Beneath the Ashline

The ruins don’t like company after dark.

I learned that three seconds ago, when the shadows started moving wrong.

Now I’m running.

Left at the scorched archway—muscle memory does the thinking so I don’t have to. Right where the floor drops. The shockblade shifts at my hip, familiar weight finding its counterbalance as I move through the gap where two walls kissed during collapse. My boots know this route. My lungs are new to the urgency.

Don’t look at the mosaics.

I look at the mosaics. Half-destroyed, glittering underfoot, depicting creatures bound in golden chains. The Elven figures caught the light, freezing their faces in a smile I don’t trust.

Couldn’t help myself. I usually make runs north to south along the Ashline and avoid the Western Deadlands. This run is a bit too close to said Deadlands for my liking. But places like these... they pull at me. Something about the emptiness, the abandoned places, feels familiar. Familial?

Hmm.

That’s the problem, actually. That’s why I’m sprinting instead of strolling.

Thirty seconds ago I had my palm flat against a wall that shouldn’t have been warm. A wall covered in runes—not the decorative kind rich idiots tattoo on their collarbones, but older marks. The kind that hurt to look at directly, like they’re not wanting to be seen. Like they’re in a space between worlds. I was going to pull my hand back. I was about to pull my hand back.

Pale light traced itself along the carvings in response to my touch, slow and deliberate as a held breath. And something underneath the stone—inside it, through it—started humming. Not the hum of old tech bleeding power. Something that recognized the frequency of my pulse and matched it.

Oh, the things we could show you.

“Not today,” Which was a lie, because I had stayed another forty seconds watching the light travel. Forty seconds I didn’t have.

Hence: sprinting.

Three turns. Two. One.

The exit stairs claw up through the rubble and I take them two at a time, calves burning, the last scraps of sunlight painting everything the colour of a bad decision. The air thins as I climb, the ruins pulling inward and sealing what they consider theirs.

I clear the final step just as the light dips behind the horizon.

Behind me: the sound of stone forgetting it was ever open.

Hands on my knees, I drag in a lungful of air that actually fills. The ancient Elven structure sits dark and patient against a darker sky.

“Fuck.”

My lungs release the word in a wheeze.

Shit-coded bastard ruins.

But there’s a grin in there somewhere, trying to get out.

One thing I learned quickly scavenging in the Vel’Sereth: when the sun drops, the place shuts down what it doesn’t like. Chronos glitch. Signals fuzz. Doors that were open forget they ever were. Maybe it’s superstition. Maybe it’s old tech conserving power. Doesn’t matter. You don’t argue with something that’s been standing longer than your bloodline.

I straighten up slow, hands moving to my pack straps out of habit. The circuit glass clinks against itself. Three pieces, maybe four if the last fragment didn’t crack during my bolt. I should have padded them better.

Back there, when I was ducking under a fallen column, I counted six major structural weaknesses. Two load-bearing walls listing dangerously. One ceiling that’ll come down if someone sneezes wrong. With my luck, I’ll be that someone.

Thankfully, not this time.

The sweat cools on my neck. I start moving before my lungs are ready.

Flicking on my lamp belt for enough light to avoid an ankle-sized hole, and something catches my eye—a scuff in the dust. I drop into a crouch and go still. Boot print. Fresh. The toe drags like someone trying to walk quiet and failing.

More prints. Three sets, spaced like they were waiting. Not passing through. Watching.

I don’t move at all for a moment, scanning the treeline, the ridge, the long shape of the boulder to my left. Nothing. But nothing doesn’t mean gone.

Well, ain’t that a shitbag of burnt circuits.

The Scavenger Circuit Jerks. I know it is. Neil’s reinforced heel, Thoorin’s wide stance, and that’s definitely Freyn’s long stride. That ass still trying to move like he’s hunting something. Three sets, heading toward Ashrend.

“Still can’t walk quiet worth shit, can you?” I remember the days we used to work the same routes. Back when Freyn thought a crooked smile and half-elf charm were enough to get my attention.

They’ve been dogging my salvage runs for months now, showing up after I’ve done the hard work. Claiming prior rights to whatever I’ve found, waving around documents that smell like fresh ink and scavshit. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so damn annoying.

Neil loves his little speeches about professional courtesy and established territories. Always while Thoorin stands behind him trying to look menacing, which works about as well as a puppy learning its first growl. And Freyn... Freyn just watches. Smiles that too-wide smile that hasn’t looked real since I laughed at his clumsy attempt at flirting.

So, they’re heading toward Ashrend. Which means they’re not here. Which means my camp might still be clean.

Might.

I run my fingers down the metal of my shockblade. It hums contentedly, fully charged from the run.

Might be time to change the rules. Or, expect the worst of them so whatever happens doesn’t come as a surprise.

Three against one aren’t great odds, but they’ve never tried to fight me. They prefer to talk, to threaten, to lean on those fake documents and their supposed authority. They’re likely going to lead with posturing again. Act big, act tough, hope I don’t call their bluff.

But I’ve seen them run from hot zones. Watched them back off when a vault’s defences were still active. They let others take the risks, then swoop in to claim the prize. Like they did after Morrel died, when they tried to grab his route before his body was even cold.

The memory makes my fingers itch for the blade’s grip. But no—not yet. Let them play their game a little longer. Let them think they know all my patterns, all my exits. And don’t fuck it sideways when the time comes.

I check my pack’s seals. Nothing’s missing. The circuit glass clinks softly, and I check and find four distinct pieces. All accounted for.

The walk back takes longer than usual. A hum starts somewhere in my chest. Low, tuneless. The same rhythm as the wall back there, probably. I don’t examine that too closely.

The old roadbed’s collapsed near the ridge, forcing me down into the ash-choked floodplain before I can cut east again. I count steps, mark changes in the wind, catalogue sounds against my mental map of what belongs here. Two hundred paces from the ruins to the ridge line. Three hundred more down the back slope where the ground gets softer.

Nothing moves in the dark except wind-stirred ash. No boot prints mark this path—the wards do their job, blur the way to anyone looking. Cost me three months’ salvage to get them, but worth every circuit.

The pond appears first. A black mirror rimmed with moss. Silver-veined bark catches starlight, looks like mercury leaking from a broken tube. The water moves wrong, too still for natural current. But it’s clean. Safe, if not magic-tainted. But that never hurt anyone.

My feet know where to step. Where roots rise, where stones shift. The tent emerges from formless dark, a low-profile hardshell, half-buried in thorny brush. Heat shield catches moonlight in dull copper waves, powered by the solar spool I salvaged last spring.

The wards recognize my presence. Their hum shifts pitch, welcomes me home with the closest thing to warmth magic can manage. I check the perimeter anyway.

Old habits. Trust, but verify.

No tracks in the ash-dusted soil. No broken branches or disturbed stones. The cache remains sealed, my backup gear untouched. Even the thin wire I string across likely paths stands undisturbed, ready to sing warning if something, or someone, trips it.

The pond’s surface ripples once—just enough to scatter clouds and the first spatter of stars. An invitation, maybe. Or a reminder that I’m not the only one who chose this place for its solitude.

I crack my neck, let my shoulders drop. “Just us tonight, then.”

The water doesn’t answer. It never does. That’ll have to do.

I ease my pack down, the ache in my muscles and joints settles in now that my movement slows. The burn is earned from my day’s work. The circuit glass clinks. My reflection wavers in the pond’s surface, all dust, sweat, and a smear of black across my cheek where I must have touched a scorched wall.

“Looking rough there, scavenger.” I dab at the soot with my sleeve. It spreads instead of clearing. Ugh.

The shockblade comes off my hip easily, but I keep it within reach, laid next to me while I dig through my pack. Dinner’s the usual feast—protein bars that taste like sweetened chalk, and roots that taste acidic when you bite them.

Better than starving.

A hum starts in my throat, not quite melody. Just rhythm, just sound to fill the space where conversation should be. The water ripples in time with it, or maybe that’s wishful thinking.

The roots crunch between my teeth, bitter enough to make my jaw ache. But they’re clean calories, and clean anything is hard to come by out here. I keep humming through each bite, letting the sound bounce off water and silver bark.

The protein bar wrapper crinkles as I fold it small, tuck it away. No trace to leave carelessly behind, no evidence I was here if the wind catches. Just another whisper passing through, keeping time with a tuneless song.

The stars shift overhead, cold pinpricks against endless black. I can’t help glancing back toward Vel’Sereth’s broken spine. Inside, I know that the door’s still there, patient as death behind those crumbling walls. Waiting.

The memory of its touch lingers in my fingertips—that wrong-feeling vibration, the way the runes lit up when they recognized the stories in my blood.

“Not helping,” I mutter, shaking out my hands. But the sensation stays, a phantom vibe that makes my teeth itch.

Time to secure camp.

Can’t sleep with gear in the open, no matter how safe it feels. I wrap the circuit glass in cloth, each piece cushioned against clinking. The shockblade will go under my bedroll where I can grab it fast. I tuck everything else into the cache—a hollow beneath roots, sealed with salvaged tech and spite.

The tent’s fabric whispers as I duck inside. Familiar space, larger than it needs to be for one but I hate feeling claustrophobic. It’s small but it’s mine, warded and hidden and home enough for now. The hardshell exterior reflects heat when needed, keeps the worst weather out. More importantly, it breaks up my silhouette. Just another shape amongst the shadows.

I settle onto my bedding, one arm thrown over my eyes. The darkness behind my lids isn’t deep enough to drown out thoughts of that door. The way it felt alive under my palm, like it was tasting my heritage through my skin. Testing. Deciding if my bloodline counts for anything other than getting me killed.

Stop it. Sleep now, obsess later.

But the hum follows me down, resonating in the marrow of my bones.

A door asking questions I can’t quite hear.

Almost enough to make me forget what’s waiting in those ruins. Almost.