Ari knelt alone beneath the glyph-lit canopy of Simulation Wing B, where sigil-suspended training drones floated between shifting geometry panels. The academy called this space "The Lattice"—a sterile, magical grid for low-tier spell testing.
Eluin had left him with a scroll of basic Signum syntax and a single suggestion:
"Speak carefully. The System always listens."
He unfurled the scroll again and began rehearsing.
Signum Formation Attempt
Ari focused.
The runes danced in his mind—faint echoes of structure trying to stitch themselves into place.
ᚨ Sol (Ignite)ᚦ Vey (Bind)ᛗ Elen (Project)ᛟ Nir (Seal)
He etched them with his finger into the air, channeling mana with deliberate care—each stroke a whisper, not a shove.
His Threadless mana resisted structure at first… but then folded inward, aligning just enough.
The air rippled.
"Dustletter Shield," he said aloud.
And then something changed.
Autocorrection Triggered
Instead of forming the neat, glowing sigil Eluin had demonstrated, the spell twisted mid-air—the characters elongating, rearranging, morphing.
ᚨ became ᚾZaeᛗ Elen became ᚹYirnᛟ Nir flickered into an undefined glyph—one that didn't belong in any current thread or school of casting.
Ari's vision flashed with strings of nonhuman syntax—echoes of something buried in the system.
The spell cast itself without his permission.
Dreamscript Activation
The space warped. A low-frequency tone hummed across the lattice grid.
Lines of luminous text formed in his peripheral vision:
[ERROR: User Signature Mismatch][Override Permission Level: ROOT][Dreamscript Detected. Directive Reintegration Initiated.]
A pulse hit the floor like a dropped memory.
The shield that formed wasn't a Dustletter. It was a recursive glyph of preservation, spiraling infinitely like a memory loop, shimmering with violet and gold logic trails. Every rune was partially unreadable, partially alive.
It wasn't written in Signum.
It was Dreamscript.
System Response
More fragments poured in, this time not in sound or light—but feeling.
"Welcome back, Echo Dreamer.""Directive 0-Ari: Reconnect to Source.""Recompile Reality Thread?"Y/N
Ari recoiled. "What the hell is this?" he whispered.
The spell collapsed in on itself without detonation. Just a ripple, like something being saved... somewhere else.
Behind a spell lattice, Eluin watched in stunned silence, glyph-glasses recording the entire event.
"No Thread should be able to—" she whispered. "That wasn't autocorrect. That was interference... from beneath."
From far above, a crystalline automaton from Sanctum's observatory level opened a single, glowing eye:
[ECHO SIGNATURE CONFIRMED][Target: Ari Solen | Dream-ID: UNSEALED][Notify: Echo Vault Node-6]
Ari touched the air where the spell had broken.
"This isn't just about learning magic," he said quietly.
"It's about remembering a version of me that already did."