CHAPTER 1: A Beginning to Things

The elements are a fundamental part of reality, allowing for the raw expression of the universe’s power and abilities. They are forces of creation, destruction, and everything in between. Fire, water, air, earth, light, and shadow are constants in the world, always at odds with one another, yet ultimately relying on their counterparts to maintain harmony and balance.

Out in the great and empty blackness, one world in particular is quite attuned to these elements, to the point where beings whose bodies consist of these powers live in harmony with one another and the world around them… more or less.

These beings are known as elementals, and this world eventually came to be known as “Crux.” It is quite a busy place, filled to the brim with its own politics and people, ideas and advancements, and hopes and dreams.

Its people have experienced the triumphs of progression, leading fulfilling lives and creating solutions to problems faced every day. Such as constructs-mechanical beings designed to do menial work, or waveform communication, allowing people to talk from across the expanse of the entire world.

 It has been through wars, such as the dreaded Umbral Incursion, which had destroyed and displaced many souls in one shadow elemental’s quest for untold power. All things considered, Crux is a lovely place to live for many. Unless, of course, you live in Shaydon.

CHAPTER 2: One Small Shadow

Shaydon is a small, dreary continent staining the face of Crux, its skies and land covered in a near-impenetrable gloom. The land is unforgiving, having adapted into a crooked, gnarled facsimile of an ecosystem, dedicated to stinging, poisoning, or pulverizing anything that dares to traverse its blackened earth.

The wastes are irrelevant, however, as the majority of Shaydon’s business takes place within its cities, walled monuments built from the arrogance and greed of those placed in charge. The ceaseless smog of industry and the poisons of civilization course their way through endless alleyways and apartment blocks. Canals of polluted sludge pump their way throughout the city, providing a convenient means of transport and waste disposal for all of its inhabitants.

From higher up, the horizon is painted with harsh, buzzing neon signs and lit window panes, creating a mosaic of hollow spectacle. One fateful day, as his home begins to wake up to the prospect of a new day, one individual in particular bears witness to this sight as he prepares for his job.

This particular shayd, a term most shadow elementals prefer to be called, has spent most of his morning rummaging around his room for something he lost. He’s not particularly smart, or talented, or good-looking (at least by shayd standards), but like most shayd, he is a fiercely dedicated worker. He reached his way under his cot, scraping out some dust bunnies and garbage in the process.

“Come on, come on, where is it?” He muttered to himself, pulling out a scrap of an old overdue bill, crumpling it in his hands, and tossing it over his shoulder. The shayd then moved his search over to his desk, which was littered with forgotten papers, doodles of building designs, and architectural schematics. He swept the piles aside, still looking for his prized possession. Out of the corner of his ivory-white eye, he eventually saw his target, sitting in plain view on top of his visbox. It was a laminated identification badge, with the name “Orsel Jino '' printed in bold on its face.

“Finally! I knew I didn’t lose it this time!” Orsel exclaimed. He promptly affixed it to his chest and beamed with pride in the mirror.

His celebration was unfortunately short-lived, as he noticed the clock ticking directly above his reflection. “Ope! I’m gonna be late for the barge!” He slithered his way out of the door and down his apartment building’s dreary halls. The sparklights that lined the walls flickered and dimmed at random intervals, while a leak from the ceiling slowly emptied its contents into an overflowing bucket placed beneath it. As Orsel slid down the stairway, he could hear the rabble coming from the other tenants; arguing, shouting, and various other noises permeated the walls. Finally, he made it to the building’s front lobby, his favorite part of the building. It was the nicest-looking area in the complex, which wasn’t saying much. A wall of message lockers lined the wall to his left, each belonging to a tenant in the building. A handful of them were either ripped open or didn’t have a functioning lock, with Orsel’s being in the latter camp. He didn’t bother checking his own. It was too early in the day for any postage to be sent, and bill day was next week, anyway.

The lobby had large, thick windows on each side of the main door shaped like diamonds. It was mesmerizing to Orsel how the light from the streetlamps refracted through their textured surface, as well as wondering how the glass was carved in such a way. Sadly, the left-most window was shattered completely by vagrants and had been boarded up for over two years. Orsel had lost hope some time ago that it would ever be repaired. Along the length of the entire room, carved bands of diamonds etched into plaster wrapped themselves around where the walls and ceiling met. Some segments had been either scratched out or ruined, but a good, solid example of the intended design was still laid out on the back wall, still untouched. Orsel hoped someday the whole place could be fixed up, but his letters to the Grand Tower of Shaydon were usually ignored.

Orsel was a fan of the diamond shape that appeared so often in Shaydon’s architecture. The cultural impact of the symbol weighed heavy on his mind, representing the glory days of Shaydon’s leader, Thead Cronec, and how he had united Shaydon under one banner with his band of Harbingers. It was an event far before Orsel’s time, and he remembered enjoying the stories of such history in his youth. Whatever the case, he still had a job to go to.

“Morning, Carces!” Orsel bubbled, making his way over to the door, past the front security desk. He was greeted with nothing more than a dismissive grunt by the shayd sitting slumped behind it. The portly officer was glued to a visbox, barely aware of the presence of anything else going on around him.

Orsel made his way out the heavy doors into the waiting arms of the world outside. He squinted upon seeing the blaring neon and streetlights, but he quickly adjusted to the sights. Shaydon was a veritable maze of buildings and narrow streets. Huddles of shayd traveled to and fro, conversing and making their way to their own jobs and errands. Junk piled up outside of buildings and was oftentimes simply thrown out into the city’s main means of transportation. A large canal bisected the city’s larger paths, carrying barges and rafts of passengers to their intended destination. Orsel hoped one day he could get his own motor raft, but at the moment, he was barely making enough star to cover the rent for his home. As he was caught up in the sights and sounds of Shaydon, Orsel was shocked to find his travel barge drifting past.

CHAPTER 3: Later Than Most

“Hey, wait up!” he hailed, but the barge paid him no heed, nor did any of the early morning passengers. Orsel started to chase it as it lazily drifted down the stream, displacing floating trash out of its way. Although it was big and clumsy, it moved at a brisk pace, Orsel barely being able to match its speed even at full bolt, the four tendrils that made up his locomotion skittering with all their might. Orsel vaulted over garbage cans and railings trying to keep up until he finally came to a bridge that spanned the length of the canal.

 He made his way up to the top of its arc and with a mighty leap, plopped onto the boat, much to the protest of the other passengers. The barge’s conductor, hearing the ruckus, stopped the vehicle. “It’s you again, isn’t it?” He asked, not turning around as Orsel made his way up to the driver’s seat. 

“Look, I just ran a little late, that’s all.” Orsel explained. The conductor ran his hand along his face, frustrated. 

“The barge is meant to be boarded at its designated stops. I’m not going to keep letting you get on like this.” 

“I’m sorry, I’ll try to-” 

“I don’t want to hear it. Just pay the fee and we’ll be on our way.” 

Orsel checked his cloak pockets, and made a shattering realization- he had forgotten his fare. 

“Uh, funny thing about that-”

Orsel was promptly thrown off the side of the barge into the filth-ridden waters beneath, with the conductor looming over the side where he was tossed. 

“I DON’T DO CHARITY, LOSER!” He shouted. The barge started back up, leaving Orsel bobbing in its wake. Orsel swam towards the canal’s ladder and hoisted himself back up, sopping wet and miserable. 

“Just great.” He grumbled, sloshing himself into an alleyway. “I just got this thing washed.” He made sure the coast was clear and disrobed to wring out his cloak. A shayd’s cloak was one of the most important possessions they could own. Not only does it serve as bodily protection from the outside elements, like light or cold, but each one also had unique patterns sewn into them that served towards the purpose of identification.

“Now, on top of everything, I’m going to be even later for work.” Orsel griped. He put his clothing back on, it was damp and smelled kind of funny, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was before. Orsel made his way out of the alleyway and continued his walk to work.

After some time, Orsel finally arrived at the building of S.M.C.: Shaydon Municipal Construction. He straightened his moistened ID badge and braced himself while opening the door. To his dread, the company’s entire workforce was waiting near the lobby, all wearing unenthusiastic eyes.

 “Well, look who finally decided to show up today.” A voice parted its way through the group. It was none other than Orsel’s boss, Refanom. “Seems like someone forgot we were installing stabilizing braces today. We’ve been waiting for everyone to get here.” Orsel shuffled over to the time cards and plunked his into the slot.

He sighed, “I didn’t forget. I just had a bit of trouble with the boat this morning.” 

“I heard a moocher got thrown off my brother’s barge earlier trying to get a free ride.” One of Orsel’s coworkers, Chwern laughed. “Don’t tell me that was you.” another coworker, Ytsap, pointed at Orsel.

“Look, his cloak’s still wet! It was him!” roaring laughter filled the room, and Orsel felt mortified. It was bad enough he was late, he didn’t want to get chewed out like this because of one little mistake. In the thick of it, Refanom whistled loud enough to silence the rabble. 

“ALRIGHT!” He barked. “Now that we’re all here, let’s load up. We got a lot of work to do today.” The laughter stopped, and everyone lined up to grab their tools before heading out the back door of the workplace. For any laboring shayd, there was only one tool needed for the large-scale maintenance and construction they were about to be doing.

The crookshank is a simple tool, a solid metal staff topped with a diamond shape that tapers to a point, in a shape similar to that of a spear. However, the diamond portion has a circular indentation which gives the tool the properties of a hook, as well as giving it the ability to fit into specialized sockets used in Shaydon’s infrastructure. A barrel of them waited at the end of the building’s hallway before the door, with each one of Orsel’s coworkers grabbing one before heading out. Where they were going, they would need them. Due to his tardiness, Orsel was the last one in line, meaning that he got the worst of the bunch. Visually, it wasn’t any different from the other tools, but it had an odd center of gravity that Orsel thought may have come from improper mixing of the alloy used in manufacturing them. He, like a lot of other shayd, had experience with making them in a foundry as children, so he knew when something was wrong with one of these. Regardless, he wasn’t exactly in a social position to be negotiating today, so he begrudgingly headed out with his coworkers.

The construction barge was how the workforce would be getting to their job today. It was about twice the size of a normal travel barge, although most of the passenger space was dedicated to transporting raw materials and heavy machinery. In today’s case, it was a large crane ratcheted to the deck, and a stabilization brace for setting up a new building. As the group started boarding the boat, Orsel caught himself looking down at the canal below the boat.

“Hey, fancy another swim?” Chwern slapped Orsel’s back, jokingly. Orsel’s eyes narrowed as he turned away, grumbling.

 Refanom sat down in the boat’s pilot seat and started the barge up, chugging and clanking its unmaintained engine, and eventually drifting the group forward. “Worksite ho!” He shouted, tugging down on the vessel’s steam whistle, and Orsel and his company were well on their way.