DECALON // THE SOLDER-RITE // THE TECH
Welcome to Decalon, an original sci-fi universe.
This website is your portal into the world of Decalon, but it's built a bit differently. Instead of a standard website, it is designed to look and feel like an in-universe corporate archive. The companies, surveillance systems, and logs you see here are completely fictional, serving as an immersive sneak peek into the world of our upcoming first novel, The Solder-Rite.
Under the hood, this site is also a live technical demo. It runs on SWAZM, a custom static-first .NET framework that builds every page you see.
Because this site blends fiction with reality, any time we step outside the story to talk to you directly, like on this page, or in the Read & Listen section, the text will be marked in this color.
- Novel status
- IN DEVELOPMENT
- Free to read and hear
- 5 CHAPTERS // 113 MIN
- Site generator
- SWAZM
- Website style
- IMMERSIVE ARCHIVE
THE NOVEL
The Solder-Rite, Book One of Decalon
Decalon is a vertical civilization: ten levels stacked from a poisoned surface to a sealed summit, each age built on the roof of the last. On Level 5, in the ruins of a golden age, scavenger communities survive beneath a corporate state and its automated warden.
The Solder-Rite begins when a scavenger named Echo finds an erased machine in a disposal field and chooses to save it instead of stripping it for parts. The machine wakes with no memory, a sealed module in its chest, and two unexplained voices reaching it through channels no one can trace. The community that repairs it calls it Pale-Iron and treats the repair as a vow. The warden overhead treats the repair as a threat.
Decalon and The Solder-Rite are written by Matthias Guntrum. The manuscript is currently in active development as Book One of a planned sci-fi trilogy. While there is no official release date or preorder yet, you can experience the beginning of the story right now for free. The first five chapters are complete, and four of them feature fully narrated audio in the Read & Listen section.
The immersive "archive" pages you explore elsewhere on this site act as canon-consistent worldbuilding. Reading them will enhance your experience, and they contain no spoilers beyond the opening chapters.
START READING
Three ways to enter the story
- TEXT
Start reading Chapter 1
Dive straight into the story. Chapter 1 drops you right into the prose, seconds after the machine wakes up.
- AUDIOBOOK
Listen to the story
Prefer to listen? Start with the audio version of Chapter 2. Enjoy twenty-nine fully narrated minutes.
- WORLDBUILDING
Explore the archive
Set the stage before you read. Dive into the in-universe event files, directories, and registries to get a feel for the world.
PROJECT UPDATES
What has actually been added
New reading samples, new audio, new lore, and technical work on the site. Updates describe things that exist and are linked. Release dates, publishers, and reviews will appear here when they are real, and not before.
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All five opening chapters now complete on the page
The full text of Chapters 1 to 5 is free to read, with complete narrated audio for Chapters 2 to 5.
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Four complete audiobook chapters published
Chapters 2 to 5 of The Solder-Rite can be streamed in full. 113 minutes of narrated audio, free in Read & Listen.
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PAS terminal online
A side interface to the archive with registry queries and linked channels to two resident intelligences. Open it with the TERMINAL button or the backtick key.
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Visual vault expanded to sixteen frames
All concept frames are catalogued with corporate labels and sensor records.
Showing the built-in project update snapshot.
THE TECHNOLOGY
Generated with SWAZM
Every page on this site is generated by SWAZM, a custom, content-driven .NET framework built for static websites.
The site is designed to be fast, lightweight, and accessible. All the text loads instantly as plain HTML, while images and audio load only when requested. The immersive "archive" effects you see throughout the site, like typewriter text reveals, visual feed glitches, and signal-reconstruction image loading, are powered by a tiny layer of JavaScript. To ensure accessibility, these visual effects automatically respect your device's "reduced motion" settings.
The entire platform, including its API functions, is highly optimized and runs entirely on the Azure Static Web Apps Free tier. SWAZM is built by Raykast, where you can find more information about the framework.
FEEDBACK & CONTACT // OUT OF WORLD
Tell me what you think
Reactions to the chapters, questions about the world, notes on the site, or just how strongly it pulled you. Everything below reaches the creator as a single email.
Ready to enter Decalon?
It's time to step back across the fiction boundary. The surveillance archive is waiting for you.