The Hidden Hybrid’s Redemption
"My wolf can’t smell the clockwork anymore. He smells the old blood of the mountain. We are entering the territory of the first-generation outcasts."
A low, guttural chanting began to echo off the dark, glassy walls of the cavern, vibrating through the soles of our boots. From the shadows of the obsidian pillars, dozens of hulking silhouettes emerged. These were the Basalt Outcasts. Their skin was a cracked, grey patchwork of calcified stone and dark, thick veins that glowed with a faint, volcanic orange. They did not carry refined iron or brass; they wielded massive, jagged slabs of raw obsidian, their eyes burning with a wild, lawless hunger as they looked at the silver-mesh armor of our v