[DATA-ECHO: CORRUPTED] SUBJECT: The Echo System, or How to Let the Dead Scream in Your Head
First, understand this: an Echo is not a ghost. A ghost can be reasoned with, or banished. An Echo is a stain on time. It is a moment of extreme emotion — usually violence or terror — that has been permanently burned into a location or an object. It is a wound in time, replaying a moment of agony forever, and you are the one foolish enough to put your ear to it.
There are two ways the dead talk. Both are a kind of poison.
The first is the Echo Point. You’ll see them in the wild: a glowing object, a weapon, a piece of old tech, saturated with the memory of its last use. When you touch it, the raw, screaming static of its past floods your senses. It’s a psychic chaos that would fry a normal brain, but your neural interface, guided by the rogue AI we call “the Wisp,” acts as a translator. It converts that chaos into a text fragment you can comprehend — a vision of what the object remembers, often colored by the blood and violence of recent player actions .
The second is the Psychic Backlash. When you kill a creature warped by the Blight, its mind screams a final, violent burst of static. The Wisp catches that scream and pushes a fragment of the life it once lived, or the alien logic that drove it, directly into your consciousness . It’s the truth of your enemy, delivered as a psychic backlash. It is the price of the kill.
Why would anyone do this? For the truth. An Echo is a raw, unfiltered data-shard of a moment in history. For a Mnemonic, this is the ultimate currency. For a survivor, it might be the clue that saves your life. But every memory you collect is a ghost you invite into your own head. Let too many in, and you’ll forget which screams are yours.
[TRANSMISSION END]
