Emberlight gleamed brighter the night after the fight, as if unaware that one of
its oldest secrets had stirred beneath its foundations.
Gizmo and Kaelira parted ways outside the abandoned forge. She moved like
moonlight, silent and deliberate, disappearing into the crowd before he could
ask another question. The Orb hummed quietly, pulsing in the rhythm of her
fading footsteps.
He stood there for a long moment, rubbing a thumb over his bracer. "She's got
answers," he muttered, "and probably a thousand ways to kill me if I ask the
wrong question."
The Orb blinked once — agreement.
He exhaled and smiled faintly. "Guess that's my type."
Days passed in a strange harmony.
Gizmo threw himself into his work. Bendrak's forge thrummed with new
efficiency, the apprentices whispering about the "green demon who made
machines sing." He didn't mind the nickname. It meant they were paying
attention.
At night, he experimented. He began building new attachments for his bracer
— one that could channel the Orb's energy into tools, weapons, and shields.
He crafted a folding springbow that could fire bolts silent as thought, a
wrist-mounted grapnel line powered by compressed resonance, and a pair of
fingerless leather gloves woven with shock-thread that sparked when he
snapped.
Each invention was a note in a symphony he didn't yet understand.
He took to wandering Emberlight's rooftops after work. From above, the city
looked like a forge laid flat: chimneys as bellows, streets as cooling lines, and its people as sparks. He smoked his pipe and watched the clouds swirl around
the taller towers, imagining that the world itself was a great machine and that
somewhere, someone must still be keeping it wound.
Sometimes, he saw her. Kaelira.
She moved through the city like a blade through silk — unbothered, focused,
untouchable. Once, he saw her sparring with a group of Guild enforcers, her
runic blade humming faintly blue as she disarmed them without breaking
stride. She never noticed him watching from the rooftop shadows. Or maybe
she did and simply didn't care.
Either way, the Orb glowed brighter when she was near.
One night, as he worked in the forge's backroom, Bendrak entered quietly. The
old dwarf leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms.
"You've been busy," Bendrak said.
"Idle hands are the devil's tools," Gizmo replied, tightening a bolt.
"And what does that make you, lad?"
"Efficient," Gizmo said with a grin.
The dwarf chuckled. "You know, there's a name that's been floating around
the markets lately. Thalos of the Seven Rings."
Gizmo froze. "That name's everywhere lately."
"Aye," Bendrak said, lowering his voice. "Rumor says he left behind a vault.
A place where he stored everything he ever built — things too dangerous or
too smart to destroy."
"Where?"
The dwarf shrugged. "Some say Myrrendell. Some say under Emberlight
itself. But here's the bit that'll twist your tail — they say the key isn't metal.
It's memory."
Gizmo's gaze flicked to the Orb. It pulsed once, slow and deliberate.
He looked back at Bendrak. "Sounds like a bad bedtime story."
Bendrak grinned. "Then it's probably true."
That night, Gizmo couldn't sleep.
He stood at his window, staring out over the city. Steam rose in gentle waves,
glowing gold in the lamplight. The Orb floated at his shoulder, humming
softly.
"Memory," he murmured. "Maybe the mountain wasn't just talking to me."
The Orb flickered, like a heartbeat in reply.
(End of Chapter Four)