Name: Oryx Prime: Resurrection Protocol
Author: Royal

The Pit seen from the grated catwalk: a conveyor dragging a heap of dark shapes toward a vast furnace mouth, a cracked green console on the rail, buzzsaw drones on their tracks and molten slag churning in the crucible below — T1 · The Foundry

The Iron Gut

On maps it's a waste reclamation complex. Down here they call it the Iron Gut: where bodies go when they're no longer profitable, and old machines come to be stripped, ground, and reborn as parts.

If you can't work, you are fuel.

If you can't pay, you are parts.

If you can't obey, you are ash.

You were meant to be one more thing the furnace consumed. Instead, something buried in your blood woke up. To climb out, you'll trust a saint with bloody hands, a snake who turns resentment into strategy, and a thief who slips through impossible cracks.

You don't just read the Anomaly. You are the Anomaly.

Trajectory 01 · Playable

To Rise

Chapters 1–3 as a 16-bit side-scroller. Wake on the heap, climb out of the Pit and walk into the Slag Pit. The text box tells it in the book’s own words; you play the moments that matter.

Play To Rise →

Keyboard or touch · sound starts off

What the Gut whispers

The beltNobody comes back from the Pit. The ones who say they did all mention the same man: one eye the colour of cold iron, the other one whirring.
Union SquareRag-shacks stacked up the inside of a dead cooling tower. If you feel watched, look up at the catwalks. Someone always is.
Gorgon's barA refuge for the broken, drinks for anyone who can pay. Never ask what's kept in the cellar.
The clinic rumourThe workers whisper about a Miracle in a patched white coat whose hands glow gold when she works.

Chapter 1

To Rise

The Pit, the Foundry

Heat is the first thing you remember.

Not your name. Not your past. Just heat—indifferent, industrial, and hungry.

It licks at your skin from below, rising in waves that don’t care whether they’re burning trash or flesh. It seethes from beneath you, searing through flesh and bone. Your back is pressed against a mound of bodies and scrap, slick with grease and dried blood. Metal grinds far below, a slow, chewing thunder. You drag air into your lungs.

It tastes like ash, hot metal, cleaning acid, and a chemical bite that makes your eyes water the instant you try to open them.

You do anyway.

The world explodes in orange.

Ahead, a vast furnace throat yawns open like a god made of fire. A jagged conveyor belt drags you and a heap of ‘biological waste’ toward that glow, inch by groaning inch. Sparks leap with each convulsion of the chain.

The Pit around you is a metal canyon: walls of scorched chute plating, rusted gantries overhead, cables hanging like nooses. The air itself trembles with the roar of incinerators.

You shouldn’t be here.

A brand burns on your forearm—angry and fresh. Jagged lines form a sigil you don’t recognize, raw against blistered skin. Your body feels wrong. As if your bones were taken apart and reassembled by someone who had a diagram but no respect.

Your hand twitches.

Then claws.

You are alive.
You are not supposed to be.

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T1 · Foundry upper · inside the old cooling tower

Union Square

“Union Square. The city’s throat. Everything the upper tiers don’t want comes through here first.”
Cassius · Chapter 2

Rain hisses down through the tower’s open throat and mixes with the steam rising from ruptured pipes. Every surface trembles faintly with the heartbeat of the mega-furnaces below.

Electric banners still cycle slogans from a long-forgotten productivity campaign. Someone has painted over one of them in crude red strokes.

Holds: A few thousand, never the same faces
Air: Ozone, sweat, cheap synth-liquor
Overhead: A latticework ceiling, smokestacks beyond
Way up: The central elevator shaft

T1 · Union Square · the far edge of the square

Doc Stitch’s Clinic

“I’m Doc Stitch. Remember that when you inevitably get shot later.”
Doc Stitch · Chapter 2

Look for the flickering red cross made of old welding torches. The front is a crate wall; the back room is cramped, full of improvised med gear and salvaged Purist tech he definitely shouldn’t have.

It smells like sterile alcohol fighting a losing war against blood and mold.

Treats: Anyone who pays
Kit: Salvaged Purist tech
Trouble: Syndicate slicers with a silver fang on their jackets

T1 · Union Square · ground level, and below

Gorgon’s Bar

Gorgon runs it: a massive cybernetic warlord in plate armor ripped off a tank hull, with a voice like grinding gears.

A rusted service ramp behind the bar runs down into the heat. Pipes drip overhead, each drop sizzling when it hits the heated metal floor. At the bottom waits a thick, dented steel door. Steam curls at the bottom of it like breath.

Owner: Gorgon
Serves: Workers, gangers, the broken
Below: Door sealed

T1 · Foundry mid · down the rusted stairwell

The Slag Pit

“The Slag Pit is carved into a collapsed refinery basin—a crater of twisted steel and scorched stone where old machinery once lived.”
Chapter 3

Now it is an arena, lit by molten drip-lines glowing orange beneath metal grates. Crowds cluster along welded balconies and broken catwalks: workers in burned overalls, gangers with tattooed knuckles.

The air is a mix of sweat, dying neon, hot metal, and the electric crackle of barely stable volatile weapons.

Crowd: Workers, gangers, Syndicate money
Reigning: Razor-Tooth, teeth gleaming with chrome
Floor: Grates over molten drip-lines

T1 · Foundry mid · behind the red warning lights

The Processing Wing

“Rows of vats churn with pink-grey slurry. The liquid bubbles and roils, thick enough that you can’t see the bottom.”
Chapter 5

Three hundred feet of cold metal in every direction. Conveyor belts clatter endlessly, carrying sealed containers toward loading bays where workers stack them onto freight carts without looking at the labels.

Oversight drones drift overhead, scanning ID tags and body temperatures. Red lights blink across their hulls. Watching. Recording. Reporting.

Makes: Nutrient paste for the city’s rations
Shifts: Grey-skinned, coughing, never stopping
At the back: Sublevel access. Restricted.

T1 · above the latticework ceiling

Smokestack Way

“…the towering smokestacks of Smokestack Way—vast ribs of steel leading toward the Foundry’s industrial heart.”
Chapter 5

From Union Square you only ever see them through the metal latticework ceiling. Steam geysers erupt in intervals, releasing chemical fog into the tower interior like ritual breath.

Carries: The Foundry’s smoke, up toward Sector-7
Air: Sulfur, chemical fog, hot metal
Tops out: At the tower’s circle of sickly sky

Sector 14

The Foundry, Sector 14. Past the factory gates there is no pretence of order left.

Factory workers in revolt. Overseers dragged from their posts, machinery sabotaged, and then turned around: the works themselves have become the weapons.

The Foundry feeds the city. Control it, control everything.

Playable · in the works

Mini-game coming soon

A playable level for Sector 14 is being built. It will open here.

What the works say

The gatesPurist enforcers hold the factory gates.
The floorsWorkers fight from the production floors.
What they havePipes and anger, and the machinery.

T1 · Sector 14 · the way in

The East Gate

“The gate is a slagging mess.”
Chapter 32

The east gate of the works. What is left of the barricades lies shredded in front of it.

The factory gates are where the lines are drawn in Sector 14. Whoever holds them holds the way in.

State: A slagging mess
Barricades: Shredded
Beyond: The production floors

A Foundry production floor with nobody on it: a slag ladle rigged on a crane arm, a row of hydraulic presses, conveyor belts tipped over into barricades, furnace mouths glowing through the smoke — T1 · The Production FloorsScan · the floor

T1 · Sector 14 · the works

The Production Floors

“The machinery itself has become weapons—molten slag catapults, hydraulic press traps, conveyor belt barricades.”
Chapter 32

Workers fight from the production floors, with what the floors are made of.

A ladle of molten slag is a catapult now. A hydraulic press is a trap. A conveyor belt, tipped on its side, is a wall.

Catapults: Molten slag
Traps: Hydraulic presses
Barricades: Conveyor belts
Order: No pretense of it

An old foundry control room: banks of consoles with dead screens, a map of factory layouts under a work lamp, a wide pane looking over the glowing factory floor, two figures on guard at the door seen from behind — T1 · The Control RoomScan · the control room

T1 · Sector 14 · deeper in

The Control Room

“The door is guarded. Two workers with improvised weapons—rebar clubs, welding torches jury-rigged into flamethrowers.”
Chapter 32

An old foundry control room, deeper in the works.

Inside, a tactical map: factory layouts, patrol routes, supply caches. Somebody is running a war from here.

Door: Guarded
Guards: Workers, improvised weapons
On the map: Layouts, routes, caches
Was: A foundry control room

The Codex

Every face the book puts in front of you has a file here, filed in the district where you meet it. Each one is branded shut. Answer what only a reader would know to burn it open.

0 of 75 recovered

0 of 9 districts cleared

One question a file. Type the answer. Close is good enough.
Two misses and the slate tells you which chapter to reread. Three and a Purist trace locks you out for 20 seconds.
These are this district’s files. Recover half of what is showing and more of them open.

A hooded figure seen from behind on a rain-slick Sector-7 street, the Spine rising through the smog — T2 · Sector-7

Iron Dragons sigil: crimson serpents coiled round a cog

The Neon Levels

A neon chemical storm that mistakes motion for progress. Megablocks claw up through the smog, walkways hang like veins, and Sector-7 runs on rain.

The neon hides the blood. Guild towers sell the city its future by the hour, and every street stall is a front for something. Down here the city is vertical hunger, and every lens on every tower is hungry for a face.

The city doesn’t acknowledge you. It swallows you.

Trajectory 02 · Playable

The Guild Vault

Chapters 15–18 as a 16-bit side-scroller: Velvet Alley, the job, the rooftops of Sector-7 and the vault beneath them. The text box tells it in the book’s own words; you play the moments that matter.

Play The Guild Vault →

Keyboard or touch · sound starts off

Street talk

The countSomebody with a cracked visor counts them for you. Six drones overhead. Three Guild, three Syndicate. Two illegal modules.
The girl with the deviceOne sleeve torn off, a dozen stolen tools on her belt, and she’s the only reason half the street cams aren’t screaming your face to every Syndicate node in ten blocks.
Dragon streetsWhen the balconies fly red serpents, you’ve crossed into Iron Dragon ground. What they own, they brand with a crimson coil.
The deserterSome soldiers leave their order. One didn’t just leave. She burned her colours off.

Chapter 15

The Edge of Neon

The foot of the stairs, Sector-7

Rain needles the metal stairwell as you descend from the access platform—a steady, cold rhythm tapping against steel. Sector-7 rises around you slowly, floor by floor, like the skeleton of a god built from chrome, debt, and electric lies.

Down here, the city is vertical hunger.

Steel towers claw upward through the smog, wrapped in miles of glitching holo-ads that flicker between propaganda and vice. Walkways hang suspended like veins, swaying slightly in the storm. Drones float by on cracked stabilizers, their lights dragging ghost shadows across the wet ground.

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A condemned grated walkway above a channel of dark coolant sludge, neon from the street grates far above fading to a murky green — UG · The Canalworks

The Canalworks

A labyrinth of colossal wastewater arteries: massive pipes, coolant rivers, and echoing concrete channels carved long before the city forgot why it was built.

Under Sector-7's grates, the runoff of three districts meets and mutates. The neon above fades to a murky, poisonous green, and the air is a wet metallic chill thick with algae spores.

The Canalworks distort sound, turning every footstep into a phantom.

Playable · in the works

Mini-game coming soon

A playable level for the Canalworks is being built. It will open here.

What the water carries

The grateA stencil on the maintenance door: CANALWORKS—LEVEL 3 AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Somebody wants you to go swimming. Somebody else wants you running.
The bottom of the bottomIf Neon-Cross is where people drown in choices, this is where they drown for real.
The turbinesSomewhere below, turbines churn sludge into the filtering tanks that feed half of Sector-7.
Stitched lookoutsThe Iron Dragons run gene-modded scouts in the lower canals. Body-stitched. Cheap, unstable, fast. Each one carries the crimson coil burned into its skin.

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Royal

Humanity. Technology. The choices that remain.

Royal writes brutal, immersive sci-fi from the bottom of the city up: stories about humanity and technology, difficult choices, and the connections people make in unforgiving worlds. Resurrection Protocol is Royal's debut novel and Book One of the Oryx Prime series.

The foot of a wet metal stairwell in Sector-7 at night: grated steps coming down from a platform into a narrow street, towers hung with glitching holo-ad panels, walkways strung between them, two small figures under umbrellas in the green haze — T2 · The Foot of the StairsScan · the stairwell

T2 · Sector-7 · below the access platform

The Foot of the Stairs

“Steel towers claw upward through the smog, wrapped in miles of glitching holo-ads that flicker between propaganda and vice. Walkways hang suspended like veins, swaying slightly in the storm.”
Chapter 15

Rain needles the metal stairwell all the way down from the access platform, a steady, cold rhythm on steel. Sector-7 rises around you floor by floor.

The furnace stink is gone. Down here it is ozone, coolant vapour, street food sizzling on open coils and wet ferrocrete. Cleaner, but cruel in its own way.

Air: Ozone, coolant, stimulant haze
Overhead: A suspended roadway: bikes, hover-skiffs
Crowd: Workers, mercs, scavengers
Light: Holo-signs, half of them corrupted

A rooftop ledge in Sector-7 in the rain: fat service pipes, ladders and vent stacks on a narrow roof, the drop beside it falling away to streams of traffic lights far below, megablocks and walkways fading into green smog — T2 · The RooftopsScan · the ledge

T2 · Sector-7 · six storeys over the traffic

The Rooftops

“Ladders slick with rain. Service pipes vibrating with power. Narrow ledges where one misstep drops you six stories into traffic streams below.”
Chapter 17

Up here Sector-7’s architecture becomes a skeletal tangle. The city wasn’t designed for this: for anyone to scale its bones.

Megablocks rise all around like monuments to ambition, and the traffic threads between the towers far below. The rain makes every surface treacherous.

Footing: Rain-slick ladders, narrow ledges
Drop: Six storeys, into traffic
Watch for: Security drones, motion sensors
Patrols: None. Purists don’t look up

The Sector-7 skybridge in a storm: a long span of steel trusses and cracked plating between two megablock towers, red emergency panels glowing along its rails, cables whipping in the wind, the city glowing green through the cloud far below — T2 · The SkybridgeScan · the span

T2 · Sector-7 · between two megablocks

The Skybridge

“Rain lashes sideways across the open span, blown by winds funneled between two titanic megablock towers.”
Chapter 20

Three hundred metres of open air between one condemned tower and another: steel bones, cracked plating, and scattered light panels flickering red on the emergency grid.

It is old infrastructure, barely designed for foot traffic. The wind screams between the towers and the rain hammers the plating in sheets.

Span: Three hundred metres
Underfoot: Steel and corrosion
Light: Red, from the emergency grid
Weather: A storm, most nights

T2 · Sector-7 · under the walkways

The Underwalk

“This place is a funeral pyre painted neon.”
Viper · Chapter 22

A narrow underwalk lit by flickering signage and open fire barrels. Smoke reddens the air, and music leaks through broken speakers.

A mural is sprayed across one support pillar in luminescent scarlet: an angel with its wings torn off. Further in, a row of vendors sells knockoff cybernetics, stim vials and memory chips, and a small shrine is set into the wall with candles lit beneath it.

Light: Signage and fire barrels
On sale: Knockoff cybernetics, stim vials
Banners: Red serpents, scorched by old firefights
Left at the shrine: Flowers made of wiring

A grated maintenance platform at the mouth of a tunnel under a flickering sign, railings around a deep chasm where steam vents send white plumes up from the dark lower levels of the Canalworks — UG · The Level 3 GrateScan · the platform

UG · Canalworks · the way down

The Level 3 Grate

“You reach a grated platform overlooking the lower levels. Steam vents spit white plumes into the chasm below.”
Chapter 22

A maintenance tunnel yawns open under a flickering sign. Past it the city narrows into a throat of steel and shadows.

From the platform a staircase drops into a world of iron breath and hydraulic pulse. Down below, past the grate, shadows move.

Sign: Level 3 · authorised personnel only
Underfoot: Grating, and a long drop
Below: Steam, and moving shadows
Way on: The staircase down

A colossal wastewater channel in the Canalworks: a rusted walkway with broken railings above a river of green coolant, huge pipes along the walls, stripes of red and blue neon falling through grates in the ceiling — UG · The ArteriesScan · the channel

UG · Canalworks · the main channels

The Arteries

“Rusted railings cling to the edges of walkways that should’ve been condemned a century ago.”
Chapter 22

A maze of colossal water conduits and rusted recycling tubing. The tunnels curve, the walls narrow, the ceilings drop.

Neon flickers through the grates overhead and slices the dark into shifting stripes of red and blue. Somewhere ahead a dull clang echoes like muffled gunfire, and no sound down here comes back the way it left.

Air: Coolant, rust, a sweet chemical sting
Light: Murky green, striped red and blue
Walkways: A century past condemned
Sound: Not to be trusted

Seen from a grated walkway above: great turbines churning dark sludge in a flooded chamber of the Canalworks, filtering tanks and pipes behind them, green light on wet steel — UG · The TurbinesScan · the turbine hall

UG · Canalworks · somewhere below

The Turbines

“Somewhere below, turbines churn sludge into the filtering tanks that feed half of Sector-7.”
Chapter 22

On the walkways the turbines are a sound before they are anything else: a distant mechanical groan rolling through the tunnel, a low hum rising behind the walls.

Like machinery waking up. Whatever the canals carry down, this is where it ends.

Heard: Long before they are seen
Feeds: The filtering tanks
Supplies: Half of Sector-7
Sound: A groan, then a hum

A vast round cistern in the Canalworks seen from its maintenance ring: a narrow bridge crossing black water streaked with white foam, rusted railings, the far wall lost in the dark — UG · The CisternScan · the ring

UG · Canalworks · the deep end

The Cistern

“The water here is black, churning, and frothing with white foam.”
Chapter 23

A precarious maintenance ring looks out over a massive cistern. The structure creaks.

Sometimes the churning stops, and the water goes perfectly, terrifyingly still. Then there is only the sound of it lapping.

Footing: A maintenance ring, a bridge
Water: Black, foaming
When it goes still: Leave
Sound: Water lapping, nothing else

Red Velvet Valley

Red light, velvet, and beautiful lies. Pleasure is currency and secrets are weapons.

Safe on the surface, deadly underneath. Behind the Velvet Crown's doors, deals are made in rooms that don't appear on any floor plan. Everything up here has a price. So does the truth.

Velvet Alley doesn’t lure people. It tests them.

Playable · in the works

Mini-game coming soon

A playable level for Red Velvet Valley is being built. It will open here.

Whispers in the red

The checkpointTwo enforcers with chrome jaw plating behind mirrored visors. Nobody stops you. But everyone watches.
Splice boothsMechanics whose hands have been replaced with precision claws, clicking quietly as they advertise under-the-table augmentations.
The ledger doorAt the end of the alley, a stylized ledger symbol glows on a reinforced door. Not seductive. Not flashy. Just authoritative. People walk through it and come out different.
The mirror“That’s not a ledger. It’s a mirror. Held up to people who’d rather die than look at themselves.”

Chapter 16

Red Velvet Alley

Velvet Alley, Red Velvet Valley

The world erupts into color and sin.

Crimson lanterns hang from cables sagging under rainwater. Steam unfurls from vents like slow, breathing creatures. Holo-girls flicker in half-resolved loops—smiles glitching, legs cutting out, eyes turning static white.

Nobody stops you.

But everyone watches.

Because people like you don’t walk into Velvet Alley by accident.

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Out now

Book One

Resurrection Protocol

You wake on a conveyor of corpses, with no name, no memory, and a brand burning on your arm, sliding toward an open furnace. What are you? And why won't you stay dead?

Formats: Kindle · Kindle Unlimited · Paperback
Paperback ISBN: 979-8-234-14183-5
Genre: Cyberpunk · Dark fantasy

Buy on Amazon ↗Read Chapter 1 →

Prefer a bookstore or library? Ask them to order ISBN 979-8-234-14183-5.

T3 · Red Velvet Valley · the way in

Velvet Alley

“Crimson lanterns hang from cables sagging under rainwater. Steam unfurls from vents like slow, breathing creatures.”
Chapter 16

The light turns from cold blues and corporate whites to a deep crimson that stains the fog. The air gets heavier: perfume, alcohol, ozone, and the metallic tang of credits changing hands too fast.

Holo-girls flicker in half-resolved loops. Dealers, brokers and dream peddlers work in a gutter glow, and the ground vibrates with a bass from deeper inside that is closer to a heartbeat than to music.

Light: Crimson lanterns on sagging cables
Underfoot: A pulse, like a heartbeat
Trade: Dealers, brokers, dream peddlers
At the entrance: Two enforcers, mirrored visors

A row of makeshift booths in Velvet Alley: mechanics seen from behind at cluttered benches, thin metal claws where their hands should be, parts and tools hanging under red light — T3 · The Splice BoothsScan · the booths

T3 · Red Velvet Valley · along the alley

The Splice Booths

“Splice mechanics sit in makeshift booths, their hands replaced with precision claws that click quietly as they advertise under-the-table augmentations.”
Chapter 16

Makeshift booths, and the quiet click of claws.

Augmentation off the books is one more thing Velvet Alley sells in the open.

Work: Under-the-table augmentations
Hands: Precision claws
Sound: A quiet clicking
Booths: Makeshift

The end of Velvet Alley: a heavy plated door set in a plain wall, one softly glowing gold sigil of a ledger on it, the alley in red haze and lantern light beside it — T3 · The Ledger DoorScan · the door

T3 · Red Velvet Valley · where the alley ends

The Ledger Door

“Ahead, a sigil appears—a stylized ledger symbol etched into a reinforced door. It glows softly, out of sync with the rest of the alley’s garish light.”
Chapter 16

The alley narrows near its end and squeezes the sound into a throbbing tunnel of haze. Then the door.

Not seductive. Not flashy. Just authoritative. When it opens it slides inward with a soft hiss; when it shuts, it is with a heavy magnetic thud.

Mark: A ledger, glowing softly
Build: Reinforced, plated
Opens: Inward, with a hiss
Shuts: With a magnetic thud

A long room in warm, even light: a long black obsidian table down the middle, tall silent server pillars lining both walls, two masked guards standing far off at the end — T3 · The Obsidian TableScan · the room

T3 · Red Velvet Valley · behind the ledger door

The Obsidian Table

“Warm light washes over the room, soft but calculated, illuminating a long obsidian table and walls lined with silent server pillars.”
Chapter 16

Behind the door the alley is gone. The air smells faintly of ozone and cold metal: expensive tech, sterilised to perfection.

Two guards flank the room in smooth chrome masks. The whole space feels calibrated to make refusal inefficient.

Walls: Silent server pillars
Air: Ozone and cold metal
Light: Warm. Calculated
Feels: Private. Intentional

The Zenith

All glass and sermon, where purity is law and doubt is treason.

Too much light. White marble, gold trim, gilded spires, and streets that have never visibly known blood. Checkpoints at every approach. They don't shoot first up here. They disappear you.

When the Zenith wants something below, it sends an Archon.

Playable · in the works

Mini-game coming soon

A playable level for the Zenith is being built. It will open here.

Overheard at the checkpoint

The Archon's championWhite-gold plate that writes and rewrites its own scripture. When he raises his hand, the light itself becomes a spear.
Field-scriptThe flowing, mathematically precise language of the Purist elite. Each character a compressed equation of force and faith.
The fieldBullets curve away. Explosions fold inward and cease to exist. Whatever an Archon carries reaches inside you and presses down, like a thumb on a candle flame.
The girl with silver in herSome things don't change, no matter what the city does to you. Readers of the fourth act will know what colour.

Chapter 20

Skybridge

The Skybridge, Sector-7 · the Zenith comes down

Rain lashes sideways across the open span, blown by winds funneled between two titanic megablock towers. The Sector-7 skybridge stretches beneath your boots — steel bones, cracked plating, scattered light panels flickering red from the emergency grid collapse. Three hundred meters of open air between one condemned tower and another, with nothing below but the churning gut of a district tearing itself apart.

Then the pressure hits.

It comes from everywhere and nowhere — an impossible internal gravity, as if the air itself has decided to become denser. Your ears pop. Your vision sharpens against your will. The hum behind your ribs — the one that’s been growing louder since the Foundry, the one that saved your life in the Foreman’s chamber and guided you through the Vault — goes silent.

Not quiet. Silent. As if a hand just pressed over its mouth.

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Book Two

Dawnfinder

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T4 · The Zenith · an address in the Zenith

District 3

“It’s sparse. Clean. A single window overlooking the Zenith’s gardens.”
Chapter 33

The Zenith is light. Too much of it: white marble, gold trim, and architecture that pretends the city below doesn’t exist.

District 3 is an address up here: a high-rise apartment, too clean and too expensive, with one window over gardens kept perfect under an artificial sun.

Light: Artificial sunlight
Stone: White marble, gold trim
Gardens: Perfect
The city below: Not acknowledged

The golden gates of the Palace of the Angelic Guard standing open between white marble pillars, amber light spilling out, a line of servants in white bowing in the distance — T4 · The Palace GatesScan · the gates

T4 · The Zenith · the Palace of the Angelic Guard

The Palace Gates

“The massive golden gates of the Palace of the Angelic Guard slide open silently, their movement so smooth it seems almost organic.”
Chapter 52

No soldiers pointing weapons. No defensive emplacements humming to life. The gates simply open.

A line of servants in pristine white livery bows as one, with the eerie precision of people who have practised the gesture ten thousand times. None of them makes eye contact.

Gates: Gold, massive, silent
Light: Amber
Staff: Pristine white livery
Feels: Too clean

The Palace courtyard: glowing trees in violet, gold and silver light around a marble fountain, long tables set with crystal and gold, a string quartet small in the distance — T4 · The CourtyardScan · the courtyard

T4 · The Zenith · inside the Palace

The Courtyard

“Bioluminescent trees from off-world colonies cast a soft, dreamlike glow over marble fountains that sing with circulating water.”
Chapter 52

Less a military fortress than a temple dedicated to beauty itself.

The light shifts through soft violets into warm golds into cool silvers. A string quartet plays beside a fountain, on real instruments, and long tables are set with crystal and gold.

Trees: Bioluminescent, from off-world
Music: A string quartet, live
Tables: Crystal, gold, platinum-edged plates
Bread: Still steaming

A plain stone study lined floor to ceiling with old books, a bare dark-wood desk with a datapad and a cup on it, and a tall wall of glass looking down on a smog-covered city under purple cloud — T4 · The StudyScan · the study

T4 · The Zenith · inside the Palace

The Study

“The walls are lined with books. Real books, physical books, their spines cracked with age and use.”
Chapter 52

It looks like a monk’s cell that has expanded into a library. No golden statues. No tapestries.

A desk of dark wood sits near the centre of the room, bare except for a single datapad and a cup of cold tea. One pane of reinforced glass runs from floor to ceiling and looks out over the smog-choked expanse of Oryx Prime.

Books: Real ones, spines cracked
Some of them: In scripts that curl and twist
Desk: Dark wood, worn smooth
View: The whole city. A wound

The Siphon Spire

The tallest structure in the Zenith District. From the top you can see the entire city spread out below: all its rust and neon, all its desperation and ambition.

At ground level it never quite sleeps. Even at midnight workers move in and out of the lobby, enforcers walk the perimeter, and security drones hold their orbit overhead.

The Siphon Spire rises into the night like a blade aimed at heaven.

Playable · in the works

Mini-game coming soon

A playable level for the Siphon Spire is being built. It will open here.

What the Spire shows

SecuritySubstantial.
The lobbyBeautiful in the way weapons are beautiful.
MidnightThe city’s metabolism slows but never stops.

The Siphon Spire at midnight seen from the shadow of a side street: the white gothic tower with its gold needle across a marble plaza under purple cloud, small patrols on the perimeter, drones circling — T4 · Across the StreetScan · the approach

T4 · The Siphon Spire · outside the perimeter

Across the Street

“Syndicate enforcers patrol the perimeter. Security drones orbit overhead.”
Chapter 38

The Spire is best watched from the shadows across the street.

At midnight the city’s metabolism slows but never stops. Even now, workers move in and out of the lobby.

Perimeter: Syndicate enforcers
Overhead: Security drones, in orbit
Hour: Midnight
Cover: Shadow

A lobby of polished marble under gothic vaults in white and gold, holographic displays glowing blue between the columns, a security desk with small guards at the far end — T4 · The LobbyScan · the lobby

T4 · The Siphon Spire · the ground floor

The Lobby

“The Spire’s ground floor is beautiful in the way weapons are beautiful.”
Chapter 38

Clean. Efficient. Designed to intimidate.

Marble floors and vaulted ceilings, and holographic displays running Syndicate corporate propaganda: the empire of commerce presenting itself as civilisation.

Floor: Marble
Ceiling: Vaulted
Displays: Corporate propaganda
Desk: Enforcers, always

The inside of an elevator car in white marble and gold, its doors shut, a row of small indicator lamps glowing above them — T4 · The ElevatorScan · the shaft

T4 · The Siphon Spire · the way up

The Elevator

“The hum of machinery. The soft glow of floor numbers ticking upward.”
Chapter 38

The elevator climbs, and for a while that is all that happens.

Fifteen floors. Twenty. It is not a large car, and the ride is long enough to notice.

Sound: A hum
Light: The floor numbers
Room: Tight, for a team

A security floor lit in harsh crimson emergency light: rows of server racks, monitoring stations with dark screens, thick reinforced pillars, weapon racks on one wall and a turret on its ceiling track — T4 · The Security HubScan · the hub

T4 · The Siphon Spire · security

The Security Hub

“Rows of server racks. Monitoring stations. Reinforced pillars. Emergency lighting casting everything in harsh crimson.”
Chapter 38

The floor that watches all the others.

Rifles wait in weapon racks, and automated turrets ride tracks along the ceiling. Everything in the room is lit the colour of an alarm.

Racks: Servers, row on row
Stations: Monitoring
Ceiling: Turrets on tracks
Light: Emergency crimson

A silent corridor of black stone carved with unreadable symbols, sealed cell doors on both sides, pale fungus light along the ceiling and long blade scrapes in the floor — −127 · Deep Iron

Deep Iron

The city's deepest sanctioned prison. A hundred and twenty-seven floors, numbered down into the negatives.

Floor 0 is the civilized face: terminals, procedure, a warden's office with real wood on the desk. Every floor below gets colder and quieter and older, until the walls turn to black stone carved with symbols nobody can read. The prison predates the city. It was built over and repurposed without understanding.

Floor −127 is the official bottom. The long-timers say it isn't the real one.

Down here, only silence defeats it.

Playable · in the works

Mini-game coming soon

A playable level for Deep Iron is being built. It will open here.

Scratched into the stone

The AdministratorHuman once, they say. A bureaucrat who volunteered for augmentation, so the prison would be run by something that couldn't be bribed, threatened, or corrupted. They made him a system.
The CommandmentsTwenty-three rules, hardcoded into whatever’s left of his brain. He literally cannot break them. The numbers you hear him cite jump around. Ask yourself what’s in the gaps.
Twenty-ThreeThe last Commandment supersedes all the others in an emergency. The long-timers don’t say what it wakes up. They only say: be quiet.
The hunterFour arms. Blades for hands. Legs that bend backward. Its eyes never worked, so it listens instead: heartbeats, breathing, footsteps. Any noise at all becomes location data.

Things in the dark

Every level of Oryx Prime hides something that never makes the census. These camera frames are all that survived. Nobody who got a clearer look filed a report.

Every one of them has a file in the Codex, filed where the book first shows it. Answer what only a reader would know and the haze burns off.

An elevator car hanging on its cables in a deep shaft: warm white-gold steel on one side, pale blue black stone on the other, a doorway into a stone corridor at the bottom — −127 · The DescentScan · the shaft

−127 · Deep Iron · the elevator

The Descent

“The air grows colder. The light shifts from white-gold to pale blue to a wavelength that isn’t quite light at all.”
Chapter 41

The elevator goes down, and the numbers on the display climb into negatives.

At the bottom the doors open onto a corridor carved from black stone. The guards’ armour is different down here: darker, heavier, built for threats you don’t want to imagine.

Display: −10. −20. −50.
Stops at: −127
Light: White-gold, then pale blue
Air: Colder with every floor

A prison corridor cut from rough black stone, heavy dark-alloy cell doors down both walls, pale green fungus glowing in veins across the ceiling — −127 · The Cell BlockScan · the block

−127 · Deep Iron · the cell block

The Cell Block

“Pale green bioluminescence crawling across the ceiling like veins of sickness in old flesh.”
Chapter 42

The walls are black stone. Not the industrial ferrocrete of the Foundry, not the polished marble of the Zenith: rough, and cold in a way that settles in your bones.

Cells line both walls. Each is small, maybe eight feet by ten, with a metal shelf bolted to the wall for a bed and a door of dark alloy that hums faintly when you get close.

Walls: Black stone
A cell: Eight feet by ten
Door: Dark alloy, humming
Sound: Water dripping, far away

A vast open atrium of black stone with levels of cell doors opening onto it, iron walkways and stairs between them, pale green fungus light on the walls, the floor bare and empty — −127 · The AtriumScan · the atrium

−127 · Deep Iron · the centre

The Atrium

“The exercise period—two hours in a common area where prisoners shuffle in circles and avoid each other’s eyes.”
Chapter 43

The central atrium: the open space where all the cell blocks converge.

The routine of the place runs around it. The same shuffling circles every day, a guard at the entrance with a shock stick crackling. Everyone is measuring. Everyone is waiting.

Where: Where the cell blocks converge
Exercise: Two hours, in circles
Eyes: Kept down
At the entrance: A guard, a shock stick

A corridor of black stone whose walls and ceiling lean at slightly wrong angles, strange symbols of triangles, broken circles and spirals carved into the blocks, pale fungus glowing along the ceiling — −127 · The CorridorsScan · the corridor

−127 · Deep Iron · between the blocks

The Corridors

“The symbols carved into the walls at irregular intervals aren’t any language you recognize.”
Chapter 42

Corridors carved from the same black stone as the cells. No decoration. No light except the pale glow of fungi growing in cracks along the ceiling.

The architecture is wrong. The angles don’t quite match modern construction standards, and the air smells like rust, old water, and something deeper.

Stone: Black, cold
Angles: Slightly off
Light: Fungus, pale
Air: Rust and old water

The Iron Gut

To Rise

What the Gut whispers

Union Square

Doc Stitch’s Clinic

Gorgon’s Bar

The Slag Pit

The Processing Wing

Smokestack Way

Sector 14

Mini-game coming soon

What the works say

The East Gate

The Production Floors

The Control Room

The Neon Levels

The Guild Vault

Street talk

The Canalworks

Mini-game coming soon

What the water carries

Join the crew

Royal

The Foot of the Stairs

The Rooftops

The Skybridge

The Underwalk

The Level 3 Grate

The Arteries

The Turbines

The Cistern

Red Velvet Valley

Mini-game coming soon

Whispers in the red

Resurrection Protocol

Velvet Alley

The Splice Booths

The Ledger Door

The Obsidian Table

The Zenith

Mini-game coming soon

Overheard at the checkpoint

Dawnfinder

District 3

The Palace Gates

The Courtyard

The Study

The Siphon Spire

Mini-game coming soon

What the Spire shows

Across the Street

The Lobby

The Elevator

The Security Hub

Deep Iron

Mini-game coming soon

Scratched into the stone

Things in the dark

The Descent

The Cell Block

The Atrium

The Corridors

Something is broadcasting from under the city