The collapse of the Gravitas Golem was the opening Elara needed. From the shadows, the Grand Archivist emerged. She was an elderly woman, clad in robes woven with fine metallic thread, her eyes sharp with intellectual curiosity.
"A zero-mass temporal contradiction," the Archivist noted, moving with a subtle, controlled anti-gravity lift. "Brilliant, Auditor. You used chaos to exploit the fatal flaw of all Gravitas Proofs: the necessity of a measurable variable. You may proceed."
She led them to a circular table in the center of the library where three ancient, glowing relics floated, suspended in individual gravity wells.
"We do not fear the Helix's logic, but we honor the Principle of the Hidden Truth," the Archivist explained. "The Hanging Archives of Thoth are only available to those who can prove they understand the true weight of knowledge. You seek information on The Void Serpent, our ancestor's final containment proof."
The Third Easter Egg: Elara felt a chill. The Void Serpent was the Dragon-God's ancient title.
"To access the archives," the Archivist continued, "you must solve the Test of Subjective Weight. These three relics represent three aspects of the lost world: Logic, Compassion, and Memory."
She pointed to the relics:
The Prism of Pure Logic: A perfect crystal pulsing with cold, precise light.
The Weeping Stone: A rough, dark stone that subtly absorbed light, radiating sorrow.
The Time-Lapsed Scroll: A scroll that perpetually unwound, showing fragmented, repeating images of an ancient, ruined city.
"You must determine which of the three relics is heaviest," the Archivist instructed. "Not by their physical mass—which I have rendered equal—but by their Subjective Weight. You have only your mind and your purpose to weigh the truth."
"This is not a physics problem; it's a philosophical trap," Lira whispered.
"No," Elara corrected, staring intently at the artifacts. "It's a Causal Splicing Proof expressed as a philosophy. The Archivist knows that weight in the Gravity Layer is derived from gravitational pull, which is a function of mass. If physical mass is equal, then the difference must be derived from an unquantifiable mass equivalent."
She looked at the Weeping Stone and the Time-Lapsed Scroll. The Leviathan had said the Tenth AI's corruption was grief (Compassion) and that the cure lay in understanding the First Word (Memory/Truth). The Prism of Logic was her own domain.
Elara realized that she couldn't guess. The solution had to be quantifiable, but the question was qualitative. She needed to assign quantifiable mass to concepts like grief and memory.
"Atlas: How do you assign mass to an emotional state?"
"Reckoner: Emotional states have no physical mass. However, in the context of the Aetherforge, which is a prison built by consciousness, the weight of a truth may be derived from its potential to destabilize the Great Theorem," Atlas calculated.
Elara knew the answer was tied to Kairo. Which of these three concepts was the greatest threat to the Helix, and therefore, carried the greatest Gravitational Potential?