The Ash of Oakhaven
Chapter 1: The Sky Fell Silent
Stifen didn’t hear the scream; he heard the snap of the Great Oak. For generations, the hundred-foot trees of the Oakhaven Valley had been their fortress—natural barriers that the "Goliaths," the eyeless, multi-limbed monsters of the wastes, couldn't navigate.
Then came the Calamity.
Stifen, barely twelve, stood in the center of the village square holding a bundle of dry lavender. He watched as a shadow longer than the town hall stretched across the grass. A Goliath didn't climb the trees this time. It simply walked through them.
"Stifen, run to the cellar!" his sister, Elara, screamed.
He didn't move. He watched a hand—pale, translucent, and tipped with obsidian claws—reach down and pluck the roof off the apothecary. The sounds that followed were wet and rhythmic. The monsters didn't eat for hunger; they consumed to erase. By sunset, the lavender in Stifen’s hand was soaked in the soot of his burning world. He was the only thing left breathing in the ash.
Chapter 2: The Iron Vow
Five years later, the boy who cried in the ash was dead. In his place stood a young man with eyes like flint and a body mapped in scars.
Stifen sat in the dim light of the Vanguard Outpost, sharpening a blade made of "Star-Glass"—the only material capable of piercing a Goliath’s pressurized hide. Around him sat the remnants of the scouting party:
Kaelen: A disgraced former knight who saw the monsters as a divine plague.
Mina: A brilliant, twitchy engineer who designed the "Grapple-Wires" they used to zip between the ruins of cities.
"The scouts spotted a Hive-Lord near the Oakhaven ruins," Kaelen said, his voice a low gravel. "It’s suicide, Stifen. We’re supposed to defend the Inner Wall, not go hunting ghosts."
Stifen didn't look up. The whetstone hissed against the glass. "They didn't just kill my people, Kaelen. They took their silence. I can still hear them screaming every time the wind blows through those valley ruins."
He stood up, sheathing the blade. "I'm not going for the Wall. I'm going for the heart."
Chapter 3: Into the Maw
The mission was a blur of steel and steam. Using Mina’s Grapple-Wires, the trio soared through the skeletal remains of Oakhaven. The Goliaths moved with a sickening, fluid grace, their eyeless heads tracking the heat of the soldiers' bodies.
Stifen danced through the air, a shadow among monsters. He didn't fight like a soldier; he fought like a vengeful gale.
"Stifen! To your six!" Mina yelled.
A Goliath’s limb, thick as a tree trunk, swung toward him. Stifen fired his secondary anchor into the monster’s own shoulder, using the momentum to swing around the blow. He landed on the creature's nape—the only soft point in their anatomy.
As he plunged the Star-Glass deep, he didn't feel triumph. He felt a cold, hollow satisfaction. F = ma—the force of his descent multiplied by the rage in his heart—was enough to sever the creature's spinal cord.
As the beast collapsed, Stifen looked toward the horizon. There, standing amidst the clouds, was the Primordial—the mountain-sized monster responsible for the breach five years ago.
"One down," Stifen whispered, his knuckles white on his hilts. "Ten thousand to go."
The World Lore
