Isaac stood before the great portcullis in the Core Chamber. The iron lattice, each bar as thick as his thigh, was fused shut by the same black, hardened resin he'd seen in the Manufactorum. It wasn't just locked; it was sealed by the Gloom, a scab over the Bastion's main wound. A single, smaller postern gate—a reinforced door set within the larger structure—was his target. It, too, was crusted over, but looked more vulnerable.
His force was mustered behind him. Six Militia stood at parade rest, their packs loaded with freshly manufactured ammunition: two twenty-pack cartridges each. M-004 had been repaired, its shoulder seamless and pale once more, indistinguishable from the others. On Isaac's belt, next to the recharged plasma pistol, hung two ovoid Fragmentation Grenades, their surfaces a dull, brushed steel. They were his contingency plan.
The Manufactorum hummed at his back, a promise of resupply. The Barracks was ready to produce more units. He had consolidated his gains. Now, he had to expand.
"The objective is reconnaissance and resource identification," he addressed the blank faces. "We are to locate a Leyline Nexus—a source of energy for the Bastion—and survey the immediate landscape for salvage or threats. We do not engage unless necessary for survival or to secure a critical asset. Our formation will be a modified wedge. M-001, point. M-002, M-003, flanking scouts. The rest with me as the core element. We move fast, we stay low, we use the terrain."
"Acknowledged, Commander."
He turned to the postern gate. He could try the plasma pistol on the resin, but he had a better, more economical tool for demolition. He pulled a grenade from his belt.
"Breaching charge. All units, take cover behind the central crystal."
The Militia moved without question. Isaac pulled the simple pin—a cotter pin with a ring—and carefully lodged the grenade into a thick crack in the resin sealant, right where the door met the stone arch. He turned and sprinted, diving behind the massive crystal core.
Three seconds later.
KABOOM!
The concussion was a physical fist in the confined space. Shrapnel whined off the stone walls and the crystal. Chunks of black resin and shattered stone pattered down like hail. Dust billowed.
When it cleared, the postern gate was ajar. A jagged, smoking hole had been blown in the resin seal. Cold, thin air, smelling of ash and ozone, whispered through the gap.
Isaac moved forward, pistol drawn. He pushed on the heavy door. With a groan of long-disused hinges, it swung outward.
Light—real, natural light, not the Bastion's sterile glow—flooded in. It was the bleak, grey-green light of the twin moons, filtered through a high, perpetual haze. He stepped over the threshold, his boots crunching on scorched rubble, and looked out upon his new world.
The Bastion was built into the flank of a colossal, bone-grey mountain. Before him stretched the Blasted Plain. It was a name that imposed itself on his mind. The ground was not soil, but a cracked, vitrified sheet of black glass and ash, fractured into a million jagged pieces like a frozen dark sea. In the distance, the skeletons of long-dead forests stood as grotesque black silhouettes. Rock spires, twisted by ancient cataclysm, clawed at the sickly sky. There was no wind, only a vast, suffocating silence.
His tactical map, which had only shown the Bastion's interior, now expanded in his vision. A faint, ghostly topography sketched itself, fed by the Bastion's external sensors coming sluggishly online. It showed the immediate area: a steep, treacherous scree slope descending from the gate to the plain proper, about two hundred meters below.
And there, pulsing softly on the edge of his map, about a kilometer to the north-east, was a marker.
Leyline Energy Signature Detected: Faint/Unstable. Designation: Nexus Gamma-7 (Minor).
A target.
"Move out. Steady pace. Watch your footing."
The descent was perilous. The scree was loose shale and sharp, glassy slag. The Militia navigated it with sure, balanced steps, their programming overriding the instability. Isaac was less graceful, sliding and skidding, his hands getting cut on the sharp rock. The air grew colder, thinner. The silence was absolute, broken only by the clatter of their descent.
They reached the base of the slope, standing on the edge of the vitrified plain. The scale was daunting. The Bastion, looming above, looked smaller, a lonely tooth in a dead jaw. The sense of exposure was immediate and terrifying. There was no cover, only low ridges and the occasional jagged rock.
They began the trek toward the Leyline marker, moving in the ordered wedge. The plain was not empty. They passed strange, half-melted formations that might have been buildings or machines. They skirted wide, circular depressions in the glassy crust, their bottoms lost in darkness. The air grew thicker with a static charge that made the hairs on Isaac's neck stand up.
Halfway to the marker, M-002, on the left flank, stopped and raised a fist. The formation froze.
"Contact. Motion at eleven o'clock. Four hundred meters." Its monotone was barely a whisper.
Isaac crouched, bringing up a mental zoom function on his interface. The image resolved. Creatures, different from the ones inside. These were leaner, built for the open ground. They had six long, spider-like legs of chitin, supporting a low, armoured body. A single, stalked eye swiveled atop it. They moved in a skittering, unpredictable patrol pattern between two rock spires. Four of them.
Entity Identified: Gloomspawn – Category: Stalker (Tier-1). Threat Assessment: High. Ranged projectile attack (Crystalline Spines). Highly mobile.
Ranged attackers. In the open. This was a worst-case scenario.
"They haven't seen us," Isaac murmured. "The light is behind us, we're downwind… if there was any wind. We go around. Wide berth. M-002, M-003, you have point. Lead us on a circuitous route to the Nexus, avoiding line-of-sight with those spires."
They changed course, angling east, adding precious meters to their journey but staying in the low ground. Isaac's heart pounded. Every crunch of boot on glass felt deafening. They moved like ghosts, but he was painfully aware of their stark visibility against the featureless plain.
They made it to within three hundred meters of the Leyline marker without further contact. The marker was at the base of one of the blackened forest skeletons. The dead trees formed a tangled, brittle maze. As they approached, the static in the air intensified. Isaac could feel a faint vibration through his boots.
Then, the System flashed a red warning.
Alert: High Gloom-Energy Concentration Detected. Multiple lifeforms congregating at Nexus site.
They reached the edge of the dead forest. Peering through a lattice of charcoal branches, Isaac saw the Nexus.
It was a wound in the world. A jagged fracture in the vitrified ground, about ten meters across, from which a corrupted, violet-and-black energy mist seeped like ethereal blood. Around its rim, crystalline growths—sharp, ugly things that pulsed in time with the energy—had formed. And gathered around it, drinking from the mist or simply basking in it, were Gloomspawn.
Not just Stalkers. He saw two more of the bulky Amalgams, their stony forms crusted with the same dark crystals. A handful of swarmlings scuttled about. And in the center of the fracture, half-submerged in the energy, was something new. It was a writhing, root-like mass of tendrils, covered in blinking, bioluminescent nodes. It looked less like a creature and more like a stationary organ, a heart for the corruption here.
Entity Identified: Gloomspawn – Category: Nexus Feeders (Tier-0).
Entity Identified: Gloomspawn – Category: Corrupted Amalgam (Tier-1+).
Entity Identified: Gloomspawn – Category: Leyline Parasite (Tier-2). Defensive/Sedentary.
A Tier-2, but a stationary one. Guarded by a small army.
Isaac's mind raced. This wasn't a Leyline Nexus; it was a corrupted tumor feeding on one. Securing it wouldn't be a simple tap. It would require a full-scale assault to purge the site. With six militia and two grenades, it was impossible.
But as he watched, he saw the Stalkers on patrol return. They approached the fracture, and the central Parasite extended a tendril. A droplet of concentrated, oily energy formed at its tip and dripped onto the Stalker, which seemed to shudder with pleasure, its carapace gleaming freshly.
It was a resupply point. The Gloom was using the Leyline to feed and empower its forces.
A new understanding clicked. This wasn't just about finding energy for the Bastion. It was about denying it to the enemy. This was a resource node in a total war.
He couldn't take it. Not yet.
But he could mark it. And he could take a sample.
"M-001," he whispered. "On my command, you will fire a single shot at the crystalline formation on the nearest rim of the fracture. Not at a creature. At the crystal. Then we run, back to the Bastion, following our exact path. Understood?"
"Understood. Provoke and retreat."
"Everyone else, weapons ready, but do not fire unless directly engaged. We run as one unit."
Isaac needed data on the crystalline growths. A supersonic lead ball would provide a reaction.
He took a deep breath. "Execute."
CRACK!
M-001's shot shattered the silence. The musket ball struck a three-foot tall dark crystal on the fracture's edge.
The result was instantaneous and violent.
The crystal didn't just break; it detonated in a localized shockwave of black energy and razor-sharp shrapnel. Two nearby swarmlings were shredded. The Corrupted Amalgams roared, turning their heads. The Leyline Parasite thrashed, its glowing nodes flashing red. Every Gloomspawn in the clearing was instantly alerted, their focus laser-sharp on the source of the gunshot.
"GO!" Isaac yelled.
They turned and ran, a line of grey and dun against the black plain. Behind them, a chorus of shrieks and the skittering of many legs erupted. He didn't look back. He could hear the distinctive whiz-thud of crystalline spines embedding themselves in the ground where they had just been.
They ran, following their own tracks, lungs burning in the thin air. The Bastion gate was a tiny, distant promise. Isaac risked a glance over his shoulder. The Stalkers were gaining, their six-legged gait terrifyingly fast over the open ground.
They wouldn't make it to the slope in time.
"M-004, M-005! Rear guard! Kneeling volley, NOW!"
The two designated Militia spun, dropped to a knee in unison, raised their muskets, and fired.
CRACK! CRACK!
One Stalker stumbled, a leg shattered. The other dodged, barely slowing. It was enough. The gap widened slightly.
They reached the base of the scree slope. Climbing was slower. Much slower.
"Grenade!" Isaac gasped, pulling the last one from his belt. He pulled the pin, let the spoon fly, and hurled it down the slope behind them, not at the creatures, but at the unstable base of the slope itself.
KABOOM!
The explosion lifted a section of the scree slope in a cloud of dust and shrapnel, triggering a small landslide. It wouldn't stop them, but it would funnel them and buy seconds.
They scrambled up, slipping, clawing. The gate was above. The angry skittering was close behind.
The first Stalker crested the landslide debris, its single eye fixing on Isaac. It raised its forebody, a cluster of spines visibly quivering along its back, ready to launch.
Isaac, hanging onto the slope with one hand, drew his plasma pistol with the other. He didn't aim. He pointed and fired.
CRACK-HISS!
The blue bolt took the Stalker in its raised underbelly. It blew apart in a shower of ichor and chitin.
"Into the gate! Now!"
They tumbled through the postern door, into the safe, lit confines of the Core Chamber. Isaac turned and shoved the heavy door shut, slamming a newly manufactured locking bar down across it.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Impact shuddered through the metal. Scrabbling claws. Then, slowly, it faded. The creatures didn't have the mass or intelligence to besiege the gate.
Silence, again, but for their ragged breathing.
They had failed to secure the Nexus. But they had succeeded wildly in the true mission: reconnaissance.
Isaac leaned against the cold stone, his clothes soaked with sweat, his hands bloody. On his map, Nexus Gamma-7 was now tagged, not as a resource, but as a Primary Threat Target. He had seen the enemy's logistics. He had identified a new, explosive resource in the corruption crystals. And he had confirmed the grim reality: the war for this world would be fought over these energy fractures.
He looked at his six Militia, standing patiently, awaiting orders. They had performed flawlessly.
"Good work," he said, the words feeling inadequate. "Now we know what we need. And we know what we have to destroy to get it."
The Bastion's interior felt like a sanctuary, but also a cage. He had ventured out, tasted the scale of the conflict, and returned. The next time he left, it wouldn't be with a squad. It would be with an army.