warehouse, hiding it behind a mound of scrap.
"We need shelter. Food. And information on patrol routes out of the city," he whispered to Makosra.
She nodded, her leader's instincts resurfacing. "The Vakhas are not unknown here. There are whispers of a network. A contact. They call her the Moss-Witch—a herbalist who sometimes helps our kind. If she's real, she'll be in the deepest, greenest part of the Twist, where the city's runoff creates artificial swamps."
It was a slim hope. They moved on foot, Skodar supporting Sukodar, Makosra leaning on her shock-baton-turned-cane. They drew stares, but in the Twist, curiosity rarely led to immediate action. Survival here required cautious calculation.
They navigated rusted catwalks over bubbling chemical pools, past markets selling stolen tech and dubious meat. The air grew humid, thick with the smell of rot and strange, pungent fungi. They found the "greenery"—a section where broken water mains had created a permanent, toxic wetland. Huts were built on stilts among glowing moss and twisted metal trees.
A sign, written in a dozen languages including crude Vakhas glyphs, read: Remedies. Fortunes. Silence.
This was the place.
Inside the largest hut,the air was dense with the smoke of a hundred burning herbs. Jars of unidentifiable things lined the walls. Behind a counter of fused scrap metal stood a figure. She was old, her species ambiguous—her skin had a bark-like texture, her hair was like hanging moss, and one eye was a milky white. The other, a sharp green, fixed on them.
"The champion and his ghosts," she croaked, her voice like rustling leaves. "The Twist hums with your story. The Arena is in an uproar. The Archon himself is furious. His precious Liquid… gone in a flash." She cackled. "A good flash, I hear."
"You are the Moss-Witch?" Makosra asked.
"I am what others call me. You need healing. Hiding. A path." She gestured to Skodar. "Especially you, little sun. You burn bright, but your fuel is almost ash."
Skodar was wary. "What do you want in return?"
"A story," she said, her green eye glinting. "A true one. And… a drop."
"A drop?"
"Of what's inside you.Not blood. The light. For my remedies. A tiny spark." She held up a small, crystal vial.
Skodar hesitated. His essence was his strength, his family's shield. But they were vulnerable. He looked at Sukodar's pale face, at Makosra's exhaustion. He needed to recover, and they needed safe passage.
"A story, and a spark," he agreed. "After you help us."
The Moss-Witch nodded, a slow, deliberate movement. She gave them a bitter, steaming tea that eased their aches and cleared their minds. She applied a pungent salve to their wounds that knitted flesh with surprising speed. She offered them a hidden cellar room to rest.
As Skodar slept, he didn't dream. He sank into the still pool of his energy, feeling it slowly, painfully refill from the exhausted wellspring of his genes.
When he awoke, stronger, he found the Moss-Witch waiting. He told her. Not everything, but enough. The mountain, the gorge, Vaktari, the Prima Genes. He spoke of his people's true origin and their stolen strength.
The old being listened, her expression unreadable. When he finished, she sighed. "So the legends are true. The Star-Daughter and the Earth-King. Their children were meant to rule, not to serve." She held out the vial.
Skodar focused. He drew not from his core, but from the very edge of his aura—a single, glowing droplet of pure Vaktari Essence condensed on his fingertip. It fell into the vial, shining with soft, blue light. The Moss-Witch sealed it with reverence.
"Your path," she said, businesslike once more. "The city gates are locked down. Patrols swarm the wilds. But there is a way the masters forget: The Under-Rivers." She explained: ancient drainage and utility tunnels that ran beneath the continent, some leading far into the wild forest regions near the mountains. "Dangerous. Home to things that shun the sun. But unpatrolled by Yunvarn."
She gave them a map etched on a flexible sheet of fungus-paper, marking a hidden entrance in the Twist and an exit near the foothills of the sanctuary's mountain range. She also gave them packs with filtered water, nutrient bricks, and vials of repellent for the Under-River's fungal pests.
"Go with the shadows," she said as they prepared to leave at dusk. "And you, little sun… when you burn bright enough to light the sky, remember the Twist. We who live in the cracks have long memories."
They slipped into the dank entrance—a grate behind a waterfall of glowing slime. As they descended into the echoing darkness of the Under-River, the sounds of the city faded away.
They were in the belly of the world, on a path to a sanctuary that was their only hope. Above, the Nexus Archon would be marshaling his forces, enraged by the theft and the insult. The hunt would become a crusade.
Skodar led his family into the dark, the spark of his essence now a guide in the gloom. The slave was free. The ghost was a beacon. The war for rebirth had moved to the hidden places of the world.