Episode 3
Kael tumbled out of the maintenance shaft, landing hard on a bed of industrial slurry and fragmented alloy.
The stench of the Undercrawl was overwhelming—a rank mix of chemical discharge, ozone, and the sickly-sweet smell of volatile, decaying Star-Dust.
Above him, the Syndicate's Breachers and the Chaos Conduit were still scrambling in the wreckage of the black market, but Kael knew he had only minutes before the hunter's chaotic energy signature led him straight down.
He moved into the deep labyrinth, a forgotten layer of The Sprawl built from fused sewer lines, ancient rail tunnels, and the sprawling, exposed mechanisms of the crashed Sundered Star. This was a hostile, horizontal hellscape, far more dangerous than the vertical slums above.
Kael's immediate problem was not external, but internal. The protective shield he'd been maintaining around his Stabilizer core—the mental suppression of his power—was starting to crack under the strain. Every flicker of ambient Star-Dust in the tunnels caused the angry, black etchings on his skin to pulse.
He passed his hand over the marks, now a dull, persistent maroon color. He had used the Stabilizer core too violently in the Grid, and now the energy demanded expression.
If he let it flare, the Conduit would track him instantly. If he held it, the sheer force of the suppressed energy—a violent, continuous pressure—threatened to tear his nervous system apart.
Hold the line. Maintain the Code.
He stumbled, catching himself on a rusted support strut.
An Echo hit him, brief and debilitating: A clean, sterile room. He is kneeling before an obsidian altar. A voice: "Forget the Self. Embrace the Order."
The vision faded, leaving behind only a splitting headache and the realization that his mind, like his power, was divided between primal reflex and some deeply embedded Code.
He needed a way to mask his heat signature, and he needed a different kind of terrain. He spotted an open, leaking pipe marked with hazard runes indicating an active thermal exhaust.
Kael dropped into the thermal exhaust pipe—a calculated risk. The pipe was scorching hot, filled with scalding steam and roaring noise.
He pressed himself against the interior wall, his hands and feet bracing against the metal. The intense heat made his movement painful, but it served a purpose: the immense thermal signature would effectively mask his comparatively weaker Star-Dust signature from the Conduit's long-range tracking.
As he crawled deeper, the ambient temperature rose to dangerous levels. The moisture was stripped from his body instantly, leaving his throat parched.
He began to encounter dangers unique to this layer: the heat had drawn out monstrous Fungus-Spiders, grotesque arachnids that grew to the size of small dogs, their bodies covered in thick, bioluminescent, heat-resistant chitin. They fed on the intense energy of the pipe.
One Fungus-Spider, its eight glassy eyes reflecting the intense heat, dropped silently from a vent directly onto Kael's back. Its legs were tipped with razor-sharp claws, designed to pierce heat suits.
Kael reacted before the pain registered. He didn't use the Star-Dust. He used pure, devastating close-quarters combat—the non-powered reflexes of a weapon master. He twisted violently, using the tight confines of the pipe to his advantage, slamming the creature against the roof of the pipe.
He grabbed the utility knife from his belt and drove it repeatedly through the Fungus-Spider's hardened carapace until the creature's viscous, glowing internal fluid spilled out and sizzled instantly on the hot metal.
He took a moment, leaning against the hot wall, gasping for breath. The adrenaline rush helped push the suppressed Star-Dust back down, lessening the pain of the internal pressure.
But the creature's poisonous fluids had burned a section of the already fragile skin around the scars on his arm.
He checked the corpse, searching for anything useful. He found an almost-full reservoir of synth-oil—a coolant for heavy machinery—strapped to the spider's abdomen, which must have been how the creature maintained its temperature.
He jammed the synth-oil reservoir into a tear in his under-suit and poured the thick, cooling liquid over the raw, wounded scars on his forearm.
The pain was still immense, but the cooling fluid helped dull the constant, internal burn of the suppressed Stabilizer energy.
Kael had followed the thermal pipe for nearly half an hour, convinced he had thrown off the Conduit. He was approaching a main intersection near Sector 7, the target location for the Blind Oracle.
As he reached the junction, he saw a glimmer of hope: a maintenance access hatch leading to a lower, cooler level. He pulled himself out of the scalding pipe and onto the catwalk of the junction.
But the silence was wrong. The usual bustle of illegal Undercrawl activity was gone.
The Chaos Conduit was waiting for him.
He was standing precisely where the Oracle's chamber was hidden, his pristine uniform untouched by the grime. He had tracked the thermal pipe to its terminus and was methodically scanning the area with his power.
"The heat only hides the signature, Stabilizer," the Conduit said, his voice calm and cold. "It does not hide the pattern. Only you would use such a crude, self-destructive method to evade me."
The Conduit had not waited for Kael to move; he had set a trap. Surrounding him were three Syndicate Hounds—enhanced, four-legged armored drones, fast and equipped with sonic disruptors designed to cripple a target's nervous system.
"I won't make the mistake of using raw Chaos on you again," the Conduit stated, taking a step back. "You can stabilize energy. But you cannot stabilize sound."
The Conduit made a subtle hand gesture. The three Hounds immediately focused their disruptors on Kael.
The sonic field hit Kael first—an overwhelming, physical wave of sound that bypassed his armor and rattled the fluid in his inner ear. His mind immediately went haywire; the pain of the suppressed power combined with the sonic attack was agonizing.
The Syndicate was learning. They were adapting their attacks to exploit the non-energy related aspects of his body.
Kael tried to move, but the sonic field was paralyzing. His focus on maintaining the suppressed Code wavered.
No. Must fight. Must move.
The internal pressure of the stabilized Star-Dust snapped. Kael couldn't hold the line any longer.
It wasn't a tactical choice; it was a desperate, physical reaction to pain.
A massive, uncontrolled Flare of cyan energy erupted from Kael's core—a violent, unrefined shockwave of stabilized energy that was pure kinetic force.
The force field didn't hurt the Conduit, who had shielded himself, but it blew the three Syndicate Hounds backwards, crumpling their frames and silencing their disruptors.
Kael was instantly free of the sonic field, but he was dizzy, weakened, and his arms were throbbing with searing pain.
He looked down. The black etchings were now a horrific, permanent scarlet, and the skin around them was beginning to split, weeping a thin, bioluminescent fluid. The Stabilizer core was demanding more than his body could provide.
The Conduit smiled, a cruel, triumphant expression. "There it is. The signal. Now your little hideout is compromised."
He gestured to the Oracle's door, which was still closed. "I will wait for you to exhaust yourself, Stabilizer. Then I will take you, and I will show the world that the only way to purity is through the Chaos."
Kael knew he couldn't fight him here, not after that desperate, self-destructive Flare. The Conduit was simply too well-protected.
He turned and used the last of his energy for a controlled sprint, slamming through a nearby ventilation grate and into the silent chamber of the Blind Oracle.
The door hissed shut behind him, and the final image he saw before the door sealed was the Conduit, standing silently outside, waiting.
Kael has reached the Oracle, but his physical condition is deteriorating rapidly due to his power usage.