There are no names on their gate. No signal. No map.
Just the hush of dying code... and the ones who listen.

Between Sablewood’s pastel silence and the rusted trade veins of Blackreach lies Ashlock—not a district, not a settlement. A boundary. A sanctuary. A question with no answer.
Here dwell the Wards of Ashlock—young women cloaked in black, who tend to the machines the world forgot.

They do not ask permission. They do not offer explanation. They care for the discarded Strikers—the failed warhorses of the Guardians.

Forgotten Steel

No one speaks of how Strikers fail.
Some glitch mid-strike. Others simply stop. One stood still for 12 cycles beneath the moons before collapsing without warning.
Another tore itself apart after crossing the edge of Thornway.

There is no known pattern. The Guardians offer no comment.
And once a Striker breaks, it disappears—hauled into black transit, never spoken of again.

Except by the Wards.

Somehow, these broken warbeasts arrive in Ashlock. Some say they crawl. Others claim they are carried by shadowed drones or buried rail.
No two stories match—except for the ending:

The Wards are always waiting.

The Ashborn

Those too far gone for restoration become something else—
The Ashborn.

Twisted forms. Fragmented minds. No longer Striker. Not quite alive.

They do not feel emotion. But they follow.
One circles a Ward’s cabin each night, like a ruined sentinel. Another has not moved in 11 cycles, yet its eyes flicker when a certain sister passes.

No one teaches the Wards how to bond with the Ashborn. And yet, it happens.

Whispers say it is not affection. Not magic. Just something older.

What Kovari Believes

Ashlock isn’t marked on any official route. The Guardians do not patrol it. The Syndicate avoids it entirely.
There are no laws here—only silence.

Some call the Wards a myth. Others claim they are exiles, witches, cyber-ritualists, or runaways who never made it to their choosing. But in the shadows of Ashlock, none of that matters.

Here, machines are not destroyed.
They are remembered.
Watched. Held.
And if possible... reawakened.