Going back into the Cerebral Vault felt wrong. The Wardens, upset by my last visit, weren't just humming a question anymore. Now, they were screaming.
YOU DON'T BELONG. THIEF. NOT YOU.
As I crossed the line, psychic pressure hit me hard. It wasn't just asking questions; it felt like my body was trying to fight off a disease. The frozen lightning forest buzzed with angry purple energy, and the quick memory-visions turned into angry flashes: land breaking apart, stars going dark, and a huge hand wiping away bugs.
My Harvester's Rig whined, the dampeners overloaded. The thing connected to my spine burned as it sent the strong rejection signal. My pain-maze shook, and the walls fell apart. This wasn't something I could calmly look through. It was a total mess.
I couldn't just mirror my way through this. The Wardens had caught on.
So, I did what I had to. I opened the case on my belt.
I didn't take out the switch. I just let it be there, letting its new, quiet song of stopping spread out into the angry air.
It had an instant, weird effect.
The screaming didn't stop, but it did slow down. The Wardens' anger came up against a new signal: a quiet, strong chord of stop, perfectly in tune. It didn't fight the anger; it just gave it another option. A silence after the scream.
The purple sparks faded, turning into a confused hum that went up and down. The Vault didn't know what this was. It wasn't a thief or a worshipper. It was… asking for a break.
I moved ahead, not like a ghost, but as someone bringing a truce that the Wardens didn't get but couldn't just turn down.
The way to the center was different. The yellow haze of the Amygdalic Reflex was now a spinning storm of betrayed love and wanting to protect. I couldn't walk through it, but I had to talk to it.
I held the open case out like a shield, sending the switch's tune into the haze. I added the only clear memory the Lobe had given me—the memory of being whole, of happy making before things got messed up.
The storm stopped. The yellow light became shapes: big, soft hands holding a new sun; the gentle touch of a divine thought on growing mountains. Then, right on top of that, the sharp sting of the first cut. It was too much.
The haze didn't go away, but it cried. Big, shiny tears of pure sadness fell around me, disappearing before they touched the ground. The feeling was so strong it went past my maze and filled the empty spot inside me. For a moment, I wasn't a Carver. I was seeing the murder of something beautiful.
I walked through the rain of sadness and stood in front of the Core Memory Lobe again.
The black tear hung quietly, but it was different. A tiny crack, thin as a spider's web, had showed up on its surface. The stress of being eaten and the Wardens' panic was breaking it.
It's dying, I realized. Not from being eaten, but from stress. The last clear piece was breaking under the pressure of the end.
I went closer. I didn't wait for a vision this time. I opened the case and took out the switch. It hummed in my hand, its ugly crystal form pulsing with the Lobe's weak, fading rhythm.
I can't take you, I said out loud, my voice sounding strange in the Vault's quiet center. But I can give you a chance.
I put the switch not on the Lobe, but on the ground in front of it—the center of the Vault's brain paths. With a tiny drill made of solid silence, I made a very small hole in the hard thought-stuff and put the switch in it.
As soon as it was in, the switch's song changed. It got stronger, wider, turning into a field. A dome of quiet, steady music came from the crystal, covering the Lobe. The crack on the black surface stopped growing.
The Lobe pulsed once, a soft, gold-white light coming from the split. Not a vision, just a feeling… of relief. Like a heavy weight was lifted, a little. Like a door was being held shut in a storm.
Then, one last clear piece of data came into my mind through the connection. It wasn't about being eaten. It was a map. A map of Aethelrex's own first, healthy ways of working—the way the divine power should flow when everything is whole. It was a gift. A plan for a world after the cutting, if we can ever learn to stop.
The gift came with one clear order, the last command of a dying god's mind:
GROW.
The switch was in place. The Lobe was, for now, safe and hidden in a bubble of quiet.
My job was done. But as I turned to leave, I saw the Vault changing. The Wardens' confused hum was turning into a new, planned pattern. They were taking in the switch's tune, and changing. The Vault wasn't just a dying brain anymore. With the switch as a pacemaker, it was becoming something else. A closed tomb for a piece of life. A safe place.
I went back out, and it was easier this time. The Wardens still looked at me, but their anger had turned into a careful, watchful quiet. I was the one who had planted the strange, quiet seed. They didn't thank me, but they let me pass.
When I got back to the prep-chamber, Lucien was waiting, looking really eager. Well? Did you get it?
I looked at him, my eyes hard to read. The Lobe is safe. No one can get to it anymore. The Vault has… closed around it.
Lucien looked sad, then angry. You… you buried it? You closed off the greatest source of knowledge in the universe!
I gave it a chance to get better, I said, taking off my helmet. Knowledge from a scream of pain is bad data.
All data is data! he snapped. He reached for the data-port on my Rig, wanting to download what I recorded.
I didn't stop him. I let him plug in.
He saw the memory of being whole. He felt the god's sadness. He got the final map of healthy pathways. And he felt the Lobe's last, gentle command: GROW.
Lucien stumbled back, unplugging as if he was burned. He stared at his hands, then at me. The angry scholar was gone, and he was replaced by a man who had just looked into something amazing and realized he was lacking.
It… it was beautiful, he whispered, his voice broken. The system… before we broke it…
He turned and walked away, his life's work made unimportant by a single, peaceful order.
I watched him go. I had the key for Wilder—a real one this time, the steady tune of the switch-field. It would perfectly set the Heartforge… to a note of total, lasting quiet. It wouldn't start digestion; it would cause a coma.
The trick was almost done.
Three days.