The fissure is worse than it first seemed. Deeper layers pulse with a low metallic tone, a sound that crawls under your skin. We go back with a better team, more ropes, and a torch the healer swears by.
[SYSTEM TIP]: Subsonic frequencies in certain dungeon tissues indicate adaptive armor. Use resonance or blunt trauma.
We move in and the singing grows louder. It is not music. It is a pattern like a machine learning a rhythm. The cave shifts, and for a moment my guide vibrates with the same frequency.
Then something moves. Not a beast, not fully a mechanism, but a thing pieced from iron and bone. It reacts to sound and lunges.
We fight smart. The healer uses a lullaby charm and the iron creature staggers. The swordsman hurls himself and uses our new knowledge, striking at joints while the archer keeps lines of fire. I throw my dagger and it clinks off a seam. The creature recharges and a shock of ringing knocks me back.
The guide whispers, "Resonance focus, push the pitch higher."
I shout and my voice carries. The creature pauses as if listening. I find a hollow and tap it with a rock. The sound changes, and the creature responds, twisting and exposing a seam.
We strike. The seam cracks and the creature loses coherence, falling into a heap of ringing metal. From inside it spills a shard that sings in my palm like a small bell. The system registers it as salvage, but it feels like a message.
Back at Oren's, he examines the shard and his eyes go distant. "This is not ordinary. This sings like the old forges, like something they used to make in the deep city when gods were near. Whoever controls that will have leverage."
A knocks comes at the stall. A messenger passes a sealed letter to me from the recruiter. "Freya wants to talk. Hermes sent a faux-silver request. Ares is silent. Small Familias circle."
I pocket the sealed letter. The shard hums quietly in my hand and the guide leans close, happier and steadier than before.
Note: Because shards were moved openly in market tunnels during the raid, the system recalculates and shortens the legacy activation window to roughly 72 hours. Cause: shard movement and public resonance interference.
Cliffhanger: At the edge of the plaza, a Familia standard unfurls on a rooftop, and this time it bears a sigil Oren feared to speak aloud.