A soft, blue light bloomed. The air shimmered. And then a voice—not from the cylinder, but from inside his own skull—spoke.
He dropped to his knees and dug with his hands. The dust was cool, ancient. His fingers brushed against a smooth, obsidian-black cylinder, no larger than his thumb. Etched into its side were two words in faded, pre-Silence script: rakez com
“Proceed.”
