The Restoration Protocol

45 || chamele.on

According to Alias, the closest PIPTIA station to the Vault of Restoration is located near a place called Lake Topaz, just outside of Paracosia's centermost point. Mariko doesn't recognize the name. Back when she had her watch, only the five main civilizations were highlighted with bold text on the map, evidently for the purpose of drawing players' attention to the most crucial areas for gameplay – and yet all along, the most crucial point of all has been sitting quietly in their midst, far from all the cities and their accompanying commotion. Though it isn't invisible, even Alias compares the Vault to an animal camouflaging itself from the naked eye. It's always been around. Since Paracosia's conception, the bizarre structure sits in the middle of nowhere, just begging to be investigated, yet all this time it has been left alone by choice.

Presumably by choice, Mariko thinks to herself. But it is a game. Perhaps the majority of the NPCs truly were programmed to view its existence as 'taboo,' as Lotus once worded it. An innate, indescribable reverence for a place that was without explanation, within a world equally without explanation. Alias, on the other hand, seems to have long since broken that barrier of programming. As well as the other Keyholders. Even if they were on them at some point, the Keyholders have undoubtedly derailed from the tracks the developers planned for them to stay on. After all, Claude himself is an anomaly no one had accounted for. All responses to his actions are genuine – genuine as a computer program could possibly be.

Claude didn't program them. He only programmed Alias, the android now striving to put a stop to his plans at all costs.

While on their way out of the Atadon Crater, Alias gives Lotus the rundown of all they know so far. Everything they learned inside that underground lab, from Claude's confession of having poisoned himself in the real world, to the loss of his wife and only daughter, Soleil. She tells him the truth about Abe. Stoic, yet undeniably shameful, she admits he would never be coming back to them, and that she regrets not trusting him sooner. At the same time, she knows also that his fate was sealed the moment Claude powered his circuits. He was always meant to be a vessel. Nothing more. An android, finally having achieved its purpose, now with its consciousness terminated forever.

That profound realization wasn't lost on Alias. Mariko watches her face intently as she's relaying the story to Lotus. Given the circumstances, Abe was the closest thing Alias had to a sibling. To have lost him by the hand of their once beloved father, a weight unlike anything she could have prepared for now lies upon her shoulders. But it only serves to stoke the flames of determination in her core.

They travel together, first through the eerie streets of Wynsmith, silenced by an unseen threat, then across the barren region outside Hollowmire, choked still by its encompassing haze. Mariko keeps a close eye on Lotus for most of it. To her relief, it would appear only the air within Hollowmire's city borders holds the capability of withering the prince's fragile petals. He holds his head higher than ever.

They arrive safely at Hollowmire's outer-city station.

"This way," Alias says without hesitation. She knows exactly where to go from here. On the far end of the terminal, a portal labeled Lake Topaz sits below a dim blue light. She gestures the others to follow her as she hurries over to it. There's no time to waste. She passes through it, then Mariko, then Lotus.

On the other end of the portal, the PIPTIA station bears its open doors to a silent clearing and the still waters of Lake Topaz. Not a breath of wind stirs to ripple the surface, nor does the faintest sound of wildlife rise from the woods surrounding it. Nothing seems to exist here at all except the building which sits like a dormant volcano on the other end of the lake. The sky is still dark, the moon dim. The Vault of Restoration looks like a giant black box and nothing more. And it's only by way of the two light fixtures outside its front door that Mariko can tell that it's been left open, too.