Echo

Chapter 1: Echo The scent of scorched metal and stale coffee was Elias Thorne's constant companion, a thick, cloying blanket. It clung to his threadbare coat and the bristly beard that obscured his jawline. The aroma of ozone and perfectly-tuned mechanisms was once his perfume, a sign of groundbreaking innovation. Now, it was the echo of a grand failure. Dust motes danced in the lone shaft of sunlight piercing the grimy window of his workshop. The shaft illuminated a chaotic landscape of overturned schematics, dismantled contraptions, and towering stacks of ancient, leather-bound tomes.He ran a calloused hand over the smooth, cold surface of a polished brass sphere, its intricate engravings glinting dully. This was all that remained of the Lumen Engine. The device had been promised to revolutionize energy, and banish darkness forever. Instead, it had banished him. The memory, sharp and unforgiving, still clawed at his throat – the searing flash of green light, the deafening roar, the screams… and then, the silence, broken only by the whispers of "madman" and "reckless fool." The loss of the city's power grid was one thing; the loss of public trust, and the funding that had once flowed freely, was another. But the deepest scar remained unspoken, etched into the lines around his eyes – the silent disapproval of those who had believed in him, the quiet despair of those who had been hurt.For five years, he’d lived in self-imposed exile, the world forgetting Elias Thorne, the wunderkind, and remembering only Elias Thorne, the catastrophe. But within the walls of his cluttered sanctuary, a new obsession had taken root, slowly, steadily, consuming him. It began with fragments, whispers in forgotten histories, arcane symbols carved into unearthed artefacts. The Aetheria. A mythical, limitless energy source, woven into the fabric of the universe itself, said to be capable of reshaping reality. To most, it was a fairytale, a delusion. To Elias, it was redemption. He traced the lines of an obscure diagram in a brittle papyrus scroll, his magnifying glass catching the faint, shimmering ink. It showed a concentric series of rings, spiralling inwards, culminating in a single, glowing point. Every late night, every failed experiment, every solitary meal, was dedicated to understanding the Aetheria. He was no longer trying to harness a known force; he was chasing a legend.The breakthrough, when it came, was unassuming. Tucked within the mildewed pages of his great-grandfather’s travelogue, a forgotten journal Elias had stumbled upon while searching for a specific historical account of localized magnetic anomalies, was a crude sketch. It depicted a towering, jagged peak, its summit shrouded in swirling clouds, and at its base, a perfectly circular, water-filled basin. Beneath the sketch, in his ancestor's scrawling hand, was a single, faded word: Veridian. Veridian. It wasn’t a name he recognized, not from any cartographical survey or geological report. But something in the drawing, the starkness of the landscape, the unnatural symmetry of the basin, resonated with the intricate diagrams of the Aetheria he’d been studying. It was too precise to be mere coincidence. This wasn't just a place; it was a key.A tremor ran through Elias, a spark of the old fire that had once fuelled his greatest creations. He moved with a renewed urgency, the five years of stagnant grief falling away like dead leaves. He pulled out a worn satchel, tossing in a compass, a finely crafted sextant, dried rations, and a meticulously drawn, if incomplete, map. He carefully wrapped the brass sphere – his last connection to the Lumen Engine – in a cloth, placing it within the satchel alongside his ancestor's journal. It was a pilgrimage, a last desperate gamble. If he failed again… the thought was a silent, unshakeable weight. But failure was no longer an option. Not when the echo in the well, the whisper of Veridian, was finally calling to him.As he latched the heavy workshop door behind him, the sun was setting, casting long, skeletal shadows across the cobbled alleyway. He clutched the satchel strap, his gaze fixed on the horizon, where the distant, familiar silhouette of the city was beginning to glow with its nightly artificial light. A glint of polished chrome caught his eye from a discarded newspaper lying in the gutter. The headline screamed: "Valerius Tech Unveils 'Arc Reactor' – Promising Clean Energy for a New Era!" Valerius. His rival. The man who had taken his funding, his reputation, and now, seemingly, his very dreams. Elias felt a familiar tightening in his chest, a fleeting bitterness. But it was quickly overshadowed by the surge of determination. Valerius sought to build; Elias sought to discover. And somewhere, out there, Veridian waited. He took a deep breath, the stale city air tasting of dust and distant industry, and stepped out into the encroaching twilight. The journey had begun.