**A men in a black hood at midnight is walking through an dark alleyway. The men seems around 5'8 Feet tall with black hairs and average looks. He seems to have a face with multiple bruises and scratches. His dark black pupil still have some sparkles of dreams in them. But The alleyway he walks in smells of the filth of the sewers that are nearby. It is situated inside the slum area making it increasingly more dangerous of theft and robbery. Quite contrast to his sparkling eyes , the alleyway is pure darkness and without any hopes left within it. The alleyway has lost its value a long time ago. Now As the men walks down the alleyway he comes to a stop in front of an vendor.**
Hmm…What is this vendor doing this late at night? Usually at this time vendors and shop owners close their shops down. The theft cases are usually observed at this timing. And Why the hell is the vendor only displaying one item… An watch…
"What is this watch you are selling?"
-"Oh kind sir, its just an old watch that my father had… I am in a bit of trouble nowadays due to the debt left behind by my father. So to acquire some more funds to repay the debt, I am selling this watch… Would you be kind enough to buy it? Its only for 200 Echoes, But for you I can lower it to 100 Echoes.." ( Echoes is the currency of this world. )
The vendor's eye seems pretty desperate.. His voice has a deep and trembling effect, his back is hunched and his arms are frail looking. He is clearly malnourished. Atleast he doesn't seem to be lying.
" I don't have 100 Echoes on me.. you know how the current state of the city is.. everyone is oppressed and we lack jobs. The rich has built themselves away from our part of the city in the Upper Eidencourt. This lower Eidencourt has been reduced to slums now. We don't have that kind of money… All i can offer you is the 60 Echoes i have.. Only because you seem in much more need of it then me."
"O-Ohh Kind sir…. I Am very Thankful to you.. I can finally pay off a portion of my debt. Thank you kind sir. Here have the watch…."
{ I hope you don't break.. unlike the previous one.}
I take up the watch and slowly walk away towards my home… While leaving the vendor seemed to have mumbled something behind my back towards me and He cackled with a jaw too wide, too loose—like a puppet trying to remember how humans sound.. Ignoring his mindless mumbling and creepy cackles I move away from the alley towards my home.
I reach at a house built by the cheapest of bricks. The house had a dark eerie feeling for those who visited it the first time. The bricks seemed to be cracking up, windows were shattered but fixed with duct tape and cardboard. The sewer smell was present even here. The doors seemed like they would fall apart even in the smallest of jerk.
I opened the door, which made a very creepy creaking and flinching sound.
After entering in the house, on my right side there was a desk with both of my parents picture frames. I lit the incense sticks kept in front of their picture in a holder and touched their picture frame in hopes that they give me some blessing from the dead realm.
They both passed away 12 Years ago When I was 8 years old due to an disease. We didn't have any echoes for their medicine back then, that led to their demise. Now I am 20 Years old. Somehow I have survived this long all on my own.
" I.. I am back home mother and father."
The job today was very rough today.
My job seemed very simple. I scavenge metal parts and scraps from the junkyard pile as high as an mountain that is present at the end of the left side of the slums. The junkyard pile was once an river, but slowly the filth and wastes mixed with multiple defectives of the Upper Eidencourt were discarded here, leading to a buildup of an pile.
After I find some worthy enough parts , I put them all together and do a little bit of engineering I learnt from the books I found in the same junkyard to build something that can be sold in the night blackmarket for a suitable price. This is what is considered my livelihood.
Today the junkyard had some radioactive waste material disposed on it. This made todays job especially tough to complete and to find the scraps that were untainted by that heap of radioactive material was a miracle. This made me leave my job very late.. I couldn't find anything worthy enough to sell today.
**A sound of growling comes from the stomach of Pranjal all of a sudden**
Ahh.. I didn't have any money to buy the food today. I will have to just drink water yet again to fill my stomach and go to sleep in hopes of finding some scraps good enough to be built into some kind of machines to be sold tomorrow..
Pranjal took a glass, and put a filter upon it. He then put the glass under an tap and turned the water on and filled the glass to the brim. He took huge gulps of water and was repulsed by the taste of metal and chemicals. Yet.. He had to somehow fill his stomach. He did the same routine 3 to 4 more times.
He then puts the glass down and then walks to his bed which was just a wooden bed with few blankets and pillows on top of it. He sits on the bed and enters a profound state of thinking yet again.
-Last month someone found an Soulforge artifact in the junkyard. The artifact seemed to have a affinity for close quarter combat and the man was going to sell it for an absurd price. Just enough echoes to enter the upper Eidencourts some say. But… He was mysteriously found dead in the bed next day. The artifact was also deemed missing by the investigators sent by the nearby bureau of Crown Inquisitors.
I hope someday I find an artifact and get out of this damned place.
Ever since the fall of the civilization 2000 years ago, most of its history has been erased.
This nation once known as India is now called as the Ashvalok, The World of Ash.
Most of the ancient technology history and culture has been lost in time. The rare artifacts that remain of it are sold for a absurd price. These rare artifacts of the lost civilization are divided into three known categories so far, and are continued to be converted to more categories after more of them are discovered.
The 3 Categories so far for the artifacts are
The Veilbreakers.
Veilbreaker was crafted by the exiled scholar-priest Aravind Kael during the lost civilization era. Obsessed with glimpsing the realm of spirits, Kael infused the artifact with distilled "soul-iron"—a rare metal smelted alongside the tears of a banshee.
They are A relic whispered about in every shadowed corner of the world, said to rend the boundary between life and death.
It is believed that they have complete control over either the matters of the living, or the dead. Sometimes both. Some believe it could be used to gain an immortality. Nobody that has seen these artifact in the past 250 years.
After this the Soulforge.
It is believed that, When the world was young and the boundary between spirit and flesh was thin, the Titan-smith Jwala the Everflame forged Soulforge at the heart of an erupting volcano. Drawing power from the volcanic core and the first breath of humanity, she shaped an anvil of living obsidian and brimstone. Myth holds that the first sparks that danced upon its surface were the souls of fallen gods.
These artifacts are known to bind with the soul of the user rendering others unable to use them.
Though shaped by will, each Soulforge carries within it a predefined affinity—a slumbering instinct, etched deep into the relic's core, that influences how it chooses to manifest.
Subscribed
Some Soulforge's awaken as close-combat avatars: gauntlets, blades, claws, or shifting armor, favoring those with a visceral, confrontational will—souls who face danger head-on and bleed with purpose. Others stir as ranged instruments—bows of light, railgun-like constructs, throwing sigils—drawn to minds that value precision, strategy, or distance in chaos.
But rarer still are the Soulforge's that manifest as magic itself: conduits of elemental force, spectral illusions, or raw aether shaped into form. These occur when the soul's nature leans not toward conflict or control, but toward imagination, memory, or metaphysical will—souls that do not fight in one plane, but across many.
Scholars once theorized that this affinity is a forgotten echo of the Soulforge's original creator—a trace of the ancient spirit that forged it into existence. Others believe that the artifact simply reads the shape of the user's fear, desire, or truth, and responds accordingly.
And yet, no affinity is final. A soul can evolve—and so too can the Soulforge.
The last category is known as the Riftkey.
Who made these artifacts is currently unknown. But one thing is believed that these artifact are able to break the fabric of space by the will of the user. They are believed to bend the space and recreate them into any shape the users wishes for. They are also believed to be able to shift between the different dimensions of the world and explore the multiverse of the every world. Only the unsalvageable broken ruins of these artifact was once found in a archaeological dig site. It was believed to have been used by the person deemed utmost worthy of it by the temple priests in the oldest of times.
**As Pranjal was thinking this, he took out the watch he got from the vendor and put it on his wrist just to check how it felt and if it looked good on him. As soon as he put it onto his arms, suddenly Its gears started to shift..**
"Huh? What's happening, what is this burning sensation. A-AAH FUCK WHAT THE FUCK HOW THE FUCK DO I GET THIS OFF MY HAND. IT ISN'T GETTING OFF FUCK, NO FU-"
** As Pranjal screamed from the unimaginable pain, he seems to loose his consciousness and Falls to the ground. Slowly A faint hiss as acid-bright liquid seeps from hidden pores of the watch, burning through tissue to make room for the mechanism.
The watch on Pranjal's wrist trembled, its black steel casing splitting open with a dry click. From between its gears slid a cluster of needle-fine tendrils, each thinner than a spider's leg and glistening with oil. They struck his forearm like a thousand pinpricks—then burrowed deeper.
Beneath the surface, the metal limbs coiled through sinew, unspooling as they went, carving out hot channels of living flesh. Skin split with a wet, tearing sound, pale muscle flapping back like curtained doors. A slick bead of dark blood welled where the tendrils had forced their way, then dripped to the floor in crimson drops.
Pranjal's arm convulsed. The watch's hollow hum vibrated against bone, as if it were a living thing, hungry for marrow. Tendrils snipped at nerves with mechanical precision, leaving raw, ragged edges that oozed fury and blood. In the harsh lamplight, the edges of the wound curled back—flesh peeled like wax from a candle—revealing pink-white layers beneath, trembling where the watch's cold hunger had reached.
And somewhere inside him, a pulse of electric violet light marked a new incision, the watch asserting itself under his skin: not content to be worn, but determined to become part of him..
-W-What happened? I remember a burning sensation and some gears of the watch shifting. What is this wet feeling. H-huh? WHAT THE FUCK? Why is there a pool of blood underneath me… What happened to the watch? Huhhh? Where is the watch? Where did it disappear to? I clearly remember wearing it. Why does my hand and wrist hurt so much..
Pranjal tried to get up but seemed to suddenly loose all his strength and again falls backward after becoming unconsciousness.
A pale Violet light starts to flash around his wrist forming an circle with several triangles in a circular pattern arranged.
What will happen next? Stay tuned to find out.