Chapter 6: Knockoff Gods and Recycled Dreams

Chapter 6: Knockoff Gods and Recycled Dreams

They were waiting for him at the gate.

Not guards. Not bounty hunters. Not even the usual angry shopkeepers. No — this time, it was a full welcoming party. Robes. Incense. Banners fluttering with stitched-on data glyphs that looked suspiciously like they were stolen from a tech manual and rebranded as holy symbols.

At least twenty people stood in formation, heads bowed.

The woman at the front had a porcelain mask with a cracked cheek and a hood lined in reflective thread. She stepped forward, raised her arms, and declared:

> “The Rebooted One walks among us! All hail the Echo Prophet!”

Ethan blinked.

Turned slowly to Milo.

“I’ve been back in reality for five minutes. Five.”

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They ushered him into a plaza carved into the side of the mountain, half temple, half server room, all ridiculous. Gilded statues of forgotten constructs lined the walls. Cables draped across prayer wheels. Someone had mounted a solar panel above an altar and aimed it directly at a pile of half-working fan blades.

A flickering sign above the archway read: “The Circuit Shall Be Whole Again.”

Ethan leaned over to Milo. “You sure this isn’t a prank show?”

“No,” Milo whispered. “But I’m starting to wish it was.”

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They sat Ethan on a cushion surrounded by overly attentive acolytes offering incense, datafruit, and what looked like a lukewarm bottle of transmission fluid. He took the fruit, declined the fluid, and accepted the incense because it smelled faintly of cinnamon and motor oil — nostalgic in a weird, burnt-circuit kind of way.

Then came the chanting.

Low. Rhythmic. Full of wrong notes and tech jargon misused so badly it physically hurt.

> “We give thanks to the Ghost in the Code… May the Frame return whole… May the Node reboot without fatal errors… Glory to the recursive anomaly…”

>

>

> This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Ethan squinted. “Are they trying to pray or reinstall Windows?”

Whisp poked his head out of Ethan’s hood, tail twitching. “I think they think you’re divine.”

“Well that’s unfortunate. I barely qualify as literate.”

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The masked priestess knelt in front of him.

“We sensed your arrival in the codewinds,” she said reverently. “The Trial Node flashed active for the first time in centuries. You were marked.”

“Oh, I get marked a lot. I’m pretty sure I set off divine firewalls just walking into temples.”

She nodded, misinterpreting entirely. “Yes… your aura does buzz with ineffable power.”

“That’s probably just the echo core trying not to melt.”

She gestured to one of the acolytes, who brought forward a battered relic — a stone plate inlaid with copper thread and blinking softly.

> “Place your hand here,” she said. “Let the System recognize you.”

Ethan looked at Whisp. Then Milo. Then the plate.

“Do you guys ever get the feeling a single bad idea just brought fifteen more friends?”

He placed his palm on the plate.

It lit up like a broken streetlight in a thunderstorm.

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> [System Ping: External Spiritual Interface Request] [Source: Relic Core – Legacy Access Attempted] [Warning: This ritual system is outdated and may be corrupted]

>

> > Accept? y/N

Ethan hesitated.

Then tapped: y

The plate flared bright gold. The floor rumbled. Somewhere, bells rang out of sync. A single spark shot out of the altar and hit an acolyte in the foot, who yelped and bowed harder.

> [Access Override Accepted – Node BETA-9] [New Tag Acquired: “Echo Key”] [Passive Influence Radius: Expanded] [Relic Sync: 47%]

“Oops,” Ethan muttered.

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The priestess’s voice wavered as she looked up. “The Key has returned… The One Who Opens Locked Worlds…”

“Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Ethan said quickly. “I’m more of a… maintenance guy. Temporary admin. Weekend tech support.”

Milo buried his face in his hands.

“You don’t understand what you’ve done,” the priestess whispered. “You’ve reawakened the Dream Coil. That hasn’t activated since before the Partition.”

“That sounds important.”

“It isn’t,” Whisp added. “Just loud.”

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The system buzzed in Ethan’s head.

> [Frame Update: Passive Cult Influence Acquired] [Perks: Occasional free lodging, bonus snacks, reckless loyalty from extremely misinformed zealots] [Drawbacks: Everything else]

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Later, after the chanting died down and the cinnamon-motor-oil incense started giving him a headache, Ethan slipped out the back while Milo argued with someone about theology and Whisp gnawed on someone’s sacred data scroll.

The night was cool. The stars overhead flickered like they were buffering.

Ethan sighed and leaned on a cracked railing, watching neon fireflies drift over the valley below.

“I’ve been here, what… two days? And I’ve fought a kill construct, hijacked a trial node, and accidentally founded a religion.”

> “Correction,” Whisp said. “You inherited one. Congratulations. You are now the reason twelve people wear matching robes and shout about circuit prophecy.”

Ethan smiled faintly.

“…Do I get a hat?”