The Sanctum of Resonance was buried deep beneath the heart of Mystara Academy—hidden from prying eyes and secured with seals so complex that even the Archmagisters required weeks to decipher them. Vahn had claimed it for his research shortly after his status as the Unmarked had been legitimized. In the ancient silence of the sanctum, where the Source itself whispered through crystalline veins along the walls, he was closest to understanding it.
And now, he stood before the culmination of years of study: the Source Weave.
A lattice of ethereal strands hovered above a pedestal, held together by a network of elemental nodes—lightning, fire, wind, and spirit—anchored with a modified Source Catalyst. This wasn't merely theory anymore. The prototype pulsed gently, almost breathing, echoing the rhythm of Vahn's own heart. It could amplify a wielder's affinity tenfold, stabilize chaotic elemental surges, or even allow an Unmarked to channel energy across multiple affinities.
In the wrong hands, it could unmake empires.
He had known the risk of revealing the Source Weave to others, but secrecy could only last so long. After careful thought—and a conversation with the Principal—he had chosen three allies to share his progress: Lira Ventaris, the Flame-born Spellblade; Kael Dorne, heir to the Windwatcher clan; and Professor Elias himself, his first mentor and perhaps the only adult he remotely trusted.
For a time, their enthusiasm reassured him.
Kael had offered rare Wind Crystals from his family's vaults, enabling Vahn to calibrate elemental resonance more precisely. Lira provided testing feedback after trial runs, helping him fine-tune the Weave's balance. And Elias? He had whispered the names of forbidden texts and forgotten scholars, guiding Vahn further down the rabbit hole of arcane engineering.
But he had made a critical miscalculation.
One of them had sold him out.
The Fracture
It began with small signs.
Lira missed two test sessions in a row, citing injuries she refused to show.
Kael grew evasive, curious about the specifics of energy transfer sequences he had no reason to understand.
And Elias… he had started pressing about replication. About mass production.
Then, the night came when Vahn returned to the sanctum to find the pedestal bare.
The Source Weave prototype was gone.
No alarms. No signs of struggle. Just the echoing silence of betrayal.
Vahn stood in the sanctum for nearly an hour, unmoving, the sting of anger simmering beneath his skin. Lightning crackled faintly across his shoulders, responding to the maelstrom within. Not rage. Not yet. Betrayal was a colder thing—a surgical cut rather than a wild flame.
The betrayal wasn't what hurt most.
It was that he didn't know who.
Days passed with whispers swirling through the Academy.
Students noticed extra patrols. Classes shifted schedules. Rumors of a breach in the lower sanctums spread, and the Principal denied nothing.
Behind closed doors, however, Principal Aran Selth confronted Vahn in private.
"I granted you freedom, Vahn," the old man said, eyes hard behind gold-rimmed glasses. "This project was your privilege, not your right. You kept it hidden even from me."
"I did," Vahn admitted calmly. "Because I knew something like this would happen."
Selth didn't argue. "We've tracked the theft to within the campus. The Circle is involved."
That name—The Circle—had appeared in Leslie's final entries, and Vahn had found hints of it in the Eleven Seals of Mystara. The Eleventh Seat, still empty. Still waiting.
"They have someone inside," Vahn said.
Selth nodded grimly. "One of your three, most likely."
Vahn gathered them at the Mirror Courtyard.
It was midnight. Rain slicked the black marble. The silent statues of Mystara's founders loomed around them. The Source Lanterns cast blue firelight, flickering with tension.
"I know one of you betrayed me," Vahn said, eyes scanning the trio.
Kael bristled. "Is this a trap, Vahn?"
Lira crossed her arms. "We've done nothing but help you."
"And yet," Vahn said, "one of you knew where the fail-safe node was. Only one of you understood the relay sequences between catalyst and conduit. Only one of you disabled the alarm without triggering the elemental backlash ward."
No one spoke.
"Do you want to hear what the Weave does in its current state?" Vahn continued. "It bypasses bloodline restrictions. Makes Source convergence accessible to even the Affinity-Less. It's revolutionary. Which means someone sold it for more than gold."
"I didn't!" Kael snapped. "My family would disown me—"
Lira stepped forward, expression unreadable. "I didn't betray you. But I know who did."
The silence was instant.
She turned her gaze to Elias.
"He asked me for copies of your notes. I refused. But I think… he got them anyway."
Vahn's breath caught, and Elias simply sighed, as though the weight of centuries pressed on him.
"I never meant for it to be stolen," Elias said. "But the Circle offered knowledge beyond even what you've found. I gave them a glimpse… not the whole picture."
"You gave them enough," Vahn said, voice ice-cold. "And they took the rest."
In the aftermath, Elias was suspended—publicly. Quietly, he vanished from Mystara.
Lira and Kael swore renewed loyalty, but Vahn kept them at arm's length. Trust, once fractured, was not so easily mended.
The Source Weave's design was now in unknown hands.
But Vahn had backups. He had a mind that remembered everything.
And he had begun work on the next evolution.
The Circle had made their move.
Now it was his turn.