The mission was over. No new directives had been uploaded.
Inside the Command Base — a walled tower of black stone, built by the League over three millennia ago — Kael descended the spiral staircase in silence. The structure, rooted in the earth beneath ancient Brussels, remained untouched by time, suspended in the alternate dimension that housed the League's operatives.
No profane had ever set foot here.
This was a separate dimension — a veiled reflection of Earth itself.
A place where time was molded, and where Kael lived between missions, far from the echoes of his former death.
---
In the tower's southwestern wing, a private room waited. He called it his "personal archive," though there were no League monitors or data nodes inside.
Only a hobby.
A solitary obsession:
Dimensional philately and numismatics.
Stamps, coins, and currency from alternate Earths — worlds that no longer existed, or perhaps never fully had.
Each piece collected during a jump.
Kael sat at the illuminated stone desk and rotated a translucent cube containing his acquisitions.
He selected a triangular coin from the Helios Confederation, a version of Earth that never reached the carbon age.
He watched the living inscription shift beneath the alloy surface.
—
Hours later, he passed through the upper halls and descended to the Gallery of Silence, a space the League reserved for neural rest.
There, agents could watch approved visual archives.
Kael settled into the carved stone seat and activated one of the few programs he still followed:
"Contact Files: Lost Lines"
As he watched, he alternated with searches through the League's Internal Oracle, scanning terms like:
Lenova Sahrin
S86-WHITE
Cross-narrative instabilities
Nothing outside his clearance. But every query was a thread in a puzzle the League pretended was already solved.
---
At 03:17, the tower's air shifted.
A subtle hum — dimensional displacement — resonated through the walls.
Kael looked up. Few had access to traverse directly into the tower.
Even fewer arrived unannounced.
The room's entry slid open.
He didn't move.
And then, Otrho walked in.
Same steady stride. Same restrained smile — as if nothing had changed since the Valley of the Forgotten.
— Thought your crossings had ended, — Kael said without rising.
Otrho crossed his arms.
— Thought you knew I never stay where I'm told.
Kael stood.
— How long?
— Long enough for you to think I was just memory.
It was him.
The only one who had seen Kael die as a profane.
The one who guided him to the League.
The one who held truths the tower's archives would never reveal.
And now he was here.
In the Command Base.
Returned.