Mastema: Soul of Lerna

The story follows Vaelysra Veratrum, a young Pale Witch surviving on the fringes of the polluted Striga Swamp, grappling with the irreparable grief of her mother's recent death. In a world marked by stigma, the historical guilt of a cult that spawned the monstrous Pale Empress, and the constant threat of deadly creatures, Vaelysra's existence is reduced to a solitary struggle for survival and the fulfillment of one last sacred purpose: to bring her mother's remains to the District cemetery for their final rest. Everything changes when Vaelysra crosses paths with Rhys, a chimera soldier from Lerna who has been disconnected from his hive mind. Devoid of collective instincts and deemed defective, Rhys is an empty shell, a physical reflection of nothingness who doesn't know what it means to feel. However, through an unlikely cohabitation in the isolated tower, Vaelysra not only turns the chimera into her sentinel, but, unintentionally, begins to give it conceptual, philosophical, and emotional tools.