# Chapter 3: The Terror of the Crib
Existence, Sylas Vane had concluded, was a buffering issue.
He lay on his back, staring at the wooden slats of the crib. They were oak, roughly hewn, spaced exactly three inches apart. Too narrow for a head to fit through, but wide enough to trap a limb if one wasn't careful. He knew this because he had already trapped his left foot twice this morning.
The humiliation was absolute.
In his previous iteration, he had been Kaelen Vance, the Grand Architect. He had written the laws of thermodynamics for a digital universe. He had deleted gravity in Sector 4 just to see what the water would do. He was a being of pure intellect, a conductor of reality.
Now, he was a captive of his own bowels.
A pressure built in his lower abdomen. It was a crude, biological signal, a warning light blinking on a dashboard he couldn't control.
*process_elimination.exe,* his mind supplied helpfully.
*Cancel,* he thought. *Abort. Delay.*
His body ignored him. The biological hardware had override privileges over the software. The deed was done. Warmth, followed immediately by a sticky, uncomfortable cold, spread through the linen swaddle.
Sylas stared at the water stain on the ceiling. He felt the indignity burn hotter than the rash developing on his skin. This was the reality of the flesh. No command lines. No undo button. Just consequences.
He considered his options.
**Option A:** Remain silent. Suffer the chemical burns. Maintain dignity.
**Option B:** Signal the giants.
He tested his vocal cords. They were still rubbery, unrefined instruments. He took a breath, expanding his small lungs—capacity roughly 200 milliliters—and pushed.
"Gwah."
Too quiet. A pathetic croak.
He recalibrated. Increased diaphragm pressure. Adjusted the pitch to a frequency scientifically proven to trigger the human stress response.
"WAAAAAAH!"
The door to the nursery didn't just open; it flew inward.
Martha, the nursemaid, lumbered in. She was a mountain of a woman with forearms the size of cured hams and a smell that vacillated between yeast and old onions.
"Oh, the young lord is singing again," she grumbled, her voice a heavy baritone. She leaned over the rail. Her face was a landscape of wrinkles and moles. "What is it, then? Wet? Hungry? Bored?"
She sniffed the air.
"Wet," she confirmed.
The changing process was a chaotic blur of rough hands, cold air, and excessive powdering. Sylas endured it with a stoic, thousand-yard stare. He disassociated. He focused on the grain of the wood on the floorboards. *White Oak. Quercus alba. Indigenous to temperate climates. Indicates a northern hemisphere setting.*
When she was finished, she swaddled him tight enough to restrict blood flow and dropped him back onto the mattress.
"There. Clean as a whistle," Martha declared. She poked his nose with a sausage-like finger. "Now go to sleep, little badger. Your mother is meeting with the scary men from the bank."
She bustled out, leaving the door cracked.
Sylas lay in the semi-darkness. The information was fragmented, but valuable. *Bank.* *Scary men.* *Meeting.*
Financial insolvency confirmed. The Vane estate was bleeding liquidity. In a feudal system, debt wasn't just a number; it was a vulnerability. It meant weakness. Weakness invited predators.
He needed to grow up. Fast.
He tried to lift his head. The muscles in his neck strained, burning with effort. He managed to elevate his chin two inches before gravity slammed him back down.
*System,* he thought. *Status report.*
*...Loading... 3%...*
Three percent. In two months, it had advanced one percent. At this rate, he would be thirty years old before he could open a command prompt.
He sighed, a sound that came out as a wet burp.
He closed his eyes. If he couldn't move, and he couldn't code, he would do the only thing this useless hardware was designed for.
He would optimize his sleep cycles.
***
The afternoon sun slanted through the window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. Sylas watched them, calculating their trajectory based on the ambient airflow.
Brownian motion. The physics engine of this world was robust. Particle collision logic was consistent.
"Sylas?"
The voice was soft, laced with a fatigue that seemed to live in the marrow of her bones.
Lilliana Vane walked into the room. She looked thinner than she had a week ago. Her dress, a deep violet velvet, was elegant but worn at the cuffs. She carried a book under her arm.
She pulled the rocking chair close to the crib. The wood creaked under her weight. She didn't pick him up immediately. She just looked at him, her eyes searching his face.
"You look so much like your father," she whispered. "Except the eyes. You have my eyes."
She reached through the bars and stroked his cheek. Her skin was cool.
"I brought a story," she said, opening the book. The binding cracked. "It's better than listening to the wind howl, isn't it?"
Sylas focused. This was it. Data ingestion.
Lilliana cleared her throat.
"Long ago, before the walls of Aethelgard were raised, the world was covered in Ash," she read. Her voice took on a rhythmic, storytelling cadence. "The Sky-Eaters roamed the clouds, and the ground belonged to the Deep-Dwellers."
Sylas cataloged the terms. *Ash. Sky-Eaters (Dragons? Wyverns?). Deep-Dwellers (Subterranean fauna?).*
"But then came the First Light," Lilliana continued. "The Architect of the Dawn descended from the stars. He did not bring a sword. He brought the *Lexicon*."
Sylas's mental ears perked up. *Architect? Lexicon?*
"He spoke the Words of Power," she read, turning the page. The parchment was yellowed, the ink faded. "And the Ash parted. He drew a circle in the earth and named it *Sanctuary*. He taught the first men how to pull the Ether from the air and weave it into stone."
*Ether.*
That was the power source. The variable he had sensed but couldn't access. It wasn't just magic; it was a resource that could be harvested and "woven."
"The First Light established the Four Pillars," Lilliana read softly. "The Pillar of War, to guard the gate. The Pillar of Wisdom, to keep the records. The Pillar of Shadows, to watch the unseen. And the Pillar of Blood, to rule them all."
She paused, her finger tracing the illustration on the page. It depicted a man in radiant armor holding a glowing book, surrounded by four kneeling figures.
"The Vane family," Lilliana murmured, drifting off script. "We were the Shadows once, Sylas. Did you know that? We were the eyes in the dark."
She laughed, a brittle, dry sound.
"Now we are just farmers who can't pay the tithe."
She looked down at him. "The Pillar of Shadows crumbled a long time ago. The current King... he doesn't like shadows. He prefers mirrors. Things that show him what he wants to see."
Sylas stared at her.
This was critical intel.
1. **Magic System:** Based on "Ether" and "Words of Power" (Syntax? Vocal components?).
2. **Political Structure:** Monarchy supported by four factions (Pillars).
3. **Family History:** House Vane was formerly the intelligence branch (Spies? Assassins?). Now disgraced or demoted.
4. **Current Threat:** The King is narcissistic and likely paranoid.
Lilliana sighed and closed the book. "But that's just a fairy tale. The truth is, magic is for the wealthy, Sylas. The Academy tuition is three thousand gold crowns. We don't have three thousand copper pennies."
She stood up, the chair groaning again. She leaned over and kissed his forehead.
"Sleep well, my little shadow. Don't worry about the gold. Papa will fix it. He always... he tries."
She left the room, her footsteps heavy.
Sylas lay in the silence.
*Three thousand gold crowns.*
He didn't know the exchange rate, but judging by the tension in her voice, it was a fortune.
He looked at his tiny, useless hands. He couldn't wield a sword. He couldn't cast a spell. He couldn't even hold a pen.
But he could think.
If the Vane family was the "Pillar of Shadows," then the infrastructure for intelligence gathering might still exist. Old contacts? Hidden archives?
He needed to get into the library.
He rolled onto his side, a maneuver that took five seconds of concentrated effort. He stared at the door.
*Objective Updated: Locate Family Archives.*
*Obstacle: Inability to walk.*
*Solution: Acquire transport.*
As if summoned by the narrative causality of the universe, the door handle turned.
It wasn't Martha. It wasn't Lilliana.
The handle wiggled. Then it turned the wrong way. Then it jiggled violently. Finally, with a click, the door swung open.
Elara slipped inside.
She was wearing a oversized woolen tunic that looked like it had been stolen from a stable boy, and she had a wooden pot lid strapped to her back with a piece of rope.
"Psst," she hissed. "Potato. Are you awake?"
Sylas blinked. *Transport acquired.*
Elara scurried to the crib and pulled herself up. She looked wilder than usual. There were leaves in her hair.
"We have a mission," she whispered, her eyes wide with the gravity of a four-year-old general. "The chickens have escaped. They are planning a rebellion."
Sylas stared at her. *Threat assessment: Negligible. Source reliability: Compromised.*
"I need a lieutenant," she declared. She reached into the crib and grabbed him under the arms.
*Wait,* Sylas thought. *Unsanctioned extraction. Safety protocols not engaged.*
"Up we go!" Elara grunted. She was surprisingly strong for a waif. She hauled him over the rail.
Sylas dangled for a terrifying second, suspended by his armpits, before she lowered him onto the floor. The landing was ungraceful—a soft thud as his diaper-padded rear hit the rug.
Freedom.
The floor was cold, and the perspective was radically different. Dust bunnies looked like boulders. The leg of the rocking chair was a tower.
"Can you crawl yet?" Elara asked, crouching in front of him. She poked his knee. "Come on. Like this."
She demonstrated, scrambling on all fours.
Sylas looked at her. He looked at the open door.
He didn't care about chickens. But the library was down the hall, to the left.
He placed his hands on the rug. He pushed. His coordination was abysmal. His head was too heavy for his neck. He wobbled, tipped, and face-planted into the wool.
"No, no," Elara critiqued. "You're doing it wrong. You have to be fierce. Like a wolf."
She grabbed his hand and pulled. "Come on, Potato. The chickens won't wait."
She dragged him. Literally dragged him across the rug.
Sylas tolerated it. It was locomotion. It was progress.
They made it to the doorway. The hallway stretched out before them, a cavernous tunnel of dark wood and flickering sconces.
"Target sighted," Elara whispered. She pointed at a white hen that had somehow wandered into the manor and was pecking at the baseboard near the stairs.
"Charge!" Elara yelled.
She abandoned him instantly, sprinting toward the chicken with her pot-lid shield raised.
Sylas was left alone in the doorway.
He ignored the battle cries of his sister and the panicked squawking of the poultry. He turned his head to the left.
The heavy oak doors of the library were closed. But there was a gap at the bottom. A draft.
He dragged himself. It was grueling work. His elbows scraped against the floor. His knees banged against the hardwood. He felt like a seal trying to cross a parking lot.
*Inch by inch.*
He reached the library door. He pressed his face against the gap at the bottom.
He couldn't see much. Just rows of dark shelves and the smell of old paper. But he could feel it.
A hum.
A low, static vibration that pricked at the base of his skull. It wasn't just books in there. There was something active. Something that resonated with the dormant System in his head.
*Mana source detected,* the System whispered, the text faint.
Sylas's heart hammered against his small ribs.
An artifact? A magical tome?
He reached out, jamming his tiny fingers under the door, trying to get a grip, trying to pull it open. It was locked. Obviously.
"Got him!"
Elara's voice boomed down the hall.
She came running back, holding the chicken triumphantly by its legs. The bird was upside down, resigned to its fate.
"We won, Potato!" She skidded to a halt beside him. She looked down, confused. "Why are you trying to eat the door?"
Sylas withdrew his fingers. He looked up at her, keeping his face blank.
"You're weird," she decided. "But you're a good listener."
She sat down next to him, placing the chicken on her lap. She stroked its feathers. "Don't tell Papa I let the chickens in. He says livestock belongs in the barn. But it's cold outside."
She looked at Sylas, her expression softening.
"It's cold inside too," she whispered.
She leaned against the library door, pulling Sylas into her side. The pot lid dug into his shoulder.
"I heard the scary men talking to Mom," she said quietly. "They said we have to leave if we don't pay. They said the house belongs to the bank now."
She looked at the chicken. "I don't want to leave. My height chart is on the kitchen doorframe."
Sylas felt a sharp spike of irritation. Not at her. At the situation.
It was inefficient. It was messy. This "bank" was disrupting his development environment. If they were evicted, his access to resources would plummet. His survival probability would drop.
He looked at the locked library door. He looked at the shivering girl holding a chicken.
He reached out and patted her knee.
Elara looked down. She smiled, a small, sad thing.
"You understand, don't you?" she said. "You're smart, for a potato."
She scooped him up. "Let's go back. If Martha finds us, she'll turn us into stew."
As she carried him back to the nursery, Sylas rested his head on her shoulder. He watched the shadows stretch down the hallway.
He had a plan now.
Step 1: Unlock motor functions.
Step 2: Breach the library.
Step 3: Analyze the mana source.
Step 4: Liquidiate the debt.
The world thought he was a helpless infant. His family thought he was a soft, sleepy baby.
*Excellent,* Sylas thought, his eyes drooping as the fatigue of the adventure caught up with him.
*Let them think that. It renders the firewall obsolete.*
He let out a soft, contented sigh.
"I know," Elara whispered, patting his back. "I'm hungry too."
Sylas didn't correct her. He closed his eyes and began to draft the code for his first hostile takeover.