Outskirts of Zul'vharra City - Southern Gate
The air hummed with the rhythmic clatter of machinery, a symphony of gears, steam vents, and distant voices merging into the lifeblood of the city.
This was Aethergate Station, a sprawling transportation hub where air trams glided effortlessly along suspended rails, ferrying passengers across the grand metropolis.
Overhead, massive zeppelins drifted through the smog-laced sky, their hulls adorned with glowing sigils and intricate brasswork.
Two boys worked tirelessly beneath the towering arches of the station.
Theo, a wiry 16-year-old with soot-streaked cheeks, crouched beside the main platform gears, tightening a bolt with a wrench almost too big for his hands.
His uniform, a patched-up vest and rolled-up sleeves, was stained with oil and dust, a testament to the long hours spent maintaining the station's complex network of mechanical veins.
The station never slept, and neither did those who kept it running.
Emil, slightly older and sharper-eyed, stood on a narrow catwalk just above, balancing precariously as he adjusted the copper piping feeding the tram's steam core. "Oi, Theo! If you don't fix that latch, we'll have another delay, and the boss'll have our heads," he called down, his voice barely audible over the hiss of pressurized steam.
Passengers bustled around them, noblemen in tailored coats and brass-tipped canes, factory workers in soot-covered garb, and scholars clutching stacks of parchment, all moving with purpose through the iron-and-glass labyrinth of the station.
From the upper walkways, a group of enforcers in black coats surveyed the crowd, their sharp eyes ensuring order amidst the chaos.
Theo wiped the sweat from his brow, giving the final bolt a firm twist before snapping his wrench shut with a satisfied clang.
He sprang to his feet, rolling the stiffness from his shoulders. "Done! Should hold up until the next maintenance cycle."
Above them, a tram rumbled across the rails, its undercarriage pulsing with the eerie glow of an alchemical engine. The scent of charged ether hung in the air, mingling with the ever-present tang of oil and steam.
Emil smirked from his perch, arms draped lazily over the railing. "That's another job well done. Now, let's just hope nothing explodes this time."
Below, the golden filigree of a flickering sign struggled against the station's haze, its letters pulsing with arcane energy:
"Magical Tramway – Powered by the Arcane & Alchemical Consortium."
The iron heart of Zul'vharra never stopped beating. And neither did the boys who kept it alive.Without stopping to wash the grime from their hands or wipe the oil from their feet, the two boys slipped down a rust-streaked staircase, their movements quick and practiced.
They vanished into the maze of alleys beyond the station, swallowed by the tangled veins of the city's underbelly.
From one street to another, they wove through the warren of narrow paths, making their way to a sprawling, mud-caked farmhouse on the outskirts.
There, they shifted cattle and hauled sacks of feed, their muscles straining under the weight of their labor.
The hours dragged, but when the work was done, they took their pay, small, crumpled coins, barely enough to matter and moved on.And so their day unfolded. One job after another. No breaks. No rest.
Morning bled into night as they trudged from task to task, their pockets never full, their hands never clean.The deeper they moved into the district, the worse the city became.
Unlike the towering elegance of Aethergate Station and the wealth that gleamed in the upper city, the slums of Zul'vharra were a tangled, rotting underbelly where the gears of civilization crushed the poor into dust.
Here, only those remained who had been abandoned by fate, children left behind without a second thought, the elderly discarded like broken tools, the desperate trapped by addiction, and those who had no choice but to endure.
The buildings were haphazard stacks of scavenged metal, warped wood, and crumbling brick, the remnants of a city that had long since forgotten them.
Slums grew in layers, rising upon themselves like tumors, their levels connected by makeshift ladders, rope bridges, and staircases that groaned under the weight of those who dared to climb.
Some lived in the bones of old factories, their homes carved into rusted boiler rooms and forgotten air ducts.
Others found shelter beneath collapsed scaffolding, their lives wedged between decay and survival.
This was Zul'vharra's shadow, the place where the city's forgotten struggled to breathe.
That night, the sky stretched vast and endless, speckled with countless stars, cold, distant, and indifferent to the world below.On a creaking rooftop, the two boys lay side by side, staring up at the cosmic expanse.
The city's glow barely reached this far, allowing the heavens to spill their light unhindered.
Emil, the older of the two, let out a tired sigh. "How much did we make today?"
Theo, his gaze hollow with exhaustion, didn't answer right away. His fingers idly traced the grime on his shirt before he muttered, "Three Paleons. Both of us, combined."
Emil clicked his tongue. "Three?"
Theo exhaled, his voice dull. "After Mad-Eye takes his cut, that's down to two. Take out what we'll spend on food, and we're left with one Paleon and five Cogs."
Cogs, the lowest form of currency, small silver discs worn smooth from countless transactions.
In the slums, they passed from hand to hand like lifeblood, the only thing keeping the desperate afloat.Above them, the stars burned bright.
Below, the city swallowed the weak without a second thought."Huh..." Emil muttered, his voice flat, as he gazed up at the stars.
After a long pause, he added, "Just six more months."
Theo turned his head slightly, confusion flickering in his tired eyes. "Six more months? What do you mean?"
Emil's tone was quieter now, almost calculating. "Six more months of this. We need ten Solari. Just six more months, and we'll have enough to leave."
Theo's brow furrowed. "Why bother? Why work so damn hard? There's still time. Think about it, we could get another job, maybe something better, like at Aethergate Station."
"Zul'vharra is dangerous for people like us. Out here, in the slums, the best you can hope for is to keep all four limbs attached. Just staying alive is a damn victory."
Emil opened his mouth to argue but stopped, as if the words were too familiar, too worn out to matter anymore.
His silence filled the space between them, there was no new response to this same conversation they'd had a hundred times before.
After a long silence, Theo spoke again, his voice thick with exhaustion. "I get it, Emil. I know you've got the blood of nobility running through your veins, even if it dropped you here. But honestly, do you think they'd ever accept you? If you showed up in front of them and said you're proof of their illegal relationship, do you think they'd take you in?"
Then a little furious voice interrupted him and said, "You still think I'm working hard to find two bags of meat to find some love?"
"No, Theo, no. This is not the life I want to live," Emil replied."I want that, just that, when I die, there will be no regret in my eyes and in my heart."
"I want to buy everything, anything in this world. I want to recognize myself in this world, not by my name, but I... want an introduction."
"Ooh, an introduction? Like those who give interviews for jobs?" said Theo, his eyebrows slightly moving with curiosity. "But it's still not the same as telling them your name."
"Aah... you've confused me even more. But just remember, a day will come when the whole world will know my name, no, no, not my name, but know 'me'," said Emil."
But how will they know you without your name?" Theo asked, puzzled.
"Hahaha," Then started to laugh. "You don't even know that? In the slums, there are no names."
"If Gideon hadn't been there and suggested that we should name each other, we wouldn't even have names now."
Emil said while gesturing towards the southern gate of the Zul'vharra city,"Every day, I dream of this gate. What is behind those walls? Are they not people who remain there?"
"Are we not the same as them? But why are their lives so different from ours? Is it because they have parents and we don't?"
"One day, I will buy what the nobles call a... ah, I'm forgetting the word... oh yes, a 'mansion'."
"One day, we will own a mansion, and then we will sleep on solari coins. Not this filthy, dirty ground"The two boys chatted like this the whole night