The campfire crackled faintly as Elaine sat apart from the others, the shard resting in her hands. Its glow was faint, but the pulsing rhythm had returned, steady and insistent. She stared into its light, her thoughts heavy.
"How's it doing that?" Lira asked, approaching hesitantly.
Elaine didn't look up. "It's never stopped. Even when the Nexus was severed, the shards didn't lose their connection to the world—or each other."
Lira crouched beside her, her expression uneasy. "You don't think… it's waking up again, do you?"
Elaine's grip on the shard tightened. "No. The Nexus is gone. But the shards… they're not just pieces of it. There's something else. Something deeper."
Lira frowned. "Deeper? Like what?"
Elaine hesitated, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I don't know. But whatever it is, it's stirring."
Fractured Territories
The world beyond the camp was a maelstrom of uncertainty. News of the Convergence's defeat had spread quickly, but with it came whispers of the shards—artifacts of unimaginable power, capable of shaping the future. Entire regions fractured as warlords, scavengers, and opportunistic factions fought to claim dominance.
Kael returned from the ridge, his expression tense. "Smoke to the west—two plumes. It's not Convergence, but it's close enough."
Ardyn stood, brushing dirt from her armor. "Warlords, probably. Word's out that we've got something valuable."
Elaine looked up from the shard, her expression grim. "The longer we stay in one place, the more vulnerable we are."
Lira tightened the straps on her satchel, her movements jerky. "Then where do we go? It's not like there's a safe zone waiting for us out there."
Kael adjusted his bow, his gaze steady. "She's right. The world's in chaos, and every faction we've seen is either fighting for scraps or hunting for shards. We can't fight them all."
Elaine stood, the shard glowing faintly in her hands. "We don't need to fight them all. Just the ones who get in our way."
A Dangerous Proposition
The camp was quiet that night, the tension palpable as the team gathered around the fire. The warlord, who had grudgingly remained with them after the fall of the Convergence hub, broke the silence.
"There's a way to fix this," she said, her tone measured. "You've got the shard, and from what I've seen, you know how to use it. So why not use it to unite the territories?"
Elaine's eyes narrowed. "Unite? You mean control."
The warlord shrugged. "Call it what you want. Right now, the world's eating itself alive. You've got the power to change that—to bring order to the chaos."
Ardyn scoffed. "And who decides what that order looks like? You?"
The warlord's gaze was sharp. "Better me than the scavengers burning villages or the cults claiming the shards are divine. If you don't step up, someone worse will."
Elaine clenched her fists. "We're not rebuilding the Nexus. The shards don't belong to anyone, least of all people like you."
The warlord smirked. "You think you're above all this? That you can hold onto that shard without making the hard calls? The world doesn't work like that, kid."
Kael intervened, his voice steady but firm. "She's made harder calls than you'll ever know. Don't mistake caution for weakness."
The warlord's smirk faded, but she didn't press the point.
The Shard's Warning
As the others settled in for the night, Elaine remained by the fire, the shard cradled in her hands. Its hum had grown louder, its rhythm insistent and unsettling.
The voices returned, faint but persistent. "You carry the fragments of creation. They are not yours to keep."
Elaine closed her eyes, her breathing shallow. "What are you trying to tell me?"
Images flooded her mind—fractures in the earth, glowing with raw energy. Cities crumbled into ash as the shards' power surged unchecked, tearing through the land like a storm.
"Severance is not balance. The world will collapse without unity."
Elaine's eyes snapped open, the shard's light dimming in her hands.
"What did you see?" Lira's voice broke the silence, startling Elaine.
Elaine hesitated, the weight of the vision pressing heavily on her. "Something's happening. The shards… they're unstable. If we don't find a way to stop it, everything we've done will be for nothing."
A Dire Mission
The following morning, the team packed up the camp and prepared to move. Elaine's vision had left little room for doubt—whatever was happening to the shards was accelerating, and they couldn't afford to wait for it to find them.
Ardyn tightened the straps on her armor, her expression grim. "Where to this time?"
Elaine held up the shard, its light casting faint shadows across the ground. "The vision showed fractures—places where the shards' energy is spilling into the world. If we follow them, we might find the source."
Kael frowned. "And if it's worse than we think?"
Elaine met his gaze, her voice steady. "Then we end it, no matter the cost."