The team stood in stunned silence, staring at the revealed hatch. The air, now free of the logic-field, carried the normal sounds of the forest—birds, insects, wind—but they felt muffled, distant. The metal of the Archive Node was cold and heavy in Silas's hands, a chilling proof of everything they'd feared.
"We can't open that," Liana said, her voice firm but edged with fear. "We have no idea what's down there. More nodes? A reactor? A... tomb?"
Hargin, the artificer's curiosity warring with survival instinct, knelt to examine the hatch's edge. "It's not sealed. It's been disengaged from the inside. Or it was never fully closed. The node we took was like a... a marker buoy. Or a security terminal for whatever's below."
Lyra placed a hand on a nearby tree, communing. "The forest is... w
