For the first time since Elias had arrived at the Emberkeep, the Anvil Sanctum wasn't roaring. The great furnace was banked low, glowing with a steady, sullen heat rather than the usual raging inferno.

  Harth stood at the main anvil, stripped to the waist, his scarred torso covered in an equally scarified apron. He held a hammer in one hand and a tuning fork in the other.

  He struck the fork against the anvil. 'Ping!'.

  Then he struck the slab of raw Star-Steel Elias had placed on the block.

  Thrummm.

  "It’s stubborn," Harth grunted. "This metal remembers being a cage for power, it stubborn, it doesn't want to bend."

  "Can't you heat it?" Elias asked.

  "If I heat it past the critical point, the magic bleeds out," Harth said. "We have to fold it cold."

  "Cold forging?" Elias frowned. "That’s impossible. It’ll shatter."

  "Not if we ask it nicely," Harth said, looking up at Solari with a wicked grin. "Ghost-girl, sing the Song of the Void. Keep the lattice open while I hammer."

  Solari drifted over the anvil, a bemused look on her ethereal face, and began to hum-a low, oscillating drone. The Star-Steel responded, the white specks inside the dark metal began to swirl. The block softened, losing its rigidity not from heat, but from vibration.

  "Bellows, lad!" Harth barked. "Keep the rhythm!"

  Harth began to work, hammering with precise, rhythmic blows on the off-beats of Solari’s song.

  Hum... (Clang)... Hum... (Clang)...

  He folded the Star-Steel over a core of AshswornPlate, sprinkling Ironbark carbon between the layers.

  "The lattice is open!" Harth shouted over the ringing of the steel. "It’s hungry! Elias, the liquid! Now!"

  Elias grabbed the large flask of Aether-Balm,the grey-silvery, swirling mixture of Spore and Soulglass he had brewed in the Distillery.

  "Pour it in the trough!" Harth commanded.

  Elias uncorked the flask and emptied the thick, shimmering fluid into the quenching trough. It didn't settle; it rolled and swirled, the Pariah’s rhythm still pulsing through it.

  Harth struck the final blow on the breastplate. The metal was now vibrating violently, the song of the Void threatened to shake the steel, and Harth's grip, apart.

  "Quenching!" Harth roared.

  He plunged the vibrating breastplate into the trough of Aether-Balm.

  Elias expect a hiss of quenching iron, instead, there was a gasp as the star-steel submerged

  The open pores of the Star-Steel lattice drank the liquid greedily. The Spore-Light emulsion was sucked deep into the core of the metal, filling the microscopic gaps in the folded steel. The liquid turned from grey to clear as its essence was absorbed.

  Gingerly at first, Harth pulled the breastplate out.

  The armour had changed. No longer the simple dull grey steel anymore. It had a finish like oil on water, shifting, iridescent, refractive. The Ironbark had bonded with the spores, and the Star-Steel had bonded with the light.

  "Done," the smith said, his chest heaving.

  He held it up.

  The Bastion-BreakerPlate.

  [ITEM CRAFTED: BASTION-BREAKER PLATE] [RANK: EPIC] Effect: Refractive Carapace. The Aether-Balm infusion scatters 40% of incoming Divine Fire damage. Passive: 'The Void'. Enemies striking this armour with magic suffer 'Silence' for 2 seconds.

  "Try it on," Harth ordered.

  Elias stripped off his old cuirass and slowly strapped the new plate on.

  It was heavy, but the moment the buckles clicked, a cool sensation washed over his skin, the balm inside the steel acting as a second skin, regulating his internal temperature.

  "It feels... alive," Elias said, tapping the chest piece. It didn't ring; it absorbed the sound almost completely.

  "It is," Harth said. "It’s a living shield. The spores eat the heat, the steel eats the magic. You’re a walking dead-zone, lad."

  "And the sword," Harth said, pointing to Dawnfall resting on the workbench. "It’s still fighting itself. The Medic and the Knight are pulling the edge in two directions."

  Elias picked up the blade. It felt light in his hand, but unbalanced. The runic script on the flat was jagged and unfinished.

  "We don't melt it," Elias said, remembering the alchemy lesson. "We tune it."

  "Aye," Harth said. "We're giving it two edges. One for the song, and one for the silence."

  He took the sword and clamped it in a vice, but refrained from putting it in the fire.

  Instead, he took a [Phantasite] chisel and carved a deep channel down the centre of the blade, separating the two edges.

  "Solari," Harth grunted. "High pitch. Shattering frequency."

  Solari changed her hum to a high, piercing note.

  Reverently, Harth took a strip of [Soulglass] leftover material from the alchemy bench, and gently laid it into the groove. Under the influence of Solari’s song, the crystalline structure flowed, filling the channel and sealing the two halves of the steel together with a vein of pure, solid light.

  Harth ran a whetstone down the left edge. Scritch. "Razor edge, for the flesh, for the Knight."

  He ran a polishing cloth down the right edge. Whish. "Blunt edge, silver-lined, for disrupting magic, for providing mercy, for the Medic."

  He handed the sword back to Elias.

  The newly polished blade hummed. A vein of gold ran down its centre, pulsing in time with Elias’s own heartbeat.

  [WEAPON UPGRADED: DAWNFALL — THE TWIN PARADOX] Right Edge: Deals Physical Damage. Causes 'Bleed'. Left Edge: Deals Aetheric Damage. Severs magical tethers. Special: 'Harmonic Strike'. Alternating edges builds a resonance charge that stuns enemies.

  Elias swung the sword. It cut the air with a dual sound, a whistle, and a chime.

  "Neither side is fighting for dominance any more," Elias whispered. "It’s a duet."

  Elias sheathed the sword. "We're ready. Harth, thank you. This is..."

  "I'm not done," Harth grunted, interrupting him. He turned back to the workbench, his back stiff, and rummaged through a pile of metal shavings. "Don't think you're the only one walking into fire. That beast of yours... he’s a big target."

  Harth tossed a heavy object to Elias.

  It was a suit of barding Elias realised immediately, a chainmail covering designed for a horse; but sized and shaped for a Warg.

  Made of the same blackened Ashsworn steel, the inside was lined with [Aether-Balm]-soaked leather to protect the Warg’s fiery fur. The front plate was spiked, and etched into the metal were runic symbols for 'Bite' and 'Hold'.

  "Just leftover scrap," Harth muttered, refusing to make eye contact. "Had to test the temper on the curves. Didn't want to waste the metal."

  Elias smiled, kneeling down to buckle it around Cindersnarl’s massive neck. The Warg grumbled at first, then puffed out his chest, looking proud. He nudged Harth’s hand with his hot nose.

  "Get off, you soot-bag," Harth said, though he didn't pull his hand away.

  "And..." Harth cleared his throat again, sounding like a rock crusher in distress. "The weed."

  "Fennroot?" Elias asked.

  Harth picked up something small from the anvil with a pair of tongs.

  It was a helmet.

  Impossibly small, it was fashioned from the head of a Star-Steel cannonball, hollowed out and shaped. It had tiny eye-holes and a little spike on top.

  "He... uh... he sits on your shoulder," Harth mumbled, his grey skin darkening with a flush of embarrassment. "Exposed. If a stray spark hits him, he’ll burn. It’s just safety regulations."

  Harth dropped the tiny helm onto Fennroot’s head.

  It was a little big and slid down over the sprout’s eyes. Fennroot let out a confused chirrup, pushed the helmet up with a leafy arm, and then tapped on the metal with a root. Ting.

  The sprout vibrated with joy. He hopped up and down on Cindersnarl’s new collar, looking like a miniature knight riding a dragon.

  [ITEM ACQUIRED: THE NUT-SHELL HELM] Effect: Prevents Fennroot from being one-shot by Area of Effect (AOE) attacks.

  "Safety regulations," Elias repeated, his grin widening.

  "Shut up," Harth growled, turning back to the fire. "Get out of my forge before I melt the lot of you down for nails."

  THE TEST

  They gathered in the central courtyard.

  Elias stood in his new Bastion-BreakerPlate, Dawnfall sheathed at his hip. The armour gleamed in the low light, the Star-Steel catching the reflections of the forge fire through the open doorway.

  Cindersnarl paced beside him, the gorget attached to the barding jingling softly. Solari hovered at his left, her light reflected prettily off Elias’s polished pauldron. Veyra stood at his right, leaning on her living staff, looking at the team with a grudging respect. Thorne was testing the balance of a new set of volatile alchemical grenades she’d packed into her belt.

  The team looked different. They weren't just survivors anymore. They were a squad.

  Elias drew his sword.

  "Test it," Harth said from the doorway.

  Elias triggered the Switch Stance.

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  The blade flipped in his hand, its weight shifting. The medic's side, Mercies' Edge, glowed green. He swung, a practice cut. The air hummed with a soothing resonance.

  He triggered it again.

  The blade flipped. The Justice Edge flared red. He swung and the air crackled with heat.

  "Mercy first," Elias whispered.

  "Then fire," Thorne finished, grinning.

  "Don't scratch the paint on the first day, lad," Harth warned, though he was smiling.

  Elias sheathed the blade with a sharp click as the cross guard kissed the scabbard. The team moved back inside, heading for the map room.

  He walked back to the map table, The red hologram of the Crimson Bastion pulsed, waiting.

  He touched the armour. His fingers lingered on the hilt of his sword.

  "We have the armour. We have the weapons. We are the cure."

  He looked at his friends.

  "Tomorrow, we go to war."

  CLANG!

  Elias hit the stone floor of the training circle hard enough to rattle his teeth. The impact vibrated through his new Bastion-BreakerPlate, the shock absorption runes flaring blue to disperse the kinetic energy.

  "Again," Harth grunted.

  The old smith stood in the centre of the ring, leaning on his war-hammer. He wasn't even breathing hard. Around him, three Echo-Constructs-simulated knights made of ethereal light and scrap metal-circled Elias like wolves.

  Elias scrambled back up, his breath hitching in his chest. The new armour was heavy; heavier than the Ashsworn set, and moving in it initially felt like wading through deep water. But as he planted his feet, he felt the internal magic in the joints tighten and lock, bracing him.

  "The armour is fighting you because you're fighting reality," Harth barked. "You're trying to move like a scout. You're a tank now, lad. Plant your feet. Own the ground."

  One of the constructs lunged, a spear of suspiciously solid looking light aimed for Elias’s throat.

  Instinctively, Elias tried to dodge, but the weight of the Star-Steel plating impeded the motion. The spear grazed his pauldron, leaving a blackened scorch mark.

  "Don't dodge!" Harth yelled. "Absorb! The set bonus, Elias! Trust the Iroin Zenith!"

  Elias looked at Harth as if he was mad..."What the Fu....?!"

  The second construct swung a massive mace.

  This time, Elias didn't move. He gritted his teeth and stepped into the blow, raising his left shoulder to meet it.

  CRACK!

  The mace hit the pauldron. A ripple of translucent energy, the Null-Field? flared outwards like a heat haze. The force of the blow dissipated, scattered into harmless static. Elias barely felt it.

  [IRON-ZENITH ACTIVATED] [DAMAGE NEGATED]

  "Good," Harth nodded. "Now the sword. You're swinging it like a club. It’s a paradox. Use the switch."

  The third construct charged, dual-wielding daggers. It was fast, a blur of motion.

  Elias gripped the hilt. The sword hummed against his palm, confusing him. The red veins seemed to burn; the green veins seemed to soothe. The dissonance made his swing clumsy.

  "Pick a side!" Harth yelled.

  Elias’s thumb brushed the rune-switch on the hilt.

  Click.

  [STANCE: MERCY]

  The blade turned a calm, verdant green. The weight shifted toward the guard, making it faster, lighter, and defensive.

  Elias parried. Ding-ding-ding. The daggers sparked off his blade. With each successful parry, a pulse of green light travelled up his arm, settling in his chest like a breath of oxygen.

  [MERCY’S GRACE: STAMINA REGENERATING]

  "Better," Harth said. "Now finish it. Justice."

  Elias saw the opening. He didn't just swing; he thumbed the switch mid-arc.

  Click.

  [STANCE: JUSTICE]

  The blade turned a violent, angry red. The weight shifted to the tip, carrying massive momentum. The edge superheated.

  Elias brought it down.

  CRUNCH.

  The blade cleaved through the construct’s guard, through its shoulder, and buried itself in the floor. The construct shattered into motes of light.

  [CRITICAL HIT] [FIRE DAMAGE APPLIED]

  Elias stood panting, the sword smoking in his hand.

  "Switch stance," he whispered, understanding flooding him. "Defence to generate resources. Offence to spend them."

  "It’s a rhythm," Harth said, dissolving the remaining constructs with a wave of his hand. "Systole and diastole. If you try to be the killer all the time, you burn out. If you try to be the healer all the time, you get overrun. You have to be both."

  Elias sheathed the sword. The click of the latch felt satisfyingly final.

  "I’m ready," Elias said.

  Harth looked him over – the faintly glowing armour, the heavy blade, the set of his jaw. The old man nodded slowly.

  "You look like a Siegebreaker," Harth said. "Just remember... walls are easy to break. It’s what’s inside that kills you."

  They gathered in the keeps Echo Garden for a final meal.

  It was the only place in the Keep that truly felt alive. The bioluminescent plants from the Hollow had happily taken root in the stone planters, casting a soft, dreamlike glow over the room. The air was humid, smelling of rich loam and night-blooming flowers, a stark contrast to the sulphur of the forge.

  Harth had dragged a heavy wooden table into the centre of the greenery. On it sat a stew that actually smelled like food, roasted root vegetables, salted meat, and herbs that Veyra had provided.

  The team sat around it, an awkward collection of refugees from different wars.

  Thorne was poking at a chunk of carrot with a dagger, her expression sceptical. Veyra sat with her back straight, eating with efficient, minimal movements. Solari drifted above, watching them with an expression of intense, alien curiosity.

  Cindersnarl was under the table, resting his heavy head on Elias’s foot. Fennroot was happily buried in a patch of soil nearby, only his leaves visible.

  "So," Thorne said, breaking the silence. She gestured with the dagger. “So. That’s it then. The ‘last meal’ meal.”

  "Don't call it that," Elias said, tearing a piece of bread. "That implies we aren't coming back."

  "Statistically," Thorne said, "walking into the headquarters of a militant cult that controls divine fire has a low survival rate. I’m just managing expectations."

  "You talk too much to be truly cynical," Veyra said quietly. She looked up from her bowl. "A true cynic would not have spent three hours polishing grenades this afternoon."

  Thorne flushed, just slightly. "Proper preparation prevents poor performance. It’s not optimism; it’s engineering."

  "It’s hope," Solari’s voice chimed. She drifted down, hovering at the table's edge. Her light turned the steam from the stew into a golden mist. "You hope to use them. Therefore, you hope to live long enough to pull the pin."

  Thorne scowled at the ghost. "Do you have an off switch? Or a dimmer?"

  "I am Memory," Solari said simply. "I cannot be turned off, but I can be dim, if it helps your digestion." She softened her glow until she was little more than a candlelight flicker.

  Elias watched them. The bickering was good, normal even. It was a way to keep the terror at bay.

  "What will you do?" Veyra asked Solari. "You do not eat. You do not sleep. What is this night for you?"

  "It is... context," Solari said. She looked around the table. "I have watched my people die for a thousand years. I have watched them be ground into the dust against their will. To see living things sitting together, sharing sustenance... it is a memory I had forgotten I kept."

  She looked at Elias.

  "You remind me of the First Weaver," she said. "He also worried too much about everyone else's plate."

  Elias glanced down at his untouched bowl. "I'm not worried about the plates. I'm worried about the empty chairs we might have after tomorrow."

  The mood at the table shifted, the levity evaporating.

  "We know the stakes, Elias," Harth rumbled. He poured ale into a tankard and slid it across the wood. "Drink. You can't lead an assault on an empty stomach."

  Elias took the tankard but didn't drink. "I dragged you all into this," he said. "Veyra, you should be healing in the Weald. Thorne, you could have left days ago. Harth... you built this place to be a sanctuary, not a war room."

  "I didn't build it," Harth corrected. "I kept it. And a keep without a war is just a pile of rocks. You gave it a purpose again, lad."

  "And as for me," Veyra said, her eyes hard. "Do not presume to 'drag' me anywhere, Blade-bearer. I am here because the Order burned my home. I am here because if I stay in the Weald, I will only watch the rot spread. I choose the fire."

  She reached down and scratched Cindersnarl's ears. The warg groaned in pleasure, his tail thumping against the floor.

  "Even the beast knows," Veyra murmured. "He follows because you do not treat him like a tool. That is rare."

  Thorne stopped toying with her food, her gaze fixed on the scar on her palm, the brand of the Bellforge.

  "Do you know what they do in the Cloister?" she asked softly.

  The table fell silent.

  "When you're an initiate," Thorne continued, staring at her hand, "they make you hold the bells while they ring them. To 'feel the resonance', they say. It breaks the small bones in your hand. Then they heal them with magic, only to break them again. Over and over, until your hands are hard enough to hold fire."

  She looked up, her eyes wet but furious.

  "I'm not going back there for you, Elias. I'm going back there because there are children in that tower right now holding on to hot brass. And I'm going to kill every single person who put them there."

  Elias felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

  "We'll get them out," Elias promised. "We'll tear that tower down."

  "Brick by brick," Thorne agreed.

  Solari drifted closer to Thorne. She didn't touch her, but extended a tendril of light that wrapped around Thorne's scarred hand.

  "I will remember them," Solari whispered. "The ones who were broken. Their pain will be part of the record. It will not be lost in the dark."

  Thorne didn't pull away, nodding stiffly.

  Elias stood up, feeling the weight of the Bastion-Breaker Plate settle on his shoulders. It felt right.

  "We aren't just fighting for survival anymore," he said. "We're fighting for the ones who can't."

  He glanced at Fennroot, who had popped his head out of the soil to listen, a piece of carrot clutched in his tiny root-hand.

  "We're fighting for the sprouts," Elias said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips, "and the ghosts, and the kids holding bells."

  He raised his tankard.

  "To the heathen," he said. "Because if they think we're godless, let's show them what we worship."

  "To the heathen," Harth rumbled.

  "To the fire," Veyra said.

  "To the silence," Thorne whispered.

  They drank.

  Harth stood and walked to a side table, picking up a tray. On it sat a single, ornate chalice of battered silver, etched with the history of the Emberkeep – and a crystal flask filled with a clear liquid.

  "The ale is for courage," Harth grunted. "This… this is for survival."

  He set the chalice on the table.

  "The Rite of Binding," Harth explained. "It's an old spell, older than the Order. In days long past, before a squad went into the deep dark, the Knights would drink from the same cup. It binds your threads in the Loom, allowing you to feel when another falls and share the pain."

  "A party interface," Elias translated. "Shared vitality."

  "Call it what you want," Harth grunted. "It means you don't die alone."

  Elias uncorked the flask. It contained Distilled Runewater purified from the Grotto, shimmering in the low light.

  He poured it into the chalice.

  "We aren't an army," Elias said. "We're a glitch, a mistake the Order didn't account for.“They think this is heresy. Fine. Let them. We’re not doing this for their labels.”"

  He drew Dawnfall. The sound of sliding steel echoed in the garden.

  He held the blade over the cup.

  "I pledge my blade," he said. The words felt heavy, binding, locking into the code of the universe. "To the protection of this circle, to the breaking of chains, to the end of the harvest."

  He touched the tip of the sword to the water. The liquid rippled, turning a faint, blood-red gold.

  Thorne stepped up, placing her scarred hand on the cup.

  "I pledge my fire," she said, her voice steady, "to burn what needs burning and to light the way home."

  Veyra placed her hand next to Thorne's, her skin rough like bark.

  "I pledge my roots," she said, "to hold the ground when it shakes, to carry the fallen."

  Solari drifted close, touching the air above the cup rather than the cup itself.

  "I pledge my light," she whispered, "to reveal the path, to witness the end."

  Cindersnarl nudged the cup with his nose, Fennroot hopped onto the table and tapped the wet rim with a leaf.

  The water glowed. the golden text appeared, hovering over the chalice like a halo.

  [RITUAL INITIATED: THE BINDING OF THREADS] [PARTICIPANTS: 6] [EFFECT: SQUAD SYNERGY UNLOCKED]

  Elias lifted the cup. "To the Bastion."

  "To the ruin," Thorne corrected.

  Elias drank, the water tasting of iron and pine sap. He passed the chalice to Thorne, then Veyra. Solari absorbed the essence of the water as Cindersnarl lapped at the liquid Elias poured onto his tongue. Fennroot, the cheeky sprout, buried into the clean earth below, where the splashed water had fallen.

  A shockwave of energy rippled through them.

  Elias gasped, feeling… expanded.

  He could sense Thorne’s nervous, crackling energy at the edge of his mind, like static electricity. He felt Veyra’s deep, rooted calm, like the slow pulse of a tree. He also perceived Solari’s sorrow and Cindersnarl’s fierce, simple loyalty.

  They were linked.

  [BINDING COMPLETE: THE UNBROKEN CHAIN]

  You can feel each other now.

  You don’t fall alone.

  "We are bound," Solari whispered. "Our threads are knotted."

  "Good," Elias said, wiping his mouth. The fear remained, but the loneliness had gone. "Now let's go make them regret it."

  The heavy oak doors clicked shut, cutting off the sound of the party’s retreating footsteps. Silence returned to the Echo Garden, broken only by the rustle of bioluminescent leaves and the low, dying crackle of the fire.

  Harth didn't leave.

  He stood by the table, staring at the silver chalice. A few drops of the Distilled Runewater still shimmered at the bottom, glowing with the faint, residual resonance of the ritual. The air around the cup hummed with the energy of the bond they had just forged.

  He looked at the door where Elias had vanished, then at the empty stool where Thorne had sat, polishing her grenades.

  He reached out, his hand-scarred, calloused, grey as the metal he worked-trembled slightly, not from age, but from fear.

  He lifted the cup. It felt heavy, weighted with the lives of those who had just departed.

  "You think you're going alone," he murmured to the empty room. "Foolish children."

  He raised the chalice to his lips and drank the dregs.

  The magic hit him instantly-a cold, grounding weight that settled deep in his chest, binding him to the web of light the others had spun.

  He set the cup down gently on the wood.

  The reflection in the metal showed a face worn down by centuries of soot and stubbornness, but beneath the beard, he still saw the terrified squire he had been a lifetime ago.

  He remembered the smell of the First Commander’s burning flesh. He remembered the door slamming shut. He remembered running. He had survived the first fall of the Emberkeep not because he was strong, but because he had been small enough to hide in spaces to small for armoured soldiers while his heroes died screaming.

  "I hid in the dark for three hundred years," Harth rumbled to the empty forge. "I polished the armour of dead men because I was too afraid to wear it."

  He looked at the door where Elias, a stranger with no reason to care, had marched out to face a god.

  "I pledge my soul," Harth whispered into the night, "to keep you safe, and to bring you home."

  A hidden line of text flickered in the air, seen only by the old smith.

  [HIDDEN BOND ESTABLISHED: THE HEARTHKEEPER] Effect: Damage shared by the party is partially redirected to the Emberkeep’s foundation.

  Harth picked up his hammer and turned back to the forge.

  "Right then," he grunted, blinking away the moisture in his eyes. "Let's keep the fire warm."

  the next morning, the team gathered at the Crucible Gate.

  Elias stood at the front, resplendent in his new dark-grey plate,Dawnfall at his hip. Cindersnarl paced beside him, looking fearsome in his spiked gorget.

  Behind him stood Veyra and her Leshei scouts. Thorne stood to his right, spinning her staff, and Solari hovered at his left shoulder.

  Harth stood by the gate lever. "The Bastion is a meat grinder," Harth warned. "You know the targets: Warrens, Bellforge, Scourgeyard. Move fast, strike hard."

  "Wait," Elias said, raising a hand to stop Harth from pulling the lever.

  He glanced at his team, feeling them in the back of his mind; the static hum of Thorne’s anxiety, the deep root-pulse of Veyra’s calm. The Rite of Binding had connected them.

  "Change of plan," Elias announced. "We're scrubbing the split assault."

  Thorne frowned. "We agreed to divide their attention. If we bunch up, they can focus fire."

  "And if we split up," Elias countered, "and one of us goes down, the feedback from the Binding knocks the rest of us flat. We just tied our lives together, Thorne. We can't be three miles apart when the fighting starts."

  He looked at the map table one last time.

  "We'll hit the targets sequentially, a battering ram, rather than a net. We'll hit the Warrens first, together, cut the heat, and then we climb."

  Veyra nodded slowly. "A single root is easily snapped. A bundle is unbreakable. I agree."

  "Fine," Thorne said, spinning her staff. "But if we get cornered, I’m blaming you."

  "Noted," Elias said. He looked at Harth. "Open it."

  Harth grinned, a flash of white teeth in his beard. "Better plan. Give them hell."

  He pulled the lever.

  CLANG-HISS.

  The gears ground together, and the gate flared. Red mist spilled out, smelling of sulphur and incense.

  [ZONE TRANSITION: THE CRIMSON BASTION]

  Elias stepped into the red mist.

  The world dissolved into crimson.