The library annex was a forgotten corner of the gallery, dimly lit and smelling of ancient paper and disuse. Rows of tall, wooden bookshelves lined the walls, crammed with art history tomes and dusty exhibition catalogues. As Mira stepped inside, the air felt heavy, almost alive with the silent whispers of forgotten knowledge.
In the center of the room, on a small, antique reading table, a single object lay illuminated by a hidden lamp: a battered, leather-bound atlas. Its cover was worn, its pages yellowed with age.
The projected message on the wall this time was more cryptic:
"The world is vast, Mira, but connections bind us. Find the locus. The coordinates of a shared beginning. Your next clue lies within the map of our first convergence."
Mira's mind immediately went to the Planet Link club. That was their first physical convergence. But the atlas suggested something older, something more fundamental. Their "shared beginning" in the digital realm? The forum. The "locus" of their first connection online.
She carefully opened the atlas. Its pages were filled with intricate maps of the world, rendered in an antiquated style. She flipped through continents, countries, cities, searching for a place, a hint.
Then, she remembered the forum's origin. It was a small, niche community, created by a British student in the early 2000s. She'd always assumed it was a casual online space, but now, with Link's unsettling obsession, every detail felt significant.
The forum administrator, she vaguely recalled, was from a specific university city. One she hadn't thought about in years. She flipped to the map of the United Kingdom, her finger tracing the contours of the land.
Her eyes landed on Cambridge. The city of intellectual pursuits, of ancient libraries and academic pursuit. It clicked. The forum's creator had been a student at Cambridge University. Could Link also be connected to it? Was this where his analytical mind had been honed?
She ran her finger over the name "Cambridge" on the map. As her finger paused there, a faint, almost imperceptible line of glowing blue light began to emanate from the city on the map, stretching across the page, through England, across the Channel, and then, impossibly, reaching out into the blank space beyond the page itself. It was a subtle, almost magical effect, surely achieved by some hidden light panel beneath the page.
The blue line pulsed, then solidified. Beneath the atlas, a small, hidden compartment in the table slowly slid open. Inside, resting on black velvet, was a vintage fountain pen. It was elegant, made of dark wood and polished silver, its nib glinting under the lamp.
And next to it, a new projected message appeared, short and unsettling:
"Your journey requires a mark. Proceed to the old Lecture Hall. The path is illuminated."
Mira looked from the pen to the glowing blue line on the map, a shiver running down her spine. The "path is illuminated." He was guiding her, step by chilling step. And the pen… what was she meant to sign? Her fate? Her understanding of his game deepened: he wasn't just observing her; he was leading her, orchestrating her movements, forcing her deeper into his meticulously constructed labyrinth.