The sky-sea whispers secrets. Boundless azure cradling colossal brass arks, steam-powered cities navigating the currents of aether. Delvin Karx, a disgraced cartographer, finds solace only in the rhythmic chug of his workshop engine, haunted by the ghost lines of maps that once guided these majestic vessels. But when the Zenith, the jewel of the sky-sea, vanishes, suspicion falls upon Delvin’s charts, dragging him from his self-imposed exile.
Coerced aboard the *Hallowstar...
The sky-sea whispers secrets. Boundless azure cradling colossal brass arks, steam-powered cities navigating the currents of aether. Delvin Karx, a disgraced cartographer, finds solace only in the rhythmic chug of his workshop engine, haunted by the ghost lines of maps that once guided these majestic vessels. But when the Zenith, the jewel of the sky-sea, vanishes, suspicion falls upon Delvin’s charts, dragging him from his self-imposed exile.
Coerced aboard the *Hallowstar*, a clunky airship captained by the eccentric Meliora Grint, Delvin is thrust into a desperate search. Meliora, armed with a salvaged gear humming with otherworldly energy, believes the Zenith has transitioned into a parallel reality, a victim of turbulent aetheric anomalies. Her theories, bordering on madness, are humanity’s last hope.
Joined by a stoic engineer, a sharp-tongued navigator with secrets of her own, and an unsettlingly calm doctor, Delvin embarks on a journey beyond the fringes of the known sky-sea. Islands of living metal pulse with an energy that mirrors Delvin’s guilt, and sentient storms mimic the *Hallowstar*’s machinery, whispering of a forgotten civilization that wielded steam not just for propulsion, but to manipulate time itself. Delvin’s once-celebrated maps, imbued with a hidden resonance tied to this lost technology, now feel like a ticking time bomb.
As the *Hallowstar* navigates treacherous aether currents, Delvin’s past unravels, revealing a reckless apprenticeship and a catastrophic experiment that fractured the very fabric of reality. He must confront the truth: his cartographic obsession holds the key to both the Zenith’s disappearance and the sky-sea’s fragile equilibrium. He must choose between preserving the world as he knows it, or unleashing the untamed potential of the forgotten aether, a power that mirrors the turbulent emotions within him.
With the colonies locked in a silent power struggle and a clandestine organization vying for control of time itself, Delvin finds himself caught in a web of deceit, his every move shadowed by hidden agendas and simmering betrayals. The secrets of the sky-sea are deeper than he ever imagined, and the price of uncovering them may be the destruction of everything he holds dear. Can Delvin master the forgotten aether, or will its power consume him, and the sky-sea along with it?
