The Hall of the Accord loomed with reverent stillness. Light filtered through the skyglass ceiling in fractured beams, striking the thrones like judgment frozen in time. Haraza stepped forward, each footfall echoing in the cavernous chamber.
The masked man stood tall, cloaked in a deep violet mantle etched with glyphs so old their edges had eroded into the language of myth. Only half his face was visible—ashen skin, a blackened eye. The rest was obscured by the porcelain mask, its cracks filled with gold.
("I've waited,") the man repeated, stepping between the empty thrones. ("I have burned. I have bled. I have stood where no man should endure... because the Accord foresaw one like you.")
Haraza clenched his fists. ("Then you know why I'm here.")
The man inclined his head. ("I do. But the question is not whether you know your purpose. It is whether you understand the cost.")
The others moved cautiously behind Haraza—Caela's eyes scanning for ethereal traps, Harael muttering defensive wards, Brannock keeping a hand near his blade. Even Ryve, cocky as ever, was silent with tension.
("I need what remains of the Accord,") Haraza said, voice steady. ("Whatever you left behind to fight the Rift. The glyphs. The bindings. The names.")
The masked man walked the perimeter of the great circle, one hand trailing across the back of each throne.
("We were twelve,") he said. ("Twelve glyphbearers, chosen not by prophecy, but by pain. We were not heroes. We were the desperate, the broken, the mad. And we tried.")
He stopped at the final throne—his.
("We failed.")
His hand closed into a fist.
("Do you know why?")
Haraza hesitated, then answered. ("You weren't aligned.")
The man turned. ("Correct. Our glyphs were never meant to resonate together. They warred with each other—truth against hunger, light against vengeance, creation against forgetting.")
He raised his arm, and the skyglass above flickered. Scenes bloomed in the air—visions of the Accord: men and women wielding unspeakable power, tearing through armies of Riftspawn, collapsing mountains, rewriting physics. Then, they turned on each other.
Haraza saw them fall—one by one, until only the masked man remained.
("I bound myself to my glyph alone," he said. "To preserve what knowledge I could. And I locked this place with twelve seals—one for each bearer. Only one who could awaken all twelve could open the path beyond.")
("The path to the First Door,")Caela murmured.
The masked man's gaze snapped to her. ("So you know of it.")
("She's touched by shadows,") Haraza said. ("She hears things most don't.")
A pause.
Then the man nodded slowly. ("Then you may yet succeed where we did not.")
He stepped forward, drawing from his robe a scroll bound in chains of light.
("This,") he said, ("is the Glyph Concord—a map of resonance. It shows how the glyphs must align, which can coexist and which must be kept apart until the last moment. Use it, and you might survive the final joining.")
Haraza took it with reverence. The moment his hand touched the scroll, glyphs flared along his skin—ancient ones, reacting in sympathy.
("You've already awakened four,") the man said. ("Perhaps more.")
("Five,") Ryve corrected, grinning.
("Then you're halfway there.") The masked man's voice turned grave. ("But beware—the more you awaken, the more unstable you will become. The glyphs will pull you in different directions, each demanding to reshape you in its image.")
Brannock crossed his arms. ("That's nice and all, but what about the ones attacking villages in his name?")
The man turned toward the thrones.
("They are not glyphbearers,") he said darkly. ("They are echoed. Children of the Rift who wear your face and act in your shadow. The Rift mimics what it cannot control. And now it has learned your name.")
Haraza stiffened. ("They're spreading.")
("They are trying to open a false door,") the man warned. ("One that leads not to power, but to annihilation. If they succeed, even the real Door may become unreachable.")
Lirien stepped forward. ("Where are they now?")
The man's eye darkened. ("Beyond the Ravine of Songs. The Rift bleeds openly there, and the echoed gather in songless prayer.")
("We have to go,") Haraza said immediately.
But the masked man raised a hand.
("Not yet.")
Haraza frowned. ("Why not?")
("Because you haven't taken the Oath.")
Silence fell.
("What oath?") Caela asked cautiously.
The man turned his full attention back to Haraza.
("To walk the Twelve is to invite the world to reshape you. To swear upon the Accord is to become more than one soul. To do so without a vow would break your spirit before the final door is reached.")
Haraza's voice was quiet. ("And if I take it?")
("You will never be the same,") the man said. ("Your name, your past, your shape—all will be altered by the forces that govern the glyphs.")
Ryve stepped up. ("You sure about this, Haraza?")
He looked at each of them.
Lirien. Brannock. Caela. Harael. Ryve.
Each face held their own purpose, their own pain—but all of them had chosen to follow.
("I don't have the luxury of staying the same,") Haraza said at last. ("The world won't survive if I do.")
The masked man knelt before the thrones and drew a blade of pure light from beneath the central seat.
("Kneel.")
Haraza did.
("Speak your vow.")
Haraza closed his eyes.
("I swear, by the Accord and the world it failed to save, that I will walk the Twelve Paths—not for glory, nor vengeance, but for the right of all to exist beyond the Rift. I will bear their truth, their burden, and their fracture. And when the final door stands before me, I will not look away.")
The masked man raised the blade.
("So be it.")
He brought it down—not to kill, but to mark.
Light flared across Haraza's skin, etching a new glyph across his chest—a thirteenth symbol, never before seen.
Caela gasped.
("That's... that's not one of the Twelve.")
The masked man took a step back, stunned.
("No. It's not.")
Haraza rose, and the air shifted around him. The skyglass ceiling trembled. The thrones lit one by one. Even the glyphs in the walls began to sing.
The masked man fell to one knee.
("The world has chosen anew,") he whispered.
("You are the Bearer of the Thirteenth Path.)"