The Aethel-Core had stabilized, but the world was vast, and the "Violet Pulse" had reached corners of the map that had never known the laws of the Ridge or the cruelty of the Crag. While the center held, the fringes were fraying.
The Council decided that the story of the Union needed to be written in the dirt of the distant lands, not just in the halls of the Spire. And so, a new journey began—not for kings, but for those who had lived their lives as ghosts.
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### The Sea of Dust
Three thousand miles to the West of the Aethel-Ridge lay the **Shattered Wastes**, a place where the earth had been torn apart by ancient tectonic shifts, leaving behind a labyrinth of canyons known as the "Sea of Dust." Here, the air was perpetually thick with fine, red silt that clogged the lungs and dampe
