I entered the building cautiously, Zee following me, then closed the door behind us.
So…was 689 an important year or something or was it just a random number I somehow managed to guess after a lot of mental gymnastics? Great question. I'd rather think I'm a genius instead.
The first thing that greeted me inside was a small square lobby. To my right stood a reception desk, coated with layers upon layers of dust. The embedded terminal was dark – probably dead for years.
Next to the desk was a narrow brass staircase that lead up to a closed door on the upper floor. Just beneath the stairs, tucked between the desk and the wall, was another door – one that led deeper into the building’s ground floor. It was secured with another keypad lock.
I approached it first, my earlier success boosting my confidence to impossible levels.
But this one wasn’t that simple. Six of its ten keys were visibly worn. That meant the code was frequently changed, rotated between those digits. With six digits involved, we were talking about far too many possible combinations.
“What are the chances it has the same passcode?” I muttered to Zee, but mostly to myself.
Then I typed in 0689.
The lock screeched, and I stepped back, raising both hands.
“Okay, I don’t think I have what it takes to figure out another password,” I sighed.
So I turned toward the stairs.
The second-floor door had no keypad, no scanner, not even a simple padlock. Just an old handle.
I pressed it down and it opened with a click.
The hallway beyond stretched ahead – long, dark, and lined with doors on both sides. A window at the far end served as the only source of illumination, casting a muted glow from the Lumen lampposts outside.
Surprisingly – or maybe not – none of the doors were locked. So I just decided to check each one.
Each room turned out to be an empty workshop. The furniture – tables, chairs, empty cupboards – remained, but any tools, components, or materials had likely been cleared out long ago.
Some of the workshops had wooden corkboards still hanging on the walls, cluttered with old photographs and faded notes. In one of them, the corkboard was full of photos of a red-haired young woman, always posing with different people who I assumed were all Blackthorn members at the time.
Looks like she forgot to take those with her when the guild disbanded.
I skimmed the photographs, instinctively looking for my mother – I remembered her well enough from all the pictures of her we had in our house.
And…I found her. And surprisingly, myself as well.
In one particular photo – probably taken right here in this very workshop – my mother stood holding me in a baby sling, smiling. On her right, the young woman I’d seen in the other pictures had her arm draped around her shoulders, beaming at the camera.
But there was another figure as well.
To Mother’s left stood a young man with glasses, messy black hair, and a neatly trimmed goatee. Like the woman, his arm casually wrapped around my mother’s shoulder. They looked…close. All of them.
“Interesting…” I muttered, gently plucking the photo from the corkboard and flipping it over.
On the back, written in a lively cursive script, were the words: 11-11-689 – with Cecilia, Owen, and Baby Viktor (such a cutie!!!).
The same year as the passcode. And Owen…who was he? Could he be a young Valdemar?
No. That didn’t track. If it were that simple, Dalton Rose would’ve figured it out ages ago. At the very least, there’d be wanted posters all over Solvane with this guy’s face on them. But there weren’t. It was the first time I’d seen him. It was also the only photo of him on the corkboard.
The woman though…she looked close to Mother, and to everyone in Blackthorn. Maybe she was still out there somewhere. Maybe she could tell me more – about this Owen. About other Blackthorn members. About Mother’s friends. About…her.
I’ll need to ask Dad if he knows her.
I stored the picture in the Inventory. It labeled it simply as: Friends Picture.
Wait a minute...I thought the Inventory couldn't store written objects....
How did it store the photograph when there's a writing on the back side? Had Chronos tweaked even more things in my favor?
I decided not to question it too much. I'll ask him about it the next time I see him.
Then I turned to the final workshop on the floor.
This door looked different from the rest – polished and reinforced. Mounted in its center was a dusty, carved wooden plaque that read:
Workshop of Cecilia Baines, Savior of Solvane
In honor of her unmatched genius and ingenuity in the creation of the Magitek-Steam Engine Mark I, this space has been permanently vacated and preserved to commemorate her legacy.
Always one of us. Always a Blackthorn.
Keep shining on.
Savior of Solvane?
I think that’s the first I’ve seen anyone openly admit it.
The contribution of her creation was always quietly downplayed – probably because most people were too ignorant to grasp that the old steam engines we had before wouldn’t have kept Skyhaven and Orlinth floating for much longer.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
It looked like someone tried to take this plaque down. Probably Carol Lang after she purchased this building.
Anyway, let’s see if this room was cleared out like the others.
I pressed the handle and stepped inside, Zee by my side.
It was cleared.
Same bare workshop. Same stripped furniture. Everything was identical to the other workshops except for one thing: a wooden baby crib, resting beside the main table.
I walked up to it, placing my hands on the rails.
Recalling the photo from the other room with me in a baby sling, I realized this was probably my crib.
Did she bring me here that often?
I shook my head, disgusted at myself for even entertaining the thought. If she’d ever loved me, she would’ve contacted us at least once. Instead, she moved on completely. Even had another child.
Anger flared within me.
I kicked the crib hard with the sole of my boot. It slammed into the wall, wood cracking as it crashed hard against it.
Then I dropped into one of the chairs and stared blankly out the window.
So much for my Blackthorn clue. I’d learned nothing. And I had no idea how to unlock the door downstairs without possibly alerting Ironwatch.
Sure, I could brute force it, but that would ruin any chance of investigating calmly. I didn’t want pressure. I wanted time.
I glanced at my COG.
[16:59]
Five already? Damn it…I feel like I haven’t done anything useful this run.
I leaned back in the chair, sighing in disappointment. All the effort, the amazing cracking of the passcode, was for nothing. Just dusty rooms and memories.
Looks like I’ll be busting the ground floor’s entrance after all.
Just as I was about to stand up and leave, something caught my eye – a glint. Something was shining faintly from the inside of the broken crib’s railing.
At first, I figured it was just the light from outside hitting the lacquered wood at just the right angle. A trick of the eye.
I tilted my head, squinted. Moved my head a bit.
But the glint didn’t change.
I stood up and walked over, rubbing my eyes just to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating from fatigue or frustration.
I wasn’t.
The far rail – the one that had slammed against the wall the hardest when I kicked the crib – was actually hollow. And inside, tucked away was a white mana crystal – an Aetheris.
My eyes widened.
I grabbed the rail and yanked it free from the crib frame, then slammed it a few times on the floor.
Clink. Clack. Clink.
Not one. Not two. Three Aetherises rolled out onto the floor.
I froze for a second, then peered inside the broken rail just in case there were more, but there was nothing.
Still dazed, I picked the crystals up one by one and set them on the table.
I double-checked the rest of the crib, just to be sure, but found nothing else. So I turned back to the table and studied the crystals.
These were all still white. Untouched. Ready for use.
Why had Mother stashed them there? And inside a hollow crib rail – something clearly custom-made to conceal them? Why was she hiding this from everyone else? Was she building something that was supposed to be a secret? Or was she stealing from her own guild?
I could understand how the guild missed them. After she left, they’d made this room a commemorative space for her and probably didn’t want to touch anything.
But her? Had she just forgotten about them?
Even a single Aetheris could fetch serious money. Especially if sold on the black market – or so the rumors claimed. Why just leave them behind?
I wasn’t planning on selling them myself, of course…I was just…confused.
I wasn’t even sure how I’d use them yet – I wasn’t exactly planning on wasting my loops building anything – but regardless, they were too valuable to leave behind.
I sent them to the Inventory.
And then things got even weirder…
- Key Item: Aetheris Crystal, Aetherprint: RCF-516548
- Key Item: Aetheris Crystal, Aetherprint: RCF-520111
- Key Item: Aetheris Crystal, Aetherprint: RCF-526485
The Inventory recognized each one as a Key Item – a singular copy across all loops.
It also labeled each one with a unique Aetherprint - just like Zee.
My mind shot back to the research that “V” had sent me while I was still riding the tram. It claimed the exact same thing – that each white crystal had a unique mana signature, like a fingerprint – the Aetherprint.
Unless Chronos and “V” – possibly Valdemar – were teaming up to prank me, this just confirmed the research. Or at least some part of it. I still wasn’t convinced we were made of mana - that we had a signature too.
Though it did make a disturbing amount of sense.
Now what? How do I check what’s on the ground floor?
I returned to the lobby and stood before the keypad again.
“Is there really no other way?” I muttered.
Seeing how the answer was yes – at least for now – I activated Checkpoint, just in case the Enforcers came gunning.
[Checkpoint Set: Your progress has been saved at this point in time]
[Current anchor will be lost upon death, or after thirty minutes. The earliest of the two.]
[Checkpoint lvl. 1: Time left until Anchor expires – 00:29:59]
Then I summoned an Ignis and loaded it into the Channel Core. The needles punctured my arm, pumping fiery mana straight into my veins.
“Move back, Zee,” I told the automaton, stepping toward the metal door.
I pressed both palms against the steel and unleashed a surge of fire – as intense as my COG could manage with level 4 Quality.
Slowly, the metal began to melt under the heat.
One minute later, my COG burned through the entire crystal, but I’d burned through enough of the door to create a hole. Not quite walkable yet – not with molten metal still dripping around.
Knowing the nearest Ironwatch station might’ve already been alerted by the security systems inside, I didn’t waste a second. I slipped a Cryora into the Channel Core and carefully blasted the opening with cold mist, flash-freezing the still glowing metal.
Once it hardened, I quickly slipped a Lumen into the Channel Core, mainly to keep the Cryora – my last one – on standby via Memory Slots. I still had one more Lumen left so burning through this one now to preserve access to ice magic for fifteen more minutes felt like a fair trade.
Also, considering I could already tell there were no windows on the first floor, I’d probably need the light anyway.
With the metal cooled and the hole solid enough, I ducked through the opening and into the sealed off space, Zee jumping in behind me.
Hot air greeted us – thick, damp, and reeking of oil.
I raised my right hand and aimed my palm forward, using it like a flashlight to cut through the darkness.
First, I looked around for a light switch – there had to be one right? No way a place this big operated in complete darkness. I swept the walls by the entrance, but found nothing. So I decided to keep using my glowing hand for now, turning toward dark space.
The light landed on a conveyor belt – idle – with small metal tubes about the length of an index finger scattered across it.
My brow furrowed. The first floor was…a factory? I was just joking before - I didn’t actually think this place was a factory. Yet here we are.
This didn’t make any sense. Only the Foundry had permission to manufacture parts. That’s how things worked. Orlinth’s contribution in the process was always just to turn the parts into something working.
Then, from somewhere deeper inside, I heard the clatter of metal. Like a box of cogs and bolts had just been knocked over.
I froze.
I wasn’t alone.
“Who’s there?!” I called out.
No answer.
I immediately extinguished the glow from my hand and ducked behind the conveyor belt, heartbeat quickening, mind racing.
With my COG’s Quality function at level 4…could I?
Worth a try.
I focused and conjured two small orbs of light in my palms, then released them upward. They floated in the air, held in place by the back of my mind – just enough to push away some of the darkness.
Now, with the space dimly lit, I cautiously raised my head from my hiding spot.
Beyond the additional conveyor belts ahead, the scattered machinery, the metal racks, and rusting sorting arms, I saw them.
At least a dozen humanoid automatons stood idly in the corner of the floor – deactivated.
Iron Enforcers. Basic automatons - only level 15 - used by Ironwatch to keep peace during rallies and strikes. Each one had no hands – only the blunt, tubular barrels of built-in guns where arms should’ve been.
But it was the one behind them that had me worried – the one that was active and looked like it was about to kill me for trespassing.
The seven-feet-tall, level 37, Guardian.