Varkai: Arc I — Ashes of the Shatterworld
> "Some awaken to hope.
Some awaken to pain.
But some awaken… broken."
---
Old Therum was not a place—it was a wound.
A crumbled ruin half-swallowed by the earth, wrapped in choking voidroot vines, with blood-veined thorns that pulsed like veins under skin. Once a Pulse-Seer sanctum in a brighter age, now it was a tomb for lost light. The Pulse here felt wrong. Twisted. Whispering.
Vrakon's small body was thrown onto the cracked stone floor, beside Saelin and Thren. Their wrists were raw from binding ropes made of dried marrowstring. He blinked up at the shattered dome overhead—no sky, just a heavy swirl of ash.
His breath caught.
Something inside him shivered, but not from cold.
No.
It was the Pulse.
It was… crying.
---
🔥 The Pulse-Harvest
A ring of faintly glowing glyphs circled the chamber's center. Maro Kren stood at its heart, arms out, red Pulse spiraling around his fingers. Bone-torches flickered along the walls, throwing jagged shadows across blood-stained relics and shattered altars. Faint echoes of screams seemed trapped in the stone.
Maro's voice echoed:
> "Three children. Three seeds. One harvest."
He paced around them, eyes scanning each.
> "This shrine was once used to bless Pulse-Seers. Now… it serves a better purpose."
He knelt beside Saelin, brushing her hair away with mock gentleness. Her trembling was visible.
> "First, we break the vessel."
"Then, we bleed the Pulse out."
"Then… I drink."
Vrakon didn't understand all the words, but he felt them. Every syllable twisted the air, rippling the Pulse within his chest like a drum being struck from the outside.
> "Please…" Saelin sobbed.
Maro touched her forehead. Crimson light sparked and she screamed—a raw, soul-deep sound. Her body arched, limbs seizing as her Pulse flared bright—then dimmed.
Maro inhaled sharply, drawing in her essence through a cursed siphon seal on his palm. Her body slumped.
"Still too early," he muttered. "Her core's not formed yet."
He moved to Thren.
> "Maybe the silent one sings louder."
---
🌪️ The Spiral Backlash
Vrakon felt heat building in his own chest. Not pain. Not fear.
Pressure.
Something wanted out.
He clenched his fists, trying not to scream.
Thren resisted as best he could, jaw clenched as red light lashed around him. But his Pulse shattered mid-process. His body convulsed, then collapsed.
Maro wiped his mouth. "Spoiled fruit."
Then he turned to Vrakon.
And everything stilled.
---
> "You… you're the strange one. Spiral eyes. Quiet Pulse. But so much weight in your soul."
Maro pressed two fingers to Vrakon's forehead.
For a heartbeat, the shrine went silent.
Then…
A howl of spiral light exploded outward, invisible but screaming through the Pulse itself.
Maro staggered back, his nose bleeding. "What—!?"
His siphon seal cracked. The glyph circle sputtered, fracturing mid-pattern. A gust of wind—not real wind, but soul-wind—swept through the room.
Vrakon's eyes flared.
One spiral.
One pulse.
One echo.
Then it vanished.
Maro stared in horror.
> "What in the Deep Void are you?"
Vrakon didn't answer. He couldn't.
He didn't know.
But something inside him did.
---
💀 The Escape
Amid the chaos, as the Pulse glyphs collapsed and torches blew out, Vrakon kicked at the binding rope. It snapped—burned through by stray Pulse backlash.
He dragged himself toward Thren and Saelin. Thren was still breathing—barely. Saelin… wasn't moving.
He couldn't carry both.
So he chose.
He hauled Thren over his shoulder, biting back tears, and stumbled through the broken archway as the shrine behind him began to crack and groan—voidroots recoiling from the unleashed spiral energy.
Maro's screams faded behind him as he vanished into the wilds.
---
🌲 Into the Abyssum Maw
Night in Varkai wasn't darkness.
It was depth.
And in Abyssum Maw—the forest near Old Therum—it was a living thing. Trees taller than towers loomed like watching beasts. Bark bled. Leaves whispered secrets of those who died under them.
Vrakon ran.
He didn't know where.
He didn't care.
Branches slashed at his face. Thorn roots snagged his feet. The Pulse storm overhead roared distantly, its scent like metal and rot.
Thren groaned on his back.
He stumbled into a hollow beneath a fallen root. A broken, moss-covered statue lay there—another forgotten Pulse-Seer ruin.
He collapsed beside it, chest heaving.
> "Please… stop shaking," he whispered, placing a hand on Thren's chest.
"Don't die."
But Thren was cold.
And the Pulse inside him…
...was fading.
---
🌀 The Vision
Something pulled Vrakon's hand to the statue.
Not physically.
But through the Pulse.
The spiral in his eye flared again—dimly.
He touched the statue.
And fell.
---
The world vanished.
Now there was only a vast, spiraling void—filled with floating shards of shattered stars.
And from the center came a voice.
Not words.
Just… longing.
Pain.
Memory.
Echo.
Vrakon reached for it.
And a single spiral of light floated toward his hand.
As it touched his palm, he felt it:
> The Pulse is not magic.
It is echo. Memory. Rebirth.
It is who you were. Who you are. Who you might become.
But only if you survive.
He awoke with a gasp.
And the spiral mark on his palm glowed faintly.
Level 1 — Mortal Spark
Achieved.
---
⚙️ First Glimpse — Genesis Pulse System (From Vrakon's Eyes)
As he sat beside the flickering corpse-statue, he suddenly understood—just a little.
Not in words.
But in feeling.
The Pulse was inside him.
Not flowing like blood.
But echoing like breath.
Something Shayra once said returned to him, from long ago:
> "Everything with a soul pulses, little one. But only the rare few echo. Those who echo… change the world."
He didn't know what that meant.
But he knew this:
He was different.
And they would keep hunting him.
Unless he became something more.
---
🎭 Closing Scene — The Hunt Begins
Far behind him, inside the collapsing shrine of Old Therum, Maro Kren stood breathing hard, eyes wide.
The blood on his lips boiled away from residual spiral backlash.
His hand trembled as he touched the broken glyph circle.
> "That boy…" he whispered.
"He wasn't just fractured. He was layered."
A cruel smile returned.
> "I want him."
He turned to the two remaining raiders.
> "Forget the others. We track the spiral."
> "And when we find him…"
> "I harvest him myself."