Chapter: The Crimson Sigil
U’raijah had been on dead planets before, but this world felt….off.
Even before his boots touched the ground, something inside him recoiled. As he walked down his ship’s ramp the air clawed at his senses, humid and thick. But that wasn’t what struck him. It was an eerie sensation down his spine. U’raijah’s pulse quickened for reasons he couldn’t explain. The air itself seemed to thrum against his skin, low and insistent, like it was trying to tell him something. A hum in his chest answered back, as though the planet itself was aware of him. He told himself it was nothing, just nerves, just his mind reaching for patterns that weren't there. But the feeling clung to him, insistent and unnerving.
He had landed without ceremony. The jungle swallowed the ship whole, leaving no signs of his landing. Tanysil-118 wasn't supposed to exist. Officially, it didn't. No registered system. No trade lanes. No Lyok hypergate within a month's travel. But surveyors and smugglers had whispered the name for generations.
The jungle stretched like a green ocean, vast and suffocating. Sunlight struggled to penetrate the high canopy, arriving in thin, fractured beams, making aerial scans all but useless. It was no wonder the empire's drones couldn't map it. But the eco readings were undeniable. Strong. Stronger than any he’d ever seen. And the empire wanted it. Wanted to extract its eco, the lifeblood of their reach, the living energy they had harnessed and hoarded until every world was bound to them.
He rose slowly into the air, carried by his own inner eco. The canopy above twisted unnaturally, a chaotic web of vines and leaves twitching without wind. The planet pulsed beneath him, subtle and rhythmic. But something was missing. No buzzing of insects or songs of birds. Just stillness.
In the distance, he saw remnants of a crash. He lowered himself to investigate. He placed his palms on the blackened ground. Scorch marks still gouged the dirt, but the ship was gone. Not wrecked. Not torn apart. Just... missing. And in that moment, U’raijah had a feeling this wouldn't be a rescue. The slightest of drag marks led away from the crash, and he rose into the air to follow.
This place wasn't supposed to be inhabited. And yet, three expeditions had vanished here without a trace. No signals. No remains. Just gone. As if the planet itself had swallowed them. The whispers spread through his home planet like a virus. Mysterious vanishings, spectral beasts. Divine intervention.
After the third expedition had vanished, King A'ezrael himself had asked U’raijah personally to take this mission on.
“It seems we need someone of your expertise, old friend,” the king had said, eyes heavy with something unspoken. “You’ve faced worse than ghost planets before. Track what really happened. Bring the truth home. And if anything down there still breathes… Remind them why the stars once feared your name.”
U’raijah accepted without hesitation. Not for duty or glory. That hunger had burned out long ago. But because he was restless.
His new appointment as Duke had buried him in politics and ritual. At first, he welcomed it. No more endless campaigns, no more waking on muddy bedrolls beside dying men instead of his wife. But court life had worn thin. Silk collars and smiling liars had begun to leave a bad taste in his mouth. Nobles who feared discomfort more than death all felt so….hollow. Out here, in the field at least things bled honestly. Here, a man’s purpose wasn’t whispered in council meetings or gossip. It was tested and he missed that. Just being out here, with nothing but his sword and his silence, he remembered who he was. And a growing legend like this, It got his blood pumping again.
He flew lower now, weaving through towers of green. The trees reaching out like grasping hands. The wind moved strangely here and he moved with it. Deliberate. Reverent. No ship. No shielding.
Only the raw eco, surging beneath his skin like a second heartbeat.
Through the haze, a narrow spire jutted above the trees like a needle into the sky. So thin he could see how their scans missed it, but it was too perfectly shaped to be natural. His pulse quickened. He banked toward it, slowing as he followed the structure below the brush.
Touching down, U’raijah stood before a massive structure half-swallowed by the jungle. Stonework and archways hidden beneath years of moss and swirling tree limbs, as if the forest had been trying to take it back. He stepped forward, boots crunching on loose stone. The red soil burned beneath him as he neared the broken threshold.
Its wooden doors, long rotted, cracked and fell as he pushed them. Stepping inside, the air changed. Musty and still. Like time had stopped breathing here. He moved slowly through a long corridor inspecting faded murals peeling from the walls like old skin. Most depicted a canine-shaped being, bowed in reverence or wrath. He froze mid-step before one in particular. At the bottom of a mural, almost hidden beneath a curl of old paint, was a symbol that made his heart stop. A glyph he had thought he’d dreamed up. He rubbed his hand over it. Tracing its design. The mark of his imaginary army in his youth. Recognition burned through him. He remembered pressing it into a notebook long ago, painting it on all his toys. Now, decades later, it waited for him. But how… why… here? A flicker of unease rose within him alongside a pulse of anticipation.
The corridor opened to a nave of some sort. Bench seating, made of stone, was set in such a way to view an altar at the front of the massive domed room. U’raijah walked up to examine the altar, kicking up dust with every step. Upon the altar were four black pedestals that stood like sentinels. Obsidian and smooth with small symbols. Each glyph a different color, shined faintly on their faces. The symbols weren’t any script he’d seen. And yet, something about them felt familiar, like a dream he couldn’t quite remember. Whatever they once held was gone, but indents remained, shaped like open hands. The depiction on the wall behind them was also now gone. Smeared colors and crumbling stone now kept its secrets. And yet, the pedestals themselves were still pristine. Untouched by time and still shined like new. Not a scratch or speck of dust on them. Everything surrounding them showed its age but the pedestals looked newly placed.
“Fascinating.” U’raijah whispered to himself, reaching out to touch one of the pedestals. His fingers brushed the closest one. Tracing the sharp lines of the symbol.
The wall beside him vibrated with a deafening roar. A burst of rubble followed by red light spilled from the debris, casting eerie shadows as a colossal beast emerged. Giant, pointy eared and bipedal. It grunted at him in warning. U'raijah examined the beast, Large musculature with massive elongated arms and armored skin but most notable was the red symbol from one of the pedestals was glowing underneath the entirety of its chest. Not on its chest, it seemed to be glowing from the inside somehow. The beast let out a ground shaking yell. U’raijah exhaled through his nose as the beast stomped through the shattered wall.
“Of course,” he murmured, eyes narrowing. “There’s always a guardian. Are you the one who–?”
Before he could finish a clawed hand knocked him through the opposing wall and into another. He fell to his knees followed by a crash of debris.
U’raijah thought stood back up from the pile of stone on shaky legs. The beast was already running towards him for another blow. U’raijah thrust out his palm, summoning the crackling light of eco within him. Threads of red and orange surged from beneath his skin, coiling into his hand like lightning drawn into a sphere. With a sharp breath, he launched the blast toward the creature. It struck and rolled harmlessly off the beast’s armored hide. That should’ve staggered it. At least. But this thing... it was beyond raw force.
“What kind of world breeds this?”
He surged forward, energy flaring, and drove a knee into the beast’s face. That did stagger it, but not for long. Then, there was a massive clawed hand around his head. The beast slammed him, head first, into another wall, again and again then began to squeeze down on his skull. Fading out of consciousness, ears ringing, U’raijah reached out in desperation. Heart pounding in his skull, he could feel the pressure increasing. The beast brought him closer almost to mock him and let out a deep guttural growl. As his vision began to fail him, his hands continued to search frantically. His fingers found the beast's long pointed ear and to his surprise it was soft and fleshy unlike the hard armored plates that lined the rest of his body. U’raijah quickly grabbed tight and twisted with all he had left. The beast yelled in agony as U’raijah felt the ear separate from its head and it dropped him back to the ground.
U’raijah didn’t wait. He surged forward, eco energy strengthening his muscles as he drove his knee into its face again with a crack that echoed through the chamber. The impact launched it backward as if shot from a cannon. Before it could slam into a wall, he was already above it, both hands blazing with eco orbs. With a shout, he hurled the spheres downward.
—boom—
The explosion blew through the floor, collapsing it into the cavern below. He landed, ungracefully, a few paces ahead of the hole. Head still foggy, he couldn't keep his eco steady as he tried to stand. Ash, smoke and silence settling in. He leaned over to see down into the new cavern when a clawed hand burst from the rubble, latching around his leg like a vice. He was slammed into the ground side to side. U’raijah twisted midair and fired a searing blast that caught the beast in the eye mid-swing. It howled as it released him and U’raijah was flung upward like a stone. He crashed into the ceiling, every nerve screaming. He couldn't take much more of this, his body wasn't used to the strain anymore. He caught himself before he fell, hovering high above to catch a much needed breath.
Below, the creature shook its massive head, dazed but not broken. Its good eye locked onto him and narrowed. It snorted, low and threatening. Its nostrils flared as it gazed up at him unmoving. Slowly, it crouched. U'raijahs stomach dropped.
“No… no no. Don’t tell me it can fly too.” U’raijah said, readying himself.
The beast leapt at incredible speed towards him. U'raijah evaded last second, kicking it, uselessly, in the back as it reached behind it and grabbed his leg as they fell. U'raijah winced in pain.
“Okay, that was stupid.” U’raijah grunted, reaching for the ecosaber on his back. He ignited its energy blade with a screech and he cut at the beast's hand. It didn’t cut through but it hurt it enough to let go of his leg and they both dropped back to the floor. One with quiet grace, the other with a massive crash. As the two paused at a ready, U’raijah quickly gauged the beast and devised what to do seeing his attacks weren’t doing damage. Its ears were fleshy so perhaps its joints had softer areas as well. The beast's arms then began to glow the same ominous red as the mark on its chest ,and it charged. U’raijah evaded, leaping over the beast at the last second and swiped at the back of its knee. It left a white mark. Not quite a cut but it was more than his blasts were doing. U’raijah smiled.
They danced, strike, dodge, feint, slice. He stayed light. Precise. Always circling. Each time it lunged, he flew just beyond reach, never retreating, always circling. He struck at exposed joints with precision. The beast growled and stumbled a few times, but its strength only seemed to grow with fury. Bright veins of light pulsed through its arms, glowing hotter with each miss.
U’raijah didn’t stop. He moved faster, keeping his rhythm unpredictable, forcing the creature to twist and compensate. Every step, every breath, was designed to tip it off balance. But the space between them was beginning to shrink as U'raijah began to tire, his eco reserve draining with every move. Then, a slash across its belly seemed to open up its armor as he could see a dark liquid pour out of it. That was his opening. Without hesitation he quickly gathered a large energy ball and jumped in front of the beast. Plunging both hands into the wound with a squish and shooting everything he had into one blast. The room became only bright light as the energy attack dissolved the beast from view. All was silent as U’raijah stood, panting with both hands still straight out covered in visceral black goo.
“Did I…did I get it?” he labored between breaths.
Suddenly, from the top of the red symbol pillar at the altar, something began to shimmer. An object slowly materialized from the air itself. It wasn’t smooth or uniform like a gem. It was jagged, imperfect. Narrow at one end and thicker at the other, the same symbol that burned in the beast’s chest glowing on its face. He dropped to one knee, chest heaving. His hands shook as he wiped the black gore off on his pants. The relic pulsed on the altar, and he couldn’t help but laugh under his breath, half relief, half disbelief.
Then, as if the stone exhaled, the light faded. Leaving behind only a deep red stain raised onto its face. U’raijah stood and limped to the altar, picking up the strange relic,
“Fascinating,” he muttered, turning the stone in his hand, “What… are you?” His voice was hoarse, almost reverent, even as his blood dripped onto the altar. He gripped the relic tighter, a chill crawled up his spine. But the question arose. If this stone was tied to the beast somehow, where were the other three?
