Story Seed - Edge of Destruction

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Stormlook Holdfast sat staring out at the Eye of Elanehtar, a permanent storm that marked the Fall and the destruction of Cavazel. The stacked block-like buildings, halls, towers, and vaults squatted at the junction of the Ruinscape and the cracked and flooded corpse of the world of before. The view wasn't exactly one that people came for, but I'd grown up here and to me it was home.

Like most holdfasts Stormlook was built like a fortress. It was a heavy fortification, built not against enemy troops, but to fend off the random curses that the Eye occasionally threw off, and the insane remnants of the old gods known as Ravers that existed most commonly in and around the Eye.

Still, Stormlook was my home and I knew its halls and corridors as well as anybody. It helped to be able to make a quick escape when your livelihood depended on cutting purse strings and picking pockets. It wasn't an honest life I know, nor was it particularly glorious, but it was the only way I knew. My father had never come back from the deeps, he was probably dead, and my mother been cursed by the Eye, and thankfully had not survived long. I stole and filched and conned my way through my adolescence and probably would have continued to do so until I was dead if I hadn't stolen the wrong bauble.

Bauble, in hindsight, is a grossly inadequate term. It wasn't just some shiney bit of gaudy jewelry or a simple souvenir. As it turns out cyphers, broken remains of Elanehtar that was, took many forms and to those who have divine potential their minor aura of divinity made them especially attractive. It also turns out that, for some, exposure to certain cyphers can awaken that spark.

I wrapped my cloak around my shoulders a little tighter and looked back at Stormlook one last time. It wasn't home anymore. I wasn't the same person today that I was yesterday. I had a destiny to fulfill, and maybe if I succeeded I could come back here one day, and look out on an ocean unmarred by storm and sorcery.