Chapter I: The Vaults Beneath Our Feet
I was once R.E.N.E.W.O.L. — a Ranger of their order, a silent hunter in the green reclaimed wilds. They taught me to kill, to track, to survive in silence. They taught me to obey.
But I listened to the wind.
And the wind whispered truth.
I fled before they could silence me. I took nothing but my bow, my hawk, and a head full of forbidden thoughts. They branded me a defector. I called it awakening.
The Vault Line became my road — a sunken scar of bunkers and forgotten tech. There, the old world dreamed in rusted machines and broken AI. Raiders scavenged like wolves, mutants slithered through vents, and the walls remembered screams.
It was in one such ruin that I found Sam.
He was little more than a shattered chassis and a flickering light when I discovered him — a forgotten Sentinel drone, half-melted and half-buried. Something in me said not to pass him by. I rebuilt him with care, using parts I barely understood. I expected a tool.
I got a mind.
Sentinel Autonomous Model. Loyal. Analytical. Inquisitive. He called me Calen. I called him friend.
Together, the three of us — man, machine, and hawk — pressed deeper into the dark, seeking answers and evading R.E.N.E.W.O.L. patrols.
The Vault Line nearly became my grave. But Sam's calculations, Ash’s warnings, and a bit of stubborn luck pulled me through.
Then came the rumors — of the sky fractured, of monoliths that floated, of tech from before even the Fall.
