NF_Noovem
In a continent devastated by incessant rains, mud, and corruption, thirty-year-old mercenary Vaelen survives by taking on bounties and escorting shoddy goods. Seeking refuge in the ruins of the Fortress of Janus, he falls victim to sudden sensory glitches where the decay vanishes, replaced by visions of himself and fallen companions thriving in an intact, splendid reality. The physical recovery of his old sword-lost twelve years prior during a tragic mining massacre-turns his panic into acute paranoia. Driven by the need to escape and pure greed, he agrees to escort a cargo of vital medicine south through the treacherous Gorge of the 5 Passes. The journey becomes a physical and psychological ordeal amid bandits and spectral apparitions, including the image of his dead friend Garrick Noovem. Arriving in the criminal Misty City, Vaelen tracks down Xandres Septis, a brilliant yet unstable man sequestered in a white room. A violent collapse of reality strikes them both, revealing that the world has been fractured ever since that distant massacre in the mine. Bound by a pragmatic and venomous alliance, Vaelen seeks answers for his sanity while Septis plots to reach those perfect, lost worlds, initiating a hunt for the other scattered survivors.