The forge smelled of heated iron and cracked stone as Riku ran his fingers across the newly tempered slagblade. Its obsidian edge gleamed under the torchlight, veins of dull red faintly pulsing within the blade's core. He could feel the potential humming beneath the surface, waiting to be used.
Kael entered, wiping soot from his brow, a quiet alertness in his posture. "Another scouting party reported traces of something… strange. They found a vent cavern two ridges west. Old stone, but newer cuts. Could be wild diggers or something worse."
Riku slid the slagblade into his belt and straightened. "Show me."
They left Blackridge before first light, slipping past the dormant traps and heading west. The volcanic terrain here was rougher, the stones fractured by older seismic breaks. Faint steam hissed from the cracks underfoot, filling the air with a metallic tang.
Kael led them along a narrow ridge that dropped into a shallow ravine. At its center, half-buried beneath fallen stone, a cave mouth yawned—unnaturally smooth, its shape too precise to be natural erosion.
Riku crouched near the entrance, tracing the edges of the opening with his palm. The temperature inside was warmer, almost inviting. Carefully, he stepped inside, Kael close behind.
The tunnel wound downward in tight spirals, lined with faded carvings—marks from long-forgotten tools or claws. As they descended, the air thickened, until the tunnel opened into a hollow chamber illuminated by faint crimson light from a crack in the ceiling.
In the center of the chamber, nestled in a bed of hardened ash and glassy rock, rested a single egg.
It wasn't like the drake eggs he'd found before. This one was smaller, shaped like a teardrop, its shell streaked with jagged obsidian and dull red veins. Heat radiated from it, gentle but steady.
Kael whistled softly. "That's no drake egg."
Riku crouched beside it, careful not to disturb the ash bed. He examined the surface—smooth yet cracked in places, as if something had struggled to grow too quickly inside.
His system flickered quietly, unnoticed by Kael.
[Unknown Hatchling Egg | Heat Signature: Stable | No Host Detected]
He wrapped it carefully in a forge-cloth and tucked it into his pack. "We incubate it quietly. No one else needs to know until it hatches. Could be a risk, or a weapon."
Kael nodded once, trusting the decision without question.
They returned to Blackridge by dusk. Sira met them at the gate, reporting without pause. "Eastern traps recalibrated. No breaches. Morale's steady. I've doubled patrols on the southern ridge."
"Good. Keep it quiet about what we found. Spread the word that we were mapping steam vents, nothing more."
As night fell, Riku retreated to the forge to work. His mind kept circling back to Nightforge's fortress—the walls of slag, the silent sentinels, the endless vent systems. They were building something far beyond simple defenses.
Riku pulled up his recent trap schematics, redrawing them with obsidian shards in mind. Instead of metal barbs, the new traps would scatter razor-sharp obsidian splinters when triggered, cutting through armor and flesh alike.
The first prototypes were set along the southern approach by midnight. When the obsidian shards cooled, something unexpected happened.
Without prompting, the sharp edges reformed themselves, each fragment realigning into sharper, cleaner angles, as if the material understood its purpose better than the smith who shaped it.
Riku observed in silence. He hadn't reforged them, hadn't touched them. They had simply refined themselves.
He didn't record it. Not yet. Some things were better left unspoken until proven stable.
By dawn, drills resumed. Sira led her unit through the outer fields, practicing flank maneuvers while Kael's engineers fine-tuned the new glaives.
Blackridge thrummed with quiet purpose. No fanfare. No outward signs of growth. Just a steady hum of preparation.
Beyond the outer ridge, nothing moved but the wind.
But Riku knew.
Nightforge was out there, somewhere beyond those jagged cliffs, building. Watching.
And now, Blackridge was evolving too.
He walked the perimeter before resting, passing the forge one last time. The egg sat in a covered chamber, heat coils maintaining a constant temperature.
No one knew what would emerge.
But when it did, it would belong to AshEdge.
And the Blood Moon was nearly upon them.