The quest objective glowed in Chris's HUD, a single, terrifyingly vague line of text.
[OBJECTIVE: Identify and physically access the Kernel's primary debugging interface.]
He stared at it, a surge of pure, undiluted panic rising in his throat. That was it? That was all the guidance he got? "Identify and physically access." The System had just informed him that his entire town was on the verge of collapsing into a puddle of nonsensical weirdness, and its solution was to give him a quest objective as helpful as "Go find the thing and do the stuff."
Where was he supposed to look? Was the debugging interface in someone's basement? Buried under the town square? Was it the talking pirate statue? He had no idea where to even begin. He was a player who had just been handed the main story quest without a map, without a waypoint, without a single clue.
He paced the length of his room, his mind racing. He had to think like a gamer. When the objective isn't clear, you have to find the quest giver, or you have to find the dungeon entrance. But there was no one to talk to. There was just the world outside his window.
A desperate, long-shot idea flickered in his mind. An ability he had only used on specific, targeted objects. What if he scaled it up? What if he tried to use his [INSPECT] ability not on a single person or a carton of milk, but on the entire town? It was a stupid idea. It would be like trying to scan an entire game world at once. The energy cost would be insane. But it was the only idea he had.
He walked to his window and looked out, past the gnome-infested lawns of his neighbors, toward the direction of Buckhannon. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused. He didn't picture a single building or street. He pictured a map, the kind you'd see in the menu of an open-world RPG. He focused on the conceptual entity of "Buckhannon." He poured his will into the command, pushing all his mental energy into the [INSPECT (Tier 2)] ability.
The effect was instantaneous and overwhelming. He felt a massive drain on his energy reserves, his HUD flashing a warning as the blue bar plummeted by a third.
[EP: 2.65/5.00]
A shimmering, metaphysical grid of the town materialized in his vision, laid out over the real world like a transparent blueprint. The grid was made of faint, glowing blue lines, forming a perfect, logical map of streets and property lines.
Most of the grid was a stable, healthy green, the color of a system operating within normal parameters. But his eyes were immediately drawn to the south end of the town, in Tennerton, to a single building that was pulsing with a corrupt, angry, glitching red light. It was a beacon of wrongness in a sea of green.
The building was the Upshur County Public Library.
His heart hammered in his chest. He had a location. He mentally zoomed in on the map, focusing all of his remaining attention on the glowing red anomaly. The System, sensing his focused intent, provided a new, detailed data window. This one was stark, serious, and filled with the bureaucratic jargon he was coming to dread.
[LOCATION: Upshur County Public Library]
[STATUS: Critical Anomaly Zone (Quarantined)]
[DESCRIPTION: The source of the localized Kernel corruption, originating from a User-created corruption, has been contained by automated System protocols within this physical location. WARNING: The interior reality of this zone is highly unstable. Standard laws of physics of this world may not apply.]
As he finished reading the terrifying description, a sharp ding sounded in his mind. His quest log updated, the vague objective replaced with a new, terrifyingly clear one.
[OBJECTIVE: Enter the Upshur County Public Library and locate the main terminal of the System interface.]
He understood now. The System hadn't just identified the problem; it had actively quarantined it. It had taken all the corrupted data, all the junk probability data from his panicked Block command and his hasty profile deletion, and had shoved it all into one physical location. It had created a isolated zone to house the mess he'd made. And he was the only one with the quest marker to go inside and clean it up.
A grim, unfamiliar resolve settled over him. The panic was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but it was now overlaid with a sense of purpose. He couldn't fix this from his bedroom. He couldn't hope it would go away. He had to go out into the field. He had to enter the library.
With the methodical focus of a gamer preparing for a difficult, end-game raid, he began to assemble his supplies. This was a mission that called for modern-day adventuring gear.
He grabbed his worn, canvas backpack from the floor and began to stuff it. He went to the kitchen and filled his largest reusable water bottle to the brim. This was no longer just water; it was a [Greater Potion of Hydration]. He rummaged through the garage until he found Pete's high-powered LED flashlight, the one with the strobe function. This was his [Torch of Illumination], for exploring dark and treacherous areas. He went back to his room and grabbed the half-eaten bag of Inferno-Hot Krunchers from his desk. This was his Stamina Buff, a [Snack of Fiery Fortitude] for when he needed a boost of courage.
Finally, he packed his portable phone charger and a USB cable. The thought of his phone, his one connection to the real world's vast repository of knowledge, dying in the middle of the library was a mortifying prospect. This was his [Cables of Power Restoration]. He zipped the backpack shut. He was as ready as he'd ever be.
Backpack slung over one shoulder, he headed down the hall to face his first, and perhaps most difficult, set of bosses: his parents.
He found them in the living room, watching a local news report about the "Buckhannon Bizarreness." A reporter was standing in front of the talking Buccaneer statue, a look of professional bewilderment on her face. Chris needed a believable lie, a solid alibi for his sudden departure.
"Hey," he said, trying to sound casual as he walked into the room. "I'm gonna head over to Dad's house for a bit."
Misty turned, her brow furrowed with concern. "Oh? Is everything okay?"
The lie came surprisingly easy, a natural extension of his years of avoidance. "Yeah, everything's fine. It's just... his internet is somehow still stable, and I need to use it for a... project."
It was the perfect excuse. Vague, related to his known interests, and just plausible enough to be believed. Pete grunted from the couch. "Good luck. Hope his router hasn't started reciting Shakespeare."
As Chris turned to leave, his eyes fell on the framed photo on the mantelpiece, the picture of him and his sister, Carlye, smiling on a beach years ago. The memory of his awkward phone call with her, the [+1 Family Cohesion] bonus he'd received, flashed in his mind. This was about fixing the world he shared with them, the world they deserved to live in, free of one-legged bronze financial advisors and existential welcome signs. The thought solidified his resolve. He was going to fix things, for them.
He arrived in the eerily quiet parking lot in front of the Upshur County Public Library. The modern brick building looked normal at a glance, a bastion of quiet knowledge. But the closer he got, the more profoundly wrong the area felt.
The air had a strange, static quality, a low-level hum that made the hairs on his arms stand up. It was unnaturally silent. There were no birds chirping in the old oak trees behind the library. There was no sound of traffic from the main road. There was only that faint, low hum that seemed to be emanating from the building itself, a sound you felt in your teeth more than you heard with your ears.
Yellow "CAUTION" tape had been strung across the main entrance by the Buckhannon police, a flimsy, plastic barrier against a problem they couldn't possibly comprehend. To Chris, the library looked exactly like the entrance to a dungeon in a RPG, the caution tape a clear, real-world marker for the instance portal. This was the threshold.
He walked up the concrete steps, his footsteps echoing unnervingly in the silence. He took a deep, shaky breath, the bag of Inferno-Hot Krunchers crinkling in his backpack.
He ducked under the caution tape and placed a hand on one of the library's heavy, glass doors. The metal frame of the doors felt like it was vibrating, a low, resonant thrum that traveled up his arm. It felt alive with dormant energy.
With one last look at the normal world behind him—the street, the trees, the distant houses—he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The instant his foot crossed the threshold, the world changed. The door swung shut behind him, not with a gentle click, but with a deafening, final BOOM that shook the very floor beneath him. The ordinary sounds of the outside world, the faint hum, the distant memory of traffic, were completely and utterly severed.
He was now standing in the eerie, silent, and deeply unstable entryway of the Library Dungeon. He was sealed off from the rest of reality.