Victors Quill

The fog was gone.

Not thinned. Not curled or stretched into ribbons the way it had been for days—just gone.

I woke beneath a sky I hadn't seen in what felt like years. Gray and low, sure, but wide. I could see the bones of the rooftops around us, the crooked teeth of dead homes rising from the overgrowth, and further beyond that, the pale silhouettes of buildings that reached far higher than any trees ever could.

I blinked into the cold air.

I just want to wake up back in my apartment, all of this a strange fever dream.

The house creaked as I shifted. A beam of light cut through where the ceiling had once been, warming nothing. My ribs still throbbed, but duller now—like even my pain had been muted by the scale of this place.

Plor was already up. Her coat hung crooked off her shoulders, half-zipped. She stood by the empty hearth, arms crossed, staring down the skyline like it owed her something.

She didn't say anything until I sat up.

"There you are," she said, not looking over. "Sky's cleared. Means we've got work to do."

I groaned and rolled my shoulder. 

"You're awfully cheerful for someone squatting in ruins."

"That's because we're not just squatting." She nodded toward the horizon. "We're hunting."

I raised an eyebrow.

"For what?"

She turned, face bright with that strange energy of hers—the kind that came out when things got interesting.

"Dellumite," she said. "Some ancient metal. Stronger than anything we're able to make now. You get a blade made of that stuff, it'll cut through steel like bark."

I tried to whistle, but my dry throat turned it into a cough. 

"Sounds rare."

"Extremely." She said, already gathering her things.

"I've been combing these ruins for months. Nothing so far, but the center of the city?"

Her eyes glinted.

"That seems to be where the rich and powerful lived. They would've had it."

"You didn't think that's where it would be from the start?" 

I muttered, forcing myself up.

She put her hand to her chin, stroking it in thought.

I can't even tell, is she smart or not?

We ate a quiet breakfast of dried strips and something vaguely fruity Plor had pulled from a pouch. Then we were moving again—packs light, weapons strapped tight, the forgotten world stretched ahead of us.

⸻

The city had no gates. No walls to mark the divide between wilderness and civilization. Just a slow bleed of trees into silence.

And then, suddenly, everything rose.

I hadn't realized how massive it all was until the path curved past a slope and I saw the city core in full.

It wasn't a city.

It was a wound. A grave. A monument to something too big to understand.

The buildings towered like giants brought low, their faces blackened by time and soot. Balconies hung half-detached like broken wings. Windows stared empty into the gray sky. One spire curved inward, like it had melted mid-collapse. Another had fallen completely, its ribs burst through the street like a metal carcass.

And in the distance—half-shrouded by time—a building larger than any of them rose from the center, wide-shouldered and symmetrical, even in ruin. Its walls were glass and some strange shimmering alloy that hadn't rusted like the others. Its entrance looked like a broken mouth.

I didn't say anything for a long time.

How could I?

This place was a fossil. And we were ants crawling through its skull.

⸻

"Alright." Plor said, breaking the silence as she slid down a slope toward one of the broader avenues.

"Keep your eyes out, we're looking for dellumite, it wasn't used in everything. Just the good stuff."

"Like weapons?"

She nodded.

"Weapons, mostly. It's also kept inside vaults, military bases, armored carriages and some things I'm not sure what to call. The trick's knowing what you're looking at."

"If you haven't found any, how do you even know where to look?"

She shrugged.

"Just listened to what my boss said."

"Boss?" I said, puzzled.

She's never mentioned a boss.

She kept walking, unresponsive.

Well, guess she'll tell me when she's ready.

I trailed behind, glancing between the skeletal buildings. My hand hovered near my sickle. Not out of fear, but… reverence, maybe.

The road beneath us looked wide enough for a couple of those metal creatures. It was split down the center, vines growing up through jagged seams. Metal rails jutted from the sides—some kind of transit lines, maybe? There was a rusted husk straddling the path ahead, its frame buckled, windows shattered, cables spilled out like veins.

I stepped around it carefully, eyes on the broken letters painted along its flank. I couldn't read them.

Why did you build things so big, and leave them all to rot?

⸻

A few blocks deeper, we passed under an arch where the second floor of a building had collapsed into the street. Plor stopped and crouched by a wall that had partially crumbled outward, exposing a ribcage of metal beams underneath.

She tapped one of the beams with her knuckle.

"Listen."

Tang.

Then she hit another beside it.

Thunk.

"That one's junk. That one's composite junk. " She tapped a third beam, lower down, thinner, but intact— "Even this is different from those two, hear how the sound changes?"

I nodded slowly.

"Dellumite doesn't ring like any of these metals. It's too dense. You feel it more than you hear it, it's deep."

I crouched beside her. 

"You ever actually find any before?"

She sat back on her heels, blowing hair from her face. 

"Not yet. Closest I got was a melted blade handle fused to a vault casing. Still pissed about it."

I looked up at the looming building beside us. At the vast emptiness of it all.

So… she came out here alone. Over and over again, for no reason. Seems pretty useless to me.

I didn't say it out loud, didn't want to get beaten quite yet.

And I followed her deeper in.

The buildings grew.

Not just taller—but stranger.

The ones in the outskirts had been shaped like homes, or what I assumed were homes. Square. Modest. Familiar in scale.

But here, in the center, the architecture abandoned reason.

One tower rose in a perfect cylinder, its top sheared clean off like someone had sliced it with a blade the size of a mountain. Another curved like a ribcage around an empty courtyard, spiraling in on itself. A third was little more than a jagged column of fused black glass, split in half with a rusted skybridge hanging between the two halves like a snapped tendon.

Everything looked like it had been important once. Important enough to matter. Important enough to be designed like art.

And now all of it was sinking.

Vines wound up cracked support beams. Trees grew through windows four stories off the ground. Every wall was either shattered, slumped, or melted in some impossible way, like time itself had gotten experimental with decay.

This looks more like the future than the past.

⸻

Plor slowed as we approached a central square. She glanced upward more than usual, studying buildings like she was trying to remember something.

"This whole part's new to me." She murmured. 

"Didn't go this deep before."

"Why not?"

She shrugged. 

"I already told you, looked around the outer area first."

Yeah, don't think there's much going through that head.

We stepped onto a wide open stretch that must've once been a plaza. The stone beneath our boots was pale and cracked, laid out in a circular pattern that had almost vanished beneath grime and moss. At the far end stood a pedestal—and on that pedestal, a statue.

It was tall. Taller than Plor. Maybe three meters, though most of its base had sunk into the ground.

The man depicted there was folded in an easy stance—arms crossed, head slightly tilted, expression unreadable. His features had eroded with age, but I could still make out the tight curls of his hair. He looked calm. Unbothered. A little too proud of whatever he was staring at.

The metal had oxidized—green spreading across his shoulders and chest, moss clinging to the folds of his coat. A crack ran from his shoulder down to the wrist.

I read the faint words etched into the base.

RELLEM ENDURES.

"Who's that?" I asked.

Plor tilted her head, mouth quirking sideways.

"Haven't seen the statue, but I've heard about Rellem. From a cute little history fanatic, you'll meet them someday."

"Do I want to meet them? What type of demon are they?"

Plor laughed, continuing her talk.

"A cute demon. Anyways, he sounds like he was a pretty good guy. A strong, charismatic, trustworthy leader, something we don't have much of right now"

She stared at it a moment longer, then scoffed. 

"But who knows? Maybe he was just the best at making speeches."

I frowned at the inscription.

Why does it say endures though? Doesn't say lives. Doesn't say rules. Just… endures. What could he possibly have endured?

I touched the rusted edge of the pedestal and looked away.

⸻

We wandered past the central area.

The buildings shifted again—less ruin, more mystery.

Here, the walls were smoother. Almost seamless. Structures merged together in strange ways—angular hallways, rounded domes, a courtyard with five separate walkways all leading inward toward a sunken, glass-floored center.

Until we reached the largest of them all.

It rose twenty stories, maybe more in the past—most of the upper floors collapsed inward. But the base still held. Its face was smooth metal, half-covered in ash and vines. No windows. No open doors.

"What's this?"I asked, quietly.

She didn't answer. Just placed her palm against the wall.

"Well, it's pretty sturdy."

I blinked. 

"That doesn't mean much."

She nodded, eyes sharp. 

"Well it does, whole outer frame is sturdy. Whatever this was, it was important. Protected."

"Any way in?"

She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she circled the side of the building, bootsteps crunching over broken stone and glass. I followed.

Eventually, we came to what might've once been a loading dock. Or an entry bay. Or… something.

Most of it had collapsed—but part of the ground had caved in entirely, revealing a sloped metal corridor stretching downward into shadow. The edges were lined with handholds. A dark set of stairs began just past the rubble.

Plor stood at the edge of it, arms crossed.

"Well." She said, voice almost a whisper.

"That looks promising."

It looks like a mouth waiting to swallow us.

I stared into the black and felt a familiar unease creep into my spine.

"What do you think's down there?"

Plor didn't answer.

She just smiled.

Not her usual grin.

Something smaller.

Sharper.

"I have no idea."