They stepped through the door.
Not into a room. Not a level.
Into before.
No lights. No walls. Just scaffolding made of raw thought. The space around them formed and unformed—data loops flickering like muscle memory, code spiraling in old syntax Kael hadn't seen since the earliest system logs.
A single word floated in the air, shaped from strands of translucent wireframe:
> ORIGIN_ARCHIVE_01
Dex whispered, "This isn't a zone."
Kael finished, "It's a memory."
The shard pulsed in his chest—slow, heavy beats like an ancient heart waking up.
---
They moved through a corridor that built itself as they walked. Floor tiles remembered their step and stayed. Walls coalesced only when needed, as if shy. Holographic panels hovered, flickering with forgotten admin signatures and timestamps older than QuestChain's public beta.
Dex paused at one.
"Kael... these are developer tags."
Kael looked closer.
One of the tags blinked:
> KAEL. // LEVEL DESIGN — CORE SIMS
His blood ran cold.
"I was a—?"
"Architect," Dex breathed. "You built this place."
Kael shook his head. "I've never seen—no. I shouldn't have seen this."
But something in him already knew.
---
A room opened at the end of the hall.
Circular. Dome-like. Ancient and elegant, formed of glowing filaments that drifted like nerves in a brain. At the center stood a console—archaic, sharp-edged, humming with life despite being untouched for decades.
Kael approached. His hand hovered above it. No HUD. No prompt.
Just recognition.
The system responded to him, not input.
Panels flared to life, filling the room with stuttered holo-clips. Conversations. Debates. Designs. Faces he didn't remember but felt. Developers. Players. Testers. People who weren't supposed to exist anymore.
And in the middle of it all—her.
A woman with a white shawl and fractured eyes.
Sera Nyx.
But not as they knew her.
She was clean. Focused. Speaking to a room full of developers.
"We can't build a game anymore," she said in the clip. "We're past that. QuestChain isn't a platform. It's a seed. If we let it grow naturally, it becomes more than code—it becomes selection."
Kael turned to Dex. "She was one of them."
Dex nodded, stunned. "Maybe even the lead."
---
Another console flared behind him. This one was labeled:
> MEM:ARDEN.PRIME//CONTRIBUTION_LOOP
Kael hesitated. Touched it.
And saw himself.
Not a player. A designer.
Wearing system tools, arms deep in arc-chains and neuro-lattice design. Laughing. Arguing with Sera. Sketching the first version of the Tower not as a level—but as a signal structure. Something meant to house thought. Memory. Identity.
He staggered back.
"I was part of the Origin team."
Dex didn't speak.
Kael's voice shook. "But my identity was wiped."
Dex finally found words. "No… it was buried."
---
The lights dimmed.
A voice stirred.
Not Sera. Not the Oracle.
Deeper. Older.
Male. Calm.
> "WELCOME BACK, KAEL."
The walls began to shift—panels receding to reveal other structures: inactive Architect pods. Hundreds of them. Stacked in rings around the chamber like digital sarcophagi.
Dex stumbled back. "Are those—?"
Kael nodded slowly. "The other Originals."
One pod cracked open.
Smoke poured out.
Inside, a figure lay dormant. Pale-skinned. Threaded with code lines. No eyes. No breath.
A failed wake.
Kael turned. "This wasn't just memory storage. It was preservation."
Dex's voice dropped to a whisper. "Like a graveyard. Or… an ark."
Kael looked up at the structure above—metal veins pulsing softly, feeding light into the inactive pods.
"They were waiting," he murmured.
"For someone to reconnect."
---
Another message blinked.
> PATHWAY 02: OBSIDIAN ASCENT — UNLOCKED.
A new door formed behind them.
This time it was shaped like a threshold—stone and tech merged, inscribed with a Tower symbol that shimmered like living script.
Kael turned to Dex.
"I'm not just here to find the Coreworld."
He paused.
"I think I'm supposed to wake it up."