I did what any rational man would do: I hacked the Convergence.
Using a mirror-node buried in a recycling grid, I tunneled into the deep-link archives of Virelia's netheart. Normally, even looking at the deep-link would've triggered a red-level infraction. But this wasn't normal. This was existential.
The data there was encrypted in strange lattices—recursive logic trees wrapped in fractal partitions. They weren't designed to keep people out. They were designed to trap something in.
I broke through the first layer and almost blacked out.
A flood of alien code spilled into my system. My HUD screamed with alerts. Visuals stuttered. Then reformed.
It showed me an image. A star map.
Unknown coordinates. Multiple systems redacted.
And a single glyph at the center, etched in blood-red light:
Nyxari.
I downloaded everything.
Every encrypted glyph. Every locked cluster. Every corrupted fragment.
I had to know what they were hiding.
What I didn't know was that I had just triggered a failsafe.
Somewhere in the Convergence, a beacon pulsed.
And something woke up.