Pain came first, followed by a sudden cold.
Vale's eyes slowly blinked open, his vision swimming in a haze of dull yellow light. The world felt… wrong. The ground beneath him was not earth, not stone—it was iron. Cold and groaning under his weight as he shifted, the ground vibrated with a low hum, steady and mechanical.
He sat up with effort. Every muscle ached like he'd been trampled. The left side of his face throbbed, and a bruise was swelling under his eye. He touched it gingerly and hissed. A pair of heavy bracelets hung on his wrists, odd engravings carved around them that lit up as he tried to summon any of his Artifacts.
"Some form of suppression bracelets..." he realised.
