Setting: A crumbling observatory on the edge of Umbra. Rain lashes against the obsidian walls. Silas is meticulously sketching a complex diagram.
The rain tasted of ash and regret. It always did on Umbra. I traced the lines of the observatory’s central spire, a skeletal finger pointing towards a perpetually obscured sky. The air hummed with a low, unsettling thrum – the residue of Lux’s relentless illumination. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, not like the gentle pulse of Viridian’s life force. This was… raw. Like staring into a forge.
“Anything, Slate?” The voice was gravelly, laced with impatience. Kaelen, a mercenary and my reluctant partner, leaned against the doorway, his hand resting on the hilt of his energy blade. He wasn’t a believer in anything beyond profit, but he was good at keeping me alive.
I didn’t look up. “The energy signature is fluctuating. It’s centered around the observatory’s core. Something’s amplifying the Lux echoes.”
Kaelen grunted. “Echoes? Sounds like a fancy way of saying ‘dangerous.’”
“It is dangerous,” I said, my charcoal scratching furiously across the parchment. “This observatory wasn’t built to simply observe Lux. It was built to channel it. The original inhabitants – the Luminaries – attempted to harness the planet’s light for… something. Their records are fragmented, corrupted by centuries of Umbra’s influence.”
I paused, studying the diagram. The Lux signature was spiraling, intensifying. “The Luminaries didn’t just want light. They wanted control. And control, as anyone who’s spent time on this side of the galaxy knows, always comes with a price.”
Suddenly, the air shimmered. The diagram on the table began to glow with an unbearable intensity. A voice, cold and crystalline, echoed in my mind. “Seeker… you trespass…”
Kaelen swore, drawing his blade. “What the hell was that?”
I didn’t answer. My hand instinctively tightened around the wooden pendant, the Viridian fragment pulsing with a faint, reassuring warmth. “The echoes are growing stronger. We need to get out of here. Now.”
The walls of the observatory began to vibrate. Cracks spiderwebbed across the obsidian surface. I realized, with a chilling certainty, that the Luminaries hadn’t simply abandoned their experiment. They’d been… consumed by it.
