The train groaned as it slid into the city's station, steam rising from the wheels.

As I stepped off the train, I took it all in. Sparks fell from the overhead lines. Everything hissed, clicked, and buzzed.

Navaris, not a city but a living engine.

The air here doesn’t breathe. It vibrates.Everything pulses with electricity. Every wall is stitched with conduit and copper veins. Massive towers pierced the clouds of smog above, their lights blinking in rhythms—patterns only machines could understand.

Glass bridges threaded between the towers like webbing, alive with the shuffle of boots, drones, and trams.

I lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, watching the smoke disappear into the sky like everything else here.

Then I stepped forward toward the information terminal. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the last god fell. Brass-edged, flickering, coated in soot and grime, its screen blinked erratically between menus. A metal stylus was chained to the console, its tip scorched black. I tapped it once. Nothing happened. I tapped it again, harder.

The screen stuttered to life.

WELCOME TO NAVARIS TRANSPORT CENTRAL

PLEASE ENTER REQUEST:

"Available warehouse space, mid-levels," I muttered.

The machine responded with a static buzz, followed by a painfully slow scroll of options. Addresses. Prices. Warnings.

Most of them were already marked as "under inspection," "awaiting hazard clearance," or "leased by guild." I scrolled until my eyes burned, then found one that looked promising: Level 23 – Spanner's Coil – Unit 117-C.

Cheap. Private. Structurally unsound, probably. But just far enough from the slums and too low for the aristocrats to notice.

I jabbed the ACCEPT key, and the console spat out a clattering brass token stamped with the unit's seal.

"Home sweet hell," I muttered, pocketing the token. 

As I stepped on, a voice beside me said, "You from Lowthresh?"

I turned.

He was younger, maybe early twenties, with a stitched satchel, oil-stained gloves, and a half-repaired shoulder brace. The kind of look that screamed countryside tinkerer.

"Yeah," I replied. "You?"

"Dustmere," he said, nodding. "Figured I’d come see if the city’s as smart as it thinks it is."

"You’ll find it’s dumber in some places, faster in others."

He laughed. "Why did you come?"

I took a slow drag. "I came to give it what it needs, and get what I need"

The lift groaned and began to rise.

The lights of Navaris shimmered above us like fire caught in glass.

We both looked up, quiet as the city swallowed us whole. The lift clanked to a halt at Level 23—Spanner’s Coil.

“Good luck,” the Dustmere kid said, slinging his bag over one shoulder.

“You too,” I replied, stepping off into the steam.

The lift groaned again and rose, disappearing behind a lattice of pipes and smoke. I was alone now.

Level 23 felt like a place half-forgotten by time. Walkways were slick with condensation, and the air smelled of solder and damp iron. Everything was humming, not with energy, but with potential. Like the metal here was waiting to be repurposed.

I followed the engraved directions on my brass token, turning past a dented ventilation shaft and down a rust-streaked corridor until I found it:

Unit 117-C.

The warehouse loomed like a metal mausoleum—two stories tall, roof half-caved in on one side, and a hanging sign above the door that had long since lost its name to corrosion. A small set of thick sliding doors sat off-center, the locking mechanism buzzed softly, waiting for a proper key or a kick to the ribs.

I chose the latter.

The door groaned open with a sound like a dying boiler. Inside, it was dark. Dusty. Perfect.

High ceilings, cracked skylights, and a few support beams that looked like they wouldn't survive a month. An upper catwalk ringed the walls, and below, just enough open space for chaos to breathe.

I pulled my cigarette out of my mouth, exhaled, and whispered, “This’ll do.”

I walked the perimeter, checking pipe pressure, rust density, and old wiring. The furnace had long gone cold, and the forge was more decorative than functional—barely a firebox left.

A pile of crates in the corner gave me a start until I realized it was just scrap tubing and broken canisters. Still—usable. With work.

I took inventory aloud, pacing.

“Gonna need a forge. A real one. One that won’t cough itself out the moment I push divine tar through it.”

I paused.

“Lathe too. Manual and auto-threaded. I’m not cutting bolts by hand again.”

I scribbled invisible notes into the air with my cigarette.

“Smelter, pressure press, wire spinner. Drill rig would be nice… Probably won’t find one under ten crowns.”

I stared at the ground where the light from a broken skylight cut a rectangle into the dust. That would be the forge corner. The rest I’d build around it.

Navaris may be a beast of a city, but if I could get the right machines, the right materials… I could bring Violetfang back to life. Better.

Faster.

Spanner’s Coil had its own kind of commerce.

No brightly lit stalls. No barkers yelling about fruit. Just stairwells and tunnels that smelled like grease and ozone. It was commerce born in shadow and forged in desperation. You didn’t ask where a tool came from—just whether it still worked.

I passed rows of merchants with workbenches instead of tables, welding torches strapped to their backs. One woman was selling fingers. Actual fingers. Not prosthetics—raw, blood-slick digits, labeled with signs like “Perfect nerve conduction!” and “Still warm!”

I walked faster.

Eventually I came to a split-level scrapyard built into the side of a tower. It was run by a man with no jaw—just a speaker bolted into his throat. He gestured with one cybernetic arm and typed prices with the other. I bought a mini-lathe, a wire spinner, and an old forge core that reeked of divine fluid.

I asked him if he had pressure clamps.

He shook his head and pointed across the street—to a place lit in pulsing orange light.

That’s when I saw it.

Not the shop. Not the lights.

The people.

They weren’t just wearing tech.

They were tech.

One man had a full spinal brace made from living parts. Another had his arm removed entirely—replaced with a six-pronged socket wrench that twitched when he talked. A woman passed by with brass ribs poking through her coat, wires linking them to a glowing node embedded in her neck. She looked at me like I was behind. Like I hadn't caught up yet.

I realized something then.

In Navaris, it wasn’t about what you built.

It was about what you became.

Every machine, every spark, every invention—it all pointed inward. Toward the self. Innovation here wasn’t about helping others. It was about modification. Optimization. Ascension through metal, wire, and marrow.

I lit another cigarette.

For the first time in hours, the smoke in my lungs felt slow.

I looked down at my hands—scarred, stained, twitching with nicotine and ambition—and wondered how long I held myself back.

How long before Navaris demanded I join its rhythm?

Before it asked me to change?