Location: The Drifting Fang – Vanyress Upper Ring Tavern
Time: [Post-Bar Toasts / Core Sync: Passive-Aggressive]
The table was warm. The drinks were glowing. The vibe?
Chaotic peace.
Ren had almost let himself relax.
REN (half-laughing):
"You know what? Maybe we actually get a day off."
He shouldn't have said that.
The Core pulsed once.
Then—
💢💥
GRAVITY (screaming):
"ENOUGH."
The entire tavern froze.
Chairs snapped upright. Glasses shattered into powder. A small memory-clock behind the bar imploded quietly out of shame.
GRAVITY (in full rage-mode):
"I HAVE LET THIS NONSENSE CONTINUE FOR EXACTLY TWELVE HOURS AND FORTY-TWO MINUTES.
AND I AM DONE."
BLAZE (mouth half-full):
"W-wait, are we being yelled at by... Gravity?!"
GRAVITY (turning to Blaze):
"You.
You're fire incarnate.
And yet you burn your time whining instead of leading.
You are not comic relief. You are a weapon. Start acting like one."
BLAZE (blinking):
"...Damn."
GRAVITY (turns to Frost):
"And you.
Brilliant. Focused.
And constantly enabling this idiot's delays."
FROST (deadpan):
"...Fair."
GRAVITY (to Time):
"You don't even take yourself seriously."
TIME (grinning):
"I literally exist to screw around."
GRAVITY (snarling):
"Then screw forward. This journey is collapsing in on itself."
Ren leaned back, raising his hands.
REN:
"Okay okay—yes, I get it.
We've been vibing too long."
GRAVITY (cutting in):
"Your task is not to relax.
It is not to flirt with destruction and giggle.
It is to finish the Riftline cycle."
AETHERIUM CORE (quietly displaying):
> CURRENT OBJECTIVE: > 🟡 Locate Echo Half > 🟡 Transfer Dimensional Core > 🟡 Complete Riftborn Integration
GRAVITY (lower now, serious):
"Your other half — the true Echo — is still in this world.
Still breathing.
And until he is found, nothing ends."
Ren nodded slowly, all humor draining.
REN (checking the Core log):
"We've seen four out of five locations.
There's only one left listed…"
He squinted at the data. The name flickered in static:
Outer Drift Rupture – no coordinates listed.
[Entry: N/A / Lock Class: Forbidden / Map Sync: Denied]
BLAZE (tilting her head):
"Wait. That's not a city. That's not even a place.
It's like... a hole in the Verge Ring."
FROST (zooming in on her wrist interface):
"There's nothing in that direction. Literally.
The Drift engines can't even ping that far.
It's like the sector doesn't want to be remembered."
TIME (appearing upside-down in a ripple of glitch):
"Ooooh yes. The Un-Mapped Place.
Last time I went there, I stopped existing for three hours.
Had to reassemble myself out of sarcasm."
REN:
"So we don't even know where it is?"
GRAVITY (low voice rumbling):
"It does not appear on charts.
Because it does not stay in one place."
REN (blinking):
"...Excuse me?"
SPACE (finally serious):
"It moves, Ren.
Not across geography—across reality.
The Rupture is a floating wound in the system.
If you want to reach it... you need to find something that remembers it exists."
SNARKSTEEL (grumpy):
"Translation: we need someone who's insane enough to know how to get there."
Ren clenched his fists.
REN:
"Alright.
Then we don't search for the place.
We search for the whispers.
Someone out there's heard of the Rupture.
Someone knows how to reach it."
AETHERIUM CORE (projecting in clean, cold code):
> NEW OBJECTIVE LOGGED
> TARGET: Outer Drift Rupture
> STATUS: Coordinate-Locked / Existence Displaced
> ACTION: Locate Witness, Surviving Log, or Ghost Fragment
BLAZE (grinning):
"Guess we're ghost hunting now."
FROST:
"Where do we even start?"
REN (smirking slightly):
"We go back to the dirt.
Back to the weird.
Back to the people who know how to listen to space when it lies."
He turned toward the edge of Vanyress.
Toward the underlayer of the Verge — where the forgotten walk, and lost fragments whisper in their sleep.
Because somewhere in the Riftlands...
Someone remembers the Rupture.