The city of Astraea did not wake up today; it *emerged*.
The news anchors were still shouting, their voices trembling with a script they no longer understood. Behind them, on the giant digital billboards of the Central Plaza, the Golden Leaf Corporation's logos were glitching. The polished, corporate faces were being replaced by a live feed of the streets.
Thousands of people were walking. There was no shouting, no banners, no anger. There was only a terrifying, rhythmic silence. They moved toward the Grey Quarter, drawn by a scent that shouldn't exist in a world of iron—the smell of earth after the first rain.
---
Inside the Earth Union sanctuary, Dev stood before the **Blue Seal** in the basement. The air here was no longer stagnant; it spiraled upward in a gentle vortex.
"The nectar has reached their hearts," Kavi said, standing at the top of the stairs. He looked down at Dev, his eyes filled with a mixture of pride and fear. "But Dev, a thirsty man who finds a well is easy to lead. A man who finds a God... is dangerous."
Dev traced the glowing Sanskrit characters on the seal. "I am no God, Kavi. I am just the one holding the keys to their own forgotten house."
He reached into his **System Inventory**. Instead of a crystal or a weapon, he pulled out a handful of white sand—**Vibhuti** (sacred ash) generated by the System after the water purification. He sprinkled it over the seal.
The ground didn't shake. It *hummed*.
> **[System Status: 50,000 Potential Employees at the Perimeter.]**
> **[Current Cash Flow: $45,000/sec... and rising.]**
> **[Wealth Point Conversion: 1,000,000 Energy Crystals Accumulated.]**
"Vane," Dev called out without turning.
The former mercenary stepped out of the shadows, his silver wristband glowing a steady, calm blue. "The crowd is peaceful, but the police are arming themselves. Vikram Singh has declared a 'Public Health Emergency.' They're calling the water a drug."
"Let them call it what they wish," Dev said. "Open the doors. Not to the basement—not yet. Open the recruitment center. Every person who enters must be given a cup of water and a choice. No one is forced. Dharma is a seed, not a cage."
---
As the sandalwood doors swung open, the first person to step inside was a young woman, her eyes wide with a strange clarity. She was a scholar, her hands stained with the ink of a thousand useless textbooks.
She looked at Dev, and then at the silver wristbands laid out on a silk cloth.
"I felt it," she whispered. "When I drank the water, I didn't just feel healthy. I remembered a song my grandmother sang. A song about a mountain that spoke and a river that prayed. Why did I forget?"
Dev smiled, and for a moment, the woman felt as if she were standing in a forest temple, miles away from the city. "Because they built a wall of gold between you and your memory. The Union is simply here to tear it down."
As she reached for a wristband, the Blue Seal in the basement pulsed violently. A riddle of light appeared in the air, visible only to Dev:
***"Seven brothers sat in a circle of stone,***
***Six were silenced, leaving one alone.***
***Where the ink was drowned, the fire grew cold,***
***Look for the heart that can't be sold.***
***The first key sleeps where the sun never sets,***
***Under the house of unpaid debts."***
---
Far above, in the Obsidian Tower, **Guru Bhram** sat in a room filled with the smoke of black incense. He watched the woman take the wristband on a hidden monitor.
"He is clever," the Guru hissed. "He gives them health to buy their souls. But he has forgotten the law of the deep."
Vikram Singh paced behind him, his face contorted. "The banks are crashing! People are withdrawing their savings to buy 'Earth Union' shares that don't even exist! He's destroying the economy!"
"No," Bhram said, his voice a low vibration. "He is building a new one. But his 'First Key' is hidden in a place he cannot buy with simple gold. He thinks he is the Favorite Son? Let us see how he fares when the Earth herself screams."
The Guru reached into his robes and pulled out a small, jagged piece of charcoal—a fragment of a scroll burned a thousand years ago. He dropped it into a bowl of black water.
"Send the 'False Priests.' Tell them the Earth Union is an insult to the Gods. Let the confusion between *Dharma* and *Dharm* begin."
---
Back in the sanctuary, Dev looked at the riddle hanging in the air.
*Under the house of unpaid debts.*
He looked at Kavi. "Kavi, where is the oldest bank in Astraea?"
"The **Iron Vault**," Kavi replied. "It was built on the ruins of the old city archives. Why?"
Dev looked back at the basement floor. The blue light was pointing North. "Because the knowledge they burned didn't turn to ash. It turned to stone. And they built a prison of interest on top of it."
Dev reached into his **Inventory** and pulled out a simple, unadorned iron key he had found in the temple as a child. It began to glow.
**[Clue for the Reader:]** *The "House of Unpaid Debts" isn't just a bank. It is a place where the history of the world was literally rewritten to favor the greedy. Beneath its vaults lies the first of the Seven Rishis, trapped in a cage of mathematical lies.*