Echoes of the Chrono-Forge

The rain in Neo-Aethelgard never truly washed anything clean. It was an acidic, oily mist that drifted down from the upper atmospheric scrubbers of the mega-corporations, catching the harsh glare of a thousand holographic advertisements and turning them into smeared stains of crimson, sapphire, and electric green across the asphalt below. It coated the chrome-plated chassis of passing automated couriers and clung to the heavy canvas of the coats worn by the dregs of the Lower Slums. Deep within Sector 9, where the towering skyscrapers leaned so close together they practically choked out the sky, the air hummed with a dual frequency. One was the sharp, sterile whine of high-voltage cybernetic grids; the other was the low, resonant, stomach-churning vibration of ley-line magic. It was a volatile marriage. In this city, a man could get a mechanical lung installed in the morning and have his shadow stolen by a back-alley hex-weaver by afternoon. Valen Vance stood on the rusted edge of a high-altitude maintenance platform, his boots balanced precariously on a beam of wet steel. He didn't look down. Looking down in Sector 9 only reminded you of how far you had left to fall. Instead, his cybernetic left eye whirred, the internal aperture clicking like a camera shutter as it zoomed and calibrated against the freezing wind. Red data streams flickered across his vision, measuring wind resistance, thermal output, and the rapid, unstable buildup of localized aetheric energy.