The guards moved with practiced coordination, positioning themselves to block any escape. One produced a circular device that began to emit a low humming sound.
"A bloodline detector," the Archivist explained. "Crude, but effective for identifying non-standard cultivation potentials." She gestured to the guards. "Detain them both. The elder can be released after questioning, but the young one comes with us to the tower."
Mama Reeves reached for the payment box, but one of the guards caught her wrist. "I believe our transaction has been amended," he said coldly.
Elias had seconds to decide. Fight? Flee? Neither option seemed promising against trained cultivators on their home ground.
But as the guard with the detector device approached him, something unexpected happened. The detector's hum changed pitch, becoming erratic. Smoke began to wisp from its surface.
Countermeasure Protocol Activated.External Detection Attempt: NeutralizedWarning: Signature Suppression Temporary.Recommended Action: Immediate Withdrawal
The System's automatic defense had bought them precious moments of confusion. Elias seized the opportunity.
"Mama, down!" he shouted, as he flipped the heavy table toward the approaching guards.
The wooden structure caught them unprepared, momentarily pinning one against the gazebo's railing. The Archivist leapt backward with surprising agility, her scholarly appearance belied by the combat reflexes of a trained cultivator.
"Bronze Core manifestation!" she called out, her hands forming complex patterns. "Restrain him!"
The free guard responded instantly, drawing a short rod that extended into a staff wreathed in blue energy. He thrust it toward Elias, who barely dodged the crackling tip.
Despite his enhanced strength and reflexes, Elias knew he was outmatched against true cultivators. But he didn't need to win—just to escape.
He grabbed Mama Reeves, who had already snatched up the payment box, and pulled her toward the dock. The guard's staff whistled through the air where they had stood a moment before, splintering the gazebo's wooden floor.
"The chest!" Mama Reeves protested as they ran.
"Leave it!" Elias replied, dragging her along. The artifact was valuable, but not worth their lives. Besides, its most important content—the journal—was safely hidden back at the settlement.
They reached the skiff just as cultivation energy surged behind them. Elias shoved Mama Reeves into the boat and kicked it away from the dock, leaping the growing gap to land in the stern.
"Traitor!" the Archivist called after them, her scholarly demeanor entirely gone. "The Brass Tigers will hear of your interference!"
Arrows of blue energy streaked across the water, missing their small craft by inches. Mama Reeves grabbed the oars and began rowing with desperate strength, while Elias used a plank to paddle from the stern, adding to their momentum.
Behind them, the Archivist and her guards had summoned water-walking talismans and were giving chase, skating across the river's surface with alarming speed.
"They're gaining!" Mama Reeves gasped between strokes.
Elias searched the riverbank for options. They couldn't outrun cultivators, and they couldn't return to the River Rat settlement without leading danger directly to its doorstep.
Then he spotted it—a tributary channel barely visible in the darkness, its entrance partially concealed by overhanging foliage. The kind of hidden waterway River Rats would know intimately.
"There!" he pointed. "The side channel!"
Mama Reeves adjusted their course without question. Years of river navigation guided her hands as she maneuvered the skiff into the narrow opening, branches scraping against their sides as they squeezed through.
Behind them, the pursuing cultivators hesitated, clearly unfamiliar with the river's hidden pathways. One attempted to follow but misjudged the entrance, crashing into the concealed sandbar that River Rats knew to avoid.
The tributary channel twisted through the darkness, occasionally forcing them to duck beneath low-hanging branches or navigate around fallen trees. Eventually, it widened into a small lagoon surrounded by the crumbling ruins of pre-industrial structures—an abandoned section of Old Whitebrand, from before the cultivation factories had driven expansion upstream.
Mama Reeves guided the skiff to a half-collapsed dock and secured it. Only when they were safely concealed among the ruins did she turn on Elias, her expression a mix of anger and calculation.
"You cost us the artifact," she said flatly.
"They were never going to let us leave with the payment," Elias countered. "You saw what happened."
Mama Reeves clutched the payment box tightly. "Yet we have this. Ten thousand talents."
"And they have the Memory Walker chest. With two of its three contents." Elias didn't mention that he'd secured the journal—the most informative piece.
"How did you disable their detector?" she asked, abruptly changing topics. "That was cultivation technology. Advanced technology."
Elias chose his words carefully. "I didn't. It malfunctioned."
"Convenient malfunction." Her eyes narrowed. "Who are you really, riverborn? The Archivist seemed quite interested in finding you specifically."
"I'm nobody. A courier who got lucky in a fight."
"Nobody attracts the attention of House Mendel. Nobody breaks detection arrays without cultivation training." She studied him intently. "The Hidden Hand is looking for someone with your exact description. They're offering essence vials, spirit stones, even cultivation manuals. And now House Mendel's Archivists spring a trap specifically designed to catch you."
Elias remained silent, unsure how much to reveal.
Mama Reeves sighed, her demeanor softening slightly. "Look, boy. I don't care what you are. Memory Walker descendant, hidden sect prodigy, whatever. But I do care about my people. If harboring you endangers them—"
"It won't," Elias interrupted. "I'll leave tonight. Take my finder's share and disappear."
She considered this, then shook her head. "Too late for that. The Archivists saw both of us. They'll be watching the River Rat settlements now." She patted the payment box. "Besides, we still need to divide this. Your twenty percent is significant."
"Keep it," Elias said. "Consider it payment for the sanctuary you provided."
"Noble, but foolish. You'll need resources." She opened the box and counted out a stack of credit notes. "Two thousand talents. Enough to establish yourself elsewhere, perhaps in one of the outer districts or beyond Whitebrand entirely."
Elias accepted the payment, recognizing the practicality of her argument. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet." Mama Reeves's expression turned grave. "The Archivists won't stop hunting you. Neither will the Hidden Hand. And if the Brass Tigers realize someone's impersonating their members..." She gestured to the badge still pinned to his jacket.
Elias removed it hastily, tossing it into the lagoon's murky water. "We're in a precarious position."
"I've survived worse." Mama Reeves gazed out at the ruins surrounding them. "This was my home once, before the river changed course. I know ways through these old districts that few remember."
She turned back to him. "I can get us to the eastern gate by dawn. From there, our paths diverge. You head wherever your destiny leads, and I return to my people through channels the Archivists won't be watching."
The plan made sense. Elias nodded his head in agreement, then asked the question that had been bothering him since their escape. "Why did you warn me? At the dock, when you realized it was a trap. You could have let them take me and saved yourself."
Mama Reeves chuckled softly. "Contrary to what you might think, boy, I do have principles. I don't sell people. Artifacts, information, services—yes. But not people." She patted the credit notes. "Besides, you'd earned your share fair and square."
As they rested briefly before continuing their journey, Elias reflected on how quickly his circumstances kept changing. From courier to fugitive, from Ashland resident to River Rat ally, and now to a target of one of Whitebrand's Noble Houses.
The System was transforming his body, his bloodline was awakening abilities beyond normal human capacity, yet these physical changes were almost secondary to the transformation of his place in the world. He was becoming someone who mattered—someone powerful interests sought to control or eliminate.
And somewhere in this city, the Memory Walker chest now sat in House Mendel's possession, its remaining contents—the crystal and the catalyst disc—being studied by those who had once hunted his ancestors to extinction.
He needed to become stronger. Fast. The journal hidden beneath Jin's floorboard contained knowledge that might help, but would it be enough against the forces now aligning against him?
New Primary Objective Detected:"Legacy of the Walkers".Recover the Memory Catalyst Disc from House Mendel.Reward: Accelerated Bloodline Awakening
The System's notification crystallized his thoughts. Yes—he would need to recover what was rightfully his. But first, he needed to survive the night and find a new sanctuary in Whitebrand's sprawling expanse.
Dawn was still hours away, and dangers lurked in every shadow of the ancient ruins.