No avenues, no towers, no crowd noise. Instead, he stands in a vast hall that feels more like a grand manor house than a Vault. Heavy timber beams arch overhead, supporting walls of aged stone polished smooth by time. The architecture honors the Lattice in subtle ways: not a single harsh angle, but eights woven into the bones of the place: stairs rising ahead in two pairs of eight steps, then bifurcating left and right in the same measured rhythm.
There are eight ways to navigate out of the hall: two arches under each curve of the stairs, two open arches flanking him behind that lead the same way into an airy expanse, two narrow doorways set into alcoves he hadn't noticed at first, and two wide openings on either side of the hall itself. The symmetry is deliberate but refuses to feel ceremonial. It's functional. Structural. As if whoever designed this place was building toward a pattern they couldn't quite articulate.
He still stands on the Locus, smaller than the one outside, but unmistakably the same design. He knows he has to step off it and step back on to return to Verdant.
At the hall's center sits a massive table of dark wood, surrounded by eight high-backed chairs arranged in perfect symmetry. He steps off the Locus and heads toward the open arches behind him, drawn by a faint sound: the gentle rush of water—and light that feels more natural than the soft glow of the hall's lanterns.
Despite being a few meters away from each other, separated by a plain wall, the two arches open into the same immense indoor garden, green grass underfoot giving way as he steps onto it. The room (if it can even be called a room) stretches away impossibly vast, too immense for any mortal building, yet somehow it is enclosed with high vaulted ceilings lost in shadow. In the far middle wall, a waterfall spills from two jagged openings high above, tumbling down to feed a circular pond of crystal-clear water. The air is cool and damp, carrying the scent of moss and earth untouched for years. No footprints mar the grass, no tools lie scattered; it feels abandoned, pristine, waiting.
Along each side wall, four small buildings stand spaced evenly, compact domes blending dark wood and brushed metal, smooth and curved like half-buried capsules. Each one looks identical from across the garden, no larger than a modest room from that distance, with tinted windows wrapping around the upper curve and a single circular door set flush into the wall. The materials are warm and cool in balance, timber grain against metallic panels. Unadorned. Functional.
He approaches the nearest one.
Up close, they are larger than they appeared. Not dramatically, but enough to recalibrate. What read as a modest room from across the grass is closer to a small house, the curve of the dome rising well above his head, the door taller than he is. The windows that seemed narrow from a distance wrap further around the upper curve than he'd registered.
He stands there for a moment, studying the surface of the door. No handle. No latch. No hinge visible from this side. Not quite a double door in the traditional sense: two leaves joined at the center, meeting in a vertical seam with no gap wide enough to fit a finger. A paired leaf door, smooth enough that the join reads more like a scar in the wood than a mechanism. He puts his palm flat against the right leaf and pushes.
Nothing.
He tries the left. Nothing.
"You should try to push it."
He freezes, caught off-guard by the voice behind him, the sudden intrusion making him feel like a trespasser. He turns around and looks at the owner of the voice.
Someone stands a few meters away in the garden, on the grass, watching him with the easy posture of a person who has been there for a while and made a considered choice not to announce it. Not hostile. Appraising. There is amusement in it somewhere, held back but not very far back.
"Don't worry. I'm not here to arrest you," the newcomer says with a smirk.
"What? Who..." Lio starts before being interrupted.
"Stasis, right? Yours is the third one on the left."
He is younger than Lio expected, or he reads younger: lean, bright-eyed, a quality of alertness in him that tips toward delight rather than vigilance. His arms are crossed loosely at his chest. One hand holds a small object Lio can't identify, turning it over between his fingers at irregular intervals, the way some people handle keys.
"First," the young man continues, before Lio has found anything to say, "you should get healed. Hot spring is behind the waterfall." He points past the pond with two fingers without breaking eye contact. "Go around it. Won't miss it." A pause. "It will help with that." He nods at Lio's foot, a glance so brief it might have been accidental except that nothing about him reads accidental. "We can talk later."
Before Lio can answer, the young man is already moving, turning with the unhurried ease of someone following a schedule only he can see, heading for the first dome on the right side of the room. His pace is light. Unhurried. Almost cheerful.
He does turn his head back, at the last moment, without slowing.
"By the way: Junhao Li. You can call me Firewall."
Then he faces forward again and walks straight to the dome. Its round door opens when he is still two meters from it, both leaves swinging inward without a sound, and closes again the instant he crosses the threshold. By the time Lio thinks to look for a mechanism, there is nothing to see. Just a door, identical to every other.
Lio looks at the third dome on the left for a moment.
Then he turns toward the waterfall.
The pond is wider up close, the surface disturbed only where the falling water meets it, spreading outward in slow rings that dissolve before reaching the edge. The waterfall itself is loud enough here to be a presence in the room, not deafening but constant, filling the air with a fine mist that settles on his face and hands. He follows the edge of the pond around the right side, staying on the grass, and finds the opening behind the cascade: a gap in the stone, narrow enough to be invisible from across the room, the air pushing through it warm and heavy with steam.
He steps through.
The room beyond is not large, but it was built with care. The walls are raw stone, close and curved overhead like the inside of a shell, the ceiling lost in the same shifting vapor that hangs over the water. The basin itself is cut directly into the floor: wide enough for six, deep at the center and shallow at one edge where a carved step descends into it. The water is still except for the slow movement of heat rising from below, the surface trembling faintly at intervals, fine threads of vapor uncoiling from it into the air.
Along the near wall, a low shelf of stone runs the full width of the room. On it, folded with improbable neatness: several thick towels in undyed linen, and beside them a set of basic clothes, simple cut, plain fabric, the kind of thing that belongs to no era and fits most bodies well enough. Underneath the shelf, a pair of sandals, the straps new leather, the soles worn smooth. Someone stocked this, at some point. Not recently. But it was stocked deliberately.
He sits on the carved step and undoes his bindings. The foot looks worse in this light. He doesn't look at it longer than necessary.
He lowers himself into the water.
The heat moves up through him from the feet first, then the legs, then the slow unwinding of the muscles along his back that have been braced against something since the mine and hadn't fully let go since. It doesn't feel medicinal. It feels like the opposite of being cold.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
He opens the HUD.
(...)
VOCATION: Ally
KEY: Stasis <1>
STRANDS: 52 / 128
LIFESTRANDS: 84
GRADE: 1
INTEGRITY: 52 / 96 [+2/second ◆]
FLUX: 64 / 64
I/O: 4
KINETIC INPUT: 12 (-> 14) OUTPUT: 8 (-> 10)
QUANTUM INPUT: 8 (-> 10) OUTPUT: 8 (-> 10)
SYNAPTIC INPUT: 8 (-> 10) OUTPUT: 8 (-> 10)
AXIAL INPUT: 8 (-> 10) OUTPUT: 8 (-> 10)
(...)
The number is already climbing. Slowly, steadily, the way stone dries after rain: not dramatic, not instant, just one direction sustained long enough to matter. He watches it for a moment and then lets it run.
Then he sees it.
(...)
PROTOCOL MESH <1>
(...)
CATALYST ECHO WELL
(...)
He hadn't checked. The entry into the Vault or something in the crossing had given him the Catalyst. He doesn't know when exactly. The readout is sitting there with the patience of something that has been waiting for him to notice.
CATALYST: ECHO WELL
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
On activation, recovers 48 of Integrity and 32 of Flux.
CHARGES: 4 / 4
While CHARGES are not full:
- Obtain 1 CHARGE when the Squad(s) accumulates 512 STRANDS
- (-> -64 STRANDS): +1 CHARGE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Giving is storing. Taking is remembering.
The well is never empty."
He looks at it for a while, the heat still moving through him, the number on his Integrity still climbing one slow increment at a time.
Four charges. Full, from the moment he arrived. He doesn't really know what to think about it.
"Squad(s)"? Why the "(s)"?
The design is legible enough. It wants a Squad: accumulate Strands together, charges come back. Alone, he can burn 64 of his own Strands to force one. Sixty-four Strands without losing 48 of Integrity first would take some management. The alternative is the spring: come back here, let it fill, don't spend what he doesn't have to.
He leans back against the stone. The steam rises. The water holds him. Outside, the waterfall continues its work, indifferent and constant, the sound of it filling the space so completely that the silence underneath it doesn't feel like silence at all.
Then, there is Mesh. Mesh he unlocked when Mateus forced him into a Squad.
He opens the panel.
PROTOCOL: MESH <1>
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Establish a persistent link with up to 2 Squad members.
While linked, the Ally can see the I/O in real time.
While linked, the Ally can apply Threads to linked targets.
Threads are sustained effects.
NETWORK: 0/2
RANGE: 8 meters
THREAD: FOCUS
THREAD: FOCUS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
OUTPUT: +2 primary I/O per second
INPUT: -2 Integrity per second
-2 Flux per second
MAXIMUM STACKS: 32
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He reads it again.
That's... strong. But not for me.
Not healing. Not shielding. The linked target gets stronger incrementally, continuously, as long as the link holds and he can keep paying. The cost comes off him. The benefit goes elsewhere.
One link. One thread. One direction of transfer, and he's the one it flows out of.
He already knew this, in the abstract. He'd read the summary before he understood what it meant.
The water is still working. His Integrity is in the seventies now.
He stares at the description. A link first, passive, with no cost, just the target's I/O sheet open in his HUD in real time. Then the Thread on top of that, if he chooses to run it. Two separate decisions. The Protocol tells him what his squad member is working with. The Thread starts spending him to improve it.
It stacks while sustained. Every second held is another two points.
He does the math slowly, the way you do when you're not sure you want to arrive at the answer. Thirteen seconds would be twenty-six. Thirty seconds would be sixty. The longer he holds, the more it gives and the more it takes. There's no ceiling on the benefit. There's a very concrete ceiling on what he can afford to lose, and below that ceiling is zero, and zero means ejection.
He has four Catalyst charges. Full, sitting there. Getting them back requires either 512 Squad Strands or sixty-four of his own, and sixty-four Strands at Grade 1 is not a small number. The charges aren't a safety net. They're an emergency reserve that becomes harder to refill the more he needs it.
So the math isn't just how long can I hold it. It's:
If I hold it too long and the fight turns, what do I have left?
And the answer might be nothing, or it might be one charge he spent a week earning back.
He hasn't run it yet. He doesn't know what it feels like to watch that number fall in a live situation, against something that's actually trying to kill the person he's linked to.
He'll find out.
He closes the HUD.
The steam rises. The water holds him.
He still thinks about it. Everything in the Lattice is organized around the same axis: Input and Output. What you receive, what you project. The whole sheet reads that way: four pairs, each one a question about direction. Even the Catalyst works on it. You give Strands, you get a charge. The Squad earns together, you get a charge back.
And then there's the Key.
One second in. Sixty-four seconds out. Except that the output, in that case, isn't power. It's exposure. Sixty-four seconds of standing still while the world keeps moving at full speed around him. The ratio that looked like leverage is just a longer window to be killed in.
He's a support Vocation with a liability for a Key, a Protocol that costs him Integrity to benefit someone else, and a Catalyst that's genuinely useful exactly as long as he doesn't need it too often.
He leans his head back against the stone.
Ally, he thinks. Not the worst thing he's been called.
He stays in the water far longer than needed. The water offers a relaxing indifference to everything outside this room. It doesn't ask anything of him. It just holds him at the right temperature and keeps working, and he lets it, longer than is strictly necessary, because necessary stopped being the metric some time ago.
He knows the numbers without quite believing them. He checks them again.
INTEGRITY: 96 / 96
He looks at his foot.
The skin is closed. Not scarred, not tender: closed, the way skin looks when nothing was ever wrong with it. He presses his thumb into the arch where the wound was deepest. No give. No flinch. He does it again, harder, looking for the pain he'd organized the last several hours around.
Nothing.
He sits on the carved step for a moment with the water still at his waist, not moving. The foot is fine. The shoulder that had been pulling wrong since the mine is fine. The specific exhaustion that had settled into the muscles along his back (the kind that sleep doesn't touch) is gone. Not reduced. Gone.
He gets out.
The towels on the shelf are thick and dry and smell of nothing, which is its own kind of luxury. He takes one and then looks at the clothes folded beside it. Plain fabric, simple cut. He picks up the shirt and holds it. The material is something he doesn't have a name for: not linen, not cotton, lighter than either, but with a weight to it that suggests structure. It fits like it was made for someone approximately his size, which is close enough to feel intentional.
He leaves the old clothes on the step.
He doesn't think about where they came from for a moment, and then he does, and then he can't stop. The towels were dry. The clothes were folded. The sandals under the shelf (new leather, soles worn smooth) had been placed by someone who expected a foot to slide into them. Not recently, Firewall had said nothing about recently, but someone had stood here and made decisions about what a person arriving in this room would need.
He puts on the sandals. They fit.
He goes out through the gap in the stone, back around the pond, back into the garden.
The space opens around him the way it did the first time: too large, too quiet, the vaulted ceiling lost in its own shadow. The waterfall behind him resumes its place as background, constant and indifferent.
Firewall had said the third on the left. From this side of the room, that puts it second on the right.
He crosses the grass toward the right-hand row. The first dome sits closest, identical to all the others, the paired door flush in the curved wall, no handle, no mechanism he can identify. He passes within a meter of it. Nothing moves. It doesn't register him, doesn't shift at the edges, gives nothing. He keeps walking.
The second dome opens before he reaches it. Not when he touches it, not when he raises his hand. When he is still two paces away, both leaves swing inward without a sound, smooth and unhurried, like something that has been waiting and is no longer waiting.
He stops.
Looks at the open threshold. Looks at the door.
Then he steps through.