Chapter 16: BACK TO THE BEGINNING
The fire had burned to embers before I made my decision.
Ciri's gratitude still echoed in my ears—thank you for choosing protection—but gratitude didn't answer the questions that kept me awake. What was I really? What had those ancient builders intended? And what was the mechanism that should have woken me supposed to respond to?
I needed answers. And there was only one place left to find them.
The lower passages were exactly as I'd left them weeks ago—dusty, forgotten, and thick with the weight of centuries. My enhanced vision adapted automatically now, the darkness parting like curtains to reveal stonework I'd barely noticed during my desperate crawl toward survival.
Different perspective this time. Not dying.
The chamber where I'd woken materialized at the end of the final corridor. The massive door still hung open, hinges frozen in the position they'd held since I'd shattered the seal. Beyond it, the space that had been my cradle for eight hundred years.
I stepped inside and really looked for the first time.
Elder runes covered every surface—walls, ceiling, the raised platform where the crystalline stasis had once held my body. The patterns were dense, interlocking, designed with a precision that made human architecture look crude by comparison. I traced one sequence with my fingers, feeling the residual magic hum against my skin.
[ANALYSIS FUNCTION: ELDER RUNE IDENTIFICATION]
[PATTERN TYPE: PRESERVATION — LONG-TERM STASIS]
[PATTERN TYPE: CONTAINMENT — DIRECTED MAGICAL SUPPRESSION]
[PATTERN TYPE: UNKNOWN — REQUIRES FURTHER DATA]
The third category covered most of the chamber. Whatever the full purpose of these wards had been, the system couldn't fully interpret it.
I moved to the sealing mechanism—the device I'd instinctively Nullified to escape. The frame remained intact despite my assault, carved from a stone that didn't match anything else in the keep. At its center, characters had been etched deep enough to survive millennia.
THE FIRST BLADE
The designation hit differently now, reading it instead of having it fed through the system interface. A weapon's name. A tool's label. Not a person, not a consciousness—just a thing, categorized and stored until needed.
Except I'm not a thing. I'm Cole Ashford, who died on a Vermont highway and woke up inside their experiment. Whatever they built, I'm the one deciding what it does now.
Below the designation, more text in Elder Speech. The system translated automatically:
ACTIVATION PROTOCOL: AUTONOMOUS TRIGGER CONDITION: ELDER BLOOD MANIFESTATION (CRITICAL THRESHOLD) SECONDARY TRIGGER: EXISTENTIAL THREAT DETECTION STATUS: MALFUNCTION — PREMATURE AWAKENING — CAUSE UNKNOWN
Premature awakening. The mechanism was supposed to wake me when Ciri's power reached a critical point, or when something threatened existence itself. Instead, it failed. I woke... when? Why?
The answer wasn't in the text. Whatever had caused the malfunction, the builders hadn't anticipated it.
I searched the chamber more thoroughly, finding alcoves I'd missed during my desperate crawl toward survival. One held the remnants of my stasis—crystalline shards that had dissolved when I'd first drawn breath. Another held what looked like monitoring equipment, long since failed. A third—
A skeleton.
The bones were arranged against the wall, knees drawn up, skull tilted back as if their owner had simply fallen asleep and never woken. Fragments of clothing clung to the frame—robes of some kind, decayed beyond recognition. And in one skeletal hand, a medallion on a corroded chain.
I knelt beside the remains, careful not to disturb them more than necessary.
Someone stayed behind when the chamber was sealed. They died here, waiting for something that never happened.
The medallion came free with gentle pressure. The symbol on its face was unfamiliar—not a wolf's head, not any sign I recognized from Witcher lore or the broader universe. Something older, predating the organizations I knew.
"Thank you," I said quietly to the bones. "For watching over me."
It felt right to acknowledge them. Whatever this person had sacrificed, they deserved more than abandonment.
I arranged the skeleton more respectfully—straightening the limbs, adjusting the skull, creating something closer to a dignified repose. The work took twenty minutes, and my knees ached by the end, but the alternative felt wrong.
[DISCOVERY XP: +75]
[QUEST UPDATED: DISCOVER YOUR ORIGIN — 25% COMPLETE]
The final alcove held documents. Not intact—centuries of decay had reduced most of them to fragments—but enough remained to piece together context.
...threats beyond the Spheres cannot be countered by conventional means...
...the child will manifest power sufficient to pierce dimensional barriers...
...success brings salvation; failure brings the end of all...
...the weapon must be ready for either outcome...
The fragments confirmed what the memory had shown. The builders had created me as insurance against failure—a failsafe in case Ciri's power became a threat rather than a salvation. But the documents didn't specify what that threat might look like, or what "the end of all" actually meant.
Threats beyond the Spheres. The Wild Hunt? The White Frost? Something else entirely?
I gathered the readable fragments carefully, tucking them into my belt pouch alongside the caretaker's medallion. Vesemir might be able to translate what the system couldn't interpret. Or he might have records that provided context.
The chamber held no more easily accessible secrets. Whatever else the builders had left, it was locked behind deterioration or wards I couldn't access yet.
I climbed back toward the surface, leaving the ancient space behind. The designation echoed in my thoughts with each step upward.
The First Blade.
A weapon's name. But weapons don't choose their targets. They don't form friendships with the people they're supposed to protect. They don't feel the warmth of a fire and the weight of belonging.
I do. That's the only answer that matters.
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