The sun had long since retreated behind the obsidian silhouettes of the surrounding mountains, but within the bowels of the Arcane Repository beneath Mystara Academy, the night burned bright.
Crystals embedded in the stone walls pulsed with soft blue light, illuminating Vahn Romanoff's face as he knelt before a circular conduit etched into the floor—a forgotten relic known as the Weftwheel. Few knew of its purpose. Fewer still=dared to use it.
Vahn's hands moved with deliberate precision, threading strands of raw elemental energy into the lattice of runes carved centuries before his birth. Each thread shimmered with unstable potential—fire, lightning, shadow, wind—woven together into a tapestry that defied conventional magical architecture. The Source Weave was not merely a spell, but a living blueprint. An artificial conduit to interact with the Source Stream itself.
He was close. He could feel the vibration of reality thinning around him.
But something was wrong.
Again.
The Weave buckled at the point of convergence.
The lightning thread—his native affinity—clashed violently with the others, overloading the stabilizing sigils. For the third time that week, the weave collapsed, exploding outward in a shockwave that sent his notes scattering and dimmed half the chamber's crystal lights.
Vahn fell backward, coughing as smoke curled around his singed coat.
"Too much raw intent," he muttered, sitting up with a wince. "It needs a tempering agent… maybe sub-spectral balancing?"
A voice echoed behind him, calm and condescending. "Or perhaps it needs a soul less stubborn."
He didn't have to turn to recognize the speaker—Professor Elias, clad in twilight robes, arms folded behind his back, his eyes glinting with that same eternal amusement he always wore.
"You're meddling with forces that reject cohesion," Elias said, stepping closer. "The Source Stream is not a thread to be tamed. It's a storm to be navigated."
Vahn wiped soot from his forehead. "And storms have paths. Every current has a pattern. I've seen them."
"You've seen chaos and thought it could be charted," Elias corrected. "But tell me, do you understand what you're truly weaving?"
Vahn stood, facing the man. "An artificial Source vein. A bridge."
"A bridge to what?"
"To everything," Vahn answered, eyes alight. "If I can finish the Weave, anyone could interface with the Stream regardless of affinity. No more divisions, no more gatekeeping by bloodlines or sigils. Every discipline, accessible to all."
Elias's expression darkened. "Do you understand what such a feat would mean for Mystara? For the Empire?"
"I do."
"Then you're even more dangerous than I thought."
He turned and walked away, leaving Vahn alone once more with the ruins of his failed weave and the impossible dreams it carried.
Later that night, Vahn poured over his sister's private journal once more, eyes drawn to a recurring sketch of an unknown symbol—an eye within a triskelion, with eleven stars forming a circle around it.
The symbol of the Eleventh Seat.
He now understood its significance. The Circle of Seats controlled the Empire's arcane and political machinery. Ten were publicly known. The Eleventh was not.
Vahn's suspicion had grown over weeks. The movements of faculty, the obscured records, the uncanny disappearances tied to Source anomalies—all pointed to a central figure operating from the shadows.
The Eleventh Seat wasn't just a title.
It was a throne of silence.
And he was getting close.
In a secured wing of the Arcane Library, accessible only through Leslie's pendant and an incantation buried in a forgotten dialect, Vahn uncovered a record long purged from the official tomes—an account of the first experimental Source Weave.
It was signed not by a scholar or mage, but by a cryptic codename: Archivist XI.
Vahn's blood ran cold. The Eleventh Seat hadn't just known about the Source Weave.
They had tried to build it first.
And failed.
Back in his chamber, the pendant around his neck pulsed with an urgent warmth. It responded to the Weave, always had. But now, it was different.
It wasn't warning him.
It was guiding him.
Vahn stood before his notes again. He adjusted the sequence of elements, reordered the dominant affinity from Lightning to Flame—balancing the volatility.
He envisioned the world his sister had died believing in.
And this time, he didn't force the weave.
He sang it.
A low hum filled the chamber as the Source Threads began to interlace once more, not battling each other but harmonizing. Flame danced with Wind, Water tempered Lightning, and Shadow accepted Light.
The Weftwheel glowed brighter than ever before, and the sigils aligned in cascading perfection.
And then—it held.
The Weave stood complete for a full breath.
Two breaths.
A minute.
Then it collapsed—but softly, gently, without backlash. Like a bow to a king.
Vahn exhaled, a wide, exhausted grin breaking across his face.
He hadn't succeeded.
Not yet.
But for the first time, the Weave had accepted him.
And now, the path forward had become clear.