I left the inn after breakfast.
The meal had been simple. Bread, something warm and savory, and a cup of tea that tasted faintly bitter. It settled my stomach, but it didn't quiet my thoughts.
As I walked, my fingers brushed my wrist again.
The thin black line remained, faint beneath the skin, curling upward toward my arm like a vein that didn't belong there. I stopped beside the street and stared at it longer than I probably should have.
It didn't hurt.
It didn't move.
It didn't even feel dangerous.
That bothered me more than if it had.
I waited for fear to rise. For panic. For the urge to tear at my skin or run to the nearest healer.
Nothing came.
I exhaled slowly.
Madison had done this. I was sure of it, although I don't know how and why. And somehow, that thought didn't frighten me at all. My instincts told me she would never harm me, not deliberately. Whatever this was, it could wait.
I lowered my sleeve and kept walking.
The assessment area was quieter than before. The building stood open, but the crowd had thinned. Most of the Initiates were gone already, called early, sorted quickly, sent on their way.
I registered my name at the front desk.
"Theo Finley," I said.
The clerk glanced at the slate, then at me. "Have a seat. It may take a while."
I nodded and waited.
When I was finally called in, the assessor barely spoke. He took my slip, frowned at the hovering numbers, and told me to wait again. Minutes passed. Then more.
I sat there, hands folded, watching the light shift across the floor, feeling the strange calm that always came when something was about to go wrong.
My assessment slip changed hands twice before anyone said it out loud.
The first assessor frowned. Not the polite kind. The uncomfortable kind. He tapped the crystal slate once, then again, as if it might fix itself.
"This… isn't right," he said.
I watched the numbers hover between us. Intelligence clear. Dexterity oddly high for my build. Everything else barely breathing. Luck flashing red, stuttering, refusing to render properly.
"You're an Archivist candidate," he continued slowly, "but this configuration doesn't align with any known profile."
"I get that a lot," I said.
He didn't smile.
After a moment, he cleared his throat and waved an attendant over. His voice dropped. "Refer him upward."
Upward.
That word carried weight here.
I was given directions instead of another slip. No escort. No rush. Just a path marked on a town map and a warning not to waste the person's time.
So I walked.
The town thinned as I moved away from the center. Shops gave way to residences, then to quiet paths bordered by stone and low trees. The noise faded. The air felt… still. Not empty. Settled.
At the edge of the settlement stood a small structure that looked more like a cottage than anything official. One story. Weathered wood. A single window open to let light in. No guards. No signage.
I hesitated, then knocked.
"Come in," a voice said.
Inside, the room was cluttered in a way that felt deliberate. Shelves filled with books that looked handwritten. Old relics resting beside mundane tools. A kettle simmered over a small heat source that hummed softly.
And sitting at a low table was the assessor.
He was small. Almost half of me, actually. A thin old man with a hunched back, bare feet, and hair tied loosely behind his head. His clothes were plain, almost shabby, but clean. His eyes, though, were sharp enough to make me straighten without thinking.
"You're late," he said. "I'd been waiting for you since I received the noticed."
"I was told not to rush," I replied.
He snorted. "Good advice. Sit."
I did.
He didn't touch a crystal. Didn't open a slate. He simply looked at me. Long enough that it became uncomfortable.
"Hm," he muttered. "So that's how it looks now."
"You know what I am?" I asked.
"I know what you are not," he said. "You're not broken. You're not normal either. That puts you in a very annoying category."
He finally reached out, pressing two fingers lightly against my wrist.
The world tilted. Not violently. Just enough that I felt something peel back.
My stats surfaced, clearer than they ever had before.
He hummed softly.
"Archivist," he said. "That much is obvious. You remember too well. You observe without distorting. The System likes that."
Then his expression changed.
"…But that's not all."
He leaned back, studying the red flicker of my Luck.
"Negative infinity," he murmured. "Still unresolved. Still locking everything else." He glanced at me. "Do you know what happens if that ever clears?"
"I was told it wouldn't be safe," I said.
He laughed. A short, dry sound. "Safe isn't the word I'd use."
He reached out again, this time tracing an invisible pattern in the air.
"There's a second function clinging to you," he said. "Not assigned. Not official. It shouldn't exist, frankly."
My pulse quickened.
"It activates when things fail," he continued. "When outcomes collapse. When death gets involved."
He looked almost impressed.
"A converter," he said. "You turn failure into leverage. That's rare, very very rare."
He met my eyes.
"…And dangerous."
I swallowed. "Is it… allowed?"
He smiled faintly. "Everything is allowed in Aetherfall..."
He stood, surprisingly steady for someone his size, and poured tea into two cups.
"My name is Elder Caelum," he said, finally offering it. "I've been assessing Crossers longer than most of the gods you've heard of have been bored."
He slid one cup toward me.
"I'll record you as an Archivist," Caelum said. "With a sub-function noted but not broadcast. If the System asks, I'll say I found an error and left it alone."
He paused.
"You should find a way to fix your Luck," he added quietly. "Here, it's possible. Contracts. Pacts. Interventions."
"Contracts? Pacts? T-to who?"
"You already know who are the only beings capable of doing that. And even then, not all of them. Negative infinity is such… not really something anyone can change even if it's them."
Then his gaze hardened.
"And when it happens," he said, "everything you are holding back will come out at once. Your body. Your stats. Your hidden abilities..."
He took a sip of his tea.
"So don't rush it," Caelum said. "And don't let anyone push you into it."
I nodded slowly.
As I stood to leave, he spoke one last time.
"Oh," he added. "Try not to die too soon. The maximum death you can have here is two and higher ranked can luckily gets three. Anymore than that, you won't be able to come back. You'll be with Death's hand forever."
I gave a weak smile. "No promises."
He chuckled. "Figures."
When I stepped back outside, the town felt different.
I checked my status before I completely leaves Caelum's boundary.
Not because he told me to. Because something felt different. The air around me carried that faint pressure again, the kind that usually followed decisions that couldn't be undone.
The System answered immediately.
The window that appeared wasn't the one I had grown up with. It wasn't the clean, bureaucratic layout from my world. And it wasn't fully Aetherfall's either. It looked… layered. Like two frameworks had been pressed together and forced to cooperate.
At the top, my name rendered cleanly.
IDENTITY: Theo Finley
ORIGIN SYSTEM: Registered
AETHERFALL SYSTEM: Active
STATUS: Reformed (Partial)
Below it, my stats settled into place.
Strength: 2
Vitality: 4
Agility: 2
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 56
Luck: Negative Infinity
Condition: Error — Unresolved
The red blink on Luck was still there. Steady. Patient.
Then the next section unfolded.
PRIMARY FUNCTION: Archivist
No flourish. No praise. Just the title.
Under it, the System listed my abilities in plain language, stripped of drama.
Passive Skills
-Immutable Record
-Persistent Knowledge
-Death Residue Awareness
-System Margin Awareness
Active Skills
-Recorded Replay
-Archive Mark
I read through them slowly. Seeing the words laid out like this made everything feel more real. Less abstract. Less like something that only existed inside my head.
Then the window shifted again.
A faint divider appeared. Thinner than the rest. Almost easy to miss.
SUB-FUNCTION: ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
Access Level: Restricted
Visibility: Self, Authorized High Assessor Only
My pulse picked up.
The redaction faded for me alone.
SUB-FUNCTION: Failure Converter (Tier 8 Rare)
No explanation followed. No friendly description. Just a warning tag beneath it.
Note: Activation occurs under systemic failure conditions.
Note: This function is unregistered for public dissemination.
Below that, a final line rendered, smaller than the rest.
Special Ability: Death-Linked Burst
Condition: One activation per life
I stared at it longer than the rest.
One per life.
If anyone else saw this, they would assume limits. Safeguards. A single or maybe a couple of chance before it was gone.
They would be wrong. Deadly wrong.
I closed the window.
Outside, the town was quiet. Normal. People went about their lives without knowing how close the rules bent around them. Without knowing how thin the line really was.
Elder Caelum watched me from the doorway.
"You saw it," he said.
I nodded.
"Good," he replied. "Then remember this. The System now knows what to call you."
He met my eyes.
"It still doesn't know what you are."
I pulled my sleeve down over my wrist where the black string coils and started walking.
Behind me, the cottage door closed softly.
Ahead of me, Aetherfall waited.
~~~
I had barely stepped away from the cottage when the door reopens and Elder Caelum's voice reached me.
"Theo."
I turned.
He stood in the doorway, one hand tucked into his sleeve. For a moment, I thought he was going to say something cryptic again. Instead, he walked over and pressed a small belt pouch into my hands.
It looked ordinary. Brown leather. Soft from use. No glow. No markings that screamed importance.
"What's this?" I asked.
"A storage bag," Caelum said. "Modest capacity. Stable. Doesn't draw attention."
I frowned and pushed it back toward him. "That's valuable. You don't just hand these out."
He didn't take it back.
"It's very rare," he said, "that I meet a Crosser with your kind of sub-function."
I stilled.
"Tier Eight," Caelum continued, voice calm but deliberate. "Not in power. In abnormality. Those don't come often, and when they do, they tend to end poorly without… small assistance."
"I didn't do anything to earn this," I said.
He smiled faintly. "You survived being you."
That wasn't comforting because I know I only survived because of my endless revival.
"Besides, I won't be using it," Caelum went on. "And you will. Simple as that." He paused, then added, "I have a feeling you'll reach somewhere most things cannot. Consider this my way of making sure you don't trip on the first step."
I hesitated, then tied the pouch around my belt.
"Thank you," I said quietly.
Caelum waved it off. "Don't thank me yet. I also added a few coins there to aid you. Just don't waste it."
He stepped back, already retreating into his quiet little world.
"And Theo," he added as the door closed, "blend in first. Standing out gets you killed faster than ignorance."
The door shut.
I stood there for a moment, then turned toward the town.
Blending in started with clothes.
The outfit I wore marked me immediately. Crosser. New. Fresh from the expanse. That kind of label attracted attention, and attention was the last thing I needed.
I found a modest shop not far from the main road. The owner was a beastkin woman with fox-like ears and a practiced, uninterested smile. She didn't ask where I was from. Just what I needed.
"Something plain," I said. "Durable."
She nodded and handed me folded fabric.
The clothes were simple. A dark tunic, fitted trousers, a light outer vest with reinforced seams and hood. Comfortable. Practical. The kind of thing half the town wore.
When I changed, the difference was immediate.
I didn't look like an Initiate anymore.
Just another Wayfarer trying to get by.
I adjusted the belt pouch at my side, pulled my sleeves down, and stepped back into the street.
No one looked twice.
Good.
That was how it had to be.
Somewhere in Aetherfall were answers. About my parents. About my luck. About gods who could bend rules that the System couldn't touch.
I didn't know how to reach them yet.
But for now, I would walk quietly.
And let failure find me first.