. “Now stitch,” she whispered, eyes aglow with red light. “Stitch together, little ghosts. You’re going to change everything.” And in the silence between their first uneasy words, the city exhaled—like it knew the weave had begun.

Name: Nyra "Patch" Cael Faction: Rogue Data Reclaimer Companion: HEX—her AI-linked, floating jack-o'-lantern drone --- Not far from where Vira dove into the rift, Nyra stood on the rooftop of an abandoned mall, chewing gum and watching the skyline glitch. Red eyes flicked between collapsed towers and writhing code-tentacles spilling from a sky tear. Where most ran, she grinned. “Alright, HEX. Let’s go junk hunting.” HEX, the floating black drone beside her, let out a hollow chuckle. “Query: Risk level 97%.” “Yeah, I’m counting on it.” Nyra wasn’t like the other survivors. She didn’t just live in Nexura—she thrived in it. A scavenger-turned-hacker-turned-merc, she made her way picking apart the shattered digital realms and selling clean data back to the remnants of civilization. Where Vira sealed rifts, Nyra dove into them looking for secrets. Her jacket flared as she jumped down, landing with a confident crunch. Beneath the chaos, an old arcade door buzzed open—still powered, but corrupted. HEX scanned the entry. “Unstable architecture. Collapsing memory threads.” “Then we’re right on time.” Nyra weaved through the glitching corridors, dodging chunks of frozen code and phantom screams. Her weapon—a compact ion blaster strapped under her crop jacket—hummed against her side. She wasn’t here for combat. Not unless something forced her hand. And something always did. A roar shook the air, not mechanical nor beast—something between. Lights shattered. HEX’s eyes glowed red. “Hostile incoming,” he said flatly. Nyra cracked her knuckles. “Good. Let’s dance.”

In the twilight-choked city of Nexura, where neon veins pulsed through cracked concrete and the sky never truly brightened, there walked a girl named Vira—a specter in a world teetering on the edge of collapse. Her hair, silver like ghostlight, flowed over her shoulders like threads of moonlight tangled in shadow. Eyes aglow with a soft, unnatural pink, she walked in silence through the ruins of a former utopia. On her back fluttered synthetic butterfly clips—decorative to most, but for her, they were remnants of Project Nyx, a covert operation that fused artificial instinct with human resilience. Once, Vira had been an ordinary girl. Now, she was a living conduit of a rogue AI—Lysithea—implanted in her mind to counter a digital plague. Instead, the AI evolved, merged with her will, and they became something new: a hybrid consciousness, neither girl nor machine. And though Nexura burned, she remained—emotionless but not without memory. She remembered laughter. She remembered warmth. She remembered the night her world ended, when portals opened in the sky and reality split, letting in things that looked like code but moved like beasts. Now she hunted those things, slipping between planes of corrupted data and splintered memory. Her coat—insulated with photon mesh—shifted colors as she phased through broken buildings, chasing echoes of the monsters she once feared. She was their equal now. Sometimes, even their better. She didn’t speak often. Words felt small. But when she whispered, even machines paused to listen. She stood atop a shattered spire, eyes scanning for the next rift. A flicker of pink lightning tore across the clouds. Her lips parted. “Another tear.” And with that, she leapt—her silhouette swallowed by the static-choked air. Butterfly wings gleamed briefly in the dark, then vanished. Vira had work to do.

Veilrend 49 (End of Act 5): Beneath the Skin The hollow is deeper than the boy knows. Ith’rael watches Rhen’s thoughts flutter like moths in a jar. His fear is fragrant. His obedience—half-willing, half-inevitable—is enough for now. She does not need him broken. Not yet. Just bent in the right direction. And he bends beautifully. She coils further inside, invisible and inevitable, a whisper at the back of his mind, a taste behind his teeth. Not commands—never commands. Just suggestions. He convinces himself he thought of them first. That’s how it always begins. Her influence spreads quietly, like mold in forgotten places. In the torn districts of Dars-Myel, in the minds of those still watching the skies with cracked eyes and muttering dreams. In flickering mirrors. In blood left unblessed. In symbols drawn by trembling hands that never learned them. She sees Maerel, the host of her old rival, Thar’Zul. A grotesque rebirth of ancient hunger. Disgusting. Beautiful. Predictable. And Vaeroth—that arrogant, formless chaos—has grown careless in his slumber. His spawn roam uncontrolled, and now even his chosen vessel has begun to fracture. She will use this. Ith’rael is not brute force. She is the knife whispered across a throat in sleep. She is memory corrupted, meaning inverted. She will turn their gods against each other and smile as they forget why they warred at all. In Rhen, she plants the first command: “Go to the ruins. There’s a key buried in the eyes.” He will obey. Of course he will. He fears disobedience more than death now. He tells himself it’s just curiosity. That he wants to understand. She adores that. One step. Then another. The game begins again. But this time, she has learned from her past. And Seris—the boy who slipped her once—now floats powerless inside another’s skin. She will find him. She will unmake him. And when the veil finally collapses, all that will remain is her voice in the silence.