Elara’s heart stuttered. She looked back at the IDE. The broken module—the one with the hex error—was now highlighted in gold. The error message had changed. It no longer said “undefined reference.” It said:
“Cute,” she muttered. “And deeply unsettling.”
When she launched it, the IDE looked normal at first. Same gray panes, same menus. But the project tree had an extra folder: src/.ladybug/ . Inside was a single file: sentinel.txt .
She smiled. “Okay, Ladybug. What’s next?”