The door opened. It didn't lead to a room. It led to a pit. A sheer drop into the red crust of the planet.
[Warning: Critical containment failure.][The Ancestor is stirring.]
Above them, Valen floated down through the hole in the ceiling. He had rebooted. He was furious. "Stop!" Valen roared, charging a spell that looked like a miniature sun.
"Jump!" Kaelen grabbed Rix.
They jumped into the pit just as Valen's sun-spell incinerated the platform they were standing on.
They fell. They passed the crust. They passed the mantle. They fell into the Deep Earth.
The System interface flickered and died completely. [Offline.]
Kaelen opened his eyes in the dark. They were falling toward a massive, glowing river. The River of Time.
And sitting on an island in the middle of the river, bound by chains of starlight and shadow, was a man.
He looked young. He had black hair. He wore tattered grey robes. He looked up as Kaelen fell.
The man smiled. "Hello, Glitch."
[End of Volume 4]