The word "Y/N" glowed in the darkness behind his eyes, an impossible, pulsating blue. It was a question mark etched onto his soul. Yes or No. Accept this madness, or reject it and face the screaming chaos outside with nothing but his wits and a bleeding foot.
Elara's breathing was a ragged sawing sound in the blackness. "Aris, now would be a good time to stop being a ghost!" The fear in her voice, so uncharacteristic, was what decided it.
He had nothing left to lose.
With a thought that felt both foolish and momentous, he focused on the "Y".
The effect was instantaneous. The blue-and-white sherd in his hand grew warm, then hot, not enough to burn, but with a deep, resonant heat that seemed to pulse in time with his own frantic heartbeat. The intricate painting of the crane seemed to writhe, the blue pigment glowing with a faint, ethereal light that illuminated his hand and the terrified planes of Elara's face as she turned towards him.
"Aris, what—?" she began, her eyes wide.
Then the knowledge hit him. It wasn't a download of information; it was a memory that wasn't his. He felt the cool, wet clay on a potter's wheel, the absolute, meditative focus required to guide the spinning form. He felt the weight of the fine-tipped brush in his hand, the steady, unwavering pressure needed to paint the crane's delicate feathers, a single tremor spelling ruin. It was muscle memory, ingrained into his very nerves. The skill of a long-dead artisan, sleeping in the clay for centuries, was now awake inside him.
The glow from the shard faded, and the heat dissipated. The holographic text in his vision updated.
[Skill: 'Focused Hands' - Assimilated.]
[Spiritual Integrity of Artifact depleted. Artifact is now inert.]
The shard was just a piece of pottery again, albeit a clean one—the blood was gone, as if absorbed. He flexed his fingers. They felt… different. Sure. Steady. As if he'd been a master calligrapher his entire life.
"Aris," Elara whispered, her voice trembling with a new kind of awe. "Your hand… it was glowing."
Before he could form a response, a thunderous impact shook the heavy basement door. The crate Elara had shoved against it skidded a few inches. A deep, brutish voice snarled from the other side. "This one's locked! Probably more of the good stuff in here!"
"Forget it, Marcus! Croft wants the main hall secured! The Greek marbles are reacting!" another voice yelled back.
Croft. The name was a splash of cold water. Of course, Silas Croft would be moving, consolidating his power while the world fell apart. The Museum Lords weren't just surviving; they were seizing the moment.
The pounding on the door ceased, and the footsteps receded. Elara slumped against the wall, a sob of relief catching in her throat. In the profound silence that followed their retreat, the space between them felt charged, intimate. They were two survivors in a lifeboat, the darkness a blanket that both concealed and amplified every sensation.
"They're gone," Aris said, his own voice sounding strangely calm. His new 'Focused Hands' seemed to have steadied more than just his fingers; it had anchored a part of his panic.
"For now," Elara replied. She pushed herself away from the wall and moved towards him, her steps hesitant in the black. Her hand found his arm, then slid down to his hand, her fingers interlacing with his. Her touch was no longer just a comfort; it was an interrogation. "What happened, Aris? Tell me. I saw it."
He could have lied. He should have lied. But her grip was firm, her presence a solid reality in a world that had just unmade itself. And he was so desperately tired of being alone.
"I… I have a… a catalog," he stammered, the words sounding insane even to him. "In my head. It just appeared. It told me about that piece of vase. It said it had a skill, 'Focused Hands,' from the artisan who made it. And I… I took it."
He expected her to pull away, to call him delusional, to retreat into the safety of her own rational world.
Instead, her grip tightened. "Show me," she breathed, her voice full of a fierce, desperate curiosity. "There's a Minoan seal stone in that box you knocked over. I catalogued it last week. It's supposed to be mundane. Appraise it."
He hesitated for only a second before bending down, his now-steady fingers easily finding the small, carved stone in the debris. The moment his skin made contact, the blue interface flickered back to life.
[Artifact: Minoan Steatite Seal Stone (c. 1700 BCE).]
[Condition: Good. Physical Integrity: 85%.]
[Spiritual Integrity: 8%.]
[Latent Skill Identified: 'Linguistic Osmosis (Baseline)' - Grants intuitive understanding of foundational linguistic structures.]
[Assimilate Skill? Y/N]
He recited the text aloud, his voice a low murmur in the dark. He left out the final prompt, the choice. This was his, and his alone.
Elara was silent for a long moment. He could feel the rapid pulse in her wrist where it pressed against his. "Linguistic Osmosis," she repeated, the words tasting of wonder. "Aris… do you realize what this means? In a world where history is power, you don't just read it. You can consume it."
"Or I'm having a psychotic break," he said wryly.
"No," she said, her voice firm. She moved even closer, so close he could feel the warmth of her body, could smell the lavender and ozone cutting through the basement's stale air. "The light was real. The way you held that sherd… you were still as stone. That was real." She let out a shaky breath. "I came down here tonight because I was scared. The fluctuations… I have a piece, a small Celtic torc. For weeks, it's been… humming. I thought I was imagining it. But I wasn't, was I? The world hasn't ended. It's… changed. And you… you've been given a key."
Her faith was a terrifying thing. It placed a weight on his shoulders he wasn't sure he could bear.
"A key to what?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"To survival," she said simply. Her free hand came up, her fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead. The touch was electrifying, a bolt of pure, undiluted sensation that had nothing to do with any system. It was a connection that transcended the chaos, a moment of profound, shared understanding. In the ruins of the old world, they were building a new one, right here, in the dark.
"We need to get out of here," she continued, her voice gaining strength. "Before Croft's men come back. Before they realize what's down here. Before they realize what you are."
What you are. The words hung in the air. He wasn't Dr. Aris Thorne, disgraced academic. He was something else. A Curator of a new, terrible age.
He nodded, his 'Focused Hands' giving his movements a new, unnerving precision as he tucked the inert porcelain shard and the still-potent seal stone into his pocket. "Where do we go?"
"My flat," she said. "It's not far. And I have things there. Artifacts I've been… studying."
They moved the crate from the door as quietly as they could. Aris cracked it open, peering into the corridor. It was empty, lit only by the faint, sickly green glow of emergency exit signs that now seemed to run on a different, stranger power source. The air was thick with the smell of dust, ozone, and something else—a coppery tang that could only be blood.
They moved like ghosts, their footsteps silent on the marble floor. The grand hall of the museum was a scene of devastation. Shattered glass cases, toppled statues, and the shadowy forms of bodies lay where they had fallen. But it was the living that made Aris's blood run cold.
Near the main entrance, a group of Croft's enforcers stood guard. They were no longer just security guards. One of them held a spear that glowed with a faint, bronze light, its point gleaming with unnatural sharpness. Another wore a Greek Corinthian helmet that seemed to meld into his skin, his eyes glowing with a faint red fire from within the slits. They were no longer men playing with artifacts; they were becoming what they held.
Aris and Elara pressed themselves into a deep alcove, their bodies pressed together from shoulder to thigh. He could feel the frantic beat of her heart against his side, or perhaps it was his own. Her face was inches from his, her warm breath ghosting across his lips.
"We can't go that way," she mouthed silently.
He nodded, his mind racing. There was a service exit near the Egyptian wing, but it meant crossing a wide-open space. He was about to point when a new group entered the hall, led by a man whose presence seemed to suck the warmth from the air.
It was Silas Croft himself. He wore a curator's formal jacket, now stained with dust and something darker. In his hand, he held not a weapon, but a staff—the silver-topped ceremonial staff of the museum's director. But it was no longer ceremonial. It pulsed with a cold, silver light, and the air around it shimmered with frost.
His gaze, cold and calculating, swept the hall. It passed over the alcove where they hid, and for a heart-stopping second, Aris was sure those eyes, sharpened by newfound power, had locked onto his.
But Croft's attention was elsewhere. He pointed his staff towards a display that had held a collection of Viking jewelry. "The torcs and arm rings," he commanded, his voice echoing with an unnatural resonance. "They are beginning to sing. Bring them to my office. And find Dr. Vance. Her expertise with metals will be… useful."
The command hung in the air, a death sentence for the woman pressed against Aris's side. Elara's breath hitched, her fingers digging into his arm.
Croft's head tilted, as if listening to a distant sound. A cruel smile played on his lips. "And someone check the basement again. I have a feeling we've missed something… interesting down there in the dark."