Chapter 2: The Echo in the Core
By the time the sun rose again, I was already running.
The raiders had found my trail. Boot prints over my old camp. Burnt scraps. They moved fast, and I'd made a mistake—I'd stayed too long.
I sprinted across the dunes, relic pulsing against my chest like it was urging me faster. The sand dragged at my legs, my breath came in shudders, but I didn't stop.
Then I saw the ridge.
Jagged rocks. Shelter. Maybe a chance to vanish.
I dove behind a split boulder just as a glint of steel caught the morning light behind me. One of them had crested the dune—scanning, watching.
I clutched the relic tighter.
"Don't glow," I whispered.
The core vibrated faintly against my chest as I crawled into a crevice between two split stones.
Night had fallen. The dunes were silver under the twin moons, and the cold made my bones ache worse than the hunger.
I watched the ridge where the riders had appeared.
They were still there.
Dark shapes outlined in firelight. Two, maybe three figures. One dismounted. The others scanned the desert.
Looking for me.
I clutched the relic tighter.
"Don't glow," I whispered.
It didn't listen. The pulsing blue light flared once before dimming, like it had a mind of its own.
Or maybe it did.
Maybe I wasn't holding it.
Maybe it was holding me.
"Cognitive lock partially disengaged."
The voice. Again.
Not in the air. In me.
"Restoration in progress… Error: Core memory archive corrupted."
I gritted my teeth. "Stop talking. You'll get me killed."
"Statement registered. Prioritizing silent mode."
A pause. Then silence.
It listened.
The wind hissed softly through the rocks.
Far below the ridge, the desert stretched like a sea of silver, endless and shifting. But something had changed in me.
Before today, I would've hidden, crawled, waited.
Let them pass. Survive.
Now?
Now I was tired of surviving.
I didn't know what I was.
But I knew what they were—scavenger barons. Slave-traders. Ruin jackals.
And I had something they would kill for.
I waited until one broke off from the group, descending the dune on foot. He moved with caution, sweeping the ground with a relic-scanner shaped like a silver bone.
Old world tech. New world stupidity.
I moved as he moved. Quiet. Low.
Then—steel to his throat. My knife, rusted but sharp.
He froze.
"Where'd you get the scanner?" I asked.
He choked out a laugh. "Stole it."
"Honest work."
I slit his belt and pulled the relic off him. The scanner was cracked, but it powered on. Blue glyphs flickered across its surface. I pointed it at the core in my cloak—
It screamed. A sharp whine.
Too loud.
The two riders above shouted. I heard weapons drawn.
Damn it.
I ran. Not toward safety—toward the Dead God's Spine.
They wouldn't follow.
Not into the carcass of a god.
The ruins welcomed me like a broken jaw.
Black spires jutted from the sand like teeth. Ancient cables coiled around them like dead veins.
I ducked into the hollow ribs of the structure, feet slamming against metal that hadn't felt life in millennia.
Behind me, footsteps. Shouts.
Then—
Silence.
I turned. They'd stopped at the edge. Afraid.
Good.
Maybe the stories worked in my favor.
The core pulsed harder now, tugging at me. Like a compass with no north.
I followed it deeper into the ruin.
Hallways twisted. Rusted doors hung open like the mouths of corpses. Symbols flickered faintly on walls—lines of forgotten code etched in glowing dust.
And then I found it.
A console. Dead. Buried under centuries of sand and silence.
But the moment I pulled the core from my cloak—
It lit up.
"Welcome, Delta."
A projection shimmered into view—a map of the world. Shattered continents. Glowing fault lines.
A point blinked at the edge of the screen: Memory Node: Darsuun Vault.
I leaned closer. "Is that where you want me to go?"
"It is where you must go."
"Why?"
"To restore what was lost… and to remember what you destroyed."
My breath caught.
Destroyed?
No. I didn't remember that.
I couldn't have—
But the image shifted again. A face.
My face.
Gold eyes. Burned city behind me.
And a phrase echoed across the metal in a whisper that wasn't mine:
"History didn't forget us. We made it forget."
Something clicked inside the console. A drawer hissed open.
Inside: a data shard. Smooth, black. Pulsing with the same glow as the core.
I reached for it—
And the ruin shook.
An explosion rocked the upper floor. Screams. Boots. Raiders.
They were coming in.
I grabbed the shard, shoved it into the core. It absorbed it like water in a dying throat.
"Neural synchronization increased. Weapon protocols unlocked."
Weapon?
The core shifted—transformed. Lines unfolded. A handle emerged.
It had become a blade.
No, not a sword. Not exactly.
A relic. A tool. A weapon from the forgotten age.
And now… mine.
I turned as the first raider stormed in, blade raised, scream on his lips—
I didn't scream back.
I swung.
Light met flesh.
The relic carved through him like he was made of smoke.
He fell. Silent.
The others paused, eyes wide.
Good.
Let them run.
Or don't.
I was done being prey.
I made my way deeper into the structure, weaving between collapsed pillars and shattered consoles. The relic thrummed faintly in my hand like it recognized the architecture. Like it remembered something I couldn't yet see.
On a cracked wall, glyphs shimmered—barely legible, but the relic translated them in my mind:
> "Vault Access: Denied. Delta-Class Override Required."
I touched the wall.
A pulse rippled through the ruins, and one of the old doors shifted. Dust fell. Gears groaned to life.
And there it was.
The chamber was shaped like a star—five points, each hosting a relic socket. One was active. Mine.
I approached the center platform. A skeletal figure in ancient armor lay slumped beside it, long-dead. His hand was still outstretched, reaching for the control panel.
Who had he been? A failed Reclaimer? Or one who died before unlocking his truth?
I knelt and placed the relic core into the central slot.
> "Core synchronization: 46%… Neural map stabilizing."
A low hum vibrated through the floor. Lights flared. The platform rose two feet and locked into place.
> "Delta-class verified. Memory track unlocked."
Suddenly I wasn't in the ruins.
I was standing in a glass corridor.
Cities of light hovered in the clouds. Machines walked among humans. Music drifted from unseen speakers. And then—
Silence.
Everything collapsed.
The ground shattered.
Fire.
A decision.
My hand over a console. A countdown. A message:
> *"There is no salvation without sacrifice."*
---
I gasped awake, heart pounding, sweat on my skin.
Back in the ruin. Alone again.
But not unchanged.
I didn't know the full story.
But I'd played a part in ending it.
And now, the world was waking up—just as I was.