LEGACY OF THE FORBIDDEN ARCHMAGE

7

Michael awoke to the sound of dripping water and the hum of a malfunctioning air purifier. It was a rhythmic, annoying sound that felt like someone was tapping a rhythmic needle against his skull.

He didn't move. He didn't even open his eyes. Instead, he performed a silent audit of his internal systems.

Heart Circuit: Stable. Synchronization: 0.002%. Energy reserves: Depleted.

His body felt like it had been put through a trash compactor. The biological reconstruction had held, but the price of his escape was a systemic exhaustion that made his muscles feel as heavy as lead. Every breath he took tasted of ozone and cheap synthetic grease.

"You're finally awake," a voice whispered.

Michael opened his eyes. He wasn't in a cell, but he wasn't free either. He was lying on a makeshift cot in a room that looked like a graveyard for dead electronics. Bundles of fiber-optic cables hung from the ceiling like weeping willows, and the only light came from a cracked holographic terminal in the corner.

Lyra Vex was sitting on a crate next to him. She looked exhausted, her eyes rimmed with red, clutching a handheld medical scanner that looked like it had been scavenged from a dumpster.

"Don't move," she said, her voice trembling. "Your vitals... Michael, I don't know how you're still alive. Your heart rate dropped to nearly zero three times last night. I thought I was going to have to bury you in the vents."

Michael sat up slowly, his joints popping with a series of dry, painful sounds. He ignored the dizzying spell that hit him. "How did you find me, Lyra?"

Lyra looked away, her fingers nervously tracing the edge of the scanner. "I don't know. I was in the lower markets, looking for some black-market antibiotics for my neighbor's kid, and I just... I felt this cold shiver. Like a string was pulling me toward the service exits. I found you collapsed in the sludge."

Michael watched her. The resonance was there again—that faint, shimmering frequency of the 13th Sky God’s blood reacting to her presence. She didn't know she was Seraphina. To her, she was just a struggling student in a city that wanted to eat her alive.

"You shouldn't have helped me," Michael said, his voice cold. "Lucien will come for you. If they find out you’re hiding a fugitive, they won’t just revoke your scholarship. They’ll erase you."

Lyra’s face hardened. She stood up, slamming the scanner onto the crate. "They already erased me, Michael! The moment you broke Lucien’s hands, the Ivory Tower locked down every student account linked to you. They came to my apartment an hour after I brought you here. I had to leave everything. My books, my research, my mother’s jewelry... all of it is gone."

She stepped closer, her eyes flashing with a mix of anger and fear. "So don't you dare tell me what I should have done. You're the only thing I have left that isn't a digital 'Access Denied' screen. Now tell me... what happened to you in that tower? Your body... it’s different."

Michael looked at his hands. The skin was smoother, the muscles beneath more defined. The malnutrition that had haunted Michael Dorian for twenty years was being overwritten by a superior biological blueprint.

"I didn't use an artifact, if that’s what you’re thinking," Michael said. He stood up, his boots hitting the metal floor with a solid thud. He felt a gnawing hunger in his stomach—not for food, but for raw energy. "I simply fixed what was broken."

"With what? Magic?" Lyra laughed bitterly. "Magic is a myth used to sell VR games, Michael. This is Oakhaven. Everything is circuits and Aether-tech."

"Then call it high-level bio-engineering," Michael replied, walking toward the door. "Where are we?"

"Shadow Alley. The lowest level of the transit hub," Lyra said, following him. "It’s a dead zone. The government sensors can’t penetrate the heavy lead shielding of the old reactors down here. We’re safe... for now."

Michael pushed aside a heavy curtain of cables and stepped out into the alley.

Shadow Alley wasn't just a place; it was a festering wound beneath the glittering skin of Oakhaven. Neon signs for illegal neural-implants and synthetic drugs flickered in the permanent twilight. People moved like ghosts, their faces obscured by hoods and makeshift gas masks. The air was thick with the smell of recycled air and cooking fat.

This was the underworld Silas Graves had mentioned.

"I need to find a man named Cassian," Michael said.

Lyra froze. "Cassian Thorne? The Broker? Michael, you can’t just walk up to his front door. He doesn't deal with students. He deals with organ harvesters and corporate defectors."

"I have a message for him," Michael said, his eyes scanning the crowd. "And I have something he wants."

"What could you possibly have that he wants?"

"Knowledge they haven't seen in five hundred years."

They navigated through the maze of rusted pipes and narrow catwalks. Michael felt the gaze of a dozen hidden eyes on them. In Shadow Alley, a man in a ragged, bloodied lab coat was either a target or a legend.

Finally, they reached a heavy blast door guarded by two men with bionic arms and kinetic rifles. They weren't like the Ivory Tower guards; they looked like they enjoyed the violence.

"Stop right there, pretty boy," one of the guards said, leveling his rifle at Michael’s chest. "This is a private club. Invitations only."

Michael didn't stop. He kept walking until the barrel of the rifle was inches from his heart. He could feel the faint hum of the weapon's battery. To his new Heart Circuit, it was like the smell of a steak to a starving man.

"Tell Cassian that Silas Graves says the audit has begun," Michael said.

The guard’s sneer faltered. He exchanged a glance with his partner. The name Silas Graves was a ghost story in the underworld—a legendary detective who had disappeared into the Ivory Tower years ago.

"Silas is dead," the guard muttered.

"Is he?" Michael leaned in, his eyes flickering with a faint purple light that made the guard flinch. "Then who gave me his key?"

Michael held up the heavy, physical key he had taken from the warden. It was an antique—a piece of solid brass in a world of digital codes. The guards recognized the symbol engraved on the head: the crest of the old Aethelgard Internal Security.

The blast door hissed open.

"The boss will see you," the guard said, his voice much more subdued. "But if this is a trick, you won't leave this room in one piece."

Inside, the room was filled with the hum of high-end servers. It was a stark contrast to the filth outside. Screens lined the walls, displaying scrolling data from the Aether-Net—stock prices, police frequencies, and satellite feeds.

In the center of the room sat a man with silver hair and a mechanical prosthetic jaw that gave his face a permanent, metallic grin. Cassian Thorne.

He didn't look up from his monitors. "Silas always had a flair for the dramatic. Sending a half-dead student to my door... that’s a new low, even for him."

"I'm not here for drama, Cassian," Michael said, stepping into the light. "I'm here for resources. I need high-grade chemicals, a secure lab, and a way to wipe Michael Dorian from the face of the Earth."

Cassian finally looked up. His eyes were artificial, sapphire-blue lenses that zoomed in on Michael’s face. He stayed silent for a long time, his mechanical jaw clicking as he processed the scan.

"Interesting," Cassian finally said. "Your face matches the 'Terrorist' alert currently being broadcast by the Ivory Tower. But your bio-signature... it’s all wrong. You look like Michael Dorian, but your cellular density is three times higher than it should be. You're a chimera."

"I'm a solution to a problem you don't even know you have yet," Michael countered.

Cassian leaned back, a thin, metallic laugh escaping his throat. "Oakhaven has many problems, boy. Most of them can be solved with a well-placed bullet or enough credits. Why should I help a dead man walking?"

Michael walked over to a workbench in the corner where a shattered piece of ancient tech lay—a damaged Mana-Condenser from the pre-tech era, something Cassian’s engineers had clearly been unable to fix.

Michael didn't use a screwdriver. He simply touched the surface of the artifact. He channeled a microscopic thread of Ichor mana into the cracked crystal core, realigning the jagged lattice with the precision of a master craftsman.

The artifact suddenly hummed. A soft, golden glow illuminated the room as the condenser began to draw energy from the ambient static in the air—something it hadn't done in centuries.

Cassian stood up, his sapphire eyes widening. "That... that's impossible. That's Old Magic. The tech-priests say the resonance for that was lost during the Great Purge."

"The resonance wasn't lost," Michael said, his voice cold and steady. "It was suppressed by people who wanted to sell you batteries instead of power."

Michael turned to face Cassian. "I can fix your toys. I can cure the 'Tech-Rot' that’s eating your soldiers’ lungs. And I can give you a weapon that the Ivory Tower can’t detect. In exchange, I want total anonymity and the equipment I ask for. No questions."

Cassian looked at the glowing artifact, then back at Michael. The greed in his artificial eyes was palpable. He knew a gold mine when he saw one.

"Deal," Cassian said. "But be warned, Michael. In Shadow Alley, the only thing more dangerous than being an enemy of the state is being an asset to me. I don't like losing my investments."

"You won't lose me," Michael said, his gaze drifting toward Lyra, who was standing by the door, looking at him as if he were a stranger. "But you might want to buy some better locks. The audit is going to be messy."