Cossack recruits
Kiev - January 15, 2593
The swapped offering
The Fractal Forest south of Kiev stirs with an ancient hunger, its tendrils coiling beneath the loamy earth. Yelena, handpicked by her community, bears the heavy mantle of sacrifice. Her three-year-old child is the chosen offering to the Forest—a tribute to appease its alien and unknowable will.
Yelena’s closest confidant, Anastasia, a shaman whose tattoos ripple with the whispers of the Primer, cannot bear to see innocence consumed. In the dead of night, Anastasia enacts a desperate ploy: she swaps the child with another—a slight, nameless infant plucked from an uncaring world. On the day of the offer, they are accompanied by the Cossack Scout Sasha Volkov.
The Forest parts its soil with organic grace, revealing a pulsing, veined maw—a muscle sack quivering to accept its prize. The infant, unaware of its fate, is placed within. With a slow, consuming motion, the sack seals shut. Silence falls. The Forest, sated, will provide once more.
A stranger recruiter
Returning to Kiev by boat, the trio’s minds are restless, their shared guilt mixing with the rhythmic lapping of water against the hull. Among the passengers is Isolde Pax, an Anabaptist clad in battle-worn steel and an undisclosed injury. She reveals her purpose: recruiting mercenaries for the Protectorate, a mission to fortify their tenuous hold in Pollen.
Another traveler steps forward—Sokolov, an Apocalyptic trader of Bion, his sly grin promising bargains that bite as much as they bless. He shares his plans to liquidate his stock in Kiev and vanish southwest to Nikopol.
Isolde’s stern resolve clashes with the Cossack’s wild pride, each testing the other’s steel with reluctant respect. But it is the quiet influence of Anastasia and the sharp wit of Sasha that shift the tide. Isolde, impressed, forgoes the political quagmire of negotiating with Kiev’s Chronicler overlord. The Cossacks pledge their aid.
:format(webp)/f/150329/1170x3000/c1699c5efc/chroniclers-surveillance.jpeg)