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 ^{(it's beta!)}

The bud opened. Glowing from within, thin purple leaves spread outwards from the core. A Dusk moth fluttered down and landed on the vision. Without anything apparently changing, the flower was gone. Nothing remained. No trace of petal or stem, or even the light shed or the scent released with its blossoming. It never existed.

The girl stood up. The visions were becoming more real.

She turns and surveys her surroundings. City. Grey. Lifeless. Nothing grows here anymore. From where she stood on top of the tall ventilation spire she could survey the whole of City. Grey steel stretches away into the distance; domed roofs and high suspended walkways, neon signs of shops and bars, the occasional ventilation tower. All dominated by the huge dark bulk of Skysreach Asylum. Central to City, a huge construction, tubes running from the greyed steel flanks carrying energy to the rest of City. If she wasn’t careful she’d end up there.

The enforcers were after her. Ever since the vision of a sky unclouded. She doesn’t understand why they are after her; the sky over City will never be clear, for hundreds of years waste has been ejected into the atmosphere, turning the sky black forever.

Too much time has been spent up here. Time to move.

Slipping down the sloped side of the tower she hears a clatter of iron shod boots above. Enforcers. She reaches the edge of the slope and drops down to the cold steel of a walkway. The enforcers had not noticed her; if they had she would be hearing the clanging of their armoured soles as they bore down on her. Better to keep moving though. Turning on her heel she strode quickly along the walkway.

Far below, on another dull steel walkway, the second enforcer group began to pursue.

A bright blue neon light declared the entrance to the market district. Here the walkways broadened out to give room for the stalls and traders from all areas of City, all cultures colliding in a spectacular vibrant environment of coloured drapes, strange stall owners and even stranger wares. Thousands of people wandered through, buying what they needed to survive, and occasionally falling prey to the scammers dealing faulty technology or food well past it’s ‘eat by’ date. The girl however has been here many, many times and knows where she is going. A noise distracts her. She turns around and sees a stall; it is covered in a dull orange drape hung loosely over the rusted steel bars roughly welded together underneath. There is nothing to distinguish it from the other stalls around it, except the long slender snake twisting itself around the structure, which starts to collapse… no, this is another vision. She shakes her head to clear her mind. It doesn’t help. Now green grass is growing under her feet and brightly coloured weeds are entangling the stalls, the people are devolving, becoming monstrous primal beings. As she looks at her hands fur starts growing…

A man in a stained leather jacket knocks her flying. The vision is gone.

She leaps to her feet and moves on. Pushing through the crowd she finally manages to find the place, a thin silver walkway heading off from the main one between two huge apartment scrapers. Carefully treading along the shining metal she eventually comes to an old ventilation duct. Reaching up, pulling her into the cold steel tube. She finds the keypad bolted to the floor. Her hand moving in a blur she punches the code in quickly. There is a swishing noise outside; a pair of doors has opened in the sheer steel wall of one apartment building. She makes her way inside and they swing shut behind her.

Far below, the enforcers watch with interest.

Inside the building is a shop. A large heavy set man sits behind the pig iron counter. The walls and ceiling are covered in wooden racks, and these are all full of weapons. All hand to hand though. No firearms. This was a shop for the honourable. There were a few other customers in the shop; the various revolutionary factions in City needed to get weapons from somewhere. She closed her large eyes for a second and then opened them. Directly before her stood a single upright sword stand, a long thin blade held as if suspended in the air, pointing to the sky. The handle was long, wrapped in heavy red leather, indented slightly for better grip; the guard was of the Shingen style, circular and small, designed to protect the knuckles. The blade was fully three feet long, thin, forged of multi-folded silver, with a diamond hardened edge. The blade seemed to shimmer in the air. Perfect.

Four hours later, she was on the run again leaping from walkway to walkway rushing towards the undercity, stolen sword slung over her shoulders in its deep red leather sheath. The owner and his guards were pursuing but she soon lost them in the maze of steel.

Rounding a corner she heard a faint trickle of water, looking for the source she eventually looks up…

The clouds were breaking, huge drops of rain falling from the flat dark sky, impacting on the steel buildings and running down in long broad streams. A flash of lightning illuminated the scene, buildings stood out in stark contrast to the dark sky above and there, on the lip of a ventilation spire, a massive form silhouetted against the maelstrom. The enforcers were here.

Heavy footfalls resounded around the walkway, reverberating through the steel, echoing and growing in volume as the sound travelled through the metal structures around. Two bright green eyes appeared in the dark at the end of the walkway.

RUN!

She moved then, turning she leapt from the edge of the walkway, a straight drop of 20 feet to the next cold steel walkway beneath. She rolled as she landed, came up running, sprinting down the walkway she leapt into the nearest vent tube. After around 15 minutes she fell from the exit, and into the undercity. The rain had yet to reach this far down and even when it did it would be reduced to a trickle. The maze of cold steel walkways above saw to that.

The dank wet corridors of the undercity were dark, filled with the wretched and the homeless; the dregs of the ‘civilisation’ above. As she crept down the first corridor, a hunched creature in tattered white robes scuttled from a fetid crawl-space in the wall and hefted a rusty iron axe in challenge. Its sibilant hiss whispered throughout the dark as it swept the massive weapon round in a huge disembowelling stroke. The girl ducked quickly, dropping the sword, still sheathed, into her right hand then drawing it with her left. Catching the creature on the backswing, the sword sliced cleanly through the robes and flesh. Red blood spread across the white robes and the man died with little more than a sigh.

As she moved quickly through the corridors, the air began to chill. In the steam leaking from a cracked vent ahead, strange blued shapes seemed to rise up and dissipate. Something cracked underfoot. Looking down, she found she was wading through a fen, dark water swirled around her thighs and her feet sank into thick peaty mud. Dark knotted trees appeared around her, enclosing her. From the darkness came a deep mournful moan that sounded like the world’s breath. A tree off to the left groaned as if in torment. Looking over at it she saw the flash of green behind. Two baleful eyes reflected to infinity through the water. Drawing her sword she stood firmly in the centre of the ring of trees as, with an almighty splash and smashing of boughs, the enforcer lunged forward. A huge arm roped with muscle swung through the air. Leaping she twisted in the air, placing one foot on the enforcer’s huge shoulder she swung up and over the arm. As she landed behind the grotesque creature, she spun, slicing deep into its iron clad flank, the blade cleaved the metal and flesh with ease and the huge monster dropped to one knee, blood running from the wound in a great slick and spreading through the water. Another enforcer appeared from the shadows, wading heavily forward it stopped and watched the others life slipping away…

The girl exploded from the crimson water behind the dieing beast. Took one step up it’s back, leapt and swept her blade across the second creature’s thick neck. The head clanged on the iron floor, a thick wash of crimson spreading across the rusted surface. The girl looked down on the decapitated body of the man, and fell to her knees as she realised the strength of the visions.

One enforcer stepped from the shadows and hit her sharply on the back of her head.

She wakes in the Asylum…

Looks up…

The sky stretches forever.