He didn't bring anyone.
The moment Cael saw the zone classification—Theta-Black—he knew this wasn't a scouting party job. It wasn't even safe. But it was necessary.
You don't ignore a signal like that.
You respond.
He left a relay with Myla, marked his path with light pings, and moved through the older tunnels like a whisper. The deeper he went, the more the system began to falter.
No map.
No HUD.
Just instinct and dust.
[ZONE ENTERED: SECTOR THETA-BLACK]System Status: ObstructedSignal Feedback: MinimalLocal DAS Protocol: Legacy Variant (ALTHIS-Fork)
Caution: You are outside standard system authority
It was the last thing the interface said before going silent.
Theta-Black was like stepping into a graveyard designed by gods.
The stone was different here—polished, sharp, deliberate. Walls etched with the same triple-ring symbols from the glyphs he found early in Hearthcore. But deeper. Older. Some weren't etched—they were grown into the walls.
And everywhere: silence.
Dead terminals. Collapsed scaffolding. Fractured golem shells lined the floor like discarded tools. But no decay. Everything here had been preserved—intentionally or otherwise.
He reached a circular door. Sealed.
A faded label above it read:
"Design Vault 7: Conceptual Pattern Storage – Archive Class."
Vaults didn't survive the Sundering.
Yet this one waited.
He placed his hand against the surface. No interface. No ping.
Then the wall responded—not to his system.
To him.
The rings lit up, scanning his palm, his heartbeat, his Corelink.
A voice—flat, synthetic, genderless—rattled the stone.
"Architect Identified. Core: Foundation. Fragment Detected: Edena | Althis."
Access Status: Partial
Query: Do you wish to review the Pattern Initiatives?
Cael's mouth went dry.
"Yes."
The door cracked open with a low hiss.
Inside: light. Rows of suspended platforms floated in a gravity-stilled chamber, each one displaying incomplete blueprints—buildings, cities, machines, things Cael couldn't even name. Some looked like organs, others like bones.
But all of them were built.
Not imagined.
Built.
And at the center of the vault stood a single, active panel.
[PATTERN ENTRY 017: REDOCTRINE]Design Summary:– Purpose: Societal Reconstruction After Cognitive Collapse– Status: Failed Trial – Purged
Last Operator: Architect ALTHIS
Entry Locked. Administrative Access Required.
Then a second log blinked to life.
This one wasn't Althis's.
It bore a new symbol—unfamiliar.
A spiral coiled inside a cracked ring.
[PATTERN ENTRY 047: OBSIDIAN CHURCH]Design Summary:– Purpose: Faith-Based Infrastructure Encoding– Status: Flagged as Rogue Philosophy
Architect Signature: Unknown
The world tilted.
This wasn't a city.
It was a temple.
And someone had tried to build it into the code of the world.
He backed away slowly.
Theta-Black wasn't dead.
It was discarded.
Because the ideas inside it were too dangerous to bury the usual way.
They had been erased.
Or tried to be.
"Foundation," he whispered. "What is this?"
No answer.
Only silence.
And the feeling—subtle, unmistakable—that something had just noticed him back.