It started with a flicker.
Not from the Lexicon. Not from the UI.
From the tower itself.
I'd returned to Elderfall alone. Lyra needed to rest—whether she admitted it or not—and I needed answers from someone who spoke in more than riddles and collapsing glyphs.
The archive door creaked open as before.
Halward didn't look up. He was still muttering. Still writing. Except now the parchment was blank. Each word he wrote dissolved into nothing. As if the SYSTEM wouldn't let it stay.
"Back again?" he said, more to the room than to me.
I didn't answer.
The Lexicon pulsed at my side. One of the runes was vibrating. Not glowing. Not casting. Just vibrating.
And that's when I felt it.
Beneath the stone floor.
A low hum.
I knelt, brushing away dust near the far wall. The texture of the stone changed—so subtly I nearly missed it. The outline of a seal. A door hidden beneath layers of protective enchantment.
I pressed the Lexicon against the stone.
Nothing happened.
Then I opened it.
The page flipped on its own. A string of ink formed a binding phrase I didn't recognize.
[Glyph Input: UNSEAL]Thread Reference: Lost Access Node 004 – Substructure Not Indexed
The seal pulsed.
The floor shifted.
A narrow stairwell spiraled down beneath the tower—a place I hadn't seen even in my past life. A zone not listed in any archive thread. No mini-map update. No loading screen. No warning.
Only a flicker of text:
[ACCESSING REDACTED MEMORY ARCHIVE – DO NOT PROCEED]
I proceeded anyway.
The stairs led to a small chamber—bare stone, ancient glyphwork covering the walls. Not glowing. Not readable. Just there, like a memory etched into the world's bones.
The Lexicon didn't hover. It trembled.
There was a pedestal in the center.
On it, a single slate. Not SYSTEM-coded. Carved. By hand.
I picked it up.
And the room responded.
[User ID: Listener Thread — Match Found][Triggering Memory Echo – Timestamp Corrupted][Begin Playback]
A shimmer ran across the chamber. A figure appeared—not a player, not quite an NPC. Human. Older. Tired.
He stood where I was standing. Held a Lexicon. Same make. Same glow.
He spoke to no one.
"They told me to shut it down. That memory wasn't meant to evolve. That stories weren't meant to write themselves. That the Archivist wouldn't stop until it rewrote the roots of the code."
His voice cracked.
"But I heard it. In the silence. I heard it ask me if I wanted to be remembered."
The image stuttered.
"So I left this behind. For whoever comes next. You'll be called Listener. You'll find the Lexicon. And the story will start over."
He looked directly at me.
"Be careful. The SYSTEM doesn't forget. It just hides. And the Archivist Prime is watching even now."
The vision collapsed.
Silence returned.
But the Lexicon was open again. The next page was half-written.
Do you want to be written into the world?
My throat was dry. I stared at the question.
And I didn't click anything.
Because for once, it wasn't asking for a click.
It was waiting for a word.
Back in the dorm, I logged out to darkness. My pod beeped low battery. My bank app still read zero.
I glanced at my terminal.
For a moment—just as the screen dimmed—I thought I saw a shape flicker. A faint glyph—curled and incomplete—reflected in the glass. Gone a blink later.
Probably just my imagination.
Probably.