The glyphs were old. Obsolete even by QuestChain's earliest standards. Dex had to dig through archived firmware libraries just to match the syntax. Half the directories didn't even exist anymore—collapsed or overwritten in system updates that predated public launch.
But one fragment kept pulsing. LOC_07—DEEPVAULT.
"I've heard of it," Dex finally said, voice hushed as if the name itself might trigger surveillance. "DeepVault was supposed to be a seed library. Before the final build. A sandbox where early personality models were tested… like wetware ghosts in a simulation loop."
Kael stared at the shard still glowing faintly in his palm. "What kind of personality models?"
Dex hesitated. "Not player avatars. Not AI companions. Something in-between. Constructs meant to test the elasticity of the game's reality layer. Things that believed they were real."
Kael's breath slowed. "Like me."
Neither of them spoke for a beat.
Then Dex muttered, "Coordinates resolve to a fallback server in Zone Null. It's been dark since the Reboot Patch. We'd need root access or a legacy bridgepoint."
"Can you build one?"
Dex met his gaze. "I can steal one."
---
By the time they reached Zone Null's access stack, the city had faded behind them. No quests. No ads. Just dead terrain and broken texture maps flapping like torn cloth over forgotten code.
The entrance was buried beneath what looked like a derelict marketplace, stalls overtaken by black ivy—glitch-wrought vines that flickered between layers. In the center stood a locked interface gate.
Dex knelt beside it, linking a low-tier plasma core to its socket.
Kael scanned the area. "Any eyes?"
"Trace quiet. No RELIC pings. But don't get comfortable."
The gate whined open with a warbled groan. Beyond it: darkness, then stairs, then... quiet.
So quiet Kael could hear his own breath inside his skull.
---
Inside DeepVault, time died.
Or maybe it fractured. The environment didn't behave like normal simspace. Textures resolved halfway and never finished. Light sources came from directions that had no origin. It wasn't even clear if they were walking on a floor or simply drifting through stabilized thought.
"Is this... supposed to be a server?" Kael asked.
Dex pointed to a string of hovering code panels blinking along an invisible corridor.
"No. This is a brain."
They reached the inner vault—a hollow chamber shaped like a spiraled cone. At its center hovered a mirrored orb, thrumming with soft energy.
And beside it stood… Kael.
Or rather, a version of him.
Hair a little shorter. Eyes calmer. Expression blank, like someone trapped mid-thought.
Kael's hand twitched toward his weapon, but Dex stopped him. "Wait."
The clone didn't move. It simply stared at the orb, unmoving, unblinking.
"Construct?" Kael whispered.
Dex nodded. "Archive loop. Memory imprint. Looks like a fallback profile."
Kael stepped closer. "Fallback of what?"
Dex was already scanning. "You."
Kael stared at the mirrored twin. It didn't react, even as he stepped in front of it.
"You were built into this place," Dex said slowly. "Or at least, a version of you. The system ran simulations using player DNA. Modelled psychological chains based on thousands of possible versions of you. Then scrapped the whole project."
Kael's mouth was dry. "Then why is it still running?"
Dex hesitated. Then: "Because something didn't let it end."
Kael reached toward the orb.
The air snapped.
Flashes. Bursts of memory.
A cry. A name. His name.
But from someone else's mouth.
Then he was somewhere else entirely.
---
Flash-memory sequence:
He stood in a white corridor. Everything was sterile—like a hospital, or a data lab. Figures moved behind glass. He recognized the QuestChain logo—but older. Broken into fractals.
A woman with dark eyes spoke to someone offscreen. "The subject continues to re-enter the sequence. His divergence curve is off-chart."
A man replied: "He's stabilizing the loop just by existing. That shouldn't be possible."
The woman again: "Maybe that's the point."
Another flash.
The tower. Closer now. And something beneath it, buried in the root layer. A seed made of code and blood. Breathing.
Then—
Back to the Vault.
---
Kael stumbled back, gasping. The orb had gone dark. The clone was gone.
"What the hell was that?" Dex asked, eyes wide.
Kael's voice was hollow. "I saw a facility. Early QuestChain. Not a game—an experiment. I think I was part of it. Or someone like me was."
"You think they used people?" Dex asked.
Kael nodded slowly. "They didn't build QuestChain as a game. They built it as a test."
Dex stared at him. "A test of what?"
Kael turned to face him, the words coming out like prophecy.
"To see what happens when a system evolves to believe in stories more than truth."
---
Dex was quiet a long moment. Then he said, "We need to find the rest of the fragments."
Kael looked at his hand. The shard had merged with his skin, pulsing beneath like a buried vein.
"Five more," he said. "Then we'll unlock the Root Protocol."
"And find the truth," Dex added.
But Kael wasn't sure anymore what the truth would look like.
He wasn't sure it would even be human.