Footsteps echoed across the formless ground slow, steady, unhurried. In the shifting stillness of the place, they sounded almost like mockery.
Arviel stood at the center of what might once have been a room, though the walls were now indistinct flickering, breathing in and out like the sides of a sleeping beast. His expression was unreadable. Too calm. Unnaturally so.
Then, his voice broke the silence.
"What is this place...?"
He wasn't asking anyone. It was more a complaint dry, bitter, muttered under his breath.
"I followed the same corridor as before. Then the floor spun. The ceiling became the ground. And now-"
His eyes landed on the figure collapsed on the uneven floor. Altherion.
Beads of sweat rolled down Altherion's pale face. His breathing was shallow, his eyes wide with panic. His hands trembled like he was trying to hold onto something he couldn't see.
Arviel blinked. Then shrugged.
"-and now, I run into a familiar face I wasn't really hoping to see."
He walked closer, unhurried. Not out of concern. Just… passing by.
Like a traveler who happened upon an old acquaintance and wasn't particularly thrilled about it.
"You alive?" he asked, without expecting an answer.
Altherion tried to speak, but only a broken gasp came out. Not a word, just air struggling past his throat.
Arviel raised an eyebrow. Then let out a soft, dry laugh.
"Forget it. If you can't talk, I'll just pretend you're listening."
He turned his attention to the twitching walls, to the carvings that morphed into new shapes every few seconds. His tone lowered, now more thoughtful than annoyed.
"This place isn't right. Not like anywhere else I've been. It's not just that we're trapped. It's like…" He paused. "Like we're being chewed."
His gaze didn't shift, but his voice became quieter.
"You feel it too, don't you? You're starting to forget things."
He glanced back at Altherion, who remained slumped on the ground, barely conscious.
"This place… it feeds on cracks. In your mind. In your memories."
He raised a hand and traced something in the air nothing visible, but there was a weight to the gesture.
"I don't know who built this nightmare. Or what. But one thing's clear: the longer we stay, the less of ourselves we'll have left."
Silence fell for a moment.
Then Arviel continued, almost casually:
"...Which is a problem, considering I'm here for something."
He turned slightly, speaking as if to the room itself.
"The Harmonicon of the Third Orbit. A relic supposedly sealed within this cursed tomb. I don't know what it truly is yet, but…"
His eyes darkened for a brief second.
"...Something that powerful isn't meant to be left buried. Not when others might find it first."
He clicked his tongue and began walking again, a new passage unfolding ahead of him like a living corridor, walls slithering out of the void.
He didn't look back when he added, almost offhand:
"If you make it out of here, try not to forget who spoke to you."
A pause.
"If you can still remember anything by then."
And then he vanished into the dark, swallowed by the shifting temple.
Altherion remained on the floor, vision blurred, limbs weak.
There was no light, and yet something glowed.
A low hum faint, electronic vibrated somewhere beneath the skin of the world. Altherion blinked slowly, and when he opened his eyes, he was no longer lying on cold stone.
He was standing. Somehow.
His body felt weightless. Like a thought, or a memory.
Before him, the darkness faded into a faint blue glow. A single screen, dim, flickering lit the space around a solitary desk. Sitting at the desk was a figure.
A young man, his back to Altherion.
His hair was black and messy, almost like he hadn't slept in days. He wore a loose gray hoodie and a pair of headphones resting on his neck. His fingers moved across the keyboard with a kind of lazy precision.
The screen, Altherion squinted, displayed something like… a game?
A vast landscape. Mountains. Moons. A small figure sprinting across a glowing field. He couldn't quite see the details, like trying to remember the shape of a dream after waking. But it was there. Familiar.
Very familiar.
Altherion took a step forward. His voice cracked in his own throat.
"...Who-"
The figure paused. His head tilted slightly to the side, as if he'd heard something. But he didn't turn around. He just muttered something under his breath.
Altherion couldn't make out the words. They were muffled, distorted. As though passing through water.
The image on the screen changed, now showing ruins, a pale sky with two moons. And then, for just a second, a third one flickered into view. Glitching.
Altherion's chest tightened.
That sky.
He knew that sky.
He knew those ruins.
But he didn't know why.
He stumbled back. The desk, the screen, the man they all wavered like reflections on disturbed water.
"I… I know this," he whispered to himself. "But I shouldn't. Should I?"
Then-
The figure finally spoke, his voice soft, nearly drowned by static:
"Don't forget."
Altherion's eyes widened. "What?"
The man didn't repeat himself.
He simply sat still, staring at the screen that pulsed with fading light.
The edges of the room, if it even was a room began to collapse inward, pixel by pixel. The hum grew louder, the glow dimmer.
"Wait!" Altherion called out. "Who are you?!"
But the man never turned.
And in the blink of an eye, everything vanished.
Altherion jolted awake, his body still aching, breath shallow.
The temple's stale air returned. The cold floor beneath him. The pain.
Nothing had changed.
And yet-
A single word burned in his thoughts like a splinter he couldn't remove.
"Don't forget."
But forget what?
***
His chest rose and fell in uneven rhythm.
Pain still pulsed through every limb, but Altherion forced himself upright. His hands trembled. His legs refused to obey at first, then slowly, hesitantly, carried his weight.
The temple was silent again.
Too silent.
Liesette.
The name pierced through the fog in his mind like a thread tugging at something deeper. Distant memories, half-formed, uncertain danced at the edge of thought.
He didn't even know if she was alive.
And yet… he needed to find her.
Altherion pressed his palm to the cold wall beside him to steady himself, breathing shallowly.
The image of her flashed in his mind grinning awkwardly, spewing made-up facts, waving her arms like she knew what she was talking about. Always confident. Always lying.
He scowled.
"She lied," he muttered under his breath. "She always lied."
So why?
Why was he still searching?
His footsteps echoed against the worn stone tiles as he limped down the hallway. The path ahead was unfamiliar. He couldn't remember which direction they had come from. The corridors all looked the same now twisting, ancient things, like the inside of a mind that didn't want to be understood.
Was this even the same temple anymore?
Everything felt… wrong.
The air was too thick. The light too dim. The architecture too warped, hallways turning at impossible angles, stairs that led upward but ended below. It was as if the structure itself had been built by something that didn't believe in rules.
But still, he walked.
The silence itched in his ears.
He tried to distract himself thinking through spells, calculations, escape routes, but every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was her lying there, motionless.
And that thing slamming into her.
He clenched his fists.
"Stupid girl," he growled. "Why didn't you dodge?"
She wasn't a fighter. She never claimed to be. She just followed him, saying she wanted to "help." That she knew things. That she had value.
He never believed her.
But even so…
She stayed.
She didn't run.
She risked her life to give him a chance.
"Damn it…"
His voice cracked, echoing back at him from the walls like a mockery. Something twisted in his chest. Guilt? Regret? Pity?
He didn't know.
He didn't want to know.
Another turn. Another passage. This one darker, narrower. He slowed his steps, whispering a weak incantation. A soft orb of light floated up from his palm and hovered beside his head.
The light flickered. Then dimmed.
Just before it vanished entirely, he saw something.
A trail.
Faint drops of blood. Small smudges on the floor. A broken hair clip. Her hair clip.
He exhaled, sharp and shaky.
She was alive.
Or had been.
A sound echoed ahead distant, soft, like cloth dragging along stone. He quickened his pace, ignoring the pain screaming in his legs. The temple twisted again, but he no longer cared.
He had to find her.
He had to know.
Because something in him, something he didn't understand needed to see her again.
Not for answers.
Not for an apology.
Just to know she was still breathing.
Just to know.
***
The corridor opened into a circular chamber, crumbling with age and blanketed in dust. Shafts of pale light filtered through cracks above, illuminating the broken floor like strands of silver webbing. The silence here was heavier, not oppressive, but… waiting.
And then he saw her.
Liesette.
Curled near the base of a collapsed pillar, her hair tangled, her clothes torn and streaked with dried blood. Her chest rose and fell, weak, but steady.
Altherion didn't speak. Didn't move for a moment.
He just stared.
The tension in his chest, the weight he hadn't realized he was carrying, broke apart quietly. Like frost melting under morning light.
Without a word, he knelt beside her and checked her pulse. It was there. Slow, fragile. But real.
"Of course you're still breathing," he muttered, his voice low, almost bitter. "You never shut up long enough to die properly."
He sat beside her, careful not to disturb her rest. His hand hovered over her forehead, hesitated, then pulled back before touching her.
Silence lingered between them like something sacred.
A minute passed.
Maybe more.
And then-
"...You found me."
Her voice was a whisper, rough and dry. But unmistakable.
Altherion tensed, eyes narrowing. "Don't talk. You're an idiot, but I'd rather not watch you die from overexertion."
Liesette gave a weak chuckle. "So warm... so gentle... who are you and what have you done to the real Altherion?"
"I am the real Altherion," he snapped too quickly. "Just... slightly annoyed."
"Oh, good," she said, eyes still half-lidded. "I'd hate for a doppelgänger to be the one glaring at me like I just burned down your library."
"Don't flatter yourself," he said, standing and turning away. "You're not interesting enough to provoke that level of anger."
And yet he didn't walk far.
He just stood there, arms crossed, back to her. Like if he turned again, she might vanish. Like if he stayed too long, he might say something he'd regret.
Liesette's voice was quieter now. "You really came back for me, huh?"
He didn't answer.
She smiled faintly, eyes fluttering closed again. "...I knew you would."
"Tch," Altherion muttered. "That's your problem. Always assuming things."
But his tone lacked venom.
It was softer now. Tired.
A beat passed. Then another.
"…When you're better," he added, barely audible, "I'll properly yell at you for being a reckless fool. But not before that."
Liesette didn't reply. She had fallen asleep again, lips curved faintly in that same infuriating smile.
Altherion sat beside her in silence.
He told himself he was just resting. That there was no deeper reason.
No concern. No attachment.
Just… necessity.
But even as he closed his eyes, he shifted slightly closer to her, as if to shield her from whatever else might come crawling through the temple walls.
No words left his lips.
Yet his presence, unspoken and steady, said everything he never would.
***
The candlelight flickered, casting long, shifting shadows across rows of ancient tomes stacked haphazardly atop oakwood shelves.
The scent of aged paper and pressed ink mingled with the sterile chill of stone walls. Silence ruled here are thick, heavy, and unquestioned.
And then, footsteps. Calm. Measured. The kind that didn't rush, not because of arrogance, but because they had never needed to.
A man entered.
He wore a coat embroidered with metallic threads, gold that shimmered faintly even without sunlight. The style was nothing like the linen or dyed leather of the southern kingdoms. It was sharper. Precise. Tailored like the folds of a mechanism, a hybrid of artistry and purpose.
His glasses glinted in the dim light as he scanned the rows. He didn't look lost. Only... focused. As if every detail had been calculated long before he even stepped into the building.
In his hand, he held not a book, but a sheaf of parchment. Blank.
He stopped near a shelf marked by faded runes. Not Nordlandic, not Elvhen, not Aevan. Something older. Something that even this institute, proud in its accumulation of forgotten alphabets, had never quite deciphered.
He reached up, pulled a thick, dust-coated volume from the shelf, and opened it to a specific page without hesitation.
As he read, he murmured under his breath, an archaic dialect that echoed faintly in the stillness. Not translating. Transmuting.
Then, with a smooth movement, he began to write. Not word-for-word, but in spirals and sigils that didn't match any known system. His ink shimmered faintly, like it resisted permanence.
The librarian at the far end of the hall peeked in, blinked once, then quietly walked away. No one ever questioned that man. They didn't dare. Even the faculty, proud as they were, treated his presence as... inevitable. Like a law of gravity too old to rebel against.
As he finished his transcription, he paused.
Fingers lingering on the edge of the page, eyes not focused on the ink, but on something beneath it. As though the parchment were only a veil, and something deeper stared back from the paper.
Then he whispered, almost inaudibly:
"Only one fragment left."
He closed the book, slid it back with meticulous care, and walked off, his coat swaying like the tail of a passing comet.
Whatever he sought, it wasn't knowledge.
It was truth buried too deep for even the gods to remember.