Avasma’s projection collapses into static, then vanishes. The disposable relay remains inert for one breath before its casing begins receiving a narrow-band acknowledgment from somewhere beneath the coast.
No voice follows, and no pursuit command appears. Instead, the relay prints a route fragment naming Blunker beside a credential branch that mirrors the supervisory-node identifier Jostan just copied.
The safehouse lights change from dusty white to submerged blue. Water-pressure diagnostics populate every wall display, climbing and stabilizing around depths no Leonidas utility map records.
Ancient transit symbols unfold beneath the modern diagnostics, their lines matching the obsolete architecture Jostan encountered beyond the coastal hub. The system offers no translation, only a route and a sealed return status.
Jostan Ordomo
The hierarchy reaches farther than Leonidas.
A second acknowledgment locks onto the mirrored credential branch. Its source remains submerged and unvoiced, but the route geometry bends toward Blunker through infrastructure older than the tower’s records.
The relay’s burned casing cools on the table. Around it, the safehouse waits beneath pulsing pressure figures and ancient symbols, leaving the next response to Jostan.
✓ Quest Accepted
Establish whether the Blunker route preserves Jostan’s autonomy