Location: Solmerea – Black Vault Prison, beneath Halcyros Prime
Time: [Cycle 7 : 17:50 – ??? Drift Suspended]
They didn't even talk.
Lira gave the order.
"Send him to the Vault."
And that was it.
The Guardians didn't drag him. They drifted him — a teleport lock that sliced through the air and slammed his ass into the darkest shithole Solmerea had to offer.
The Black Vault.
A prison carved into the underbelly of Halcyros, where Vein energies bent downward and space was thinner than breath.
They didn't even chain him.
Because no one escaped the Vault.
His cell was barely a cell — more like a floating cube, suspended in a gravity-broken rift, lit by flickering wall glyphs that didn't even try to be helpful.
The only other person inside?
A man already sitting in lotus position on the stone slab like he was on vacation.
Big, older, skin like sun-baked bronze, beard braided into three sharp points. Covered in jail tattoos — each one glowing faintly like they remembered murder.
He cracked one eye open as Ren dropped in.
"New meat."
Ren blinked. "You always this charming on first dates?"
The man smiled. "Call me Dren Vark. I killed a king once. What about you?"
"…Freed a cursed time goddess. Got betrayed and soul-muted for my trouble."
Dren whistled. "Spicy."
📍 Inside the Vault – Time Suspended
Hours passed.
Ren couldn't sleep. Not because it was loud. It was the quiet.
The kind that presses on your lungs like guilt.
That's when he remembered something Arix once told him.
"When you're in deep shit, gather intel like it's free booze at a funeral."
"People bleed truth in tight places. Jails, beds, graveyards."
"So shut up. Listen. Ask weird questions while looking dumber than you are."
Ren rolled over toward Dren.
"So. What's your war count?"
Dren raised an eyebrow. "…Excuse me?"
"You're obviously not a regular thief. You're a soldier. I can smell the burn glyphs on your left arm. Solmerea? Or… Vanyress rebel tier?"
Dren leaned forward, eyes narrowing.
"…I fought during the Crown Fracture. Border wars between the Petal Dynasty and Oth'Rel."
He paused.
"The empires are still fighting. Quietly. Using spies, agents. Some want a new core. Others… want to stop it from being found."
Ren's pulse jumped.
"…You ever hear of someone named Eli'Var Drethyn?"
Dren blinked.
"Ghost noble? Yeah. Crazy bastard used to scream in the Catacombs about stars talking to him."
Ren grinned. "Yeah. He gave me a scroll. That they just stole."
Dren nodded slowly.
"Then you're screwed. Or very important."
Ren leaned back, head spinning.
And then…
He remembered something else.
The Merge Letter of The Last Light and The Fallen
Tucked beneath his boot — one of the few things they didn't scan properly.
A folded glyph-paper. Fused from two resonance sources: one from the Light Fragment, the other from the Fallen.
He pulled it open.
Again, the glyphs shimmered… then morphed.
Text.
But it wasn't text.
It felt like an email if it was written by a dying god with poetic tendencies and anxiety.
"Bearer.
The Core must be recovered.
But not destroyed.
Embed it into a safe drift-point, one untouched by convergence decay.
Beware: Any tampering will result in echo split.
You may not remember who you are when you finish."
Mission Directive:
Locate the Dimensional Core.
Secure it with resonance layering.
Do not break containment.
— Observer 3A//NullThread
Ren blinked. "Okay. That's… cryptic as fuck."
Time to leave.
🩸 Arix's Lessons: Prison Break Protocol Alpha-Bitch
"If you're caught, assume the walls can't stop you — only the rhythm of the place can."
Ren scanned the cell.
Floating cube. No obvious doors. But the wall glyphs? Pulsed every eleven seconds.
"Always carry thread, a pin, or a lie. You'll use one of them."
Ren slid the microthread wire Arix had stitched into his cloak lining. Wrapped it between two stone fixtures.
Timed it.
Waited.
Then—
BOOM.
A surge of energy flared — the gravity blinked out.
He dropped like a rock—right onto the outer shell of the Vault's drift lock chamber.
"Shadow isn't what you hide in. It's what you control."
He moved across the wall surfaces — no footsteps, no light trail.
Arix's footwork: Shadow Anchor Step. In and out of blind zones between the ward sigils.
He slipped past two guards eating fruits. Stole a stun shard. Knocked one out with a shoulder flip into a mana vent.
He was out.
As he pulled himself into a side tunnel, bleeding, heartbeat like thunder, he whispered:
"Okay… find the Core. Don't destroy it. Hide it. Somehow."
He looked back once.
The Vault sat in silence.
But he knew it was only the beginning of the hunt.
And this time?
He wasn't going to trust anyone.