The camp was silent except for the quiet hum of repair drones and the occasional chirp of recalibrating instruments. After the vault's collapse and the harrowing escape through a structure built on unstable history, the team had returned shaken. Silent. Each of them haunted by what they saw—and what they almost brought back.
The memory crystal showing a younger Benedict still sat locked inside an isolation field, untouched. It was easier to ignore what might be true than admit it out loud.
Benedict sat apart from the others, cross-legged near a portable mana stabilizer. His bracer, still flickering with remnant code, emitted faint pulses at irregular intervals. He watched it, eyes unfocused, as though trying to read a language buried in instinct.
Yara approached, steaming cup in hand. "Caffeinated peace offering."
He took it with a faint smile. "Didn't peg you for a diplomat."
"I'm not. I just prefer my commander lucid and not hallucinating interface runes."
He gave a dry laugh, but his voice lowered. "It spoke to me. Not just the AI… the code. It recognized me. I felt it latch onto something in me like it already knew the shape of my mind."
Yara sat beside him. "That recording... it wasn't just a visual. You reacted before it even played."
"I don't remember it," he said. "But something in me did."
"I still don't trust that code we pulled from the vault," she muttered. "I didn't like the way it looked at you."
He arched a brow. "It was a crystal, Yara."
"Yeah, well. So's a landmine."
A gust of wind kicked dust across the camp. In the distance, Marin and Alec argued over what protocols to follow for crystal decryption. Benedict and Yara remained silent.
"I've had visions before," he finally said. "Nothing like this. Never that clear."
"You think you're... what, reincarnated? Echoed through the pulse?"
"I think I was somewhere I shouldn't have been, a long time ago. Or maybe I left something behind."
Yara folded her arms. "Next time you decide to interface with ancient tech, just say something first. I'll stand by you. But I'd like the option to not dig you out of the afterlife."
He nodded, then looked at her directly. "Thanks. For grounding me. Even when I'm slipping."
"You're not allowed to slip alone," she said. "Team rule."
She hesitated, then added more softly, "I don't want to lose another friend to curiosity."
That gave Benedict pause. "Another?"
Yara's gaze flicked away. "Later," she said. "When this all makes sense."
---
By the time they returned to Vehrmath, the air was electric with tension.
Drones hovered in unusually high numbers. Guild representatives loitered at station checkpoints. Newsfeeds flickered with conspiracy broadcasts from shadow-casters who claimed the compass was an ancient weapon reawakened by rogue artificers.
The Deputy Masters were already waiting.
Benedict hadn't even made it to the council chamber before being intercepted.
"You left Vehrmath with a geological license," spat Disciple Varrin. "You returned with classified relics and triggered an unregistered mana anomaly. That's not just overreach—it's treason."
"It's research," Benedict replied calmly. "And I'm filing my findings within the registry like any accredited artificer."
"The registry isn't your personal vault," Varrin hissed. "Nor is Vehrmath your laboratory. You blacked out half a district."
That gave Benedict pause.
"What blackout?"
Varrin's sneer widened. "Your 'grafting' experiment. Don't act coy. Your bracer sync initiated a surge pulse. We traced the waveform."
Benedict frowned. "That shouldn't have affected anything beyond the sandboxed relay."
Marin appeared beside him, clutching a datapad. "It did. I just finished analyzing the logs. When you activated the Nexus protocol, the relay looped through a dormant compass subroutine."
"The compass reacted?" Benedict asked.
Yara stepped into view. "No. It pulsed. Once. Then again an hour later. Now it's syncing to your field signature."
Benedict said nothing, but his jaw tightened.
Alec leaned in from behind them. "For the record, I vote we stop poking dead gods with sticks."
"That wasn't a god," Benedict said.
"Right," Alec muttered. "Just a vault full of extinct people, whispering riddles from beyond the concept of time. Totally normal."
Varrin snorted. "You think this is funny?"
Benedict's expression sharpened. "I think weaponizing fear is predictable. And you're running out of subtle ways to do it."
For a beat, the corridor went still.
Then Varrin turned away. "Watch yourself, Ashcroft. You've earned attention you won't enjoy."
As they left the chamber, Yara walked beside Benedict in silence. After a few steps, she murmured, "You handled that better than I would have."
He gave her a sideways glance. "I've had practice. They're just louder about it now."
Marin joined them, tapping her datapad. "We've got chatter rising from the civilian channels. Half the city thinks you're secretly building a weapon. The other half wants you to build them one."
Alec, bringing up the rear, muttered, "What's the third half think?"
Yara smirked. "That we're cursed."
Benedict shrugged. "They're not wrong."
The group exchanged looks—tired, amused, wary.
Then Marin's datapad pinged.
"Someone leaked a scan of the compass pulse. Anonymous data drop. The overlay shows matching harmonics to pre-Cascade infrastructure."
Benedict blinked. "Who leaked it?"
Marin grimaced. "No idea. But the Fifth and Sixth Masters have already sent feelers. They want a meeting."
Yara muttered, "Now we're in it."
Benedict looked toward the window, toward the distant ridge where the stars shimmered.
"We've always been in it," he said.
---
Later that night, alone in a secure vault beneath the lab, Benedict stood before the compass.
It hovered in stasis, but its ring spun gently—without input, without command.
He reached toward it. Not to touch. Just to feel the air shift.
The compass pulsed once.
A reading surged across his bracer: "SEED PROTOCOL DETECTED. AWAKE."
Benedict exhaled slowly. "What are you trying to show me?"
From the shadows beyond the sensor range, Kaelor watched.
"He's opening it," she whispered. "Good. Let's see if he survives it."