Opening – A Vault No Longer Silent
The alert doesn't sound like a modern alarm. It resonates like a heartbeat carved in metal—slow, deliberate, ancient.
Kaelen freezes as the Vault's ambient glow flickers red.
Seren:"We've overstayed."
Kaelen:"No. We were lured."
Behind them, a corridor once sealed by memory-key now yawns open. Black mist seeps in, carrying with it the scent of scorched ozone—and something worse: a presence.
Something alive, but not in any human way.
The Soulburner has entered the Vault.
The Soulburner Awakens
Kaelen and Seren flee deeper into the structure, guided only by flickering Isu glyphs and partial map fragments Kaelen decrypted moments earlier.
Every few steps, the walls shudder, the Vault groaning like it remembers the last time it was breached. Their footsteps echo—too loud. Too traceable.
Behind them: the sound of dripping fire and the crackling hiss of fused metal.
Seren (whispers):"What is that thing?"
Kaelen (grim):"An Isu purge-class construct. Soulburners didn't kill bodies. They erased identities. Memories. They devoured souls."
The Maze Beneath
They descend through layers of forgotten tech: glyph-locked chambers, levitating bridges, and voidglass halls filled with echoes of the past.
Along the way, Kaelen activates an old Isu console—trying to stall the Soulburner.
A whisper from the past plays:
Vael'Ruun's voice:"If you hear this, you are already being hunted. I left breadcrumbs not to stop it—but to teach you how to outthink it."
"It can't see you when you remember who you are."
Seren stares at Kaelen. It's not a riddle—it's Isu logic. The creature isn't tracking heat or sound. It's tracking cognitive resonance. The more Kaelen taps into Vael'Ruun... the closer the Soulburner gets.
Desperate Measures
To escape, they must split.
Kaelen draws the construct's attention—allowing it to feel Vael'Ruun through him—while Seren circles around to reach the Vault's auxiliary core and disable its navigation tracking.
Kaelen:"I'm bait. You're the knife."
Seren (softly):"Don't get erased."
Kaelen draws it into a crumbling amphitheater—a memory archive shaped like a temple. There, the Soulburner emerges fully.
Its form is liquid obsidian and light, with burning lines of Isu script cascading across its shifting armor. Where its face should be: a mirror that reflects Kaelen's worst self—Vael'Ruun in chains, screaming as flames consume everything.
The Soulburner strikes.
Kaelen runs—not with speed, but with memory. He calls up a stronger moment—Vael'Ruun in triumph, rallying rebels. That flicker of hope throws the Soulburner off for seconds.
Enough.
Seren's Triumph – The Kill Switch
Seren reaches the override chamber. A glyphlock guards the controls—only usable by one attuned to a hybrid memory signature.
She hesitates—then recalls her time in Kaelen's shared memory stream. The connection they forged.
She activates the override.
The Vault screams as its guidance core detonates.
The Soulburner reels.
Kaelen takes the moment to leap through the flame gate as it collapses behind him.
Reunion and Escape
The ground shudders. The Vault's ceiling caves in.
Kaelen and Seren emerge into the dying light of day—snow falling, thunder cracking in the distance. The mountain collapses behind them, swallowing the Vault and the Soulburner alike.
They don't speak for a while.
Then Seren breaks the silence.
Seren:"We're going to need bigger weapons."
Kaelen:"We just found one."
He holds up a cracked data crystal—Vael'Ruun's final archive, pulled from the Vault's mainframe. Inside: the full schematic of his rewrite weapon.
Closing – The War Narrows
As they move toward an extraction point, a storm builds behind them—not natural.
A crimson eye opens far on the horizon.
Zarxes knows.
And he's coming.