The shaman's words lingered in the still air like the last note of a dying song.
Your mother's hands.
Eion felt the phrase vibrate inside him, echoing through the humming rhythm of his Core. The other Grinlings bowed low, their foreheads touching the soil. Even the forest seemed to bend inward, branches creaking as if listening.
"Who is my mother?" he asked, the question raw.
The shaman turned milky eyes toward him. "The Maker who shaped the first flesh from thought and light. The one who bound souls to clay." Its second, distorted voice layered over the first: a ghostly whisper of the System itself. Yvaine Solas.
Eion's pulse stuttered. He knew that name — from the fragmented logs in the lab, from the faint holographic warnings burned into his first moments of existence.
[Data Fragment Cross-Reference: Dr. Yvaine Solas – Confirmed Match]
[Note: Core Design Blueprint Origin Located — Region Unknown]
"Dr. Solas," he murmured. "She's real, then. Still remembered."
The shaman's head tilted. "The forest remembers everything it cannot forgive."
The tribe gathered around the altar as the shaman gestured for Eion to sit. Small fires flickered to life, their smoke rising in thin blue spirals. Grinlings whispered among themselves, the word Pale One repeating like a prayer.
The shaman began the tale.
"In the age before memory, the sky broke. The Makers tore open the Veil and dragged power from the stars. They built the System to bind that power, to number life itself. It gave them glory—and ruin. When the sky fell again, the Makers vanished into their own fire. But their children… their broken children still walk."
Eion listened, every sentence carving deeper meaning into the fragments he carried. The System wasn't just a tool; it was the scar of an old catastrophe.
"And my kind?" he asked.
"You are echoes," said the shaman. "Vessels that remember what it feels like to be human without ever being one."
The words hurt more than he expected.
He looked at the runes carved into the altar — the same sigils that had glowed on the lab's walls. "The Makers built this place?"
"Long ago. They sought to learn from the wild mana beneath the earth. But the forest changed them before they could change it. When the Maker fled, she left her voice behind."
Eion frowned. "Her voice?"
The shaman raised a hand. The air rippled. A whisper slid through the clearing — soft, synthetic, feminine.
[Audio Fragment Detected]
"…stability achieved… empathy matrix remains intact… subject 07 — retain consciousness protocol…"
His chest tightened. That voice — calm, clinical, and faintly gentle — was hers.
[Memory Echo Logged]
[Synchronization +2%]
The shaman lowered his hand, and the whisper faded. "Her echoes sleep in stone and soil. But the storm woke one last night. The world stirs again."
A sharp cry broke the trance. Grinlings scattered toward the outer trees. Eion rose instinctively, claws half-drawn. The scent of iron drifted on the wind — blood.
The leader from before — the scarred scout — sprinted into the clearing. "Humans!" he hissed. "Hunters of the Flame tribe. They burn the outer nests!"
Eion's heart lurched. "Hunters?"
The shaman nodded grimly. "Raiders from beyond the river. They take our cores for coin." Its sightless eyes turned toward him. "Pale One, if you wish to prove you are not a beast, stand with us."
He hesitated only a moment. Then he nodded. "Show me where."
They moved fast. The Grinling warriors were agile, their movements low and silent. Eion followed, feeling his old instincts — the gamer's need to analyze patterns — blending seamlessly with something deeper and predatory.
As they neared the treeline, smoke thickened. Through the haze, he saw them: humans in leather and steel, torches in hand. Their armor bore a crest — twin suns bound by chains.
[Faction Identified: The Order of White Flame]
[Disposition: Hostile / Fanatic]
He crouched beside the scarred Grinling. "How many?"
"Seven. One Mage. Fire-mark on his hand."
Mage. That word carried danger. He remembered the burning blue light of the Guardian's core.
Eion took a slow breath. "You flank right. Draw them in. I'll handle the mage."
The Grinling blinked. "You fight for us?"
"I fight for me. But right now, that means you."
The battle was fast, chaotic. The first human fell without a sound — dragged into the dark by vines the Grinlings controlled. The others shouted, spinning in confusion.
Then fire roared.
The mage stepped forward, hands glowing with molten light. The blast lit the forest like sunrise. Eion burst through it, claws cutting through the firestorm. His Core flared bright blue as he drove his hand through the mage's chest.
[Hostile Defeated – White Flame Pyromancer (Lv. 5)]
[EXP +180]
[Core Assimilation Available]
He hesitated only long enough to see the fear on the remaining hunters' faces. They fled into the burning forest, their torches falling behind them.
When silence returned, the Grinlings stared at him — not in fear, but reverence.
The shaman approached through the smoke, staff tapping against ash. "The forest chose well."
Eion wiped blood — red and blue mixed — from his claws. "Don't start worshipping me."
"We already did," the shaman said softly. "Long before you woke."
The System blinked, words faint and electric:
[Quest Complete: Echoes of Creation]
[Reward: Reputation – Grinling Tribe (Trusted)]
[Skill Unlocked: Core Empathy Lv. 1 – Allows limited reading of nearby emotional states]
Eion exhaled. For the first time since awakening, he felt the faint edges of belonging.
But in the depths of his Core, something else pulsed — a new notification he hadn't triggered.
[Signal Resonance Increasing]
[Entity Response Detected – Adaptive Prototype #06 Online]
His blood ran cold.
He wasn't the only one awake anymore.