The night sky in Erehwon was unlike anything Ike had ever seen—not just a blanket of stars, but a living thing. The constellations shimmered and pulsed like neural pathways, as if the world itself was thinking. Remembering. Dreaming.
He sat by the river, turning the shadow shard over in his hands. It pulsed faintly, a black crystal bleeding silver light at its edges. Calyx had told him to keep it.
"Not all loot is meant for selling," he'd said, with that same crooked grin. "Some things stick to you. Change you."
Ike believed it.
The shard was warm against his palm, and when he closed his eyes, he swore he could hear a whisper—just a wordless hum, like something ancient and waiting. He shivered.
[New Quest Unlocked: Whispers in the Vale]
He blinked. That wasn't part of the starter path.
Back in the Vale of Beginnings, the other new players were still bumbling through tutorials: learning how to wield practice weapons, watching combat holograms, trying to make sense of inventory UI. But Ike was somewhere else already—mentally, emotionally, spiritually. He wasn't playing the game. He was inside it.
Calyx hadn't respawned after the quest handoff, which was odd. Most NPCs looped or returned to their scripted areas. But the rogue guide had vanished into the woods after clapping Ike on the back.
He felt... alone.
Not lonely. Just alone in a way that made the world feel bigger.
The shard pulsed again, and a soft chime rang in his mind.
[Tracking Signal Acquired: ???] [Unstable Anomaly Detected Near The Hollow Grove]
It was outside the map boundary. That shouldn't be possible.
Ike hesitated.
But not for long.
The Hollow Grove was a sliver of forest marked in the beta as "decorative." No quests. No monsters. No loot. Just atmosphere. The devs had probably meant it as a buffer zone—a breathing space. But the trees here bent inward, their branches twisted like grasping fingers. Fog clung low to the mossy ground. There were no birds. No wind.
And no other players.
The world grew quiet as Ike passed beneath the gnarled arch of roots at the Grove's edge. Even the ambient music cut out.
Are you sure you want to proceed? This area is not part of the designated tutorial path.
The system prompt hovered in the air like a ghost.
[Confirm: YES]
He stepped forward.
The air in the Hollow Grove was thick, like breathing through velvet. His HUD glitched for a second—a flicker of static, a twitch in the time readout.
Then he saw it.
At the center of a dead glade, surrounded by ancient stones, a tree grew upside down. Its roots reached toward the sky. Its leaves were pitch black. Hanging from its branches were masks.
Hundreds of them.
Porcelain. Wooden. Metal. Some plain, some snarling, some weeping. They swayed gently, though there was no wind.
The shard in his pocket grew cold.
[You have entered a Dream-Deeping Zone.]
WARNING: Dreamstate Stability Level ↓
Mild Drift Detected. Neural Sync at 92%.
A soft whisper crawled across the back of his mind.
"You don't remember your face, do you?"
Ike spun around. No one there.
He looked up. One of the masks—a blank one, smooth and white—was looking back.
Then it dropped.
And everything went dark.
He awoke in a room that didn't exist.
A chamber made of mirrors. Infinite reflections of himself, each slightly off. One blinked too slowly. Another smiled when he didn't. One turned away entirely.
[Anomaly Encounter: The Forgotten Self]
His dagger was gone. His UI was gone. He was in a white shirt and slacks, barefoot on cold glass.
The reflections began to speak, all at once:
*"You're not him." "You left." "You're wasting away." "No one is coming."
He covered his ears.
"This world is a lie."
[Dreamstate Sync: 86% - Moderate Drift Detected]
A panel of light opened in the mirrored wall. A doorway.
He ran.
Back in the forest.
Gasping.
Inventory restored. HUD returned. Mask shard in his hand—now cracked.
[Anomaly Resolved. Fragment of Self Retrieved.]
He fell to his knees, trembling.
What the hell was that?
The system offered no answer.
But deep in the corner of his screen, a new icon flickered. A symbol he didn't recognize: a broken mirror.
And next to it, a timer.
[DREAMSTATE STABILITY: 84% - Monitoring... ]
From the treeline, a familiar voice.
"Well, that was fast."
Calyx.
But something in his eyes had changed.
"Told you some things stick. Come on, rogue. You've got more to lose now."
He extended a hand.
Ike took it.
Not because he trusted him.
But because he didn't know the way back.
And, maybe, he didn't want to find it.