The figure hovered at the center of the void, a core of darkness and dissonance surrounded by the twisting chaos of the fractured Veil. It was an amalgamation of Source energy and material fragments, with the silhouette of a humanoid being, but with no discernible facial features, only a cold, distant gleam in what should have been its eyes. From it emanated the artificial, calculated rhythm he had detected, a pulsation that clashed violently with the organic symphony of the Source and the aching dissonance of the broken Monolith. It was the source of the echo.
We paused at the edge of the chamber, watching the figure with a mixture of wariness and fascination. The void in which it floated seemed to absorb the light, creating a sphere of unnatural darkness amid the glow of the Fountain. The chamber itself, with its shards of crystal and dark material, felt like a desecrated shrine.
"What... what do you think it is?" Maelle whispered, her voice shaking.
Sciel, with a mixture of fear and intellectual excitement, consulted his tome. "It could be... a remnant. Something or someone that was trapped here during the Fracture. Or perhaps... a construct. I've read of entities created by the Veil's energy at points of great power."
The figure's artificial rhythm filled my senses, a steady pulse, with no emotional variation, just a logical, repetitive sequence. I tried to tune into it, to search for meaning in its cadence, just as I did with the rhythm of the Source or the Veil. It was different. Not a rhythm of life or emotion, but of... code. Of information.
"No… it doesn't seem alive in the normal sense," I said, my voice low. "Its rhythm is… artificial. Like a mechanism. Or a program."
Gustave stepped forward, empty-handed, adopting the same cautious stance he'd used with the Veridia Guardians. "We are Expedition 33. We come to do no harm. We seek to understand. We seek the echo of the Primeval Monolith."
The figure in the void moved. Slowly, its faceless head leaned toward us. There was no sound, but I felt its 'attention' fix on Gustave, then on me. The artificial rhythm seemed to quicken slightly, as if it were processing our words.
Then the figure 'spoke.' Not with a resonant voice like the Painter's, nor with a whisper. The sound came from the dissonance around it itself, fragments of distorted audio, words whispered or shouted eons ago, reorganized by its artificial rhythm into a coherent but fragmented response.
"Expedition... Thirty-Three," the voice echoed, composed of countless past voices. "Number... descends. Cycle... closes."
"We know about the cycle," Gustave replied. "The Painter explained it to us. We sought a way to stop it. To restore harmony without her... art."
The figure's rhythm fluctuated again. The dissonance in the chamber seemed to ripple. "Harmony... Fragmented," the voice echoed. "Monolith... Broken. Dissonance... Remains. Repair... Attempted. Incomplete."
"The Painter tries to repair it," I said, my voice a little louder now. "With her painting. But it causes suffering. There's another way. We believe that the Monolith... if repaired, will stop the cycle."
The figure remained motionless for a moment, its artificial rhythm pulsing steadily. Then, suddenly, a section of the dissonance behind it seemed to... open. Not a void, but a window in the darkness, revealing an image. It was the Primeval Monolith, whole, vast, glowing with pure light and emitting a song I instantly recognized as the original rhythm I had felt at the Source, but whole, unfractured. The image flickered, a ghost of the past.
"The Monolith... source of harmony," the voice echoed. "Broken by... Silence. Those who feared song. Fragmented by... Envy... Desire for control." Fragments of words, emotions distilled from dissonance itself.
The vision of the entire Monolith faded away, leaving only the void and the figure.
"What are you?" Maelle asked, her curiosity overcoming her fear. "Are you a Guardian? A fragment of the Monolith itself?"
The figure's pace seemed to slow for an instant, as if the question were difficult to answer. "I am the Sentinel," the voice echoed. "Fragment of the Defense. Programmed to remember. To wait. The echo of the attempt to break."
The Broken Sentinel. A guardian programmed to remember the moment the Monolith was broken and wait. Wait for what?
"Wait for what?" Sciel asked, reading my mind.
"Wait... for the Resonance," the Sentinel replied. "The right... rhythm. The one that... resonates with... the Monolith's memory. The one that... can... bind the fragments together." His dull 'eyes' seemed to fix on me again. "Your rhythm... draws near. It resonates with... dissonance. But also... harmony. A blending... the Veil does not understand. A possibility."
My ability. My capacity to sense both the chaos of the Veil and the original rhythm the Painter was trying to imitate. It was the mix of dissonance and harmony that made me unique in this place. And the Sentinel believed it was the key to 'uniting the fragments.' Fragments of the Monolith?
"Can you... can you show us?" I asked, my voice full of urgency. "The fragments... where are they?"
The Sentinel didn't respond with words. Instead, the artificial rhythm intensified. The dissonance around it began to spin faster. The chamber itself seemed to react. In a section of the crystalline wall, opposite the entrance we'd come through, fine lines of light began to shimmer, drawing a complex pattern. It was like a map or a diagram, pulsing to the same artificial rhythm as the Sentinel.
"The Map... of Shards," the Sentinel's voice echoed. "Locations... of the Monolith Echoes. Scattered across... the Veil. The Source... retains the greatest. But others... were lost. During the Fracture."
The diagram on the wall showed luminous points within what appeared to be a stylized representation of the Source and the Veil beyond. Points that represented the fragments of the Primeval Monolith. The echo we had followed to get here was only one. There were others.
"To unite the fragments..." the voice echoed. "You must... feel them. Understand the dissonance... of each one. With your rhythm... connect them."
The task was clear, if daunting. Find the other fragments of the Primeval Monolith, scattered across the Source and perhaps even beyond in the Fade, and use my ability to 'connect' them, to reunite the broken echo. The Sentinel could not do it; its artificial rhythm recalled only dissonance, not the original harmony needed to unite. But my skill, my unique blend of perception, perhaps could.
The Broken Sentinel, the guardian of dissonance, had given us our next objective. It wasn't to destroy the Painter, but to attempt to repair the cause of her 'art': the broken Monolith. And the path to doing so began here, in the echo chamber, with a map of light on the wall and the task of finding and reconnecting the missing fragments.
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