PortalBound

[Junction Chamber, Planet Vithneuf. Three portals are embedded into the golden ornate wall, each pulsing with rotating light: violet, amber, white. Across the room, a fourth portal glows cerulean. VALE (Sict-Transporter Fliyik Vale) and RAIS (Sict-Technician E'Din Rais) have just stepped through it.]

[Time dilation estimate: 11 days have passed on their homeworld, Sict-Scal. From their point of view, they have been gone for 12 hours.]

[Rais shifts the two leather bags on his shoulders. Inside: dried Findl herbs, temperature-sensitive, viable for another four hours. They are the reason for the mission. They are the reason it has to work.]

[The player controls Vale. Choose how hard to push.]

guardian_approach

[Rais raises his arms in protest but doesn't argue.]

guardian_approach

$vale_knew is set by whichever guardian path follows regardless of entry branch. If branch-level tracking is needed in future (logical vs instinct vs silent entry), add $vale_approach flags here.

[Something in her voice gives him pause. Rais has never heard Vale ask for anything.]

guardian_approach

[Vale crosses toward the far wall. The portal guardian rests there, encrusted into the stone - large, golden, shiny like the rest of the wall. The curtain-like robes that hang from its body shift like oil on water. Its face carries two globes of dark faceted gemstones, much like the eyes of a fly. As Vale approaches, it turns its head toward her.]

[Silence.]

[The guardian pulls all four of its mechanical arms out of the wall. Something the Sict people have never recorded it doing before in their entire interstellar travel history.]

Deliver fragmented. The guardian is not malfunctioning - it is deciding how much to say.

(set: $vale_knew to true) // Vale's theory confirmed. Rais has heard it. Used downstream to unlock extended dialogue in future scenes.

the_choice

[The gemstones on its face brighten. Almost imperceptibly.]

Pause lands like a weight. The guardian has been counting.

The guardian gestures toward the white portal. Vale registers this but does not fully trust what she saw - her uncertainty is intentional and carries through to the_choice.

(set: $vale_knew to true) // Direction implied, not given. Used downstream to unlock extended dialogue in future scenes.

the_choice

[Vale waits. Rais watches from a distance, arms crossed, jaw tight.]

No words. The gesture is enough. The question is: enough for what?

(set: $vale_knew to true) // Confirmed via gesture, not language. Used downstream to unlock extended dialogue in future scenes.

the_choice

[Both face the three portals. Violet. Amber. White. They know more than they should. They know less than they need.]

[The portals wait. The guardian has returned to stillness.]

All three choices converge on guardian_final. The decision is philosophical, not mechanical - the player's framing is the outcome.

[Vale meets its eyes and for a moment she swears she can see her reflection in the dark faceted gemstones. She wonders, for the first time, what it sees when it looks at her.]

[Vale turns back to the portals.]

[They go. And behind them, the guardian extends one arm and draws it slowly across the wall. The three remaining portals dim, one by one, and go dark.]