The words in the journal sent a chill down Kai's spine that had nothing to do with the cold of the shop. Resonance. Fissures. Distortion. Echo. It was the nonsensical rambling of a man losing his mind, yet it felt terrifyingly relevant.
"Ben, come look at this," Kai said, his voice low.
Ben and Elara gathered around, reading the entry over his shoulder. Ben's brow furrowed in concentration. "This is... highly disturbing," he stated. "He sounds like a conspiracy theorist, but he uses specific terminology. 'Fissures' is what I've been calling those purple cracks. He knew something was coming."
"What does it mean, 'an Echo'?" Elara asked, her voice barely a whisper. "He says it's in the shop."
The word resonated with Kai on a fundamental level. The swordsman's instincts, the muscle memory that wasn't his own—he had called it an echo himself. Could it be a coincidence?
"He thought an object was the Echo," Kai mused, his eyes scanning the cluttered shelves. "Something he collected."
The search began anew, this time with a specific purpose. They weren't looking for weapons or supplies, but for something that felt... different. For an hour they combed through the dusty relics, tapping on glass, lifting crates, and running their hands over old wood and tarnished metal. Nothing. It was all just junk, inert and lifeless.
Frustrated, Kai leaned against the wall near the spot where he had first picked up the cavalry saber. It was the only thing in the shop that had ever produced a System notification. He closed his eyes, trying to recall the exact moment. The dust motes dancing in the air, the feel of the leather grip, the blue box flashing into existence...
Wait. The dust.
His eyes snapped open. He looked down at the floor. The motes of dust weren't just floating randomly. Near the spot where the Gutter Scuttler had dissolved, they seemed to swirl in a slow, almost imperceptible pattern, drawn to something on the floorboards.
He knelt, his fingers tracing the wood. There. A loose board, its edges slightly raised. He wedged his fingers under it and pulled. It came up with a groan of old wood.
Beneath it was a small, hidden compartment, barely a foot deep. And inside, resting on a bed of faded velvet, was a single object. It was a compass, but unlike any he had ever seen. The casing was made of a dark, polished wood, and the needle wasn't metal, but a sliver of what looked like solidified light, glowing with a faint, internal silver luminescence. It spun lazily, not pointing north, but toward the center of the room, toward Kai himself.
As his fingers brushed against the wooden casing, a jolt, like static electricity, shot up his arm. And for the first time, a new voice appeared in his mind. It wasn't the calm, instinctual whisper of the swordsman. This was a true voice, ancient and weary, and it spoke a single word.
Finally.
At the same instant, a new set of blue boxes flooded Kai's vision, more complex than anything he had seen before.
[Ancient Artifact Detected: The Wayfinder]
[You have found an Echo of Power.]
[Quest Initiated: The First Step]
[Objective: The Rifts are bleeding into your world, drawn by a powerful Distortion. The Wayfinder can lead you to its location. Stabilize the source of the Distortion.]
[Reward: ???]