Midnight arrived the way problems usually did, quietly and with the confidence of something that knew it would win.
Rayan stood near the well with the lantern in hand, trying to look like a person who belonged there and not like someone waiting for a tutorial popup. The village square felt different at night. The noise had drained out of it. Doors stayed shut. Windows glowed faintly, like eyes pretending to sleep.
The well sat in the center, wide and old and built with the kind of stonework that survived because nobody wanted to rebuild it. Runes ringed the stone rim, shallow and worn down by years of hands, buckets, and bad decisions. The light inside the well pulsed faintly, slow and steady, like something breathing while pretending not to.
Rayan leaned closer and immediately regretted it.
The Rootkit stirred, warm behind his eyes.
SCAN initiated.
Data poured in.
OBJECT: Well structure.
STATUS: Reinforced. Modified. Patched repeatedly.
ANOMALY: Active signal source detected below waterline.
SIGNAL TYPE: Non-biological. Patterned. Persistent.
Rayan frowned. "That is not comforting."
The well did not respond, which was rude but expected.
A cough came from behind him.
Rayan turned too fast and almost dropped the lantern.
An old man stood there, wrapped in a thick coat, holding a broom like it was a staff and also like he had no idea why people kept mistaking it for one.
"Evening," the man said.
Rayan exhaled. "Evening. You should not sneak up on people near cursed wells."
The man snorted. "I clean the square. If I do not sneak, people ask questions."
Rayan nodded, because that tracked.
The man stepped closer, peering into the well. "Light is brighter tonight."
"That feels like information I would prefer earlier," Rayan said.
The man glanced at him. "New one, are you."
"Yes," Rayan replied. "And I would like to file a complaint with whoever thought this was a good first assignment."
The man chuckled, low and tired. "Name is Torren. I keep things tidy. Including stories. Most folk pretend the well is normal."
Rayan looked back into the glow. "It is failing at that."
Torren leaned on the broom. "You here to fix it."
Rayan hesitated. "Fix is a strong word. I am more of a… persuasive negotiator with broken systems."
Torren smiled without humor. "That explains why they sent you."
The light inside the well flickered.
Not randomly.
In response.
The Rootkit flared.
WARNING: Signal attempting handshake.
SOURCE: Unknown.
PROTOCOL: Incompatible.
RECOMMENDATION: Do not reply.
Rayan stared. "It is trying to talk."
Torren's brows knit. "The well talks now."
"Not in words," Rayan said. "More like it is knocking very politely and also very aggressively."
The glow surged upward, spilling over the rim in thin threads of pale cyan light. The runes carved into the stone brightened, lines connecting like a circuit coming alive.
Torren took a step back. "It never does that."
Rayan took a step forward, because of course he did.
"Okay," Rayan muttered. "Let us see what you are."
INSPECT initiated.
The world tilted.
Not physically. Conceptually.
Rayan's vision filled with layers. Stone peeled back into structure. Runes resolved into repeating patterns. Mana flow revealed itself as a mapped current, looping, redirected, constrained.
And beneath it all, something else.
A device.
Not magical. Not alive.
Metallic. Precise.
Buried deep below the water, anchored into bedrock like someone had installed an antenna and forgotten to uninstall it.
OBJECT IDENTIFIED: Signal Anchor Node.
ORIGIN: Extraterrestrial.
FUNCTION: Monitoring. Synchronization. Environmental sampling.
STATUS: Degraded. Improvised repairs detected.
SECURITY LEVEL: Low. Shockingly low.
Rayan blinked. "Oh wow. That is irresponsible."
Torren looked at him. "What is."
"There is alien tech under your well," Rayan said, then winced. "That came out faster than planned."
Torren stared at him. "Say that again."
Rayan sighed. "There is old non-human machinery down there. It is broken. The runes are trying to compensate. They are losing."
The light surged again, brighter this time. The air hummed, vibrating against Rayan's teeth.
WARNING: Signal escalation detected.
CAUSE: Manual inspection triggered response.
RECOMMENDATION: Patch or disengage.
Rayan laughed, short and breathless. "Of course."
Torren grabbed his arm. "If this is a joke, it is not funny."
Rayan looked at the old man. "I promise this is the worst joke I have ever told."
Rayan focused.
PATCH option highlighted.
His instincts screamed that touching unknown alien hardware with a half-understood cheat was a bad idea. His instincts also had a terrible track record.
He selected Patch.
The Rootkit reached out, not with hands but with logic, threading into the signal like a key sliding into a lock that should not exist anymore. Information streamed past, messy and degraded, patched by generations of villagers who thought magic fixed everything if carved deep enough.
Rayan frowned. "You are running on magical duct tape."
The system replied.
Not in words. In errors.
SYNC FAILURE.
TIME DESYNC: 312 YEARS.
LOCAL PARAMETERS ALTERED.
REQUESTING UPDATE.
Rayan's stomach dropped. "No. No updates. Never accept updates."
The light spiked violently. The runes flared white.
Torren stumbled back. "Rayan."
"I am handling it," Rayan said, even though his voice cracked a little.
He switched tactics.
SPOOF initiated.
He masked the signal, fed it false confirmation packets, told it everything was fine, the environment was normal, please stop screaming into the local mana field.
The glow wavered.
Then dimmed.
The hum softened, sinking back into the stone like a held breath finally released.
The runes faded, returning to their usual faint glow.
Silence settled over the square.
Rayan slumped forward, bracing himself on the well rim. "Okay. That worked. I think. I hope."
Torren stared at the well, then at Rayan. "You spoke to it."
"I lied to it," Rayan said. "Important distinction."
Torren rubbed his face slowly. "The light."
"Will come back," Rayan admitted. "But quieter. I did not fix the core problem. I slapped a polite sign on it that says do not panic."
Torren let out a shaky laugh. "People have died from that light."
Rayan nodded, the humor draining from his chest. "Yeah. That is on the list."
The panel flickered.
NOTICE: Patch successful.
STATUS: Temporary stabilization achieved.
WARNING: Long-term exposure risk remains.
BONUSACHIEVED: Did not explode village.
Rayan smiled weakly. "High praise."
Torren placed a hand on Rayan's shoulder, heavy and grounding. "You are not normal."
Rayan looked at the lantern, at the quiet well, at the sky that felt too large. "That keeps coming up."
From a nearby window, someone whispered. From another, a door creaked open just a little.
The village felt awake again, alert in a way that carried fear and hope tangled together.
Rayan straightened. "Someone needs to tell Lessa the well is not angry anymore."
Torren nodded slowly. "And what do I tell them about you."
Rayan thought for a moment. "Tell them I am bad news, but I am trying."
Torren chuckled, soft this time. "That might be the most honest thing I have heard in years."
Rayan glanced back at the well as he walked away.
Deep below, alien machinery continued to listen, fooled for now, unaware that the world it was meant to observe had just gained a debugger with insomnia and poor survival instincts.
And that felt like the start of something much worse, or much better, or both at once.