Kalen is a bright but impoverished 16-year-old living in the harsh underlevel slums of New Arcadian City with his mother Vera. His father Abel was an aspiring artifact hunter who got in too deep with some bad artifact running syndicates and went missing when Kalen was only 8 years old.
Vera was left to raise Kalen alone, taking whatever meager work she could to make ends meet and keep them off the streets. But she’s had to stretch their credits razor thin, living in a cramped tenement with little opportunity for upward mobility.
Despite their circumstances, Vera instilled in Kalen the importance of education and dreaming bigger than their surroundings. Kalen is naturally inquisitive, with an avid interest in history and artifact lore. He spends his free time after school hacking into databases to learn all he can about newly discovered artifacts and their origins.
Kalen has hesitantly taken some small-time artifact retrieval jobs from the local syndicates to bring in extra creds. But he’s seen first-hand how violent and cutthroat the artifact running world can be from his missing father. His true wish is to somehow find a legitimate, potent artifact during the coming Genesis Window that could transform their lives.
With only 30 days until the current artifacts reset and new ones emerge, Kalen is feverishly trying to uncover any promising leads. He’s desperate to finally secure an artifact and its powers, not for wealth or glory, but to lift his mother out of poverty and give her the better life she deserves after all her sacrifices for him. Even a small edge could change everything for them.