A new message appears on my HUD.
But it isn't like the others. It isn't the angular handwriting of the Codex, and it isn't the cold digital typography of Ocean's Law. It's written by hand. Cursive. Ink that seems to have been pressed onto the page with quill and nankeen by fingers that don't belong to this century.
[Do you wish to sign a contract? Y/N]
'Sign a contract? What contract?'
I look at my hand. Sebastian Conor's Echo Fragment is evaporating—ash being blown off a fire nobody lit. The blue crystal loses shape, loses color, and slides between my fingers like inverted smoke. In three seconds, there's nothing left.
The Fragment is gone. It burned itself away. And the only thing left is the question floating in my HUD, written in handwriting older than humanity itself.
I don't have much to lose now that the fuel has already been spent.
I press Yes.
The room darkens.
