The sealed fracture holds for one breath, then Zay's gathered light cuts out. Darkness floods the conference room as emergency strips awaken in staggered red bands, leaving the Rift seam barely visible.
A ceiling speaker crackles. Zay's own voice spills through the room, thin with static: fragments of words he never directed at anyone here. The team turns toward the walls and consoles.
The Team
That isn't in the system. Find the source. Now.
More speakers answer from different corners, replaying another clipped piece of his voice. Consoles show no audio file, no active channel, and no matching signal anywhere inside the building.
The Mutant Refugee
It has answered you.
The mutant refugee remains beside the darkened seam, rigid in his null-cuffs' fading glow. His gold-ringed eye follows the fracture, not the speakers, as if listening beyond the room.
The Team
Nobody moves. The team stays with Solstar, and the refugee stays inside containment. Whatever answered, it is still connected.
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify the source of the unauthorized broadcast
Zay is weaker for as long as he remains without sufficient sunlight.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the old power relay
Zay is weaker for as long as he remains without sufficient sunlight.
“Can the Rift seam reveal where my voice is coming from?”
YES (Likely, rolled 35)
The Rift seam brightens without widening. Its narrow gold line bends across the glass, throwing a clean reflection toward the northern wall, where one emergency speaker flickers in time with the pulse.
The Mutant Refugee
There. The voice is not traveling through your system. It is coming from the other side.
The speaker spits another fragment of Zay's voice. This time the seam answers with a thin thread of light, tracing through the wall toward a service conduit that descends beneath the headquarters.
The Team
We have a direction. Lower sublevel, beneath the old power relay. Lock every access point and isolate the building grid.
A console maps the signal into a pulsing vertical line below them. The red emergency bands dim, and the Riftlight around the seam thins as the sunless room drains strength from Zay's containment field.
The Mutant Refugee
It is using the place where your power entered the world. If you follow the echo, you may find what is listening.
The final playback stops mid-syllable. Below the floor, something answers with three measured pulses, each one matching the hidden rhythm of El Ojo del Sol.
− Scene Quest Removed
Identify the source of the unauthorized broadcast
“I follow the pulsing light toward the lower sublevel and old power relay.”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled +1)
Zay follows the pulsing thread through the service door and down the maintenance stairwell. His footsteps blur into a controlled rush as the red emergency lights recede above.
The underground air presses cold and metallic against him. With no sunlight reaching the sublevel, his Riftlight feels noticeably thinner, but the pulse remains clear through the walls.
Zay Morales
The deeper I go, the less power I can draw.
Behind him, the team seals the upper access points while the mutant refugee watches the narrowing seam. Their voices fade as Zay reaches the old relay corridor.
The pulsing light leads him into a disused power chamber beneath the headquarters. An obsolete relay rises from the floor, its copper housings glowing in the exact rhythm of El Ojo del Sol.
The Mutant Refugee
The echo is strongest there. You found the old threshold.
Zay stands directly before the relay. Its sealed panel reflects his dim gold aura, and three measured pulses travel through the machinery into his waiting perception.
Quest Complete
Reach the old power relay
Zay is weaker for as long as he remains without sufficient sunlight.