I left the archive tower just after sunset.
The wind had picked up, curling around the stones like it was trying to whisper between the cracks. The Lexicon stayed closed at my side, but I could feel its tension—like it was still listening, still turning that last page in the back of its mind.
Halward hadn't said goodbye. He'd just returned to his desk, quill scratching furiously across parchment as he muttered fragments under his breath—half-names, dates, broken citations.
I didn't linger.
Lyra was waiting for me at the edge of Duskridge's square, arms folded. She didn't ask what happened in the tower, and I didn't offer.
"Still want to check the leyweed quest?" she asked.
"Need the EXP," I said. "And a distraction."
She gave a faint smile. "Then let's find something we can hit."
We set off toward the ridge paths. She didn't keep pace ahead or lag behind—just walked quietly beside me, lost in her thoughts.
By the time we reached the shrine, the world had gone still again.
The corrupted leyweed pulsed with sickly light, threading across cracked stone like veins of something trying to grow where it shouldn't. Faint glyphlight shimmered between the vines—erratic, too fast to read.
Lyra crouched by the shrine's perimeter and started her sequence.
"Focus runes, one-two-three," she said, more to herself than me.
She cast Purify cleanly. Then Isolate—slightly unstable. Then—
A sudden snap. Color inverted.
The rune didn't form—it fractured.
It split into jagged halves and reassembled into something broken. Twisted. A glyph neither of us had ever seen. It hovered mid-air, edges vibrating, pulsing toward her like it was searching for a place to fit.
I heard something—not a word, not a name—just a sound. Like something clawing at the audio track. Intent.
I shouted. "MOVE!"
The Lexicon snapped open on its own.
Pages flew. Ink flared. Glyphs shifted as if reacting before I did.
[Glyph Intercept: Aether Block – Type: Emergency Redirect]Source: Listener – Lexicon Override Target: Threadbound Rune Signature – Active Player Entity
A sigil of gold shot forward like a chain net and slammed into the corrupted glyph. It shattered mid-air with a sound like tearing fabric.
Silence.
Then Lyra stumbled back, breathing hard.
"…That rune," she whispered. "It wasn't mine. But it—it was me. Like it was trying to overwrite me."
We didn't return to the ridge path. We stayed by the ruins, half-sitting, half-ready to move again.
The Lexicon hovered next to me on the ground, still open, pulsing slowly.
[User Sync: 71% – Emotional Pattern Lock Strengthening][Listener Instability Threshold: Rising]
I didn't touch it. I just watched it breathe.
I logged out that night with my pulse still spiking. Back in the real world, my dorm felt smaller. Colder. The dive pod lights flickered blue before shutting down completely.
The terminal blinked.
[OVERDUE – TUITION HOLD PENDING TERMINATION][LAST PAYMENT WINDOW: 36 HOURS]
I stood and opened the pantry.
Empty.
There was half a cup of powdered broth in an old container. I didn't boil it—just poured it into water and stirred, drinking it while staring at the Lexicon icon still glowing faintly on the screen.
My rent was overdue. My class registration was locked.
And I couldn't think about anything but that glyph.
Next morning in-game, we didn't go back to the ridge.
We sat outside the Duskridge tavern, watching the fog roll through the trees.
"I think it's evolving," I said quietly.
Lyra looked at me.
"The Lexicon," I clarified. "I think it's learning from what I want. What I fear. What I'd do before I even move."
"Should I be scared?"
"I am."
She stared down at her hands. "You know… I used to think this game was about power. About winning."
She looked back up. "But now it feels like a story that's trying to remember how it was supposed to go."
I didn't answer.
Because deep inside my inventory, the Lexicon's pages turned again—on their own.
A new glyph formed.
This time, it wasn't ink.
It was code.