When Haraza and Lirien emerged from the Dread Vale, the world felt sharper—more alive. The cold wind biting at their cloaks seemed to carry whispers. The skies above, once a featureless dome of gray, now shimmered faintly with unfamiliar constellations—patterns not seen since before the Accord's founding.
Lirien said little as they crossed back over the obsidian threshold. She kept glancing toward the Helm of Paradox nestled in Haraza's pack, as though it might vanish if she looked away. Haraza, too, was quiet—not from exhaustion, but calculation. Something had shifted in him. The fight with VEXEN-0 wasn't just a test of strength—it had been a conversation, a download of intent across layers of time.
The Helm had answered one question and raised a thousand more.
("You're holding something ancient,") Lirien finally said, voice low. ("More than a relic. That shard… it remembers things we were never meant to know.")
Haraza didn't reply immediately. He reached into his coat and retrieved the Helm again. In the dim light of dusk, it didn't shine. It absorbed. Looking into it was like staring into the eye of a storm of meaning—paradox, potential, and memory coiled tightly around an unfathomable core.
("It's not a weapon,") he murmured. ("It's a mirror. To everything the Accord buried.")
Lirien didn't argue. She only nodded.
They made for Ubrac.
By the time the jagged towers of the outer city came into view, the wind carried more than cold—it carried smoke. Ubrac, the city of veiled oaths, was in chaos.
Fires dotted the mid-tier levels like open wounds. Streets usually choked with market stalls and murmured transactions now ran red with spilled oil and blood. Syndicate banners hung from spires had been torn down or replaced—many with crude glyphs painted in tar-black ink. The sigil of the Ebon Crest.
Haraza's brows furrowed.( "That shouldn't be here. Not this soon.")
("What is the Ebon Crest?") Lirien asked.
("A splinter faction,") Haraza said. ("One of the Accord's old shadows, thought wiped out centuries ago. Cultists who believed the Shards should remain buried—that humanity, elves, drakken, all of us are unworthy of the Dream.")
("They're not just here for power. They're here to erase.")
They slipped through alleys, avoiding patrols. Most of the upper Syndicate leaders had gone silent—vanished or executed. The Veiled Council Hall was in lockdown, its doors shattered inward like an open wound.
Haraza found the first familiar face in the remains of the Duskrun tavern.
Jareq, the information broker, sat behind a half-collapsed table, crossbow aimed toward the door. His beard was bloodied, and his left arm hung limp, but his eyes lit up when Haraza stepped in.
("By the Shard's breath—you're alive.") He spat blood. ("Didn't think anyone would walk back into this mess.")
Haraza knelt beside him, checking the wound. ("Who did this?")
("Crest operatives. Hit the Council three days ago. Said the Syndicate lost its claim. Said the Dream was never ours.") He coughed again. ("They've taken the Rift Key vaults. The whole lower tier's under martial lockdown.")
Lirien's voice was quiet but firm. ("They're not just attacking—they're anchoring something. There's power rippling through the foundations. Magic like I've never felt.")
Haraza nodded. ("They're activating something. Probably beneath the vaults—deep in the bedrock. That was where the Accord stored more than relics. They buried seals there.")
("What kind of seals?") Jareq asked, already knowing he wouldn't like the answer.
("The kind that kept the Rift from waking too soon.")
Haraza stood.
He wasn't ready. He hadn't mastered the Helm. But time was bleeding fast, and every minute the Crest spent inside Ubrac's bones brought them closer to whatever dark inheritance they sought.
He turned to Lirien. ("We need to get inside the vaults. Find what they're looking for before they tear the seal apart.")
("You'll need a guide,") Jareq rasped. ("I still have one good leg.")
("You'll slow us down,") Haraza said. Then, more gently: ("But I'll take your map.")
The old broker chuckled darkly and slid a bloodstained scroll from his coat. It was half-burned, but the paths still held. ("May the Rift close gently behind you.")
The descent into Ubrac's under-tier was unlike the Dread Vale. Here, the architecture wasn't alien—it was denied. Passageways once used for trade and transport were choked by growths of black crystal. Doors that once responded to voice or code now groaned with magical corruption.
The Crest had been busy.
Lirien and Haraza fought through the defenses. Golems wrapped in entropy spells, constructs hollowed out and refilled with Riftborn essence. Echoes—failed experiments using the same energy that now pulsed in Haraza's veins. Each one twisted. Each one painful to destroy.
But deeper still they went, guided by the pulse of the Helm. It tugged him forward like a lodestar.
At last, they reached it: a vast underground atrium, its dome etched with constellations now visible above ground. In the center, surrounded by collapsing spires and the bodies of failed guards, stood a gateway of spiral iron—an ancient Accord seal.
And before it stood a woman.
She wore the robes of a priestess, darkened with glyphs of negation. Her eyes were glowing coals, and her voice was velvet wrapped around a blade.
("Riftborn,") she said with a smile. ("We've been expecting you.")
Haraza drew the Helm from his coat. ("Who are you?")
("I am called Mirien of the Hollow Faith. Keeper of the Null Chant. We are what the Accord forgot—and what you will soon become.")
("You think you can unmake what I've begun?") Haraza asked.
("Not unmake,") Mirien said, stepping aside. ("Redirect." )
Behind her, the seal was cracking. Threads of silver light unraveled, bleeding into the air like fraying silk.
("This world was built on a dream too fragile to endure. The Rift is not a wound—it is truth. The Accord lied. The Shards are not gifts—they are cages.")
Haraza stepped forward, golden energy flaring from his arm. ("You want to let it through. All of it.")
("No,") she said. ("I want it to wake up." )
And then she vanished into the gateway.
The chamber shook.
The seal split wide, and a cascade of energy erupted—not destructive, not yet, but watching. A presence stretched its attention through the gap. Something immense. Something waiting.
Haraza didn't hesitate.
He threw the Helm into the rift—and the world exploded in color.
He was nowhere.
He was everywhere.
He stood upon a platform of glass above a sky of impossible stars. The Helm hovered before him, now transformed—no longer a simple relic but a keystone.
And beside it stood a shape—vaguely humanoid, burning with threads of memory and light. A being composed of failed dreams and bound truths.
("You've touched the first lock,") it said. ("There are twelve.")
("Each one a memory the Accord sought to forget.")
("But you remember.")
Haraza reached toward it—and the being smiled.
("Then the Cycle truly begins again.")