"We can't afford to waste another second admiring the local scenery," Seraphyne whispered, her voice sharp as glass in the freezing gloom of the administrative shack as she frantically fiddled with the knobs of the jury-rigged analog receiver. "The security chatter on this frequency is getting entirely too close for comfort. They've cleared the upper ridge and they're sweeping the tree line right behind us." Vaelric dropped his heavy canvas pack onto a splintered wooden desk with a dull thud, his breath pluming in jagged, white clouds against the stale, frost-bitten air of the abandoned room. He reached out with his normal, flesh-and-blood left hand to steady himself against the wall, but his knees buckled slightly under the sheer, cumulative exhaustion of their non-stop flight. "Let them sweep. If my arm keeps hardening at this rate, I won't even need a weapon to crack their skulls; I'll just be too heavy for gravity to ignore." 

 "If you pass out on this sticky wooden floor, I am taking your boots and leaving you to the local debt collectors," Seraphyne muttered, her hand gripping the back of Vaelric’s heavy coat as she shoved him through the swinging, grease-stained saloon doors. The interior of the tavern hit them like a physical blow—a dense wall of stale tobacco smoke, cheap frying grease, and the sour stench of spilled whiskey mixed with unwashed bodies. Dozens of rough-hewn miners, independent freighters, and desperate-looking outcasts sat crammed around scarred wooden tables under the flickering amber glow of a diesel-powered chandelier. Vaelric stumbled over the raised threshold, his heavy obsidian-plated right arm dragging him slightly to the side before he caught his balance against a sticky pillar near the entrance. He blinked against the harsh, smoky light, his chest heaving under his layers of torn fabric. "This place smells lik