Private Glaciarch Protocol: The Frostbound Echo.

[Eydis Voska]

Glaciarch Protocol

AUTOMATED BROADCAST:	SOURCE: UNKNOWN. LOCATION: Maldo Kreis - R-16-AA2
SIGNAL STATUS:	STABLE — PARTIAL CORRUPTION DETECTED.
ALERT PACKET: STASIS POD: OCCUPANT: STATUS: CONDITION: SUPPORT PERSONNEL:	1137-A VOSKA-PRIME Data Corrupted AWAKENED (FORCED EXIT FROM STASIS) VITAL / WEAKENED NOT PRESENT
ADDITIONAL PACKET:	CLAN VOSKA POPULATION INDEX: ∼0.06% REMAINS FORGE HAND NETWORK: OFFLINE BLOODLINE CONTINUITY: RITICAL FAILURE VOSKA ENCLAVE: NON-FUNCTIONAL (92% STRUCTURAL LOSS)
GALACTIC ALERT DISPATCH:	TO: ANY MANDALORIAN FREQUENCY TO: OLD REPUBLIC LISTENING POSTS TO: UNKNOWN PARTY — "ARCHIVE NODE 17"
MESSAGE CONTENT:	"FORGE HAS AWAKENED. CLAN LINEAGE NEAR EXTINCTION." REQUESTING: CONTACT. REQUESTING: PURPOSE. REQUESTING: FIRE.

The world was white.
Not the gentle white of snowfall, but the endless, crushing kind — a world carved from ice and winter, where the sun hovered low behind clouds thick as stone. Wind howled across the frozen plains in long, mournful currents, carrying shards of ice that stung like needles against metal.

For as long as history remembered, the planet had known only winter.
Glaciers taller than fortresses split the land into jagged valleys. Frozen seas lay still beneath layers of ancient frost. The air held the bite of iron and the bitter scent of snowstorms that never quite ended.

Yet in the midst of all this cold, a shattered structure clung to the land like the bones of a long-dead beast — the ruined enclave of Clan Voska.

Black stone half-buried in drifts.
Collapsed towers.
Gates broken and warped by centuries of freeze.
Once a proud Mandalorian stronghold, now reduced to a silent relic beneath the weight of time.
Within its ruined heart, something glowed faintly.
A forge — or what remained of one.

The forge should have glowed with orange heat.
The air should have been alive with hammer strikes and metal song.

Instead:
Only a dying blue spark flickered inside the broken furnace.
It sputtered.
Dimmed.
Faded.

Eydis growled under her breath and adjusted the power relays again, frost forming instantly on her gauntlets.
She tried the ignition rune.
Nothing.

She tried again.
And again — the hard, stubborn insistence of a woman who had spent a lifetime shaping metal and flame.
The forge remained cold.
At last she stepped back, her breath fogging in the air, and looked over the ruined chamber. She did not speak, but her stance carried the weight of a clan's extinction and the ache of a forge that refused to wake.
The wind outside moaned through the broken ceiling. Snow drifted in, settling on the cracked anvil beside her.
Still, Eydis knelt again.
She scraped frost from an old heating coil, examined a fractured conduit, then tried rerouting the power flow. Her movements were precise, deliberate — the motions of someone who refuses to surrender, even to time itself.
The forge flickered weakly in response… Remaining weak but active.

She begins her work anew, once more tempted to shape the metals of her craft, thinking of ways to get her clan going once more. Unwilling and unable to give up, she works the night away, only stopping to return to the vault from which she awoke to collect the last vestiges of her clan's sigal and any rations that had been frozen within it.
Nights fall.
Days rise.
Hope freezes and dies.

Beginning to lose herself in her work, even though she knows no one will come for her, as she is forgotten.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Maldo Kreis, Outer Rim

Scything through the air in a cloud of dissipating mist, the sleek form of an IR-3F-Class Light Frigate descended upon the frozen world in a blaze of light and heat. A new sun dawned, the reflection of fire framed in silver plates that glowed with the shimmer of a luminous halo. Mournful winds, once plentiful, shifted with the comet's arrival, a chorus of scorched ozone, purifying the stagnant wastes with the promise of a new day, whether that led to weal or woe.

Minutes later, the ship landed with a soft hiss of the landing gear, its spindly legs stretched out towards the glittering passage of crystalised snow. Faint embers danced across the vessel's nosecone, the last remnants of the fading halo, blanketed with the gentle caress of falling flakes that evaporated in the remaining shroud of heat. Cloaked in a mirage of defiance, the IR-3F nestled into place. The transparisteel viewport glared out towards the remains of Clan Voska's ruined enclave.

Protected from the harsh wind and frozen tears descending upon the surface, a landing ramp peeled away from the rest of the vessel, a doorway sculpted into the bared belly of the frigate. Concealed by the release of gases, a figure stepped through, out into the open, as icy fingers reached towards their armoured frame; plates of beskar, dusted with specks of frost, moved unhindered, warmed by the bodysuit beneath and the hum of survival gear embedded within.

Slowly, he approached the enclave with the crunch of snow beneath his feet. His steps, unhurried, cautious in the unknown. The spectre of his people loomed, their presence carved into the hollow facade of a barren hillside, a veil of white that stretched across the horizon, speckled with the ruined remnants of those who lay forgotten. Snow clung to the grooves of his boots, layers of history packed in with the land, untouched for centuries, disturbed once more.

The metal gate, once a proud figure that watched over its inhabitants, was cracked in places, fissures that screeched with the wail of wind tearing through its frame. Itzhal stepped through, his stride slowed as he pressed against the metal, guiding his steps over chipped metal and debris from the years of abandonment.

Inside, the corridors stretched off into the distance, a maze of passages filled with twists and turns that were as much a defensive feature as an attempt to connect every piece of the puzzle, away from the cold chill of outside. With each step he took, a layer of dust twirled through the air, deeper patches worn into the stonework, captured through the flicker of his low-vision sensors. Faded murals followed his passage, the life of a clan displayed in the cracks where disrepair had failed to root itself. A poor replacement for the children who should have run through these corridors, the tales of the elders interwoven with their cheerful voices, and the sound of merriment from clan members settled around a roaring fire.

Instead, there was only the harsh sound of his own breathing and the steps that echoed off into the distance. Silent.

His stride faltered, the last step delivered with a faded crack against the laminate flooring of an abandoned dining hall, lines of tables arrayed around the room. Slowly, Itzhal reached up towards the side of his Buy'ce, where the sensor rig of his rangefinder jutted out from the rest of the frame, his thumb stretched across the back, running over a creaking dial. Seconds later, the wind outside grew louder, a hiss that warped into a howl, but it was not the only sound that gathered his attention.

Old heating coils, the metal worn and, in certain places, fractured, screeched a desperate call to be noticed.

With another adjustment of the sensor rig, Itzhal strode towards the call, and the terribly lonesome sound of exertion from a single living being in this lifeless tomb. It did not take long for his steps, confident and assured, to reach the final corridor and the entrance-way to the forge.

Tags: Eydis Voska​