[Location: Ashmarch Pit – Outer Perimeter Encampment]
The blink of teleport ended. Raven stood at the outer wall of Ashmarch Pit.
A storm of fine red ash drifted across the crater's rim. Velkarin flags fluttered in dry, erratic gusts—still proud, still colorless. The sky churned above, its clouds streaked by red mana flowing skyward from the cracked dome at the crater's center. The Pit.
Ashmarch Pit was once a Velkarin Axis testing ground for loyalty-program for their soldiers using the sophihsticated steampunk technology the Velkarin Axis has. It had been sealed decades ago after a classified failure protocol. Until now, it had remained silent.
Outside the dome, Velkarin Axis soldiers gathered at the briefing post, receiving orders beneath flickering command glyphs. But the true quest-giver wasn't there. She waited back at the commando tent—a black-sheathed enclosure humming with relay pings and filtered radio noise.
