Warren paused as he tried to figure out what the monster had just told him. The words did not simply confuse him, they crawled across his thoughts, prying at the places he did not want touched. He looked at the wrapped figure, trying to decide whether he had misheard it or whether the creature had truly spoken sothing that bent sideways around aning, sothing that did not fit into any fra of understanding he possessed.
"You feared my hollow heart."
Saying it aloud made the phrase feel heavier, stranger, like it carried weight from sowhere beyond where language was supposed to reach. The words sank into him like stones dropped into still water, lingering long after the ripples faded.
The storm horror raging inside the bound corpse lashed out again, its wrappings trembling as though the thought alone agitated whatever consciousness lived beneath them. "Yes," it answered, voice cracking like strained tal, "I fear your hollow heart, for it is hungry, and it drives you in a direction I do not understand."
Warren blinked slowly, his brows pulling tight. "You an my hunger?" Hunger he understood. Hunger made sense. Wanting sothing, needing sothing, longing for direction or purpose, that was human. That was familiar.
"No," the creature snapped, the word sharp enough to cut. "I an your hollow heart. I cannot call it hunger, for that is not what it is. Hunger is a word for living things. Your heart is not hungry for food or desire or purpose. It hungers for everything, but it hungers to be."
The phrasing hooked under his skin. Warren found himself stepping closer without realizing it, tension dragging him forward as if the aning existed just out of reach. "What are you talking about? Do you an my heart itself is hungry? Empty? What does that even an?"
The storm horror pulsed, its inner tempest flashing with sothing that might have been fear if such a creature could feel it. "Yes. Your heart is empty, and it calls. It calls to anything that can hear the unfinished. It calls to things that should not answer. It calls because it is not full, because it is not settled, because sothing in it refuses silence."
The creature’s head angled in a slow, unnatural arc, as though examining him through layers of storm and cloth. Its voice lowered, almost reverent, almost terrified. "And everything that listens feels the pull of whatever lies inside that emptiness."
Warren swallowed hard. The heaviness of the creature’s words pressed into him, shaping the space within this inner layer in ways that had nothing to do with air or sound. The world around him tightened, not with physical pressure, but with the sensation of sothing drawing inward, distorting the boundaries of thought and place.
He tried to breathe evenly, grounding himself, but even here, inside himself, wherever this place was, there was no true stability. Only reflection. Only confrontation.
Empty. Calling.
The two words echoed through him like steps in a long corridor, each one carrying its own weight. None of it aligned with what he believed about himself, yet sohow it all pressed close to a truth he had been circling without acknowledging.
None of it made sense. And yet, sohow, it felt far too close to the truth he was trying to outrun.
Warren had thought this would be simple. Byssus was simple. Byssus's fear was no fear at all. It feared that it was dead. Why should that matter? Vaeliyan was a corpse that Warren wore, but through him Vaeliyan lived. Therefore, Byssus lived. The vessel persisted because Warren persisted. Byssus had beco a shape held within Rain Dancer, the storm, the horror, the expression of Mondenkind's soul. And through that, it lived. Even if it was dead. Even if the body had once belonged to another. Through the veil of Warren’s being, it lived, sustained by the continued existence of the storm and the man who carried it. Death did not end a thing that was still carried, echoed, rembered, or repurposed. Death only changed the fra around it.
So Byssus’s fear had not impressed Warren. Its fear was no fear at all. A dead thing fearing its deadness was like water fearing that it was wet. aningless.
But the fear that Rain Dancer projected now was sothing else entirely. Sothing that gnawed instead of whispered. Sothing that pushed at the edges of Warren’s thoughts and made the inner layer of his mind feel tilted. It was not simple, not clean, not instinctual. It lived underneath instinct. It lived underneath mory. It lived sowhere deeper, stranger, sowhere he did not like to look inward toward.
His heart was hungry, empty, and calling. Or so the storm claid. Warren felt none of it. No pulse. No hum. No ache. No strange vibration beneath his ribs. Nothing in him felt different at all, which only made the entire exchange more confusing. He did not feel hollow. He did not feel anything except confused irritation.
If sothing in him was calling, he could not hear it. If sothing was empty, he could not feel it. The storm spoke of so internal void, but Warren stood inside himself and felt as unchanged as ever.
And that was what unnerved him.
He looked at the monster once again, his monster, the horror made of storm wrapped in a corpse. "Like the heart of a native? Like where a fragnt would be found in a native? Like it is trying to call a soul skill?"
"No. Not like that." The horror lashed out with a tendril, agitation rippling through its coiled form as if the question itself offended so internal logic it followed. "Like song. Like when the one who bends with joy calls."
Warren nodded slowly. That at least was sothing he could understand, lody's resonance called with joy. He had felt that pull before. The way joy could echo outward, how the Red Widow’s song had vibrated through the world like an invitation even when she did not an for anyone to answer. "She calls with joy, and I call with hunger?"
"Your resonance," the creature corrected sharply. "Your heart's resonance is the right understanding. Hunger is only one word for the feeling. It is not hunger for food or power or aning. It is the hunger of an empty space producing sound simply because empty things echo when struck. The emptiness calls because the emptiness resonates."
Warren frowned deeper, the explanation sliding uneasily across his thoughts like oil over water. "So, it is not calling for a fragnt. Not calling for a soul skill. Not calling for sothing to fill it. It is just... calling? With the sa kind of echo? Like a harmonic, a counterpart, sothing that matches the frequency?"
The storm recoiled slightly, its shape shuddering as if the very idea scraped against its existence. "Yes. That is closer. Much closer. And I know my fear now. You know it as well. The hollow heart calls outward. It calls without intention, without aim, without thought. It calls because it exists in a state that demands an echo. And things that should not answer can still hear it. It is not choice. It is not design. It is not a wish. It is a fact. A resonance. A sound a thing makes simply by being what it is."
The storm’s form tightened, drawing inward like a creature wishing to hide but incapable of retreat. "And I do not wish to be near it any longer."
Warren blinked, startled by the rawness in its voice. "What?"
"Go. I do not wish to see you," the storm said, voice trembling along the edges of itself, shaking in a way storms should not shake. "You scare . The hollow heart scares . That emptiness is too loud. Too echoing. Too vast in ways I cannot asure. It resonates in ways that scrape against what I am. It is a call I cannot answer and cannot ignore. Leave this place. Take the power you have driven to, and go."
Warren tried to fight the storm's push as it shoved him out of his own soul space. He was not even sure what to call this place. It was not a mory, not a dream, not ditation, not the inner world that Mondenkind lived in. It was sothing else. Sothing that belonged to him and yet did not feel like it had been made by him. It felt vast and close at the sa ti, a place without walls, without ground, without anchors. A place that should have belonged to him, but sohow resisted definition whenever he tried to grasp its edges.
He did not know the storm could do this. He did not know it could push him. He did not know it had that kind of force, that kind of authority within him. But apparently it could, and it did so with such speed and such brutal certainty that he had no chance of resisting. There was no mont to brace himself. No mont to gather his thoughts. No mont at all. One heartbeat he was standing in that impossible inner space, and the next he felt reality tilt, almost like falling without falling, like slipping between layers he could not see.
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One instant, he stood before the storm horror, facing its fear, trying to understand the aning behind words that made no sense. Trying to understand why the creature that lived within him recoiled from him, why it trembled at sothing he could not feel. He had been mid‑step, mid‑breath, mid‑thought.
The next, Warren's eyes were forced open.
Sunlight hit him in a sharp, clean line. The park around him was quiet. Birds chattered. Wind brushed the grass. Nothing hinted at the confrontation he had just been torn away from. No sense of storm or fear lingered here. The world was calm. The world was normal. It felt almost wrong to be shoved so abruptly back into that quiet.
A notification flickered at the edge of his mind, soft and thin, like soone tapping on a window instead of pounding on a door.
Rain Dancer has cald its fear.
The words were soft. Too soft. Not the area wide system ssage he had co to expect when a Soul Skill shifted in stage.
Almost instantly, the pain hit him.
A sharp, ripping ache of a Soul Skill breaking through the veil, punching its way into reality whether he was ready or not. It felt like sothing inside him grabbed hold and tore downward, carving a line of raw heat through him. Warren gritted his teeth and switched to Vaeliyan in a single practiced breath, letting Byssus swell and stretch without the veil itself rupturing.
Vaeliyan opened his eyes and imdiately caught a second notification.
Byssus's fear has been conquered.
It arrived quietly, almost politely, brushing against his awareness rather than slamming into him the way system ssages usually did. It felt like a hand placed gently on his shoulder. It was strange, unsettling in its gentleness, as if the system itself was trying not to startle him. The silence around it made the mont feel heavier, more intimate, as though so shift had occurred in a place only, he could see.
As Vaeliyan finally took a mont to think about his surroundings, he looked up and realized the sun was much further along in the sky than he expected. The shadows were longer, stretched thin across the grass as if the day had slipped past him without permission. Hours had passed, not minutes. Ti inside that inner not-place clearly did not match ti outside. It made him wonder how long he had truly been standing in front of Rain Dancer, how long he had been locked in that quiet confrontation before being hurled out.
He flexed his fingers, grounding himself. The world felt normal, but he did not trust it yet. That transition between soul and body always left him slightly unmoored.
Elian walked over with the careful, quiet steps of soone who had been watching for a while. His expression was unreadable, caught sowhere between concern and mild amusent. "Oh, you are finally awake."
"Um, yeah," Vaeliyan said, rubbing the side of his face as he tried to shake off the lingering confusion. "I have more bullshit to deal with. My monster seems to be angry with ."
Elian blinked, thrown off course by the statent. "Vael, what in the hells are you talking about now?"
Vaeliyan sighed and switched back without thinking, speaking as Warren. "Oh. My monster kicked out of my inner space." He paused, frowning deeper. "What do we call that? The… place inside?"
Elian tilted his head. "I do not think we have a na for it. You would have to ask Velrock or one of the instructors. Maybe they might know. I do not. Maybe Varnai has an idea." He glanced back over his shoulder as if expecting soone to appear and answer the question on the spot. His brows tightened as he counted nas, possibilities, theories.
Warren groaned. "Great. I'll just add to the list of bullshit for later."
Elian nodded sympathetically, then rembered sothing far more practical. "But I thought you would want to know that the power grid has been hooked up. That ans your lock-down is… well, it is over. Everything is running again."
Warren straightened at once. The words slamd through the fog of confusion like a spark catching dry grass. Power restored. The forge active. The systems humming again. His entire chest lit with a sharp, eager relief.
He stood up, dusted himself off, and in the sa breath shifted fully back into Warren, expression brightening with a real smile. "Good. Finally."
Without another word, he bolted across the park, boots striking the ground with renewed energy. His coat snapped behind him as he cut through the garden path, the estate rising ahead like a promise he had been waiting too long to reclaim.
He reached what should have been the front doors and stopped only long enough to reber that the estate currently had none.
The entire entryway was a gaping hole.
Lisa stood halfway up a ladder, bracing a new fra with her shoulder. Alorna held the other side steady with both hands, silent as always. Deck knelt beside them with a drill, tongue between his teeth as he tried to secure the first of the replacent doors into place.
Warren slowed just enough to stare at them. "Why does it take three of you to put in a door? I could do it myself."
Lisa huffed. "I do not know how to put in a door. None of us did."
"Lisa," Warren said, pointing at her. "I have seen you lift basically a mountain. You could hold that thing with one hand. Easily. Like a toothpick. Maybe with one finger."
Deck looked up, considered it, then nodded. "You know what… he is right. I could probably do that."
Alorna looked at Warren. Said nothing. Just stared.
He sighed. "You do you, Alorna."
He walked through the gap, accidentally kicking the ladder Lisa was on. It wobbled.
Lisa swore under her breath as she grabbed the fra tighter damaging it again.
Warren kept walking, whistling to himself like nothing happened.
His forge was now fully operational and for the first ti since returning ho, things finally felt like they were moving in the right direction again.
The mont the realization fully hit him, Warren felt sothing almost juvenile flare in his chest. The power was restored. That ant not only the Nano Forge, but the Skill Forge was finally online. The damn Skill Forge he had not even gotten to use yet.
And fucking Rokhan had.
Warren nearly snarled as he ran, his boots pounding the stone path. "I am not waiting any longer," he muttered under his breath. "I get to go play with my Skill Forge."
Warren sprinted down the hall, coat whipping behind him. Every step felt too slow. Every breath too shallow.
He had waited long enough.
Too long.
Now he would see exactly what it could do.
He threw open the door to his forge.
Rokhan stood inside like he owned the place, elbow-deep in sothing that absolutely did not need his hands anywhere near it. He looked over his shoulder and smiled as if this were the most normal thing in the hells.
"Oh. You are back. How is it going?"
Warren stopped in the doorway, stared for one long, murderous second, then roared, "Get the fuck out of my Forge."
Rokhan blinked, then gestured vaguely at the equipnt. "I am in the middle of sothing."
"I do not give a shit," Warren snapped. "Get the fuck out of my Forge."
"Do you know how dangerous this is?" Rokhan frowned, considering that.
Warren stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "Rokhan, do you know how dangerous I am?"
Rokhan held up both hands. "Fair enough." He backed toward the door. "I will leave but you might want to get a hold of that before it cuts a hole through the floor."
After Warren wrangled the ss that Rokhan had left behind, he knew exactly what he was going to do. Or at least, he kept telling himself he did. The truth was that only the first step of his plan held any real certainty. Take the multi-threading skill out of Vaeliyan and absorb it into himself. Clean. Simple. Straightforward. Sothing he could do in his sleep.
Everything after that slid straight into chaos.
He stood in the center of the room, hands on his hips, jaw tight, his thoughts circling like frustrated birds. The second phase of his plan lood in front of him, mocking him with its indecision. Remove Examine… or keep it? Break it down… or leave it alone? Throw it into the loom… or try to force it into sothing else entirely?
He hated not knowing. He hated that the uncertainty was slowing him down.
The problem was simple: Examine had stopped being useful a long ti ago. He had not used it in ages because the skill was nearly worthless. All it ever did was force junk data into his head. Half useless, half propaganda, none of it actionable. His AI gave him better information without needing to activate anything, even if it sotis filtered things based on what it thought he needed. At least the AI wasn't an active skill.
Examine could have been a good skill. It should have been. If it were not active, if it could function on both of his forms, maybe it could have evolved into sothing aningful. But as it stood, Examine was just three great micro-markers wearing the skin of a real skill and pretending they wanted to be sothing useful.
Together, they made a terrible fragnt.
He paced in a slow circle, tracing the runes etched across the forge floor, each step punctuated by another sigh. He considered taking the fractal, stripping it for one of the micro-markers, and discarding the rest. But then again… was that actually worth his ti? Every plan he had walked in with felt shakier now. Every decision felt less certain.
He could throw the fractal into the loom, like he originally intended. Let the loom tear it apart and reweave the pieces into sothing that might actually matter. But the more he thought about it, the more pointless it felt to sit here breaking down trash when he could simply evolve the skill into sothing useful. Why waste ti working on sothing when he could reshape himself?
Warren dragged both hands down his face, fingers scraping against his cheeks. "This is annoying," he muttered.
Finally, he stalked toward the forge door and yelled, "Rokhan, I need you in here. I do not know what the fuck I am going to do. I have a plan but only one part works, the other thing I have planned for so long feels like a complete waste."
Rokhan appeared instantly, leaning casually against the doorfra like he had been waiting for that invitation. "You are talking about your Examine skill?"
"Yeah," Warren answered, exasperated.
Rokhan nodded, unsurprised. "Warren, Dr. Wirk has told you how terrible that skill is, right? It gives you useless information most of the ti. And when it is not useless, it is propaganda. It is one of those skills that should have been helpful, and maybe, in theory, it could beco sothing great… but in reality it is a joke. The micro-markers inside it are worth more than the fragnt itself. Break it down. You are wasting your ti if you do not."
Rokhan reached into his pocket and produced a small, gleaming fragnt. "Also, here is the Catnap fragnt. The duplicate you needed."
Warren took the fragnt and absorbed it imdiately, feeling the familiar spark as it joined the rest of his skill matrix. "Thanks. And I am sorry, but I really want to use the Skill Forge. I need that list, the one showing what I can make out of all of this. And I need the list from our cache of fragnts."
Rokhan shot him a look sowhere between tired and amused. "Alright, Captain. I will help you out this one ti. But you cannot kick out like that again."
Warren smirked. "Do not test ."
Rokhan sighed dramatically and turned toward the interface. "Yeah, yeah. Let us get to work before you break sothing by accident."
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