The sun was high in the sky over the desert city of Dessar. While the sand whipped in the air, the city walls and buildings kept the sand from really hindering travel throughout the day. The city sloped up from the lake on the eastern side. The yellow golden horizons were a pleasant sight in tangent with the crystal blue of the lake. Among the red, orange, and yellow draped all around the City of Art, the long, blonde haired Nagy dragged a Lorub corpse to the hunter’s guild.

Her usual long, flowing blonde hair was tied up with an orange cloth that also absorbed the sweat on her forehead. Her typical orange Gi looked freshly made with a sharper shade of orange and a yellow stripe running along the lapel. The blue belt she had around her waist which she had allowed to flow in the wind freely now was tucked in neatly. She now wore boots made out of a fine golden leather with gold-painted metal plating protecting her toes and ankles. Around her left leg, just at the top of her boot, she had tied a swath of fine red cloth that she allowed to flow with the wind.

The long beaked aquatic beast, the Lorub, had smooth, reddish skin, a long beaked head like pelican, with a slim neck that flowed into a fatter dolphin-esque body with fins and a long tail. Nagy had carried it from the southern gate up the hill to the guild house on the mid-western side of town, she pulled open the guild house doors. “Garenhald! I’m back with your bounty!” she called out, trying to sound a little annoyed.

A stout, tan man garbed in red with orange cloths around his head and gold jewelry littered throughout his face and in his hair walked up to Nagy and her Lorub. “Ah, you managed to take down the mother…” he said, impressed as he analyzed the corpse. “You really have a quite the pair of guns on you m’girl,” he laughed, leaning back with his guffaw, the sound echoing from his long ornate beard throughout the hall.

Nagy placed her left arm on her hip and gave him a smirk while rolling her eyes. “I told you if you wanted a job done, I’m the girl for it,” she stated proudly, waving the loose strands of her golden hair back confidently.

“That you did m’girl, and I’m glad to have those Lorubs away from my fish farm. As we agreed upon,” he said with a smile cracking through his black beard. He pulled a pouch from his back belt loop that jingled with Shins.

Nagy accepted it with a wide grin. “Anytime you need a beast hunted, you can count on me to square it down, Garen. Make sure you don’t forget about me,” she said sweetly with a wink, “And don’t forget to tell your friends.”

“I shan’t forget soon m’girl. And that I will,” he said, his smile looking kind and almost fatherly. “Take care though m’girl. Overconfidence has been the ill-fate of many around the Forgotten Kingdom,” he warned.

Nagy turned and began making her way back toward the streets. “Believe me old man, I’m well aware…”

Nagy ran down the roads lined in glowing runes of exoctic colors of green, yellow, red, and orange, listening to the jingling of coin from the pouch of Shins hanging off her belt. She eventually found what she was looking for---a shop with runes glowing in grey and what appeared to be the image of a hammer. This place had obviously been a home during its original design, for it had a nice veranda where the smith had placed his mechanic prosthetics parts. Along with the nice prosthetics display, the couple that owned the smith were very nice and offered a wide range of services.

“Jario! Makvin! I’m back!” she called as she entered through the silken cloth that covered their front door. The smell of smelt metals, smoke, and grease was heavy inside, but luckily they kept it very open air, so it wasn’t so overwhelming. She heard a rustle come from above and around the corner of the entrance. Jario must have been hard at work with something at furnace.

“Ah, the cute lassy is back for a tune up I presume,” a small, tan, bearded man who rounded the corner stated. He lifted up his mask to show a pair of silverish blue eyes. Through all the wrinkles and scars, Jario still had a kind and honest heart, which had been one of Nagy’s favorite parts about this shop.

“Wasn’t my original intent, but that would be nice too. The creature I fought this morning put up quite the fight and I think the synch on my arm was a little off,” she said with a smirk. She walked toward Jario and leaned down to give him a hug. Hugs in this land were seen as a more affectionate deal than where Nagy was from, but Jario was also a foreigner to these lands. It was something they shared.

A taller middle aged woman made her way down the stairs that connected to the entrance. “Oh Nagy, I’m glad you came by to visit sweetheart. I was just preparing some Pracfeas Pie for Jario and me. You’re more than welcome to stay for dinner,” she said with a tender smile. Makvin had been like a mother to her since she arrived in this city. It had been her that Nagy had encountered not long after she rolled up to the city.

“I don’t think I’ll be staying today, Makvin. But I will come by someday soon,” she said, moving over and embracing Makvin in a hug. She always smelled of honey, which Nagy loved, but wondered how she did it. “I was hoping to have the military plate I had removed stripped and turned into an expanding shield. Were you able to get that done Jar?” she asked.

“Aye, I got it done. The work’ll take a bit. And you also wanted that slot opened fur a spitter or sumthin right?” Jario asked. He scratched his head as made his way back to the furnace.

“Yeah, that’s right. I even got paid today, so I’ll be able to get paid off for everything,” she said, lifting her newly acquired purse up.

“Twas never an issue to me, m’dear,” he called from the furnace in the backroom. “But I appreciate it nonetheless,” he said, carrying a thin sliver of metal with some wires hanging out of it. “Head out on the veranda, an’ we’ll get started,” he said, moving past her towards the wide open room full of weapons and armor.

They passed through the armory which had all sorts of ornate armor and weapons on display. They really took the time to make sure everything was in the most aesthetic part of the room with the lighting and surrounding decorations. This was where Jar and Mak did a majority of their business. She knew the prices were good, but people really were in it for the attention to detail they were known for. The ornate glowing runes and inscriptions on the armor glowed a wide array of colors that kept the display room vibrant and appealing. As they passed through the other silk lace that separated the veranda from the armory, Nagy saw her favorite sight since she arrived here. They weren’t towards the top of the city, but right about at the middle, which left what she thought was the most aesthetic view of the lower city, market, and lake.

The lake in the distance was a clear crystal blue and she could see an island off in the distance as well as a tower hovering just nearby it. The locals had called it the Tower of Life, but Nagy didn’t know much more about it other than it was beautiful when the sunset shown from behind it. The shoreline was abundant with ship numenera such as hover ships and rafts around the northern harbor fishing or just sailing around leisurely. Tourists and citizens alike were at the inns closer to the shore, taking in the lakeside scenery as if it were an ocean beach. Who could blame them? It was the most luxurious thing for miles in any direction.

The market was just behind the harbor. It glowed with a mysterious aura. Out of everywhere Nagy had ever visited, Dessar seemed to have the widest array of Numenera she’d ever seen. And it wasn’t just their ability to scavenge the Numenera, but also their understanding of it. The people here, even the merchants, spoke about Numenera in ways she thought only the Aeon Church did. Tents would often be decorated in glowing blue and yellow runes, using sheens of protection to separate the arid temperature of the desert to a cool refreshing controlled temperature. She couldn’t get used to it, but those tents were fascinating.

Low Town was adjacent to the Market and Shoreline. Out of all the places in the city, should would have to say it was the least colorful. But it still was a lot more colorful than a lot of places she’d been. Hunting trips when she was young as well as her adventures in her youth had taught her that colorful towns and cities weren’t all that common. Low Town still had enough, and would often have street art littered all around. She had been told that it was the work of degenerates originally, but became more a staple of living there. So often people would be able to find there way around by just knowing the murals. She liked how even from a fair distance, she could still spy just a few of the murals.

Midtown, where she currently was located, was higher up, because The Great Dune the city was originally built on started to rise towards the end of Low Town. Midtown had been a lot stricter on mural creation in the earlier days, but by no means did that make it less artistic. The tapestries and veils people used on their home for windows, entrances, and decorations all shone with complementing colors that was organized by a community that cared for the aesthetic they gave off. From what Mak had told her, some of the veils were actually just fabric, but a lot them were actually Numenera that acted as a barrier between the outdoor and indoor parts of the buildings. This amazed her, especially at night when they would shimmer with a light glow.

The sun was crawling down to afternoon as Nagy made her way over to the chair that they used for prosthetic operations. It had all sorts of devices protruding from both the chair, and the console that was attached to the back of it. The Numenera in this city was truly astounding and Nagy was pretty sure it was a medical device that Mak used while they were doing procedures. As she laid back in the chair, she gazed out at the sky and began to reminisce in the time she had spent here and how she had found Mak and Jar.

She had rolled up to Dessar early in the morning after almost 5 days of starvation and 2 days of thirst. She could scarcely talk and the guards were arguing with her over the parking of her vehicle. She was almost about to explode on a guard before Mak pulled up next to her. She calmly soothed the situation and paid for a place for her Dunerunner. Once inside the walls, Mak had told Nagy that should could feel her thread dying. To her it was like a 6th sense. She couldn’t sit by and watch and told Nagy to rely on her.

Even through Nagy’s paranoia fueled protest, Makvin had brought her to their home and encouraged her to rest while they fixed her up. She recalled nothing but pain the next two days. She would wake up with fever and hysteric, only to be soothed and lulled back into sleep by Mak. When she finally awoke in a better condition the dawn of the third day, she awoke in Makvin’s lap, her hand on her head, but being cautious of her hair. It was almost as if she sensed her discomfort. After a bit of discussion, Makvin explained that her expertise was medicine and she was of special renown for her ability to understand basic feelings of those she connected with.

Jar’s snapping fingers brought her back. “Ello miss, you there?” he asked with a slight bit of teasing in his voice.

“Y-yeah. Sorry, just got a little lost,” she said nervously. She had daydreamed a little too much while she was in this city. It was probably making her lazy, she would tell herself at night before bed.

“Wouldn’t be a first lassie,” he chuckled at her, grabbing some of the tools he had set on the table. He took her arm placed it in the right side clamp. He looked her in the eye. “May I?” he asked. He always asked, and that’s why she trusted him. He never overstepped his bounds and tried to be a homily, humble man even though he was clearly very talented. She nodded and he fastened her arm in to the clamp until she wasn’t capable of any movement. He unhinged the plating started tooling around with the forearm, loosening the casings, and examining the wiring.

While Jar was busy tinkering in her arm, Nagy leaned her head back to Mak who was pulling out cords from the machine to place on her skin. “Whacha doin?” she asked in a childish tone. She even started kicking her feet in the air carefree to add to the look.

Mak smiled at her as she took two of the wires and attached them via clear tape to her cheeks. “Getting the FBS ready to connect to you dear,” she said in a sweet motherly voice. FBS stood for Full Body Scanner. It was an interesting Numenera that connected lightly to body to pick up on some of the signals via the nervous system. It would then show some of the commands being given and received by the brain on the terminal. “But you already knew that,” she toyed, booping her nose with her finger before going back to her machine.

Nagy laughed. She did know the basics of it, but not so much the specifics. From what she understood, the machine was like a second brain, but couldn’t input commands. She pulled her head back to an upright position and continued to stare out at the Eastern Horizon. She monitored the sky a little and started to do the calculations she was taught in primary schooling. “3 weeks, 3 days, and 16 hours…” she concluded to herself.

“Hm?” Mak responded, still looking at her machine. “Since what dear?” she asked, her head bobbing slightly to the side.

Nagy kept staring out into the sky. “Since I got taken from him… all of them,” she said, her voice cracking with a tinge of pain. “I was angry and tired… all I wanted was revenge… and right as I began to feel better… I was taken from him… Gavin… my family when they needed me most. They needed me to be strong and I…” she continued. She could feel the ducts in her eyes growing heavy as she spoke, but she fought it back.

“Dear… it will all be okay in th-” Mak started

“No it won’t!” she interjected. Her eyes flaming and hair beginning to glow. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I then. It could be days, months, maybe even years… They could be in trouble right now! And all I’ve been doing is sitting around here doing nothing but side work for the Shins, HOPING there is finally a cypher with a far enough range for me to contact them,” she yelled, the tears flowing over her cheeks as her hair began to dim.

“He could be dead or gone… just like her…” she shouted, her voice ugly as tears streamed down her face. “I am strong, and I will keep him safe… even from death if I have to…” she stated, her eyes still burning with a fierce, burning determination.

“Honey, in the end that’s not your decision to make,” Mak said, placing her hand gently on Nagy’s shoulder. “If you could just calm down a little, Jar might be having a little trouble with that strength you have…” she said, a nervous laugh following her words.

Nagy realised that she had been somewhat adjusting the clamp her arm was placed in. “Oh… I’m sorry Jar…” she said, her face somewhat flushing as her eyes returned to their usual shade of light purple.

Jar pulled up his mask. “S’not too much o’ a problem missy, but I did en’ up snippin’ sumthin’ while ya’ were shoutin’. It’ll take a second to get tat and ya mey fee’ sum pain. Not sure really until I can crack ya’ open. Ya’ ready?” he asked with his greased beard outlining a reassuring smile.

Nagy managed to crack a smile herself. “Yeah…” she replied, trying to thank his optimism the best she could. She could at least bare the consequences of her temper tantrum.

As Jar pulled down his mask, he grabbed a new tool and began to toil with the wires mechanics inside her arm. After a while, she began to feel a sharp jolt that coursed through her shoulder; where the flesh met steel. The tingling sensation that followed numbed that area and she tried hard not to advertise her discomfort. She began to count in her head to occupy her mind until the sensations passed while Jar continued to fix her forearm. “Ah, I think I found it,” Jar said reassuringly. They both knew she really disliked these procedures and were always the best at helping her through it. “Just a few more seconds and there we g---” he stated, but was cut off by a sharp jolt that surged passed her shoulder and seemed to strike the very core of her head.

The pain was excruciating. She felt her whole body convulse from the pure pain. Her mouth gaped open to scream, her eyes slammed shut, and she felt a snap of metal beneath her legs. As suddenly as the pain came, it vanished and she was left in the void of endless darkness.

This expanse stretched on for as far as she could see. She could see only herself as she could normally, but was missing her right arm. It was similar to the dreamscape she found herself in after her bout with Conquest, The God. He had taken her arm, her home, and her confidence. She, a renowned fighter, was brought down in an instant and made useless dead weight to her team. The main difference was that this void didn’t seem to bend to her will like the dreamscape did. She spent a solid minute trying to will her arm back, like she did when she fought the Living Nightmare, but to no avail. She almost felt this voidscape was not under her control.

She gave up on her arm. She had a feeling she wouldn’t need it in here anyway. She began to move forward. ‘Might as well see where this goes,’ she thought. As she moved, she felt whisps fly past her, but saw nothing. She froze, nervous of a presence. The whisps grew into a wind that got stronger and stronger until its force spun her around. Behind her, she saw a brilliant light that shone as bright as the sun. She squinted and focused on it and noticed a humanoid silhouette being eclipsed by this brilliant sun.

It seemed to advance toward her as she noticed it. They seemed connected, like one being: this sun and silhouette. As it approached, she felt the sun’s warmth. It radiated and seemed to embrace her like a mother would a child. Nagy could feel the tears inside her well up from the emotions this pulled on. The silhouette turned to her, extended an arm, beckoning her.

Nagy remained still, conflicted. She was in tears and not ready for whatever this thing was making her feel. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t manage words. “M-m-m…” she stuttered. The silhouette retracted its arm then grew, contorting shape from humanoid to a large spire. The sun radiated brighter than ever and the image of the glowing spire seemed to burn its way into her mind. The sun then collapsed inward on the spire instantaneously, the feeling of warmth blasted away by a gust of sheer cold. But in that gust she felt a warm whisp, a remnant of The Sun-Silhouette. It spoke to her one word, a singular, soft request.

Nagy’s eyes snapped open and she was back. Jar and Mak were both standing over her. She felt Mak’s soft hands wiping the sweat off her forehead with a cold rag. Nagy’s robotic arm was finished and out of the clamp now. Jar wore a bit of a concerned face as he looked from her face to the device just behind her. She had been reclined all the way back in the work chair and she could tell that she had been crying from the sore feeling in her eyes. “What… happened?” she started.

“You had a bit of a reaction when Jar reconnected you. You blacked out, and have been sleeping for a few hours,” Mak said, her voice fluttering in relief.

“Tha dev ‘ere said you were doin’ fine, jus’ unconscious. So I closed ya up while ya were out. Ya didn’t do much after ya initially wen’ under. Jus a lil cryin’ ere an there,” Jar reported, sounding cool and casual. “Tha’ bein said, I’ve said it befer’, but damn ya sure ‘ave sum muscle sweetheart. Ya’ darn broke tha leg holsters on meh chair,” he jeered at her.

“How are you feeling though?” Mak intruded, giving Jar a look.

Nagy sat up and stretched a little. “Fine actually. I think the soreness I normally feel in my shoulder is gone already too.” As her legs dangled off the edge of the chair, she turned to Jar, “Oh yeah, and sorry about that…” she said, scratching the back of her head nervously.

“S’no problem, missy. Jus’ weld a few things and give it a smothin an’ it’ll be right back on there,” he said reassuringly.

Nagy nodded. She turned back to look out over the skyline, thinking about what had just happened. They weren’t lying that some time had passed. The evening sun was already heading down, as all the buildings in low and midtown were bathed in the yellowish golden-brown hue of the evening sun. The colors of orange drapes, blue tech, and sparkling green and blue from the coast were so beautiful by contrast.

“Well dear, I just finished up that pie. You’re always welcome to join us,” she said, making her way back into the house and towards the kitchen.

Nagy smiled. “Yeah, that sounds great Mak. I’d love to,” she said. She knew it would help her feel better and that would help both of them after the scare she’d given them. She sighed, pulling her mind back to the vision while she continued to gaze at the scenery. ‘What was tha---’ she began to think until it clicked into her mind. As she gazed over the lake, she saw it again in the distance, the silhouette of the Tower of Life eclipsed by the setting sun. The word of The Sun-Silhouette echoed in her mind: “Come.”