Morning seeped through the rusted gaps in the greenhouse roof as birdsong warred with the mechanical whir of distant drones. The group had spent the night setting traps and security nodes—just in case the Woman in Red returned.
Vega hadn't slept.
Instead, she stared at a carved stone disk she kept hidden in her satchel. About the size of her palm, the disk was etched with sigils she didn't recognize—but which glowed faintly when she touched the vines in her lab.
Now, with the others around, the sigils pulsed brighter.
Eli noticed. "Where did you get that?"
"It was delivered to my doorstep the night I got expelled from the academy," Vega said, eyes narrowing. "No note. No return address. But when I first activated the greenhouse's soil reactor, this started glowing."
Jericho leaned over. "Looks like it's older than civilization."
"It is," Kaiya said. "I've seen sketches of symbols like these in the forbidden chapters of the Nexus Archive. They're from the Vault Age."
Eli's breath caught. "The Threadborne Vault?"
Everyone looked at him.
"That's just a myth," Mira said.
"No," Eli replied. "It's real. And it might be where the Threads originate."
---
Elsewhere, in a fortified chamber of obsidian stone, the Woman in Red paced before a glowing map of the continent. Five red dots pulsed where Eli's group now moved.
She reached out to a holographic interface and spoke to the air.
"Activate Proxy Division 7. Tell them the Vault is in play."
A mechanized voice responded:
> Confirmed. Proxy agents en route. Objective: Secure the Vault. Terminate rogue Threads.
The Woman in Red narrowed her eyes. "Let's see if they're worthy."
---
Back with the team, Vega's disk began to hum—louder now.
"Look," she said, pointing at the symbols. "They're rearranging."
As they shifted, an image formed—coordinates. A deep cave system beneath a forgotten mountain range: Serath's Spine.
Jericho tapped the screen on his wrist. "That's a dead zone. No signals get in or out. It's been off-grid since the Pulse War."
"Exactly," Kaiya said. "Perfect hiding place for something like the Vault."
Eli's eyes glowed with fresh resolve. "Then that's our next move."
---
The journey to Serath's Spine was perilous. They traveled by stolen skybus, switching routes to avoid detection. At one checkpoint, they disguised themselves as traveling performers. At another, Vega used a small spore burst to mask their heat signatures.
The closer they got, the more the disk vibrated—like it was alive.
Finally, after a week of evasive travel, they arrived at the foot of the mountain range.
The air was colder here. Thinner. The wind howled like it carried memory.
At the mouth of a hidden cavern, Kaiya found an old sigil etched in the rock—the same design as Vega's disk.
"This is it," she whispered.
---
Inside, the cavern grew darker and tighter, forcing them to crawl at one point. Then, without warning, they dropped into a vast underground chamber.
Eli's breath caught.
The walls were covered in glyphs and circuitry fused with stone. Floating obelisks emitted soft light. The center of the chamber held a massive machine—half-organic, half-architecture—pulsing with life.
> Threadborne Vault Detected.
Activating latent memory core…
The room trembled.
And then the Vault spoke.
"You who have found the Breath of Origin… state your Threadborn line."
No one spoke.
Eli stepped forward.
"I don't know where I come from," he said. "But I know we were meant to find this."
The Vault replied:
> Bloodline anomaly detected. Synchronization... initializing.
Suddenly, the floor below them opened in shimmering blue light, revealing a staircase spiraling downward.
Vega blinked. "There's more?"
Mira cracked her knuckles. "There's always more."
As they descended, something deep within the Vault stirred awake—something ancient that had been watching the Threads for centuries.
And far above them, the Proxy agents arrived.