The air atop the Aether Spires didn't smell of rain or wind; it smelled of ozone and ancient electricity. Elias Thorne adjusted the brass dials on his mechanical gauntlet, his breath hitching in the thin, freezing atmosphere. Below him, the world was a patchwork of gray stone and dying forests, but up here, the sky was a violent, electric indigo.
"It isn't coming, Elias," his companion, Kaelen, muttered, leaning against a jagged rock. "The Raptors haven't been seen in three generations. We're hunting ghosts with expensive toys."
Elias didn't turn. He kept his eyes fixed on a swirling vortex of clouds a mile above them. "The sensors don't lie, Kael. The mana pressure in this valley just spiked to levels I haven't seen since the Great Drought. Something is waking up."
Suddenly, the silence was shattered. It wasn't a scream or a roar, but a sound like a thousand silver harps being struck at once. The clouds above them tore open, and a streak of brilliant, metallic light descended.
It was the Aether-Raptor.
Its wingspan was easily twenty feet across, covered in feathers that looked like polished mercury. As it banked over the ridge, a single feather—heavy and glowing with a soft violet hue—detached from its wing and began to drift toward the chasm floor.
"There," Elias whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs. "The cure for the Blight. If we lose that feather to the Vanguard, the forest dies. If we catch it... we might just save everything."
But as he reached for his grappling gear, a low hum vibrated through the mountain. From the shadows of the opposite peak, three black, steam-powered airships began to rise. The Iron Vanguard had been waiting.