In a world where alchemy hums through copper wires and arcane glyphs glow brighter than oil lamps, survival is forged in sweat, scrap, and spark. The city of Cairnhelm is a monument to that uneasy balance—ancient magic stitched into industrial sprawl, where skyships drift above smoking chimneys and rogue enchantments cling to gutters like ghosts.

Here, invention is currency. Alchemy fuels everything: the foundries, the forges, even the bones of the city itself. Everyone relies on it.
Everyone but one.

Neon.

He was born different—his magic wild and unshaped, pulsing from within like a storm barely contained. No workshop blueprint could harness it. In a city that worships precision, formula, and craft, that makes him a problem. A risk. A reminder that not everything can be built, bound, or explained.

Cairnhelm is chaos for most.

For Neon, it’s a daily fight to belong.

---

The Port reeked of salt, oil, and burnt mana. Rusting hover-docks jutted out beside ancient piers, everything creaking and alive with motion. Ships groaned under shifting weight, gears clanked and hissed, and an air-crane whined overhead as it hoisted a crate of glowing ore. Hovercrafts skimmed the tide, turbines thrumming like war drums. Mana-forges along the waterfront belched violet smoke into the sky, tainting the clouds with their shimmer.

This was the heart of Cairnhelm.

To the north, the Heights glittered—where nobles and licensed sorcerers lived behind charm-warded walls. South sprawled Mudgate, where smugglers and hedge-witches rewrote the rules nightly. And far east, the Foundry Quarter, where heat never slept and metal sang from dusk to dawn.

But in a dusty workshop tucked between all of it, a boy worked.

Iron Ember Works smelled of incense, oil, and static. The cluttered shop was crammed with fractured golem limbs, scorched batteries, warped rotors—anything worth repairing or repurposing.

Neon moved with quiet precision, sparks flaring from his fingertip as he fused silver-threaded coils. His black hair was cropped short on the sides, soot smudging his cheekbones. Brass-rimmed goggles rested on his brow, the lenses still faintly aglow. His work suit was patched in too many places, weighed down with tools, wire, and charm-tags that didn’t always behave.

He leaned in closer, the flare of his magic tightening to a narrow arc—clean, exact. The construct’s chest clicked shut.

Behind him, a gruff voice cut through the air.

“Ye dinnae stop, do ye? More work in ye than ten apprentices.”

Calder stood with arms crossed, leather apron stained black with soot and time. Runes curled faintly across his forearms, glowing beneath his skin like old tattoos. One of his gloves covered an enchanted prosthetic—hammer-scarred and runed. His beard was thick with ash. His eyes sharp beneath heavy lids.

Gruff, not cruel. Calder was a blacksmith of people as much as metal—and years ago, he’d found Neon, just a ragged kid with strange magic and no one left in the world. Calder didn’t ask questions. Just gave him food, space, and tools. The old man never said it out loud, but the shop had become home.

Neon didn’t look up. “Just finished.”

The construct hummed quietly.

Across the room, a small, spider-like bot twitched on a workbench. Matte-white and patched with mismatched parts, the thing adjusted itself with the clunky grace of something rebuilt too many times.

S.A.B.R.E..

Salvage Automaton: Builder, Recycler, Extractor.

Its main lens blinked. A message flickered in blue light across its chassis:

Glorious weld? More like gloriously loose. When are you gonna fix me properly, genius?

One of its limbs flopped limply from a joint.

Neon smirked. “Hey, I’m an artist. Not a mechanic.”

Your ‘art’ is why I’m held together with hope and resin.

He chuckled. “At least I’m creative.”

The workshop buzzed quietly around them. Outside, Cairnhelm thundered with life.

Inside, it was just a boy, a bot, and the hum of something halfway between science and sorcery.

Calder was hunched over a set of blueprints now, frowning. The air around him shimmered faintly with alchemical energy.

“Grab me some rime-plated gears, lad.”

“We’re out.”

“Rubbish. Look again.”

“I did. Twice.”

Calder closed his eyes and let the magic flow through his fingertips—his senses tracing the shelves like invisible hands. A second passed.

He blinked. “Well. I’ll be damned.”

Neon shrugged, already slipping into his coat. “You’re old. I’ll hit the scrapyards. Maybe I’ll bring back a relic from your era.”

“Yer a menace,” Calder muttered. “One of these days—”

But Neon was already gone.

---

Through narrow alleys and crooked walkways, Neon hauled a dented trolley. S.A.B.R.E. clung to its side, antenna flicking in irritation. Hawkers shouted from stalls selling fish, fire-oil, or charmed trinkets. Enchanted fabrics danced in the breeze. A child pointed at S.A.B.R.E. and squealed with delight.

Eventually, the narrow streets gave way to the scrapyard.

He stepped in.

“C’mon,” he said to the bot. “Help me out.”

You owe me an oil bath and at least three upgrades.

Neon grinned. “Yeah, yeah.”

He crunched through piles of scorched plating. Broken rotors. Mana-scarred frames. S.A.B.R.E. scanned a melted generator nearby, lens clicking steadily.

Then Neon froze.

Something had moved.

Just beneath a sheet of rusted metal, something dark and slick twitched. At first he thought it was a rat—but rats didn’t shimmer.

He nudged the plate aside.

It wasn’t fur. It was skin.

Cold. Black. Veined with pale light that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat underwater.

He recoiled.

The thing twitched again—and then, soundless, it burrowed back into the junk. The metal bent around it like water.

Gone.

Neon stood frozen.

Behind him, S.A.B.R.E. chirped, still wrestling with a bracket. Oblivious.

Neon scanned the shadows, pulse rising. Rats didn’t move like that. Magic didn’t feel like that.

He muttered, more to himself than anything else, “That wasn’t a rat.”

The scrapyard creaked and groaned around him.

Just the wind. Probably.

Still, the weight in his chest didn’t lift.