Days bled into a tense, watchful rhythm. The encounter with Garr had drawn a line in the dirt, one Kaelan knew the wolf-kin would eventually cross. But the Stalkers were a Tier 3 problem. The petrified egg in the vault was a Tier 9 countdown.
His infant body was a prison of frustrating limitations. Sleep, feeding, and the sheer exhaustion of basic movement consumed most of his hours. Yet, within the cradle of his mother's arms or the quiet of the nursery, his mind worked with the Omega Chip's cold fire.
He began a systematic, passive data-gathering campaign.
<< Directive: Establish Clan Resource Baseline. >>
Whenever Lyra or Arric carried him through the manor, the Chip mapped everything. The groaning weight of the rusted portcullis. (<< Iron alloy, moderate degeneration. Potential for reforging with mana-tempering. >>) The empty, echoing barracks. (<< Capacity: 50. Current occupancy: 3. >>) The overgrown herb garden, where Lyra pointed out wilted feverfew and stunted mandrake. (<< Species identified. Growth deficiency: insufficient solar mana absorption. Recommend prismatic refraction array. >>)
But his true focus was the vault. He could not enter, but he could listen. He had Liara take him to the solar whose wall backed onto the vault chamber. There, he would press his tiny hand against the cold stone and initiate a Resonance Scan.
<< Conducting low-frequency mana echo scan. Target: Beyond barrier. >>
The data returned was a ghost image, a sonogram of power. He built a model in his mind. The egg was not just sitting on a pedestal. It was the nexus of a degenerate spatial anchor, a knot in reality that had, over centuries, subtly warped everything around it. The vault's stones were infinitesimally thinner near the egg. Time there flowed 0.0003% slower. It was a cage of magnificent, decaying geometry.
<< Analysis: "Temporal-Stasis Lock" is a misnomer. It is a localized space-time dilation field, likely created during the egg's emergency translocation. Field is powered by the egg's own void-aspected mana, which is bleeding into the environment at a rate of 0.15 microunits per day. This bleed is the "degeneration." >>
<< Projection Refined: Field collapse in 291 days, not 297. >>
The margin for error was shrinking.
He needed to interact with it directly. He needed a reason to be taken to the vault.
The opportunity came from an unexpected vector: Borin, the one-armed retainer. A fever took him, one that left him shivering despite the hearth's heat. The clan's meager medical supplies—willow bark and a weak antiseptic salve—did nothing. Elara, the cook, wept quietly in a corner as Lyra pressed a cool cloth to the old man's brow.
"It's the damp-rot fever," Lyra said, her voice grim. "It takes the old and the weak. We lost two last winter to it."
Arric stood by the door, his face a mask of helpless anger. "We have nothing to trade for a healer's draught. And the Stalkers would demand the sky itself for one."
Kaelan, held by Liara in the doorway of the sickroom, observed. His optical sensors zoomed, analyzing Borin's pallor, the sheen of sweat, the faint, sickly-green tinge to his mana signature—a signature that was guttering like a candle in the wind.
<< Diagnosis: Advanced Mycotic Mana Infection. Pathogen: "Gloom-Rot Spore" (Fungal, Tier 1.5). Currently attacking subject's mana core and nervous system. >>
<< Treatment Path: Requires antifungal agent with mana-stabilizing properties. >>
<< Cross-Reference Clan Inventory: Insufficient. >>
<< Proposal: Synthesize "Solar-Cleanse Tincture." Required Components: Sunroot (available in garden, though stunted), Pure Water, Crystalline Salt, and a catalytic agent of aligned positive energy... such as minute exposure to a stable, non-chaotic spatial anomaly. >>
The last component was the key. The egg's void-aspect was chaos, but the structure of its spatial anchor was a masterpiece of enforced order. A sliver of that ordered resonance could be the perfect catalyst to create a tincture that would burn out the fungal rot.
He had his reason.
That evening, as Lyra pored over a ledger by candlelight, Kaelan focused. He needed to communicate a more complex idea. Writing in ash was too slow, too limited. He needed a new medium.
His eyes fell on a cup of water left on a table beside Lyra.
<< Target: Water surface. Manipulate surface tension via micro-vibrations. Create coherent ripples. Form pattern. >>
It was a draining exercise, more nuanced than heating ash. He directed minute pulses of kinetic mana. The water's surface, lit by the candle, began to quiver. Not randomly. Concentric circles formed, then intersected, creating a pattern of peaks and troughs.
Lyra, sensing the mana fluctuation, looked up. Her eyes widened.
On the water's surface, the ripples resolved into a perfect, recognizable image: a stylized representation of the vault door. Then, the image shifted, showing a root vegetable (sunroot) next to it. Finally, it showed a drop of liquid falling onto a recumbent stick figure (Borin).
Lyra was stone-still for five full seconds. Then, she slowly closed her ledger. She walked to the crib, her expression unreadable. She leaned down, her voice a whisper. "The vault. You need something from inside the vault to make a cure for Borin."
Kaelan blinked. Yes.
"What is in there that could possibly help? It's just old tax records, rusted heirlooms, and…" She trailed off, her eyes narrowing. "And the Stone. The family's cursed paperweight." A legend, a children's ghost story about a bad-luck rock. She stared at him. "That's it, isn't it? It's not just a stone."
He blinked again. Yes.
Lyra let out a long, slow breath. "Father would never agree. He believes the old tales—that it brings ruin. He hasn't opened that door since his grandfather's time."
Kaelan held her gaze, his own utterly serious. He had no bluff, no plea. Only necessity.
Lyra saw it. She saw the absolute certainty in her infant brother's eyes. She straightened, resolve hardening her features. "Tomorrow. When he inspects the southern ridge wall. We'll need the key he wears around his neck." A faint, dangerous smile touched her lips. "And we'll need a distraction."
The next morning, Arric departed as planned. Lyra's distraction was simple and brutal. She sent young Finn to the southern wall with a message about a "crack in the stonework that looks like Stalker claws." It would occupy Arric for an hour.
As for the key… Lyra approached her mother in the solar, where Liara was mending a cloak. "Mother, Father's key—the one with the phoenix seal. He thinks he lost it this morning. He's in a state down by the wall. Did you see it?"
Worry flashed across Liara's face. "No! The vault key? That's—"
"It's probably in his chamber," Lyra said smoothly. "I'll look. May I take Kaelan? He's fussing, and the walk will calm him." Before Liara could protest, Lyra scooped Kaelan from his blanket and was out the door.
In Arric's sparse chamber, she went straight to the strongbox by his bed. It was locked, but Lyra produced a thin lockpick from her sleeve. << Sibling Lyra: Proficiency in covert entry noted. >> In moments, the box was open. Inside, beside a few silver coins and a medal, lay a large, iron key, its bow shaped like a phoenix in flight.
They moved quickly through the empty halls to the heavy oak and iron door. The air grew colder. Lyra fitted the key. The lock turned with a thunderous CLUNK that echoed in the silent corridor.
The door swung inward on protesting hinges, releasing a gust of air that was decades cold and tasted of ozone and stone dust.
The vault was small, circular, and mostly empty. A few crumbling chests lined the walls. But in the center of the room, on a simple stone plinth, sat the Anomaly.
To Lyra, it looked like a large, obsidian-black egg-shaped rock, its surface matte and seemingly non-reflective. It was unsettlingly smooth, and the air around it shimmered, like heat haze on a summer road.
"The Stone," she whispered, a superstitious dread in her voice. She made no move to enter.
To Kaelan's senses and the Chip's scans, it was a raging symphony of data. The void-lattice pulsed beneath the petrified shell. The degenerate spatial field pressed against his own mana, a low, cosmic hum that vibrated in his teeth. << Warning: Proximity to unstable spatial field. Maintain distance. Initiating full active scan. >>
"What do we do?" Lyra asked, rooted in the doorway.
Kaelan extended a chubby hand, pointing not at the egg, but at the space directly beside the plinth. << Target: Ambient mana within spatial field. Isolate 0.00001 units. Imprint with field's structural resonance signature. Contain in prepared vessel. >>
He had Lyra bring a small, empty crystal vial from her alchemy pouch—the purest vessel they had. Holding it, he focused.
This was the most delicate operation yet. He wasn't drawing mana from the egg—that would be catastrophic. He was sampling the environmental echo of its power, like capturing the distinctive scent of a place in a bottle.
A thread of silver light, so fine it was almost invisible, coiled from the air near the plinth. It twisted, containing a complex, crystalline pattern of data—the fingerprint of the spatial anchor's ordered structure. With infinite care, Kaelan guided it into the crystal vial. Lyra stoppered it.
Inside, the light did not fade. It held itself in a tiny, perpetual geometric dance.
<< Catalyst Acquired: "Stable Spatial Resonance Extract." Tier: 4 (Effectively). Quantity: Sufficient for one synthesis. >>
At that moment, a booming voice echoed down the hall.
"LYRA!"
Arric. He'd returned too soon.
Lyra's eyes went wide. She slammed the vault door shut, locked it, and sprinted down the opposite corridor, Kaelan clutched to her chest, the vial burning a hole in her pouch.
They were barely back in the solar, Kaelan returned to his blankets, when Arric stormed in, his face flushed with anger and fear. "The key! It was in my box! Did you take it? Did you go to the vault?"
Lyra faced him, her expression a masterpiece of confused innocence. "The vault? Why would I? Finn said you were frantic about the key, so I found it in your strongbox. Here." She handed him the key, her hand steady. "You must have forgotten you put it away."
Arric took the key, his anger turning to confusion and shame. "I… I could have sworn…" He looked at the key, then at the pale, watching faces of his wife and daughter. The fear of the vault's legend clearly warred with his trust in them. He slumped. "My mind… the stress. Forgive me."
Crisis averted. Catalyst acquired.
That night, by the hearth, Kaelan guided Lyra through the synthesis of the Solar-Cleanse Tincture. The sunroot, purified water, salt ground to powder, all combined under his precise thermal direction. At the final moment, he had her uncork the crystal vial and let a single, shimmering thought of the resonance within escape into the brew.
The liquid, which had been a murky gold, cleared instantly into a brilliant, glowing topaz. It hummed with a clean, sanitizing energy.
<< Synthesis Complete: Solar-Cleanse Tincture. Tier: 3. Efficacy against Gloom-Rot: 99.8%. >>
They gave three drops to Borin. Within an hour, his fever broke. The green tinge in his aura faded. By morning, he was weak, but alive, and sleeping peacefully.
The clan had its first major healing. Lyra had her unshakable proof. And Kaelan had his first tangible data and tool linked to the vault's terrible secret.
He had touched the edge of the problem. Now, he needed to understand the heart of it. He needed to learn how to speak to a dying, unborn god. And for that, he needed more than a whisper of its echo.
He needed a language.
<< Next Objective: Decode Void-Forger Dragon mana syntax. Begin analysis of spatial bleed patterns. Project: "Linguistic Bridge" initiated. >>
The countdown continued: 290 days. But the first variable had been successfully isolated.