The founding of Aethelgard had been a confluence of circumstances. During the reign of Emperor Corvus Aethelia, the empire's expansion had choked on the treacherous mountain range to its east. In their attempt to overcome the obstacle, scouts discovered a narrow, defensible pass that held a confluence of strategic assets: the woods now named the Whispering Woods, rich surface deposits of Star-Iron, and a powerful, stable Ley-line crossing the pass. Seizing the silver lining, Aethelgard did not become a city that grew organically; it was assembled for a purpose: to control the pass and exploit the resources.
The air on the stone platform didn't so much tear as it parted. There was no flash of light, no thunderclap. Instead, a circle of space about seven feet across shimmered, the reality within it bending like a heat haze before solidifying into eight human figures. The only sound in the room was a low, resonant thrum that was felt in the bones more than heard by the ears, the note of a massive, perfectly tuned bell struck once and immediately silenced.
In their midst, Kaelen stood for a moment, not in the terrifying, integrated combat armor of a frontline Warden but in the formal winter uniform of the Imperial Mage Corps. The deep grey wool of the long coat was stark and severe; its high collar fastened with a single silver clasp shaped like an interlocked shield and tower.
The coat, tailored for authority and not agility, fell to his mid-calf, but even in its formality, one could see its purpose. The shoulders were reinforced with subtle layers of hardened leather, and the cuffs were trimmed not with lace, but with fine, silvery chainmail that glittered as he moved. His boots, good leather, met the rune-carved stone with a sound like a final, settled decision. On his left wrist, a heavy, unadorned bracer of dull grey iron was just visible beneath his coat cuff. It wasn't enchanted to glow or shimmer; it looked inert, dead, like a slab of stone from a fortress wall. That was the point.
His right hand, encased in sleek black leather gloves, flexed once at his sides as his left hand gripped his staff tight.
His face was not that of a young firebrand or a grizzled berserker. It was a face of weathered patience, with lines around the eyes that spoke of squinting against not the sun, but against incoming volleys of spellfire. His hair, steel-grey and cropped short, was practical. His gaze, neither sharp nor aggressive, swept the receiving platform, assessing.
To Kaelen, the air in the Wardstone Spire was cold and still, carrying the dry, mineral scent of deep-earth granite and the Old Tongue. It was the smell of a tomb that had been repurposed as a fortress.
The light was a grey, sourceless twilight, leaching colour from everything. It bled from the walls themselves, where continents of crystalline flecks swam in the dark rock, their cold, steady glow illuminating nothing, only defining the absolute darkness between them.
The chamber was a nexus of brutalist function. The walls were not decorated; they were inscribed. Geometric channels, sharp and deep, were cut into the stone, tracing the paths of power used to harness the Ley-lines. They pulsed with a slow, visual thrum of contained power, a heartbeat of pure strategy.
Ahead, the receiving arch was a massive, single lintel of black ironwood, its surface polished to a dull sheen by the passage of countless official shoulders. No carvings adorned it, only a single, stark line of Imperial script, stamped into the wood as if by an industrial press: Aethelgard Welcomes All.
Next to him was a hulking man whose coat strained over shoulders that seemed to carry the weight of fortress gates, his presence a promise of an immovable object. Then, a lithe woman with fingers perpetually stained a deep blue from alchemical powders, the scent of ozone and static clinging to her like a shroud. Next up was a pair of twins, their movements a mirror image, who carried not staves but heavy, rune-inscribed metal rods. A young, sharp-eyed woman with an unsteady gaze stood next. Last but not least was an older man with a pronounced limp and a face like a weathered cliff, who leaned on a staff that was more a piece of the mountain than a tool. Finally, there was their captain, Lyra, a calm and unsettlingly clear greyed force of utter destruction.
Flexing his right hand, Kaelen bent down and took hold of his backpack, the bottom lying on the floor, the top leaning against his leg. Following his teammates, he stepped off the platform and, walking through the arch, he trailed behind his teammates to begin the paperwork.
Their first stop was the command citadel, a cavernous hall carved into the mountain adjacent to the Spire. The air here was different—thick with the smell of sweat, cheap ink, and human anxiety. Scribes moved in frantic rivers around islands of calm, high-ranking officers. Lyra presented their orders to a harried-looking prefect.
The man's eyes, shadowed by lack of sleep, scanned the documents without truly seeing them.
"Wardens. South Bastion reinforcement. Quartermaster will see to your billet and material requisitions. Signing of all necessary documents and proof of validation will also be done there." There was no welcome, only the logistical processing of a new asset. The war had worn away all ceremony.
Emerging from the citadel into the city proper was a sensory assault. The cool, silent weight of the Spire was replaced by the clangor of forges, the shouted curses of teamsters, and the low, constant fear of a city waiting for a hammer to fall. Citizens moved with a brittle urgency, their eyes flicking towards the mountain peaks that held the pass. Other teams had arrived before them, but still, when the citizens saw the grey coats of the Wardens, their reactions were a tapestry of the city's morale: a blacksmith paused his hammering, offering a single, grim nod of approval. A mother pulled her child close, while a madman at the market square cheered when he saw them.
The quartermaster, a man whose soul seemed to have been entirely replaced by ledger entries, assigned them a vault-like chamber in the upper levels of the Argent Wall. It was a former storage room, its stone walls still smelling of cold iron and old grain. There were no cots; they would sleep on bedrolls on the stone.
Kaelen was of noble birth, and yet, he did not complain. He ran a hand over the wall, feeling the solidity of it, the thickness. It was a good room. It would not collapse easily.
Their assigned post was the southernmost point of Aethelgard's main wall. The air here was thin and cold. The stone of the battlements was scarred from old attacks, not by magic, but by the sheer abrasive force of wind-blown grit and ice.
Kaelen's first action was not to introduce himself to the garrison soldiers, but to walk the perimeter of the bastion's roof. He placed his palm flat on the cold stone at each corner, his eyes closed in diagnosis. He was feeling for hairline fractures, for the subtle fatigue in the ancient masonry. The garrison soldiers watched him, a mix of curiosity and skepticism on their grimy faces.
After becoming comfortable, his seven teammates' morale was neither high nor low; it was a functional, grounded state of readiness. They were here to do a job. The only words spoken were from the older, limping Warden, Gavrel, who stood beside Kaelen, following his gaze out into the pass. "The stone is tired," Gavrel murmured, his voice like grinding gravel. "It has borne too much weight for too long." Kaelen simply nodded. It was the only assessment that mattered.
As dusk bled the colour from the sky, Kaelen entertained some of his own musings. His role was not to inspire the people. It was to make the stone under their feet hold for one more day. As if in agreement to this point, Lyra joined him at the parapet, saying nothing. Her presence was a reaffirmation of the median, the anchor point of their purpose. They were not here to win a glorious victory. They were here to ensure that when Aethelgard fell, it would cost the enemy so much that the victory would be meaningless.
And in that, Kaelen found his resolve.