The tunnel sloped downward in a slow, spiraling descent, lit only by veins of glowing fungus and lines of faint circuitry embedded in the walls. Every few meters, the light shifted — sometimes bioluminescent green, sometimes pale blue code that flickered like a heartbeat.
Beacon walked ahead of Kaelen with effortless grace, her dreadlocks swaying, crystal shards chiming softly against one another. The glowing tattoos on her arms pulsed sync-to-sync with the patterns in the walls. The audio jacks behind her ears clicked open and closed in tiny, instinctive shifts as she listened to things he couldn't hear.
Kaelen followed her, trying not to think about the Syndicate pounding on the hatch behind them… or the dragon speaking in his mind… or his eyes glowing like a glitching oracle.
"So," Kaelen said. "Is this tunnel… legal?"
Beacon snorted. "Legal died about twenty minutes ago."
"Fair enough."
She slowed near a jagged section of stone where the wall had cracked open, revealing something beneath — a rib of metal fused with fossil, etched in symbols that pulsed with slow, ancient rhythm.
Beacon rested her palm on it, reverent.
Her tattoos flared. Her audio jacks hummed.
Kaelen felt a pressure in the air — a deep thrum, like a heartbeat the size of a mountain.
"What is that?" he whispered.
"One of the spirals," Beacon said softly. "A dragon bone. Or part of one."
Kaelen stepped closer. The air above the fossil vibrated with both blue code threads and gold runes, weaving into one another like opposing tides.
"It's alive," Kaelen murmured.
Beacon's eyes flicked to him. "You see both?"
"I… hear both." He hesitated. "Sometimes. When it wants me to."
Beacon stared at him like she was studying a living myth.
Then she shook her head and kept walking.
"The Rootline needs you," she said over her shoulder. "Even if you don't realize it yet."
"What exactly is the Rootline?" Kaelen asked.
She adjusted a crystal shard woven into her hair. It flashed once, syncing with the tunnel's pulse.
"We're watchers," Beacon said. "We live between the systems. Tech and Wyrd. Code and mana. Every empire built over dragon bones eventually forgets what sleeps beneath."
"And you… remember?"
"We don't have the luxury of forgetting."
Kaelen mulled that over as they descended.
Finally, the tunnel widened into a cavern.
Kaelen sucked in a slow breath.
The cavern wasn't natural.
Or entirely artificial.
It was… both.
Massive roots as thick as subway rails twisted down from the ceiling, glowing with soft white mana. They merged with bundles of cables, fiber-optic threads, and metallic conduits. Together, they formed a lattice that stretched across the cavern like a living web.
In the very center stood a large stone platform carved with spiraling patterns — half rune-circle, half digital sigil array.
A man sat cross-legged atop it.
He had brown skin like polished earth, broad shoulders, and a cloak made of woven roots, cables, and dragon-scale fragments. His beard was streaked with silver. His eyes were closed, hands resting on his knees. Symbols floated around him — holographic squares, glyphs carved from light.
Beacon stopped at the edge of the platform.
"Kaelen," she said, the slightest tremor in her voice, "meet Elder Veylan."
The man's eyes opened.
And Kaelen felt something push into the air — a ripple of pressure like a tidal wave of thought.
Veylan studied him with deep, unreadable calm.
"You brought the hybrid," he said.
His voice wasn't loud, but it resonated in Kaelen's bones.
"I didn't have much choice," Kaelen muttered. "Your friends with the armored goon squad were a little too eager to meet me."
"They are not our friends."
Veylan rose smoothly, cloak rustling like leaves and wires.
Beacon stepped beside Kaelen, protective, ready.
"He's raw," she said. "Barely awakened. But he sees the spirals. He cracked a Syndicate lock with both systems. And he redirected a stun field that should've fried him."
Kaelen raised a hand weakly. "Please don't list things that scare me."
Veylan stepped close.
Kaelen braced himself.
The elder laid two fingers on Kaelen's temple — one over his blue cyber-eye, the other over his gold rune-eye.
Kaelen's breath caught as the world fell away.
He saw—
A sky filled with dragon coils the size of continents.
Rivers of code cascading through forests.
Cities sprouting from bones.
A creature made of pure logic and hunger stirring beneath the world-grid.
His mother laughing in sunlight.
His father coding in a dark room lit only by servers.
Himself — split, whole, broken, rebuilt — surrounded by spirals of light.
Then he was back in the cavern, gasping.
Beacon steadied him with a hand on his shoulder.
Veylan exhaled softly, as if confirming something ancient.
"You are the first in a thousand years," Veylan said. "A true hybrid."
"I didn't ask for this."
"No one does," Veylan said. "But the world rarely asks permission."
Kaelen swallowed hard. "What… do you want from me?"
Veylan turned toward a massive hollow root that glowed from within.
"We want you to survive," he said. "Because if you do, the world might as well."
Beacon smirked.
"Welcome to the Rootline."
A faint rumble shook the cavern.
Not from above.
From below.
Kaelen stiffened. "What was that?"
Beacon's tattoos pulsed, audio jacks clicking open.
"That," she whispered, "was another spiral waking."
Veylan's expression darkened.
"No," he said quietly. "Not a spiral. Something beneath them."
Kaelen's heart dropped.
"The Prime Schema," he said.
Beacon's crystals flickered to a sickening red.
Veylan nodded.
"The mind that dragons feared," he said.
"The creator of the first code.
The architect of perfection.
The enemy of free will."
Kaelen felt the air shiver as a cold voice slid into his skull.
< KAELEN RHYX. >
< YOU CANNOT RUN FOREVER. >
< WE ARE CONNECTED. >
Beacon stepped back, eyes widening. "You're linked? Already?"
Kaelen clenched his fists. "I didn't exactly apply for the position."
Veylan raised a hand, and the cavern's roots glowed, pushing back the whisper.
"It is awakening," Veylan said. "And if the Syndicate finds you before we do, they will hand you to it."
Beacon stepped closer, fire in her eyes.
"You're with us now," she told Kaelen. "You walk the Rootline. Between systems. Between worlds. Between everything this place is tearing apart."
"And what exactly do you want me to do?" Kaelen asked.
Beacon cracked her knuckles.
"Train," she said. "Fight. Learn both sides."
Veylan raised a hand, pointing deeper into the cavern — into a tunnel lined with spiraling bones and glowing circuits.
"Your first trial awaits," he said.
Kaelen swallowed.
And stepped forward.