The tremor came at dawn.
Not sharp, not violent—just a deep, rolling pressure that moved through stone like breath. It didn't shake the earth. It pressed on it, as if something beneath had shifted in its sleep.
Kael jolted upright. The others stirred soon after—Mira blinking awake with a shiver, Brenn sitting up instantly like a soldier, and Renn groaning into his blanket.
"That wasn't a dream," Renn mumbled, rubbing his temple. "Right? Please tell me that wasn't a dream."
Kael stood, brushing dust from his shoulders. "No. That was real."
"Great," Renn muttered. "Because what I needed today was a mysterious underground heartbeat."
The Codex pulsed softly beside Kael. Not glowing—throbbing. Like it too, had felt the shift. He knelt beside it, placing his hand on its scaled cover. The pattern rippled beneath his touch.
"This isn't from the Vault," he said.
Mira glanced up from the fire. "It's under it."
Kael turned. "You heard it too?"
She nodded slowly, arms wrapped tight around herself. "Not a voice. Just... pressure. Like a song half-remembered and way out of tune."
Brenn stood near the edge of the tunnel, looking down the way they came. "It's deep. South shaft, maybe lower."
Kael looked to Mira. "Could you sense any glyphs?"
"No," she whispered. "That's the worst part. Whatever it is—it's too old for glyphs to speak to."
Renn blinked. "Sorry, did you just say it's too old for glyphs? That's like saying something is too old for stone."
Kael exhaled. "Get your gear. We're going down."
They reached the old shaft by midday—far below the camps, past the sealed ducts and forgotten veins of collapsed silver. This was unreinforced earth, the kind no one had walked in decades.
Renn eyed the tunnel, the shadows creeping inside. "Yep. This definitely screams 'nothing horrifying down here.' Just sunshine and hugs."
Mira smirked. "Glad to see your sarcasm survived the Vault."
"It's all I have left," he said, checking his traps. "That, and a slight hope I won't die in a pit."
They found the breach near the southern wall—just behind a collapsed mine shelf. It wasn't visible at first, but the stone breathed differently there, exhaling heat and damp like a fever.
Kael cleared a few loose rocks and crouched.
A narrow opening. Blacker than shadow. Deep.
"See that?" Renn whispered. "That's what we call a bad decision waiting to happen."
Kael tied his torch and lowered himself first.
The descent took over an hour.
They used old rope lines and wooden braces—half rotten, half blessed by luck. At one point, Brenn slipped. Kael caught him just in time, his fingers digging into the man's wrist hard enough to bruise.
"You good?" Kael asked, panting.
Brenn gave him a rare grin. "Remind me to lift you with one arm later so we're even."
By the time they hit bottom, the air had gone thick. Not with heat—but with presence. The chamber was circular, its walls glassed and black, with lines running through them like veins filled with soft, flickering light.
Mira stopped first.
"That's not carved."
Kael nodded. "No chisel did this."
Renn knelt and tapped the floor. "Melted. This place was shaped by something hot—fast."
"Or angry," Brenn added.
In the center stood a single pillar—smooth, untouched, and alive.
Not literally, but the glyphs carved into it moved like breath. Not glowing. Shifting.
Kael took a slow step forward, then another. He could feel the glyphs responding—not to his magic, but to his sacrifice. They pulsed in broken rhythm as if trying to match his heartbeat.
Then he saw it.
At the base of the pillar, half-hidden beneath ancient dust, was a handprint.
Too large for a human. Perfectly shaped. Burned deep.
Someone had touched it before.
Kael stared. "This wasn't just buried. It was… sealed."
Mira's voice was quiet. "Sealed against what?"
No one answered.
Kael turned to Renn. "Traps. Every entry point."
Renn was already pulling wires and bone nails from his pack. "Going full Halren on this one. One wrong move, and I want this whole room whispering 'you shouldn't have come.'"
He moved quickly, methodically—laying down the Null Web along five points of approach. His hands moved like he'd done it a hundred times, even as sweat rolled down his temples.
"This thing," he muttered, nodding at the pillar, "it's not just a glyph source. It's bait."
Kael glanced over. "You saying someone left it to be found?"
"No," Renn said. "I'm saying it left itself."
The deeper air was starting to bite now—thin and cold and wrong.
Mira stood still, one hand pressed to the stone. "Kael. It's humming."
He stepped beside her.
And heard it.
A low vibration—more felt than heard. Not a glyph hum. Not magic.
A warning.
"We need to go," he said.
Brenn nodded. "Agreed."
Renn triggered his glyphs, watching the traps pulse once, then settle. "They're live. If anything follows, I'll hear it scream."
They left without another word, climbing the ropes as the shadows behind them seemed to lean closer.
That night, above ground, the Codex moved again.
Kael sat before it, his hands folded in his lap. He didn't open it.
It opened itself.
The second page unfurled like old skin cracking apart, and a phrase rose in pale silver ink:
"You have stirred the Deep Echo.Mind and Flesh will no longer suffice.The next glyph must be earned in fear."
Kael stared at it, heart tightening.
They hadn't just uncovered something ancient.
They had woken it up.