The workshop in the sub-basement resembled a morgue for machines.

  A monolith dominated the center of the cold metal chamber—a room-sized industrial engine that appeared as a blast furnace modified for delicate anatomy.

  We stood before the [ Mnemosyne Forge ].

  Massive pistons of dull brass hung suspended over a central operating table. Pipes the width of my torso snaked into the floor, ruptured and dry. Above the table, a shattered array of amber lenses hung in a complex, multi-jointed armature, resembling the compound eye of a dead insect.

  It lay broken. Dormant. Dead for centuries.

  “It’s useless,” Mara whispered, her voice echoing in the gloom. “The core is shattered. We cannot turn it on.”

  Walking to the operating table, I ran my hand over the dark, resinous fluids staining the surface. They had dried a thousand years ago.

  “I have no need to turn it on,” I said, resting my hand on the cold brass. “I just need to know how it worked.”

  [ Architect’s Vision ]

  The world stripped down. The heavy brass and iron dissolved into a wireframe of blue light.

  Ignoring the runic script, I hunted for the physics.

  I saw the flow.

  [ Structure: Mnemosyne Forge (Decommissioned) ]

  [ Function: Memory Extraction / Implantation ]

  [ Mechanism: Psychic Hydraulics ]

  This operated as a vacuum system.

  The amber lenses functioned as focal points designed to superheat the Flux in the brain, liquifying specific neural pathways. The pistons then created a negative pressure vacuum to siphon that liquid out.

  “It’s a pump,” I realized, tracing the lines in the air. “It liquefies the trauma and sucks it out like oil from a sump.”

  The floor was littered with shattered lenses, and copper wiring ripped from the walls hung like exposed nerves.

  I lacked the parts to fix the factory. But I could build a shiv.

  “Rook,” I ordered. “I need scrap. Copper wire. That shard of amber over there. And the battery cell from the Sentinel we killed.”

  Rook hesitated, his blue optics cycling. “MAKER… BUILD?”

  “Yes. We’re building a needle.”

  Clearing a space on the rusted workbench, I arranged the scavenged parts.

  The broken bone hilt of [ Shadow-Fang ] served as the chassis. While the blade was gone, the [Nightmare Bone] remained a potent conduit.

  Next came the shard of amber—jagged, raw, and unpolished.

  Winding the copper wire around the bone created a crude induction coil, which I then wired to the amber tip.

  The resulting device resembled a prison shank wired to a car battery.

  [ Crafting: Mnemosyne Spindle ]

  [ Status: Unstable ]

  [ Risk: High ]

  I held it up. The amber tip hummed with a low, nauseating vibration.

  “Artisan.”

  Mara’s voice had changed. The softness vanished, replaced by the rigid posture of a High Arcanist. She viewed the device with cold, assessing eyes.

  “Do you know what that is?” she asked, her tone flat.

  “It’s a tool,” I said, checking the connection.

  “It is a spoon,” she corrected. “The Ancients used the Forge to treat soldiers who had seen too much. They removed the horror so the men could return to the front lines.”

  She stepped closer, the gold mesh of her robes shimmering in the gloom.

  “But they continued the excavations. They removed fear. They removed doubt. And the men who came back… they returned hollow. They became efficient, Artisan. But they were empty.”

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  She pointed a wooden finger at the crude device in my hand.

  “You are building a spoon to scoop out your own ego.”

  My eyes flicked to the map of the surface projected on the wall—the red dots of the Scions.

  “I pay the cost for efficiency, Mara,” I said. “I cannot shake when I aim. We need the edge.”

  “At the cost of the self?” Mara asked, her voice cracking, the professional mask slipping. “If you cut out the parts that hurt, what remains to love her?”

  Silence was my only answer.

  Settling onto the metal stool, I placed the battery on the table.

  The Siphon felt heavy as I raised it to my temple.

  “Turn it on.”

  Flux surged into the coil.

  The amber shard flared. A spike of white-hot agony drilled into my skull.

  I screamed.

  Tremors racked my hand, destroying my focus. The tool skittered against my skin, burning me, failing to lock onto the memory.

  Attempting eye surgery with a jackhammer would have yielded better results. I lacked the dexterity. I lacked the skill.

  [ System Alert: User Error ]

  [ Fine Motor Control Insufficient ]

  I grit my teeth, blood running down my face. “Work, damn you!”

  The System answered.

  Bypassing encouragement, it took control.

  [ Request Acknowledged: Surgical Assist Engaged ]

  [ Override: Motor Functions ]

  My vision glitched.

  The [ Blueprint Mode ] inverted. Instead of the room, it mapped the interior.

  A 3D schematic of my own brain appeared in my mind’s eye. It appeared not as gray matter, but as a building.

  I saw the corridors of thought. I saw the load-bearing walls of my personality.

  And I saw the rot.

  A black, pulsing knot of traumatic memory located deep in the temporal lobe.

  [ Target: The Winter of Dust ]

  [ Type: Trauma / Starvation ]

  It sat there like a clogged pipe, backing up the whole system with sludge.

  My hand steadied. Not because I calmed down, but because the System locked my muscles.

  My fingers moved without my permission, adjusting the angle of the Siphon by a millimeter.

  The sensation felt invasive. Cold. I became a puppet in my own body.

  "I am not the surgeon," I whispered, panic flaring in my chest. "I am the patient on the table."

  The System forced my hand forward.

  The amber tip pierced the skin. It bypassed the bone, phasing through the skull via the specific frequency of the amber.

  It touched the mind.

  Contact.

  The memory exploded.

  I was back in the tenement.

  The smell of boiled leather filled the room—the belt I was trying to soften for broth. The window was frozen shut with ice on the inside.

  My stomach cramped—a knot of twisting, violent hunger that doubled me over.

  Elara was crying in the corner. A low, weak whimper. She was hungry. She was dying.

  I looked at the single piece of moldy bread in my hand. My body screamed to eat it. My survival instinct roared, drowning out everything else.

  Eat it. Let her starve. Survive.

  The shame hit me harder than the hunger. The absolute, freezing terror of my own selfishness.

  I gagged. The sensation bypassed magic entirely. It felt like a fishhook snagging on wet meat.

  Heavy, resistant, and nauseatingly physical.

  [ Extraction Initiated ]

  I pulled.

  The memory resisted the eviction. It was rooted in the foundation of who I was.

  Dragging it out required everything I had.

  Thick, black tar oozed from my temple—the physical manifestation of three weeks of eating leather and dirt.

  It smelled of dust and bile. It dripped from the amber shard, viscous and heavy.

  Memory has mass.

  "Ren!" Mara cried out, stepping forward.

  Rook slammed his fist into a crate of spare parts, shattering it into splinters. The massive Golem vibrated with distress, his blue optics cycling rapidly.

  "MAKER... HURT! ROOK... STOP?"

  "No!" I gasped, the tar stretching like chewing gum from my head to the tool. "Let it... finish!"

  The last strand snapped.

  A glob of black, pulsating sludge hung suspended on the end of the Siphon.

  The vacuum pressure in my skull hit instantly. A sudden, terrifying lightness.

  I lacked the time to process it. The memory was volatile, evaporating in the open air.

  Snatching the [ Shadow-Fang ] bone hilt with my free hand, I moved fast.

  "Graft!"

  I slammed the tar-covered Siphon into the bone.

  Forcing the hunger into the marrow, I bypassed [ Iron Manipulation ]. This was [ Soul-Forging ].

  I used the copper wire to bind the tar to the bone. The black sludge hissed, soaking into the white calcium, turning it a deep, necrotic charcoal.

  The bone drank the starvation. It absorbed the hollow ache of my empty stomach.

  The vibration changed. The hum of the tool died, replaced by a low, rhythmic throb.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  It sounded like a starving heart.

  [ Item Created: The Gluttonous Shiv ]

  [ Rank: Rare (Cursed) ]

  [ Effect: Hunger. Drains Stamina/Flux on contact. ]

  Dropping the tool, I let it clatter to the floor and slumped back, breathing hard.

  The shaking in my hands had ceased. When I reached for the water flask, the movement felt unnatural—precise. Efficient.

  I took a long drink.

  I remembered the Winter of Dust. I knew it happened. I knew I had starved.

  But the somatic memory of the cramp in my gut vanished. The fear of hunger—the gnawing anxiety that made me hoard food, that made me hesitate—was gone.

  I felt... light.

  I looked at Mara.

  She stood frozen, staring at the black bone dagger on the floor. She recoiled, pulling her robes tight against her body as if the object were radioactive.

  Her face twisted in genuine revulsion. She looked from the cursed blade to me, tears welling in her eyes.

  "Ren?" she whispered.

  She reached out, her wooden fingers trembling as they touched the side of my face, checking for a wound that wasn't there.

  "You cut it out," she said, her voice hollow. "You cut away the boy to feed the soldier."

  I analyzed her distress.

  [ Analysis: Ally Distress. Cause: Emotional Trauma. ]

  I should feel sad. I knew that. But the circuit that connected that specific memory to my empathy was severed.

  "I am lighter," I said, my voice steady. "I am ready."

  Rook stepped forward. The floor cracked under his weight.

  While the magic eluded him, the [ Trinity Link ] told him everything. He felt the hole in my chest where the fear used to be.

  He reached out a massive hand, hovering it over my head.

  "MAKER... EMPTY," Rook rumbled, a sound of profound sadness.

  He tapped his own chest plate.

  "ROOK... GIVE? ROOK HAS... MEMORIES."

  He was offering his own memories. He was offering to fill the hole I had carved in myself.

  Standing up, I holstered the black bone dagger.

  "Thank you Rook, but keep your memories." I said. "I don't need to be full. I need to be sharp."

  I turned to the elevator.

  "We have the weapon. Let's go get the armor."