Northern Mountains Research Bunker — Waffen-Runenkorps
Date: Year 931 — Month 1 — Day 4
Location: Sector E-17 – Human Core Augmentation Division
The air inside the bunker was always the same — dry, metallic, and heavy with steam.
Glow-gems burned cold blue overhead, suspended from thick iron cables. Every corner was guarded. Every corridor locked by double-bolted doors engraved with sealing runes. The echo of boots and the hiss of pipes created a rhythm that never stopped — the heartbeat of progress buried in the mountain's ribs.
Down one of the lower corridors, a new researcher followed an older man through the haze of vapor. The younger one kept his coat buttoned tight and his mouth shut. The old one didn't bother — he'd been here since the first failures.
They stopped before a wide glass wall overlooking a chamber of containment tanks. Seven cylinders, each filled with pale green fluid. Inside them floated soldiers — pale, motionless, their hearts glowing faint red beneath the skin.
The old man tapped the glass with a gloved finger.
"Look at them. The Reich's miracles. Out of eleven thousand two hundred and thirty-five test subjects… only two hundred and thirteen survived. And every single one of those survived because they were perfect."
He smiled thinly.
"You want to know what perfect means? It means male. Between thirteen and twenty-four. Still growing, still developing. The body's soft enough to adapt, but strong enough not to die. The soul… flexible enough to bend without breaking."
The recruit's eyes widened.
"So the rest—"
"Burned, ruptured, or dissolved," the older man said casually. "We learned what not to do the hard way."
He pulled a switch; the lamps inside the chamber flared brighter. The bodies in the tanks twitched as faint red veins pulsed beneath their skin.
"Magic cores are living things," he continued. "You can't force them into dead vessels. They need warmth, blood, and willpower. But the power they give back…"
He let out a short laugh.
"Strength enough to lift iron gates. Regeneration that closes wounds in minutes. Speed that blurs the eyes of riflemen. They don't need sleep. They don't need fear. They don't even need food for days. They are war given flesh."
The younger man swallowed.
"And magic?"
"Minor casting," the old one said, waving a hand. "Flame bursts, short-range barriers, shockwaves. Nothing dramatic. The true gift isn't spellcraft — it's what they become. Living engines. Soldiers who can run through the night and never slow."
He leaned closer, voice lowering.
"Train them long enough, and they learn more tricks. Night sight. Reflexive stealth. Some can bend light for a few hours — vanish entirely. Useful for assassinations."
The recruit hesitated.
"How do they… stay loyal?"
The old man smirked.
"That's the beauty of it. Their personalities were erased during fusion. They share the same mind. The same calm. The same silence. No fear. No doubt. No individuality. Only duty."
He gestured toward the tanks.
"Those are not men anymore. They're function. Purpose. Obedience."
He turned away, laughing softly.
"Early on we used criminals — thieves, murderers, deserters. They taught us anatomy. Then we killed them. Once the research matured, we used only loyalists. Sons of officers. Devout believers. The rest… fertilizer for progress."
The young researcher looked uneasy.
"And what did we gain from all of this?"
"Knowledge," the man said instantly. "We've cut open more humans than any university or empire in history. We know every muscle, every nerve, every valve of the heart. Surgery now is an art form. People survive operations that would've killed them ten years ago. All because of this."
He chuckled — not cruelly, but proudly.
"Funny, isn't it? The road to perfect healing was paved by corpses."
A mechanical hum filled the corridor as the containment tanks hissed and pressure gauges clicked into new readings.
From behind them, the iron door opened.
A woman entered.
She stood tall. Poised. Her skin was dark like polished obsidian, gleaming under the cold gemlight. A beauty not often seen in these parts — deep brown skin, long legs, hips that swayed in command, a face shaped like carved onyx, and eyes like amber caught in shadow. Even the young recruit couldn't help but mutter softly:
"She has curves in places I can only dream of..."
The older man gave him a side glance but said nothing.
She wore a lab coat stitched with silver thread along the collar. Her long braids were tipped with ivory beads that clicked softly as she walked, carrying a thick leather binder and a pressure gauge in her hand.
The older man straightened.
"Doctor Arivah Kora. Our foreign jewel."
She stopped near the tanks and checked a gauge on the side. Her tone was steady.
"The pressure in Tank Two dropped slightly. Adjust the rear valve. I want these bodies fully dormant until activation."
She didn't look up. Her hands moved with practiced ease, flipping through parchment charts and checking runes by hand.
The old man chuckled.
"Always direct."
Arivah gave a small nod, then glanced at the recruit.
"New?"
The recruit stood straighter.
"Yes ma'am. First day."
She studied him, then returned to her notes.
He watched her a moment longer before leaning to the old man.
"Why's her skin so dark? I've seen shades, but... nothing like that."
The old man grunted.
"She ain't from here. Came from across the Southern Ocean. Washed ashore during the Confederation days. Her whole ship wrecked. Only she survived."
The recruit blinked.
"She's from across the sea?"
Arivah turned.
Her voice was calm, smooth. Her accent held a soft rhythm not heard in these mountains.
"I am. From a continent far south, beyond what your maps even name. I remember jungles. Rivers so wide they swallowed the horizon. Heat that never broke. I remember my family… and the storm that took them."
She looked at the recruit.
"I was taken in before the Reich. Before order. They fed me. Let me learn. Taught me to speak what was then the Trade Tongue. Now it's German."
The old man added,
"Didn't even know how to hold a pen when they found her. Now she runs the core-pressure division."
Arivah stepped closer to the tanks.
"I don't forget where I came from. I still hear the drums at night. I still remember my mother's voice."
The recruit asked, hesitantly:
"Do you want to go back?"
She nodded.
"Yes. And I will. We're building steamships now. Real ones. Steel hulls. I plan to sail one across the Southern Ocean. And if my family still breathes... I will bring them here."
She looked around.
"Because here... food is steady. Medicine is clean. Law means something. Back home, warlords ruled the coast. Crops failed. Girls were taken. Bandits owned the forest. But here—"
She rested a hand on the glass.
"Here, progress walks on iron legs. And if the price of peace is discipline… then so be it."
The recruit stared, eyes wide.
"You really believe in all this?"
Arivah smiled softly.
"I was shipwrecked. Now I write orders. If that's not something worth building on... what is?"
She returned to her clipboard, checking gauges.
The old man muttered,
"They don't make many like her anymore. She's the Reich's bridge. From jungle to snow."
And the recruit, for the first time, began to understand what that meant.