Varkai: Arc I — Ashes of the Shatterworld
The Maw did not close.
It only watched.
And Vrakon, standing at its edge, did not retreat. He stared into the churning vapor—then turned away, the Spiral in his chest still pulsing like an ember drawn into breath.
But his steps slowed.
His limbs weighed heavy.
And before the sun could touch the broken horizon, he collapsed.
---
💤 Dreamless Fall
There was no scream, no cry for help.
Just the sound of a body slumping onto the cracked boneglass earth.
Vrakon's hand still gripped the transformed spear. His breathing slowed.
Then stilled.
Not death.
Not sleep.
Something between.
---
✦ Fractured Sleep: Spiral Memory
In the dark behind his eyelids, the Spiral flared.
Not as light, but as remembrance.
And the fragments came.
---
> A girl with frost-bitten fingers gripping a jagged blade, alone in a cave of gnawing silence.
> A laughing man bleeding beneath three broken moons, surrounded by corpses that had called him king.
> A child standing in fire that did not burn, whispering names he had never learned but could not forget.
> A shadow with no voice, no face—just a pulse. Endlessly looping. Screaming without sound.
Each glimpse flashed and vanished, leaving impressions in Vrakon's soul like scars on wet stone. These were not dreams.
They were echoes.
Other selves.
Other lives.
Other Vrakons.
Or perhaps... other names he once wore.
---
> "Remember, not who you are…"
"But what you carry."
The Spiral echoed that thought, but it did not answer where it came from. It simply tightened. Hardened.
Until it cracked again—quietly.
And realigned.
---
🜂 Waking
When Vrakon stirred, the sky had shifted.
Pulse-storm clouds shimmered in the far east, but the ground beneath him was dry. The Maw behind him hissed faintly, now dimmed. No beasts. No scavengers. No Pulse-Eaters.
Just stillness.
He sat up slowly.
The first thing he noticed was the quiet hum within his limbs—not loud, not wild. But steady. Rooted. Strong.
His wounds—gone.
His breath—sharper.
His vision—clearer.
And the Spiral?
No longer faint.
Now nested.
Layered.
It beat within his chest like a second pulse.
His muscles responded differently now. Balanced. Fluid.
Vrakon stood. Taller. Not physically, but spiritually anchored.
A Step Beyond Essence Initiate.
Not Level 3—but the peak of Level 2. Just one moment away.
---
🧍♂️ The Dust-Eyed
He walked south, away from the Maw.
The terrain shifted from fractured cliffs to ash dunes veined with marrow roots. Strange growths pulsed in the soil—half-formed husks of Pulse flora. At the edge of his vision, shadows followed.
Not beasts.
Men.
Or what remained of them.
Figures clad in bone-chipped armor, faces wrapped in cloth soaked with Pulse-oil, eyes grey and hollow.
The Dust-Eyed.
Wanderers who had stared into Pulse storms too long. Not feral like Bonebeasts. Not entirely sane, either.
Just lost.
And dangerous.
One stepped into Vrakon's path.
Tall. Scarred. A shard-mask hung from his belt, cracked down the middle.
> "You smell like the Maw," the man said, voice coarse. "But you ain't broken."
> "Not yet," Vrakon replied, his hand resting lightly on his spear.
The others closed in. Five. Maybe six.
But none attacked.
Not immediately.
They sensed something. His Spiral. His stillness. His scent.
One among them—an older one with a missing jaw and skin like scorched bark—knelt beside him and whispered hoarsely:
> "We saw you… in the storm. The Spiral was open."
> "What did you see?" Vrakon asked.
> The man looked up. His eyes were black pits.
> "A mirror... cracking. And something behind it smiling."
The others began to twitch. One drew a jagged blade made from marrow-glass. Another wept blood.
The Spiral in Vrakon's chest flared.
This wouldn't end in words.
---
⚔️ End Chapter Prompt
As the Dust-Eyed lunge, Vrakon's evolved body and deepened Spiral Pulse respond—not just defending, but asserting control. For the first time, he begins to experiment with external Pulse manipulation—shifting ambient Genesis threads through the ground, disrupting enemy movement.
But among the Dust-Eyed is one Fracta-Wielder—partially tethered. Someone who knows of the Spiral. Someone who calls him:
> "Wander-Kin of the Fractal Flame."