Coreforged [An Arcanepunk Progression Fantasy]

The core is the root of life. Crystal is the source of power. Remy is seventeen, an orphan in a mining town. He's worked eight years as a blaster and he's still alive. The town calls him the Deathless Kid. He wants money. He wants to be strong. Then he wants to take one person with him and get out. In this world, magic and machinery spring from the same source. Crystal lights the city-states and drives the old iron limbs the miners wear. Under the church's golden domes every head is bowed, and the Goddess's Wonders lie scattered across the world, each one a law unto itself. But this world has always been eating its people. Pollution gnaws at the flesh. Grace is branded into the skin. Even memories can be pulled out through the back of the neck and added to someone else's collection. As long as the core in your chest is still warm, you can get by. Remy can see the light that flows inside crystal. He's learning to build guns and repair power armor, and to turn the crystal scraps he collects into forged crystal, one piece at a time. He thinks the day he leaves is finally close. But there is a gaze that has never left him, not once, since the first moment he existed. When the core burns, the armor will take shape.