Arinvale was restless.
Since the Bladecall, the city buzzed like a wound left open. Word of the duel had spread despite every effort to suppress it. Whispers followed me like a second shadow—soft as smoke, dangerous as fire.
"He shattered a memory blade."
"Rheon Black yielded."
"A void-binder walks the streets."
Most dismissed it as myth.
The ones who believed began to gather.
Kael was already awake when I returned to the safehouse.
He sat in silence at the war table, his fingers drumming against a sealed envelope. Its black wax shimmered faintly with enchantment. An inverted tower stamped in obsidian. The symbol was subtle, but I knew it.
The Shadowguild.
"This came while you were gone," Kael said.
Ayla stepped out of the back room and froze when she saw the seal.
"You can't trust them," she said instantly. "They're scavengers. Assassins. Relic-binders who'd trade your heartbeat for a favor."
"And the only ones who know where the system bleeds the most," Lira added, emerging from the library wing with a crystal lens in hand.
"They usually work in whispers," I said, breaking the seal. "If they sent a letter, they want something loud."
Inside was a folded slip of archaic paper, already fading at the edges.
MIDNIGHT. UNDERMARKET CAVERN VAULT. COME ALONE. NO WEAPONS.
I read it aloud. Kael scowled.
"That's suicide."
"That," I replied, "is a conversation."
The Undermarket was dead at night. Nothing moved beneath the cobblestones except rats and secrets. I followed the coordinates deeper than most dared tread—into the Vault Rings, sealed since the Guild Era. The path wound through half-collapsed hallways of old banker halls and silenced trade courts. Everything smelled like rust and long-decayed ambition.
I reached the designated vault: Vault 5-Echo. Its door shimmered, not physically locked but encoded with perception wards. I pushed through, and the distortion fell like silk.
Inside was darkness shaped into function.
A vaulted chamber with twenty spiral glyphs carved into the ceiling—each one a forgotten contract. Lamps burned with colorless flame. And in the center, seated on a throne of disassembled runic cores, was a Broker.
They wore layers of relic cloth and plates of shadowsteel. Their face was hidden beneath a visor etched with looping script.
"Elias Black," they said, their voice neither male nor female, but something synthesized, something shaped. "The system hiccupped when you shattered the blade. You bent a core law."
I stepped into the ring of light and faced them.
"I bend more than that if needed."
"So we have seen."
They tossed a crystal shard at my feet. I picked it up carefully.
The shard hummed. Inside, fractured glyphs swirled like molten data. A system key. No doubt.
"A map," the Broker said. "To a Vault long buried. A dungeon where the system first cracked."
I frowned. "Why give this to me?"
"Because someone else has found its entrance," they replied. "But not its code. If they reach the core, the fracture will widen. Logic will die. And with it, your world."
"So I'm your failsafe?"
"No. You're the variable."
I stared at the shard. Already, it itched in my palm—the data reacting to my Voidwalker imprint.
"And your price?"
The Broker tilted their head. "A favor. Redeemable at a time when the system no longer recognizes debt."
"Cryptic," I muttered.
"Accurate."
They stood.
"Go soon. Before the game becomes real."
When I returned to the safehouse, the others were waiting. Ayla stepped forward first.
"What did they give you?"
I held up the shard. It pulsed with soft light.
"A key. To somewhere that was never meant to be unlocked."
Lira took a step closer, her eyes wide with unease.
"You mean the original vault? The fracture site? I thought that was a myth."
"So did the system," I said.
Kael narrowed his eyes. "You plan to go alone?"
"No. But I have to go first. If the place reacts to my presence, I need to know what I'm walking into."
Ayla looked at me for a long moment.
"Then go fast. Because if something follows, I want to be right behind you."
That night, I studied the shard in the quiet of my chamber. Shadows curled along the ceiling. The glyph on my palm pulsed again—not in warning, but in anticipation.
The map inside the shard shifted.
Coordinates.
Runes.
A location hidden inside the roots of a system mountain.
A forgotten core.
And a lock that wasn't meant to be opened.
[Quest Updated: Vault of the Forgotten Root] Access Level Required: NULL Consequences: Undefined Probability of Success: ~3.14%
I exhaled slowly.
The Shadowguild had given me a choice.
But really, it was never a choice.
The system had watched me long enough.
Now it was time I stared back.
Outside, the stars glitched again.
Reality hiccuped.
And beneath the city, something ancient stirred.
Waiting.