The Weight of Misfortune
The sun over the continent of Abyssal Rim did not so much shine as it did fester. It was a bloated, copper orb hanging behind a thick veil of industrial smog and the lingering, oily haze of mana-exhaust. In the Port of Sighs, the air always tasted of salt, rusted iron, and the desperate sweat of millions.
Ezrak Alsen moved through the throng of the Lower District like a shadow cast by a flickering candle—unsteady, yet persistent. He was fifteen, though his gaunt frame and the sharp, hollow planes of his face made him look both younger and ancient. His black hair was a matted nest of coal dust, and he kept his head low, hiding the one thing that made him a target: his eyes. They were the color of molten gold, a heretical brilliance that felt like a mockery in a world of grey.
He didn't know why he had them. He didn't know why the simple act of existing felt like walking uphill during an avalanche. He only knew that for him, the world was a predatory animal.
Left pocket, three copper liras. Right pocket, a heavy snuff box. Move.
His fingers, thin and nimble, dipped into the pocket of a passing merchant with the grace of a master pianist. Ezrak didn't look back. He didn't celebrate. In the slums, a successful theft wasn't a victory; it was merely a stay of execution for his stomach.
Then, the "Cursing" happened.
It was a sensation Ezrak knew well—a sudden, cold prickle at the base of his neck, as if an invisible eye had just blinked at him. He stepped onto a loose cobblestone that should have been solid. His ankle twisted with a sickening pop, sending him stumbling sideways. In his attempt to regain balance, his hand instinctively reached out, grabbing the sleeve of a man wearing a coat of boiled leather.
The man spun around. He wasn't a merchant. He was a "Bruiser" for the Gilded Syndicate, a local gang that managed the labor docks. His eyes were bloodshot, and his knuckles were scarred from years of enforcing "order."
"Looking for something, rat?" the man growled.
Ezrak's heart plummeted. His golden eyes widened, and for a split second, the man recoiled, seeing that forbidden shimmer.
"Gold-eyes," the Bruiser spat, his shock turning into a cruel grin. "The unlucky spawn. Boys, looks like we found a punching bag for the afternoon."
Ezrak turned to run, but his twisted ankle gave way. He was dragged by his collar into a narrow hallway—a dead-end alley where the walls were slick with black moss and the stench of rotting fish was absolute.
The beating was methodical. It wasn't just about the stolen coins; it was about the world venting its frustrations on a boy who looked like he belonged to a forgotten heaven. Boots met ribs. Fists met teeth. Ezrak curled into a ball, protecting his head, his mind drifting into a dull, rhythmic state of endurance. One more kick. Two more. Just let them get tired.
When they finally left, laughing as they tossed his empty pockets back onto his chest, Ezrak lay in the muck for a long time. The shadows of the tall, jagged buildings stretched over him like the fingers of a giant.
The "Home of the Weary" was a crumbling structure on the edge of the soot-district. It was an orphanage that lived up to its name; the wood was porous with rot, and the roof groaned under the weight of every passing cloud. It didn't exude wealth—it exhaled poverty.
Ezrak staggered through the front door, his breath coming in ragged wheezes.
"Ezrak!"
A chorus of small voices erupted. Three younger children—ragged, but with faces cleaner than his—rushed toward him. Little Mina, barely six, stopped short when she saw the blood matting his hair.
"You fell again, didn't you?" she whispered, her lip trembling.
"Just... tripped," Ezrak managed a crooked, painful smile. To these kids, he wasn't a thief or a cursed descendant. He was the older brother who brought back scraps of bread and stories of the "High Heaven" he'd never seen.
"Enough, back to the kitchen, all of you!" A firm, weary voice cut through the air.
Sister Martha, the director, appeared. She was a woman carved from flint, her hair white and pulled into a bun so tight it seemed to pull her eyebrows upward. She caught Ezrak before he collapsed, her hands surprisingly gentle as she guided him to a stool in the dim common room.
The smell of cheap antiseptic filled the air as she began cleaning his wounds. "Pickpocketing again, Ezrak? I saw the Syndicate men hanging around the corner."
"They had more than I did," Ezrak muttered, hissing as the alcohol stung his split lip.
"They have lives, Ezrak. You have a target on your back," she sighed, wrapping a coarse bandage around his ribs. "You are an orphan of this city, but you don't have to be a corpse of it. Please. Stop stealing. Your luck... it doesn't allow for it."
Ezrak looked at his hands. "My luck doesn't allow for anything, Martha. I tried the docks. The crane snapped the moment I touched the lever. I tried the bakery. The oven exploded. I tried the scribes. The inkwell tipped over and ruined a month of records. I'm not a thief because I want to be. I'm a thief because the world won't let me be anything else."
Martha paused, her eyes softening. She reached into her apron and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment. "I found you a job. At 'The Silver Anchor.' It's a restaurant in the Mid-District, near the neutral zone."
Ezrak snorted, then regretted it as his ribs protested. "A restaurant? I'll probably poison the soup by looking at it."
"The owner is... different," Martha said, her voice dropping an octave. "He doesn't care about reputations. He needs a dishwasher and a runner. Go tomorrow. For me. For the kids."
Ezrak looked at the sleeping forms of the other orphans in the corner. He felt the heavy weight of their hunger. "Fine. One more time."
The walk to the Mid-District the next morning felt like crossing into a different world.
The slums were a claustrophobic maze of "Man-made Borders." People lived in "Stacks"—makeshousing units built on top of each other until they leaned precariously over the narrow streets. Below, the gutters ran thick with grey sludge. Above, the "Aether-Lines"—thick copper cables coated in anti-magic lead—hummed with the energy that powered the rich parts of the city.
Ezrak walked past a group of "Vapor-Kin" laborers, their translucent skin shimmering as they hauled crates of "Illicit Substances" bound for the black market. He saw an "Echo-Weaver" standing on a street corner, its four arms moving in a rhythmic pattern as it "tuned" the local mana-well to keep the streetlights from flickering.
Everything felt heavy. The history of Logus was etched into the grime of the walls. People didn't walk here; they trudged. They were survivors of a world where the gods had fought and left behind only the bill.
Finally, he reached The Silver Anchor.
It was a clean building, remarkably so. The wood was polished, and the brass handles shone. Ezrak hesitated at the door, expecting a brick to fall on his head or the ground to swallow him whole. When neither happened, he pushed inside.
The interior was warm, smelling of roasted meats and expensive spices. Behind the bar stood a man who seemed to defy the very architecture of the room. He was incredibly tall—nearly seven feet—with shoulders like an ox and a calm, weathered face that suggested he had seen empires rise and fall.
Next to him was a woman who took Ezrak's breath away. She had hair as white as the snows of Osten-Hold and eyes of a piercing, crystalline blue. She was currently hovering over the giant man, wagging a wooden spoon at him.
"And if I catch you 'sampling' the vintage wine with that blonde widow from the spice trade again, Bastion, I will freeze your beard to the tavern floor!"
The giant man laughed—a deep, resonant sound that felt like a distant earthquake. "Liora, my love, she was merely asking for directions to the wharf!"
"She was asking for directions to your lap! Don't play the fool with me!" she snapped, though her eyes twinkled with a fierce sort of affection.
She turned her gaze to Ezrak. Her expression shifted from fiery to curious in a heartbeat. "And who is this? A lost bird?"
Ezrak cleared his throat, feeling small. "I'm Ezrak. Sister Martha sent me. For the job?"
The giant, Bastion, leaned over the bar, his presence immense but strangely non-threatening. He looked at Ezrak—really looked at him. His eyes seemed to linger on Ezrak's golden irises for a second too long, a flash of recognition buried deep within his calm gaze.
"The dishwasher," Bastion said, nodding. "Welcome to the madhouse, Ezrak. I'm Bastion. That's my better, angrier half, Liora."
"Wash your hands and get to the back," Liora commanded, though her tone wasn't unkind. "And if you break a plate, it comes out of your pay."
For two days, a miracle occurred: nothing went wrong.
Ezrak worked with a feverish intensity. He scrubbed pots until his knuckles bled. He ran orders to tables with his head down, avoiding eye contact. He watched Bastion and Liora. They were an enigma. Bastion moved with a hidden grace that didn't match his size, and Liora managed the floor with a "Strong Personality" that kept even the rowdiest sailors in check.
On the second night, the restaurant was nearly empty. The industrial lanterns hummed softly. Ezrak was wiping down the last of the mahogany tables when he felt it.
It wasn't the "Cursing." This was different.
The air in the room suddenly grew heavy, as if the atmospheric pressure had tripled. The mana in the air began to vibrate, creating a high-pitched ringing in his ears.
"Ezrak," Bastion's voice was suddenly right behind him. Gone was the jovial tavern-keep; his voice was now like cold iron.
Ezrak looked down. Beneath his feet, a glowing geometric pattern was etching itself into the floorboards. It was a "Trial Circle"—the gateway to a parallel dimension.
"W-what is this? I haven't reached a level! I haven't even Awakened!" Ezrak gasped, his legs trembling.
"The world doesn't always wait for you to be ready," Bastion said. He placed a massive hand on Ezrak's shoulder, and strangely, the boy felt a surge of warmth that steadied his heart. "Listen to me, boy. You are being summoned for an Awakening Trial. This is the 'Mirror Dimension.' It's going to try to break your mind."
"I'm going to die," Ezrak whispered, his golden eyes wide with terror.
"Maybe," Liora said, appearing at Bastion's side. Her blue eyes were sharp. "But only if you believe what you see. Listen: the people you meet in there... they aren't real. They are echoes, constructs of the Trial. If you start thinking of them as real, you'll lose yourself. Tell yourself they are puppets. Do you understand? They are shadows."
The light from the circle intensified, turning a blinding, ethereal white.
"Find the anchor!" Bastion shouted over the rising roar of the mana-vortex. "The trial has a logic! Find the truth of the scenario and—"
The floor vanished.
Ezrak felt as though he were being pulled through a straw. His senses shattered and reformed a thousand times in a second.
Then, heat.
Blistering, suffocating heat.
He gasped, his lungs filling with dry, grit-laden air. He tried to stand, but his limbs felt heavy and short. He looked down and let out a strangled cry. His hands were tiny, covered in a thick layer of dust and sun-scorched. He wasn't fifteen. He was in the body of a child, no older than seven.
He looked around. He was in a vast, endless desert of "Glass-sand." The dunes stretched out like frozen waves of gold.
Around him were dozens of other children, all of them emaciated, their eyes vacant. They were chained together at the ankles with rusted iron.
A tall man with a whip stood over them, his skin like parched leather. He wore the garb of a Solaran slaver.
"Move, meat!" the man roared, the whip cracking over their heads. "The auction at the Mirage Sultanate doesn't wait! You're worth more as labor than as corpses, so keep walking!"
Ezrak stumbled, the chains biting into his small ankles. The pain was searingly real. The thirst in his throat felt like he had swallowed hot coals.
It's not real, he told himself, his mind screaming against the sensory onslaught. Bastion said they aren't real. This is a trial. I'm an orphan from the Port of Sighs. I'm not a slave in the desert.
But as he looked at the weeping child next to him, a girl with matted hair who reached out to catch his hand for support, the "Shadow" of the trial began to take hold.