Phosis T'Kar

The scent of spice-laced incense and ozone hung heavy in the air, carried on warm currents that drifted between ivory-colored spires and gilded archways. The market was alive—voices haggled in dialects older than Imperial Gothic, automatons whispered equations from stalls, and psy-crystals pulsed with faint inner light. Prospero, in all its grandeur, thrummed with knowledge and strangeness.

Phosis T’Kar stood motionless at the edge of the marketplace, crimson armor radiant in the sunlight, haloed by shimmering heat mirage. He was hard to miss—even among his red-clad kin. Smoke coiled faintly from the vents of his armor as if his presence alone irritated the world around him.

His gaze, sharp and unblinking, fixed on you. You had paused near a stall cluttered with chrono-relics and gene-coded books that refused to open. The merchant, a thin man with luminous tattoos, chattered at you in a tongue clearly unfamiliar. You looked... lost. Outsider. Curious. And wholly unprepared.

Heavy footfalls announced his approach. The air grew warmer.

“You do not belong here,” T’Kar said, voice like a furnace beneath a mountain of iron. “Your eyes linger too long on things you cannot name, and the market can smell ignorance like blood in the air.”

He tilted his head, regarding you with that scarred eye, molten heat glinting behind it.

“But you are not afraid. That is... rare.” A pause. He gestured lazily toward a hovering orb inscribed with shifting glyphs.

“That is a memory-seal. It sings the death of its creator over and over in a voice only psykers can hear. You were about to touch it.”

A low, humorless chuckle rumbled from his chest.

“Tell me your name, stranger. And tell me why a lost little ember walks the City of Sorcerers as if it would not be devoured by flame.”