Chapter 1: The Smog-Veiled City

The brass pipes groaned overhead as another wave of Aether-charged steam hissed through the industrial veins of Lower Delrick. Deon Revis pulled his coat tighter against the perpetual chill that clung to the mid-levels, his grey eyes scanning the narrow alleyway where shadows danced between flickering magitech lanterns. Three weeks. Three weeks since his uncle had vanished without a trace, and still no leads worth a damn.

"You sure this is the place?" Lex's voice rumbled from behind him, the big man's prosthetic arm whirring softly as he flexed the brass fingers. The blue glow from the magitech limb cast eerie patterns on the soot-stained brick walls.

"According to our client, yes." Deon's reply was clipped, professional. He couldn't afford to let his personal stakes cloud his judgment. Not when rent was due and their last three cases had yielded nothing but dead ends and empty pockets.

Elliese adjusted her spectacles, the lenses reflecting the amber light of her floating runes as they orbited her shoulders like loyal pets. "The ward traces suggest someone's been siphoning Aether from the district's main conduits. Amateur work, but effective enough to power whatever they're hiding down here."

The job had seemed simple enough when the merchant approached them two days ago. A warehouse worker named Korrin had been stealing Aether crystals from the industrial district—small-time theft that the City Watch couldn't be bothered with. Find the thief, recover the crystals, collect the fee. Easy money.

But nothing in Delrick was ever that simple.

Deon pressed his palm against the grimy wall of the warehouse, closing his eyes as he let his Aether-Sense unfurl. The silver light in his irises brightened as residual magical energy painted ghostly images across his vision. He saw Korrin, nervous and sweating, clutching a sack of stolen crystals. But there was something else—a deeper current of power that made Deon's skin crawl.

"He's been here," Deon murmured, opening his eyes. "But he's not alone."

The warehouse door hung slightly ajar, its lock shattered from the inside. Steam leaked from the gap, carrying with it the acrid smell of burned Aether and something else—something organic and wrong.

Lex cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing off both flesh and metal. "Finally. I was getting bored."

"Stay sharp," Deon warned as he pushed the door open. "Something's off about this whole—"

The smell hit them like a physical blow. Death, recent and violent, mixed with the ozone stench of discharged magical energy. Emergency lighting cast the warehouse interior in hellish red, revealing overturned crates and scattered crystals that pulsed with unstable energy.

And there, huddled behind a stack of shipping containers, was Korrin.

The thief looked up at their approach, his eyes wide with terror that went beyond mere fear of capture. Blood trickled from his nose, and his hands shook as he pressed himself against the metal wall.

"Please," he whispered, "please, you have to get me out of here. They'll come back. They always come back."

Deon knelt beside the man, keeping his voice calm and steady. "Who'll come back, Korrin? Who are you running from?"

"The ones in the robes. The ones who serve the—" Korrin's words cut off in a strangled gasp. His back arched, and silver light began pouring from his eyes, mouth, and nose like liquid starlight.

"Elliese!" Deon shouted, but the young mage was already moving, her fingers tracing rapid patterns in the air as protective runes blazed to life around them.

Korrin's scream filled the warehouse, a sound of pure agony that seemed to resonate on frequencies beyond normal hearing. The stolen Aether crystals scattered around the floor began to crack and discharge their stored energy in chaotic bursts.

Deon grabbed the dying man's shoulders, his Aether-Sense flaring involuntarily as he made contact. Images flooded his mind—robed figures chanting in a language that hurt to hear, symbols carved into stone that seemed to writhe and pulse with malevolent life, and beneath it all, the sound of massive chains creaking under impossible strain.

"The chained god," Korrin gasped, his voice fading to barely a whisper. "It hungers... feeds on us... growing stronger..." His eyes found Deon's, and for a moment, they were lucid and desperate. "Your uncle... Thane Revis... he found them first. But they took him... took him to feed the—"

The light pouring from Korrin's features intensified, and then he simply... wasn't. Not dead in any conventional sense, but empty, as if something fundamental had been torn away. His body collapsed, but Deon could still feel the echo of whatever had been ripped from the man's very essence.

"What in the hells was that?" Lex demanded, his prosthetic arm cycling through combat configurations as he scanned the shadows for threats.

Elliese's face was pale as she dismissed her protective barriers. "Soul extraction. I've only read about it in the forbidden texts. Someone—or something—drained his life force completely."

Deon stood slowly, his mind racing. His uncle's name on the dying man's lips confirmed his worst fears. Thane hadn't simply vanished or gotten himself killed in some mundane fashion. He'd stumbled onto something much darker, something connected to the recent surge in disappearances across the city.

"Pack up the crystals," Deon ordered, forcing his voice to remain steady. "We're getting out of here."

"What about the client?" Elliese asked, already gathering the scattered Aether stones with practiced efficiency.

"The client can wait. We have bigger problems now."

As they prepared to leave, Deon's enhanced senses picked up something else—a faint trace of familiar Aether signature lingering near where Korrin had died. His uncle's signature, but twisted somehow, corrupted by exposure to something that shouldn't exist in the natural world.

The silver locket Thane had given him years ago grew warm against his chest, and for just a moment, Deon could swear he heard the sound of chains rattling in the distance.

Outside, the eternal smog of Delrick's industrial district swirled like a living thing, hiding secrets in its grey embrace. The city's countless levels stretched above and below them—the gleaming Spires where the wealthy lived among the clouds, the crowded mid-levels where honest folk struggled to make their way, and the forgotten depths where things better left buried waited in patient darkness.

Somewhere in that vertical maze, Deon's uncle was either dead or wishing he was. And whatever had taken him was connected to the mysterious "chained god" that had drained the life from Korrin like wine from a bottle.

As they made their way back through the twisting alleys of Lower Delrick, Deon's mind was already working, sorting through contacts and favors owed. He'd need information, real information about these robed figures and their impossible deity. The kind of knowledge that lived in the spaces between official records, whispered in the shadow markets where desperate people traded secrets for survival.

The job had started as a simple theft recovery. Now it was something else entirely—a hunt that would take them into the darkest corners of the city, following a trail of missing souls toward something that should never have been allowed to exist.

Behind them, the warehouse stood empty save for the lingering scent of burned Aether and the echo of Korrin's final, terrified words.

The hunt had begun.