Chapter 1: The Shattered Tablet
Dust clung to Elias Veynar's skin like a second layer of sweat. The desert wind howled through the excavation site, rattling the tents and scattering his papers. Beneath his hands lay the prize of a decade-long obsession: a black stone tablet, its surface carved with symbols no language had yet claimed.
He traced one groove with a trembling finger. The obsidian was warm. Too warm.
> "This isn't possible," he muttered. "Stone doesn't hold heat for millennia."
The graduate students had already gone, grumbling about the storm rolling in. Only Elias remained, crouched before the relic as thunder cracked across the horizon. His career, his reputation, even the mockery he endured for chasing "ghost tablets"—all of it would be vindicated tonight.
The tablet pulsed.
Elias froze. The carvings rippled as though the stone were breathing. A voice—low and distant—echoed inside his skull.
> [Echo Detected.]
His chest tightened. He staggered back, blinking against the sand that whipped across the dig site. "...What?"
The stone split down the center with a deafening crack. A fissure of black light swallowed him whole.
---
Darkness. Silence. Then—
He gasped awake. Cold air stabbed his lungs. Elias lurched upright, clawing at the ground, only to find it wasn't sand beneath his fingers. It was soil. Damp, heavy soil.
The desert was gone. The tents. The storm. The tablet.
Instead, he sat in the middle of a forest clearing beneath two unfamiliar moons.
> "No. No, this isn't—"
His voice died as a translucent screen flared before his eyes.
> [Obsidian System Activated.]
Welcome, User Elias Veynar.
Initialization Sequence: Echo I — Survive the First Night.
Elias stared. His rational mind screamed this was shock, hallucination, some oxygen-starved dream. But the words hovered there, carved in light, waiting for him to respond.
> Time Limit: 08:00:00
A countdown began.
Rustling came from the trees.
Glowing eyes blinked at him from the darkness. Low growls vibrated through the clearing. His pulse thundered.
> [Hint: The Echo remembers your past weaknesses. Adapt or perish.]
Elias staggered to his feet, heart hammering. He had no tools, no weapons, nothing but his dirt-caked hands. The growls grew louder, closer.
The system's text shifted again, cold and merciless:
> [Failure Condition: Death will not grant escape. You will be returned.]
Returned…? Returned where?
Branches snapped as the first shadow lunged.
The countdown ticked on.
[07:59:45]