Elias opened his eyes to white ceiling and the distinctive smell of healing salves. The guild infirmary. He'd been here before after difficult expeditions, but never alone.
The memories crashed back with brutal force. The chamber. The core. The collapse.
His friends buried while he somehow escaped.
"He's awake," announced a brisk female voice.
A guild physician moved into view, her expression professionally neutral as she checked his pupils.
"Can you state your name and rank?"
"Elias Vern. Scout. E-Rank." His voice sounded strange to his own ears, hoarse from dust and disuse.
"How long?"
"Three days." She made notes on a crystal tablet. "You're lucky to be alive. Most of that dungeon is now a sinkhole."
Three days. Three days of lying here while his friends...
"The others?" he asked, though he already knew.
The physician's professionalism slipped, revealing a flicker of something that might have been suspicion. "No other survivors were found. Recovery teams couldn't penetrate past the second level. The structural damage was too severe."
Elias closed his eyes against sudden tears. "I tried to warn them. The chamber was unstable. I tried..."
"Save your report for the inquisitor," she interrupted, not unkindly. "He's been waiting for you to regain consciousness."
As if summoned by her words, the door swung open. A tall man in the midnight blue robes of the Guild Inquisitorial Division entered, his silver emblem denoting senior rank.
"Leave us," he ordered the physician, who complied without comment.
The inquisitor took her place beside the bed, face impassive beneath his close-cropped grey beard. "Elias Vern. I'm Inquisitor Drace. I need your account of what happened in Dungeon #173."
No preamble. No sympathy. Just the clinical efficiency of a man who'd investigated countless deaths.
Elias recounted everything as it had happened, their entrance, the discovery of the chamber, Gareth's insistence on extracting the core despite warnings, the collapse. He omitted only what came after, the binding, the text, the impossible escape. Some instinct warned him to keep that private.
"So you warned them, but they proceeded anyway," Drace summarized, making notes.
"Yes. Gareth thought the find would elevate our guild standing."
The inquisitor's pen paused. "And yet, of the five members of Crimson Vanguard who entered, only you emerged alive. How exactly did you survive when your companions did not?"
The question hung in the air between them, weighted with implication.
"I was thrown clear of the initial collapse," Elias said carefully. "There was a side passage. I was scouting it when everything came down."
"How fortunate for you."
Elias met his gaze steadily. "Not fortune. Caution. I expressed concerns about the chamber's stability."
"So you've said." Drace's tone remained neutral, but his eyes were sharp. "Were you aware that Crimson Vanguard entered that dungeon without proper authorization? That the area had been flagged for special investigation by the Research Division?"
"No," Elias answered truthfully. "Gareth said he'd filed all the necessary permits."
"He hadn't." Drace closed his notebook. "Which makes this an unauthorized expedition resulting in four deaths and the destruction of a research-designated dungeon."
The words fell like stones. Elias stared at the inquisitor, realization dawning. "You think I..."
"What I think is irrelevant. The facts are these. You entered illegally. You were the only survivor. And your account cannot be verified." Drace stood. "Your guild status will remain suspended pending full investigation. You are confined to Lumine City until further notice."
"My friends are dead," Elias said, voice breaking. "Doesn't that matter to you?"
Something flickered in the inquisitor's eyes, perhaps a hint of compassion quickly suppressed. "It matters to their families. They're holding a memorial at sunset tomorrow. I suggest you don't attend. For your own sake."
After Drace left, Elias lay motionless, staring at nothing. The physician returned briefly to pronounce him physically recovered, "surprisingly so", and discharge him with minimal instructions.
No one else visited. No words of sympathy. Just the weight of unspoken accusations in every glance from guild staff as he collected his few personal effects and signed the release documents.
Outside, early evening painted Lumine City gold. The familiar spires of the Adventurers Guild headquarters rose above the western district, catching the last sunlight. Any other day, he would be reporting there after an expedition, sharing drinks with his team at the hall's long tables.
Instead, he turned east toward his small rented room, keeping his head down. He'd barely gone three streets when he heard it, the first whisper.
"That's him. The one who made it out."
More voices joined, not bothering to lower their volume.
"Left his whole party behind, I heard." "Crimson Vanguard was solid. Five years together." "Always the quiet ones you gotta watch."
Elias quickened his pace, feeling eyes following him. News travelled fast in guild circles. By morning, everyone would know, or think they knew what had happened.
He'd nearly reached his building when a large figure stepped into his path. He recognized Brennan, one of Gareth's drinking companions from another party.
"How'd you do it, Vern?" The larger man's breath reeked of ale. "How'd you get out when better men didn't?"
"I was lucky," Elias said quietly. "Please, Brennan. Not now."
"Lucky?" Brennan spat. "Dalia was worth ten of you. Gareth saved your worthless hide more times than I can count."
"I tried to stop them," Elias said, fatigue bone-deep. "I told them not to touch the core."
"Convenient story when there's no one left to deny it." Brennan stepped closer, looming. "Coward."
The word struck harder than any physical blow. Elias flinched but held his ground. "Think what you want. I know what happened."
"Yeah? Well, everyone else knows too." Brennan gestured broadly to the street, where several passersby had stopped to watch. "The scout who ran while his friends died. The coward of Crimson Vanguard."
Something stirred inside Elias then, a flicker of blue in his peripheral vision that vanished when he tried to focus on it. Heat spread through his chest, sudden strength flowing into his limbs.
He could strike Brennan down where he stood. The knowledge came with absolute certainty, along with awareness of exactly which points to target for maximum effect.
Instead, he stepped around the larger man and continued walking.
"That's right, run away!" Brennan called after him. "It's what you're good at!"
Elias kept moving, one foot before the other, until he reached his room and locked the door behind him. Only then did he allow himself to slide to the floor, trembling with reaction.
"What's happening to me?" he whispered.
As if in answer, blue text shimmered into existence before him:
[Integration: 47% complete]
[Host recovery: Accelerated]
[New protocol activated: Self-defence]
[Alert: Emotional distress detected]
[Query: Does vessel require assistance?]
Elias stared at the floating words, the final proof that he hadn't imagined it all.
"Who are you?" he asked the empty room. "What have you done to me?"
[Identity: Fragment of Spatial Core Network, Node A-7]
[Function: Binding to compatible vessel following primary core destruction]
[Status: Integration proceeding as designed]
"I don't understand," Elias said. "Why me?"
[Compatibility factors: Spatial awareness. Neural plasticity. Moral flexibility within defined parameters.]
"Moral flex..." He broke off, Brennan's words echoing. Coward. Was that how the core saw him too? Someone who'd abandon his friends to save himself?
"I didn't run," he said fiercely. "I tried to save them."
The text shifted.
[Analysis of memory fragments confirms statement]
[Vessel designation updated: Guardian-class potential]
[Warning: External threat approaches]
A soft knock at the door made Elias start. The blue text vanished instantly.
"Vern? You in there?" A woman's voice, vaguely familiar.
Cautiously, he opened the door to find the guild hall receptionist Lydia, he recalled. She'd always been polite but distant during his check-ins with Crimson Vanguard.
"They told me you'd been released," she said, glancing nervously down the hallway. "I don't have long, but..." She pressed a sealed parchment into his hand. "Master Thorne wants to see you. West district, the old observatory. Tomorrow at dawn."
"Master Thorne? The dungeon researcher?" Elias frowned in confusion. "Why would he..."
"Because you're not the first," she whispered, already backing away. "Be careful who sees you going there."
Before he could question her further, she was gone, footsteps fading down the stairwell.
Elias closed the door, breaking the seal on the parchment. Inside was a simple map marking a location in the western district, far from the guild headquarters. No signature, no explanation.
A trap? Possibly. The guild had questions he couldn't answer. But what choice did he have?
The blue text appeared again:
[Unknown variable detected]
[Threat assessment: Inconclusive]
[Recommendation: Proceed with caution]
[Secondary recommendation: Accelerate integration]
Elias crumpled the parchment in his fist. "How do I do that?"
[Sleep. This vessel requires rest for optimal integration.]
[New abilities will manifest upon awakening.]
He should have questioned further, demanded explanations. Instead, bone-deep exhaustion washed over him. He barely made it to the bed before darkness claimed him.
His last coherent thought was a silent promise to his fallen friends: I'll find out what really happened. Whatever I've become, I'll use it to discover the truth.
Beyond his awareness, blue patterns spread beneath his skin, sinking deeper with each passing moment.