Peacland crouched near a rocky outcrop, eyes narrowed. Smoke drifted from the distance, not from wildfire—no, it was cleaner, more uniform. Controlled. He crept forward, climbing a ridge until the source came into view.
A camp. But not like any he had seen.
Tents reinforced with salvaged metal. A platform that glowed faintly. Figures dressed in strange gear, patterned with coils and plates. They moved with coordination. One of them knelt over a cube, tapping it—and it responded with a light-pulse.
Peacland's heart raced. These were not wanderers. They were like him. Seekers.
He didn't know if he should approach. But the pull of discovery overrode caution.
Then a voice rang out. "You might as well come out. We've been tracking your energy signal."
Peacland froze. From the camp, a woman stood up, holding a long rod that crackled faintly. She wasn't hostile. Curious. Maybe even impressed.
"You activated something old," she continued. "We've seen the tower's signal. That wasn't just a fluke."
Peacland stood. "I didn't know it would reach others."
"Well, it did. Welcome to the age of echoes." She walked closer, hand outstretched. "I'm Vael."
Peacland hesitated, then shook her hand.
Vael led him into the camp, where the others stared with quiet reverence. They knew the signs—his orb, the relics in his satchel. They had relics too, but none functional.
"You're syncing them," Vael said. "We've only guessed at how. You feel the language, don't you?"
Peacland nodded. "It's more than memory. It's instinct."
"Then you're what the old data called a Cognos. A thinker who bridges the mind and machine."
He didn't fully grasp it—but it fit.
That night, they shared knowledge. Vael's group had recovered fragments of data: blueprints of a collapsed city, diagrams of a machine that could lift stone without effort. Peacland connected his orb, and it completed several schematics. They stared in awe.
"You're the missing link," Vael said softly.
But one warning kept repeating in the files: "Beware Null Bloom. System override protocol failure. Expansion terminated."
"Null Bloom," Peacland whispered. "The Silence."
They were waking up the world—but something dark had been buried with it.
Still, it didn't stop him.
He was no longer alone.