The desert wind howled like a dying beast, and Kael pressed himself against the sandstone wall, his breath shallow. The merchant's vault loomed ahead, guarded by two hulking **Emberforged** automatons—their brass limbs glowing with stolen starfire. *Idiots*, he thought. They'd left the ventilation shaft unwarded. Kael scaled the wall, his fingers finding cracks in the ancient stone. The Emberforge was a graveyard of dead stars, its people scavenging scraps of celestial power to fuel their machines. But tonight, he'd heard whispers of a relic in this vault—a shard bright enough to buy him a month's meals. He slid through the shaft, dropping silently into the vault. The air reeked of sulfur and greed. Shelves lined the walls, cluttered with star-metal trinkets and rusted weapons. And there, on a pedestal… *There.* The Ember was smaller than he'd imagined, no larger than a coin, but its light pulsed like a heartbeat. Blue-white veins spiderwebbed across its surface, and when he reached for it, the heat seared his glove. "Come on," he muttered, wrapping it in a cloth. The moment it touched his palm, pain lanced up his arm. He gasped—the cloth burned away, and the Ember fused to his skin, its light bleeding into his veins. *What in the Void—?* A roar shook the vault. The automatons' eyes flickered from orange to sickly green. They turned toward him, joints screeching. *Rotspawn.* Kael bolted. He'd heard tales of the Rot—a corruption that twisted metal and flesh alike—but he'd never seen it up close. The automatons lurched after him, their limbs elongating into grotesque claws.