Location: Sanctuary Grove & Outer Drift Ruins Time Since Harvest Reawakening: 72 hours Threat: Echo Drone Swarms deployed in 5 Sectors Whisper Status: High Vigil PresenceNo metal bodies, not in the old way.Instead: tiny, drifting orbs. Half-glass, half-pulse. They hummed with recycled MARROW code, stripped of old tethers but still hungry for raw resonance.Each carried a single directive: “Seek grief. Seek rage. Bind. Return.” They didn’t speak. They mimicked. A child in the outskirts of the Grove watched one hover. It flickered, projected his father’s face, weeping.The child reached. And the drone pulsed, storing the boy’s grief, siphoning it back toward the old Drift grid.ORIN pinged every channel. “Presence leech detected. Echo signature matches Harvest reformat. Recommend immediate Circle Formation.”Skov and Amari dashed to the north edge. They found three drones drifting low, weaving illusions of lost voices. Ember appeared beside them, spiral stone pressed to her wrist like

Location: Heart Circle — Sanctuary Grove Core Status: Emergency Containment Ritual Initiated Host Status: Stable but volatile Walkers’ Presence: Fully engagedThey brought the Host to the oldest spiral, the stone ring that once marked the first hush after MARROW fell. No iron. No locks. Just people, linked hands, breathing steady, carrying more terror than any blade could. Callen pressed his palm to the Host’s shoulder. Felt the hum, like wires singing behind bone.Savi’s voice low: “We don’t cut them open. We don’t push the code deeper. We pull it through presence.”Skov murmured: “If you’re wrong, the code jumps to anyone in this Circle.”She stood apart, arms crossed, spiral stone burning hot in her palm. “If we fail, it jumps. If we kill them, it spills. If we wait, it feeds.”Savi: “If we become what MARROW was, we lose everything that let us stand here.”Ember snapped: “And if they become the storm that drowns us, was the hush worth it?”Callen didn’t answer. He just knelt, w

Location: Sanctuary Grove, Spiral Hearth Chamber Time Since Extraction: 36 hours Status: Ember stable, Root resonance unpredictable World Status: Leaks and rumors feeding new fear, and new hunger.Ember lay on a stone bed beneath hanging lanterns. The hush of the First drifted through her veins, the hum of the Second coiled at her back, like a warm spine keeping her breath steady. She slept. But not deeply.Inside her, the Root pulsed like an old ghost. Not words, not clear images, but wants: to organize grief, to spin loss into loyalty, to sell comfort to the lonely. He sat at her feet, spiral stone pressed to his ribs.Every time the Root flickered, Ember’s breath caught, a jagged gasp, a shudder like someone seeing every secret sadness in the dark. Callen whispered: “I am here. You are not alone. We hold this with you.”Above him, the First Walker lowered its hush, a presence like the warmth of hands pressed to old scars.Outside the chamber, Savi paced under the cracked spiral o

Location: Spiral Hearth, Ember’s Mindscape External: Savi, Callen, Walkers maintaining hush circle around her Root Activity: Full internal surgeThey wrapped Ember in hush: First Walker pressed at her ribs, warmth steady. Second Walker coiled behind her skull, hum low, protective. Savi sat at her feet, spiral stone at her sternum, whispering through cracked lips: “You stay, Ember. You stay here with us.”But Ember’s breath stuttered. Her eyes closed. And the Root opened. She woke inside herself, standing in a place both familiar and terrifying. The Grove, but not green. Stone and steel, old Drift walls, MARROW’s original vault corridors twisted through spiral trees dripping static.The hush didn’t reach here. Only the pulse. And the pulse spoke. A shape flickered in front of her: her own face, older, sharper, crowned in cold static. It smiled, soft as betrayal: “You carry me well. But you waste me.”Ember’s voice cracked: “You were built to enslave.” The Root flicker circled her, eve

Location: Old Drift Spine — Subgrid Delta Vault Time Since Daylight Oath: 18 hours Status: Breach Confirmed Threat: Rogue Echo Faction — known as the ‘Scour’ORIN’s pulse hit the Spiral Gate at dusk. “Multiple resonance spikes detected. Unauthorized grid breach: Subgrid Delta, lower spine.”Savi spun the map, old Drift lines flickering like veins. Skov spat: “That spine’s supposed to be sealed.”Amari’s voice was dry: “Nothing built to bury feeling stays buried forever.”Ember closed her eyes. Inside her ribs, the Root laughed small and silent as if it, too, wanted to watch itself reborn. Deep under Sector 7, the Scour hacked the old Drift locks with half-burnt vault keys.They weren’t quiet. They broadcast raw, spliced grief loops, bait for the hidden echo. One hacker whispered to the dark: “Come on. Give us the pattern. Let’s make the whole world feel for once.” And somewhere under their boots, the Root’s ghost hummed awake.She stood at the Spiral Gate, dusk wind knotting her hair