The world above Hollowreach was not much brighter than the depths below.
Kael stepped out into the wasteland, the wind scraping past him like knives. The ash here was thinner, the air colder, but the silence—deafening. Behind him, the ruined spires of the mine jutted from the earth like the ribs of a fallen beast. In front of him stretched a long, cracked expanse of stone and bone.
The Black Gate awaited.
It wasn't a literal gate. It was a checkpoint—one of the Empire's outer containment rings, guarding the border between the Wastes and the civil provinces. Supposedly decommissioned after the "Stability Treaty," it still shimmered in the air like a mirage. Walls of old-world alloy. Gun towers long since turned inward. A relic of a time when the Empire still pretended to protect its citizens from itself.
Kael approached it with caution.
His system had warned him three times.
[ ALERT: Active scanner fields detected. ]
[ Inquisitorial trace codes live. ]
[ Target status: BLACK MARK — Kill on Sight ]
"Great," Kael muttered. "I'm officially a ghost."
He moved along the edge of a collapsed trench, stepping between fossilized debris and dead mech parts. There were no guards at the outer post. Just drones—sleek, silent, and always watching. He ducked behind the shattered leg of a walker tank, checking his route again.
The obsidian shard Lyra had given him glowed faintly, and the scanner field ahead flickered, just for a second.
Just long enough.
Kael ran.
The system synchronized with the shard, creating a flickering shell of false identity for three full seconds. It was enough. He passed through the gate's shadow in a blur of motion and dust, heart pounding.
[ Identity mismatch bypassed. Trace Level: HIGH. ]
[ Risk of pursuit: 87%. ]
[ Suggested action: Disappear. ]
Kael kept running until the wind changed and the silence ended.
He emerged into a town.
Or what was left of one.
It was a sprawl of scavenged buildings and rust-stained barricades, all clustered beneath the twisted wreckage of a fallen sky tower. Fires burned in oil drums. People moved in shadows, thin and ragged, faces half-covered.
He passed a sign bolted to a leaning steel beam:
WELCOME TO BLACKLINE – POPULATION: WHO CARES
Kael slowed.
This wasn't Empire territory. Not really. These were the cracks. The fringe zones. No law, no order—just trade, survival, and whispers.
And yet… even here, eyes followed him.
He walked past a vendor selling synthetic meat from a dripping grill. The man glanced at Kael's arm—at the faint, residual glow still pulsing beneath his skin—and froze.
Kael turned away quickly.
But the murmur had started.
"System glow…"
"Is he marked?"
"Get inside. Now."
Doors slammed shut. Windows shuttered.
Kael stopped in the middle of the street.
He wasn't even bleeding. Wasn't threatening anyone.
But to them, he was worse than a threat.
He was a variable.
Unpredictable. Dangerous. Untouchable.
Just then, a child broke the crowd.
Small. No older than eight. Face smudged with soot. She ran up to him, silent, and handed him a torn scrap of paper.
Kael opened it.
—You're not alone.
His eyes darted up—but the girl was gone.
So was half the street.
No one had seen her. No one had moved.
Kael folded the note, pulse steady.
It wasn't Lyra's handwriting.
Which meant someone else was watching now.
Kael kept moving.
He didn't speak. Didn't ask questions. In towns like this, questions were a faster way to die than weapons.
He passed crumbling storefronts, old holoscreens flickering static, and once-bright banners of the Empire now stained with soot and bullet holes. The people here weren't living—they were hiding in the cracks between collapse and conquest.
Still, someone had seen him. Someone had sent that message.
And it hadn't been Lyra.
He stopped beside an old comm booth, smashed and half-collapsed. The door still creaked open. Inside, on the broken terminal screen, a blinking cursor glitched to life.
[ You made it. ]
[ Good. That means it's real. ]
Kael stiffened.
This wasn't the system.
This was something… else.
A new line blinked in:
[ You're not the first Unwritten. ]
[ But you may be the last. ]
Kael typed:
Who are you?
[ One of many. A scavenger of the old stars. ]
[ If you want answers, meet me at the Bonewell. Sundown. Come alone. ]
[ Don't trust the girl. ]
The screen went dark.
Kael stood in silence, hand still hovering over the terminal.
Then, without a word, he turned and walked away.
He didn't go straight to the Bonewell.
He didn't even know what it was.
Instead, he found an abandoned rooftop overlooking the city's fringe. From there, he could see the edge of the Wastes, the shimmer of old tech fields, the drone patrols circling like vultures.
And for a moment, he saw her.
Lyra.
Standing across the street, hood drawn low, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of a curved blade.
She didn't wave. Didn't call out.
She simply turned—and walked into the smoke.
Gone.
[ SYSTEM UPDATE: New Path Node Detected. ]
[ Input Required — Trust / Reject Subject: Lyra Vael ]
Kael stared at the glowing prompt for a long time.
His jaw tightened.
He didn't select anything.
Not yet.
As the sun bled low on the horizon, Kael made his way to the Bonewell.
It wasn't a temple. It wasn't a tomb.
It was worse.
A crater of blackened bone and twisted iron, left behind after an orbital strike decades ago. Nothing grew there. Nothing lived. Only ghosts and the desperate came close.
And tonight, Kael.
He stood at the edge, waiting.
Then, footsteps.
A figure emerged from the smoke—cloaked in layered armor made of scrap-tech and bone plates. Their face was hidden by a mask carved from a Gravemare skull, eyes glowing faint green.
"Kael Ashmark," the voice rasped.
"You walk the edge of the map."
Kael didn't flinch. "You sent the message."
"I opened a door. You walked through it." The figure tilted its head. "Tell me—does the system feel like a gift?"
Kael's fists clenched. "It saved my life."
"Then it has started its trap."
Kael's voice was flat. "Explain."
The figure stepped closer. "The Unwritten Protocol doesn't choose heroes. It creates variables. Chaos seeds. Weapons."
Kael stared. "And you?"
"I was the one before you. The failed Unwritten." The mask tilted upward. "And I'm here to make sure you don't repeat my mistake."