<span style="font-style: italic">"After centuries of artifice and the easy peace that it brought, the mortal kingdoms fell under a long, dark shadow. It was subtle, like rust on the armor of the world. But given enough time, anything could break. <br/><br/>And everything did.<br/><br/>The cities of men, the conclaves of merfolk, the elfish legions, and the tribes of drakefolk went to war for the first time in generations, using great battle engines and constructs of increasingly inconceivable horror that left the battlefields and the villages covered in blood mixed and oil. This war lasted until a legendary figure appeared amidst these warring factions, and brought all the great races to peace under the weight of his blade and sound of his voice.<br/><br/>Through him, the accords were passed, and artifice was outlawed and designated an unholy art, the mortals blaming it for their troubles and the horrors they had wrought. In doing so, they doomed their world to remain scarred as each race retreated to its remaining strongholds, leaving vast expanses of land left forever scarred by what mortals had done.<br/><br/>Thus ended the great war. With his task complete, the legendary swordsman departed, taking the greatest champions from each of the great races with him. He vowed to return as a herald of another great change in the world. No record exists of who that swordsman was, or from where he hailed. The folklore of each race claims him as its own, using his nearly mythical figure as a tool for propaganda to support each race's bid argument for dominance. Even in this long time of uneasy, bitter peace, the world tried to mend itself despite the dark influence that still hung heavily over the world. This is where we begin, in a world which tries to heal, ignorant of how quickly it is disintegrating.<br/><br/>The world is not finished rusting."</span><br/><br/>Koralheim Bronzefinn was nothing if not prudent. Well, perhaps he was more â€˜neuroticâ€™ than prudent, or even cautious, and some might argue for murderous and vengeful. But he was certainly prudent in at least some amount.<br/><br/>He kept his webbed toes splayed behind him, pressed in the dirt to feel for any approaching war-machines of old while his thin, bony fingers pried apart bits of wire and old armor plates, searching what looked like a solid half of a burrowing wurm-engine. Heâ€™d been at it for the better part of a day, and heâ€™d managed to get some workably durable pieces of silver; he could probably construct a fine puzzle box with what he had now, but that glimmer he saw deep in the machineâ€™s enchanted mechanics is what he wanted.<br/><br/>A powerstone, fractured and arcing off stray bolts of mana, perfect for breaking down into smaller power sources. It would keep the most expensive detail of his work funded for a year at least. Assuming, of course, he didnâ€™t lose his hand trying to reach it.<br/><br/>As he dug through, he momentarily caught a glimpse of the ring-like tattoo on his left ring-finger; a widowerâ€™s mark. His large eyes regarded it carefully in the afternoon light, and if he was capable of the expression, he probably would have sighed. He eased back into his work, eager to forget the unpleasant reminder of his wifeâ€™s passing.<br/><br/>Koralheim paused again; there was a deep rumble in the earth, and he gazed all around with his bright bronze eyes. Nothing seemed out of place, nothing moving but a distant glimmer of an old dragon engine stomping blindly on a faraway hill. This was about the deepest heâ€™d gone into the wastes in his entire scavenging career, and he wasnâ€™t about to have it come back to bite him in the ass.<br/><br/>He slid a thin slip of paper from his satchel and stuck it to the gears attached to the powerstone before running some water over it, causing it to glow as a rune transferred off of it and directly onto the metal. He hated having to waste water to get the anchor to apply to metal, but it was always better to be cautious. He checked his forearm, and after confirming his own rune was still in place, got right back to tinkering.<br/><br/>He truly got absorbed in his work once his fingers finally brushed against the stone, sending that euphoric jolt of unfiltered mana up his nervous-system. There was nothing else like it, and it was damn near addictive to the unaccustomed. He silently mused over how these stones had been made; not even the dwarves had found them in the mines, and no records existed of how to make them after the human churches went on their overzealous scouring missions across the continent. Still, with whole Conclaves supporting their consciousnesses on the things, he figured someone had to have gotten at least curious.<br/><br/>Maybe not another merfolk, but someone; thatâ€™d be the type of person he wanted to get to know. He could probably get some sort of side-project going with some of the clockmakers and toycrafters he knew. No use messing around with the â€˜realâ€™ artificers; most were too engrossed in their almost religious devotion to bringing their art back into the light to be very useful.<br/><br/>Eventually, Koralheim would come to berate himself for leaning in far enough to loose contact with the ground; perhaps he would have felt the growing vibrations of something under the dirt, biding its time. But no, for now he wretched his prize free, holding it up in the sunlight to examine better.<br/><br/>Koralheim didnâ€™t so much hear the rumble, but feel it deep under the ground, vibrating the huge wurm engine slightly, causing him to recoil from it and examine its carapace carefully. He had been sure to check that the thing only had one powerstone to run it. Could it be residual magic? Or maybe someone had set a trap to catch an unwitting scrapper.<br/><br/>Well, Koralheim didnâ€™t think he was unwitting, and he certainly wasnâ€™t just a scrapper. He looked about quickly, and not immediately taking note of anything, he intended to inspect the machine for any signs of a trap. That was until the ground shook very, very forcefully, actually undulating nearby. That was particularly odd, and he shifted his feet to get a bit better traction in the dirt, just in case something came his way he didnâ€™t really like.<br/><br/>He gingerly stepped back to the machine, making sure his anchor was in place before examining its exterior a bit more closely. Besides the usual rust and moss, both of which marked this as a later model, when resources were slim enough to necessitate building these things out of iron, there were rocks and stones stuck between the plates, smooth on the out-facing side, but rough towards the body. On top of that, its head was lined with rough, slightly worn teeth. If you could call it a head, that was; the thing looked like someone had peeled it in half in a long helix pattern, and left one half behind. Koralheim wasnâ€™t exactly sure what could do this kind of damage, but heâ€™d never seen a model like this one before.<br/><br/>Hell, seemed like every chance he got, he learned of some new, diabolical nightmare machine stomping around out here. He cautiously ran his thin fingers over some engravings. Vampire runes? Heâ€™d heard of limited artifice in the vampire communities long ago, but actual evidence was easily forged until one happened upon it on their own.<br/><br/>Koralheim didnâ€™t see any reason to record the evidence. No one seemed to care about the past, now. Even with all the strives for â€˜peaceâ€™ that ran rampant through the youth of these days, it absolutely ignored the old stories. It wasnâ€™t about reclaiming the old lore and historical harmony that the species had apparently shared. No, it was about new, move forward, leave the old behind to rust and tarnish.<br/><br/>Like this wurm. Koralheim ran his hand over its metal plates again, wondering how its designer would feel seeing it like this. Were the old artificers truly just mass-manufacturers, keen on creating horror with no pride in their work? He doubted it; it seemed like the vampire etchings, though faded, were a name. Someone had branded their work back then; most artificers now wouldnâ€™t dare, not with the zealots of the human churches scouring the lands, abusing old treaties to hunt and execute any artificer they could find. But Koralheim wouldnâ€™t let himself be caught; not that he doubted they could eventually find him. Heâ€™d simply make sure he did himself in before he was tortured to give up his clients. They had been so good to him, and he would return the favor even in death. It still wouldnâ€™t be enough; heâ€™d happily become a house servant for any of them. But thatâ€™s how merfolk were, really. Courteousness and generousness were tantamount to air and food for them to survive.<br/><br/>There was that same rumble and undulation of the earth that actually knocked Koralheim off his feet, and sent him scrambling backwards as the earth parted around the wurm engine, another, seemingly identical copy of the thing crawling around it, writhing up the helix-shaped gouges in the sides until reaching the head, where it fused together with a loud click, a hiss, and the rumble and grind of its gears coming back to life while it raised its large, whirling, toothed-drill of a head.<br/><br/>It wasnâ€™t cut in half, it could split on its own! The other half had been using its dead counterpart as a trap, and with a shared power supplyâ€¦<br/><br/>Koralheim was on his feet and sprinting for the nearest hill before the thing was even fully activated, but it could hear the guttural roar it emanated behind him. They always had to make them seem more real, didnâ€™t they? The earth shook with its movement, tearing into the earth to burrow after him.<br/><br/>Hopefully it would pass through the hill to meet him on the other side, giving him the chance to stop atop the hill and simply teleport free, but as the ground behind him fractured and splint with its thrashing and burrowing, he was much, much less sure that this one was a dumb machine.<br/><br/>He stumbled slightly as the tattoos on his forearm shifted with his thoughts, as he tried to center himself on a location that made sense at the moment, though he soon realized that just about any anchor was better than here. So,despite the murderous thing chasing him, he set on choosing one as he ran for his life.