The Maw of The Pall
Blood splattered across the corroded metal walls, thick and dark, apparent that it wasn’t fresh, mixing with the grime of centuries past. Beneath the dim luminescence of fungi that tainted most of the world, a man knelt over a twitching body, his breath ragged as blood and sweat dripped from his face, his muscles burning from the fight. Questions of the necessity or the reason for what he’d just done didn’t enter his mind, as it was the way of the Iron Bastion.
Varik. It wasn’t a name that carried any meaning or fame, but it was his, or at least what he’d taken to over the years. Without a history, who his people were, or the causes of the various scars on his back, he stared down at the man who he was sure was finally dead. None of this mattered within the Iron Bastion, merely the endless grind of survival, such information was trivial unless you were with one of the various gangs or tribes, but Varik was not.
He was one of the few who preferred staying outside the groups, instead taking to being one of the isolationists, drifters who wondered from camp to camp, not worrying about a future but instead his next breath. Not interested in looking after others, simply looking after his next meal, or in most cases like the one just a moment ago, his next kill.
Wiping his shiv on the tattered remains of the corpse, he stood and glanced around the corridor, following the dim glow of the fungi that seemed to mark a path down either side of him. A foul stench, mix of rot and the pheromones of insect scavengers, became thick in the air, a miasma clinging to everything, seeping into the clothing, into the skin, into the bones of the living. The distant clanging of metal echoed through the tunnels—a reminder that he was never truly alone. There were others like him, scavengers, predators, isolationists, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the chance to take what little he has.
His stomach growling at the hunger that gnawed in his gut, Varik grabbed one of the bugs that were already crawling from the seams of the metalic walls and quickly threw it in his mouth before taking off into a small jog, his steps silent against the rusted grating, no show or boot covering his feet, simple clothe that he had scavenged and tied around them. The body was already drawing attention, and he knew he needed to be far from it when the larger beings came to investigate.
The spores that dot the air occasionally gave off a faint light as he ran through, their erratic dance suggesting a life of their own, as if the very air was alive, watching him. Waiting to consume him
The corridors of the Iron Bastion meandered like a labyrinth, a tangled warren of corroded metal and abandoned technology. Once a bustling world, now reduced to a tomb, a drifting carcass in the void that the Bastion kept at bay, where only the forsaken, the twisted, and the damned clung to life.
Varik didn’t think about the past, though. The stories whispered among the scavengers and gangs meant nothing to him. Stories of a world long forgotten outside the safety of the Bastion, a world with a sky, and air not plagued by the very fungi that seems to keep the people alive. It was all fairy tales. Varik knew his world. He knew that everyone he had met came from the very same rust as him. All that mattered was the present and the real. What was before him—the constant fight to stay alive just one more day, to scrap together enough to keep going, to avoid the fate that awaited the weak and the careless. To think of a future beyond that was unheard of within the Bastion. To think of a past before that was delusional to him.
Rounding a corner, the air grew colder, the shadows thicker. The weight of the darkness pressing in, a living thing that hungered for his warmth, his life. Pushing forward, ignoring the fear that gnawed at him, threatening to crawl up his spine. Fear was a luxury, and in the Bastion, only leaders could afford such.
Finally, the corridor opened into a larger chamber, the skeletal remains of ancient machines lined the walls. This was a place many scavengers knew, a place where they could find something useful—if they were lucky. But Varik knew that luck was a rare commodity within the Iron Bastion, and he knew to not rely on it.
Moving cautiously, his eyes scanned the darkness for any signs of movement—not just the spores that occasionally glew with brownian movement, but for shadows that shifted among the ruble. Other scavs weren’t the only villain he had to be aware of, as there were none Anthralian beings that called the Bastion home as well. More than the spores and the bugs that lived within the gross fungi which lined the panels and cracks. He wasn’t sure of the science behind it, but the Bastion had a way of twisting it’s inhabitants, turning them into something else—something less.
He’d seen it before, the way the shadows could creep into a person’s mind, hollowing them out, leaving only a shell behind. That was simply the beginning, some went into attempting to become one with the Bastion, seeing it as their true mothers, and wish to return. Some, scared beyond recognition, would further harm their own flesh, searing it, peeling it from their bodies, seeking what they referred to as atonement and enlightenment.
But Varik wasn’t afraid of losing his mind. He was stronger than most, smarter. He had to be.
His eyes caught the glint of metal among the debris—a small, rusted box, half-buried beneath a pile of scrap. Reaching for it as he knelt down, his fingers brushing against the cold surface. A surge of triumph flickered in his chest as he jabbed the barnacle-like creature with his shiv, shoving its juicy meat and crunchy shell into his mouth and freeing the latch it had been attached to. Inside, nestled among the dust and grime, was a strange object, retangular and thick with a hard surface. A data sleeve—still intact though unlikely to still be functional.
A rare find, and one that could finally buy him access into the higher world of Alar, known by the isolationists as the Singing City as the sounds of the machines and the hisses of the engines caused an eternal symphony that blended with the High Reverberator’s surmons within its borders that seemed to not carry far into the rest of the halls like most noise.
Slipping the sleeve into his pack, his mind already raced with possibilities. Even if it was broken as most would suspect, it’d still buy him a few more days of good and proper food, maybe even a new weapon and some fresh clothes. But he didn’t allow himself to linger on the thought for too long, and didn’t dare think of the possibility of the sleeve working. Planning ahead was a dangerous game when the next hour was as uncertain as the next breath.
Getting back to his feet, a faint sound reached his ears—a soft, shuffling noise, almost imperceptible, but unmistakable to someone who had spent their life outside the communities. Freezing and grabbing his shiv instinctively, he listened intently. The darkness seemed to close in around him, the shadows thickening, growing denser.
Someone—or something—was here.
Varik backed away slowly, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the chamber. The noise grew louder, a wet, scraping sound that echoed off the metal interior. His grip tightened as the tension in the air grew. His heart pounding as he tried to pinpoint the source, knowing that what he had just found was likely left there by someone with the same hopes and thought as him, and likely wouldn’t be far.
It wasn’t until now that the possibility of the sleeve being left on purpose, not to hide, but as a trap, entered his mind.
A figure emerged from the shadows, its form twisted and hunched, its eyes gleaming with a sickly, unnatural light. It was Anthral, or at least it had been once. But now, its skin was pallid, stretched tightly over bone exposed from chunks of missing or atrophied muscle. Its movement jerky, unnatural of the living. A low, guttural growl escaped a hole at the top of its throat as it lurched towards him, its fingers curling into claws.
Without hesitation, Varik lunged in a swift—fluid motion, driving the sharp point of his shiv into the creature’s chest. The thing let out a choked gasp, its body convulsing as the life drained from it. Raising his hand and proceeding to stab a few more, uncounted times, feeling its resistance give way, and then yanked it free, letting the creature collapse to the floor in a heap.
Standing over the body for a moment, breathing heavily, the adrenaline still coursing. He quickly scanned his surroundings again, not thinking about the undead he had just dropped, as the Bastion was unforgiving. This was the life he was born in. The life he lived. It demanded everything from those who lived within its decaying walls, and Varik had nothing left to give but his will to survive—and he wasn’t ready to give that up. He felt nothing past the grim satisfaction of having survived another encounter.
Turning away from the corpse, not bothering to check if it was truly dead, after all in this world, nothing ever really died—it just stopped moving for a while.
Disappearing back into the darkness, Varik knew he would do whatever it took to keep going. He wasn’t fighting for a future, or for some grand purpose. Fighting was all he ever knew, all he had ever known. Survival was the only truth in this cold, dead world, and Varik embraced it until his final breath.
And in the silence that followed, as the echoes of his footsteps faded into the void, the Iron Bastion continued its endless drift, a monument to the remnants of Anthral’s desperation—a place where their hopes and dreams had long decayed along with the walls. In the Iron Bastion, there were no heroes, no villains—only survivors. The world outside might have been forgotten, but within these corroded halls, life persisted in its most brutal and raw form. Varik wasn’t seeking redemption or salvation; he was simply enduring, like a lone ember refusing to be snuffed out. And as he vanished into the labyrinthine corridors, leaving behind the twisted remains of his foe, the Bastion hummed softly, almost in acknowledgment of the unending cycle of violence that kept its heart beating. Varik’s story, like so many others, would be lost to the rust and shadows, a fleeting moment in the eternal night of the Iron Bastion—a place where survival was its own kind of victory, and death was just another step in the dance.