PHASE I – Echoes Beneath the Throne
After reclaiming his breath,Caledor stood still at the edge of the throne's shadow.But something beneath his feet pulsed.
Not power.Not crystal.But memory.
It vibrated beneath the marble,a call from a place not drawn on any map.He touched the floor—And it opened.
A staircase of bone and rust descended into a lightless abyss.The further he went,the more the world above faded.
Even his thoughts blurred.Names.Faces.Moments.
The curse of the Pillar of Forgetting had begun.
Each step erased a piece of who he was—but only in thought, not in truth.
And at the bottom,he found a chamber bathed in white silence.
A silence not of peace…but erasure.
PHASE II – The Chamber of the Self
The room had no walls.Only reflection.
And at the center—stood his former skeleton,as it was on the night of the fall:
Empty.Lifeless.Without heart, hand, tongue, breath…
It faced him.And mirrored his every movement—until it didn't.
It raised a hand first.
Then turned away.
He whispered:
"Is this the shell I left behind…or the one that left me?"
The skeleton struck.
It moved with precision.It had no memory—But it had form.
Caledor defended.He fought his own past.And every strike reminded him of what he used to believe.
In the end,he did not destroy it.
He embraced it.
And it collapsed into dust.
PHASE III – The Cord of Judgment
As the dust faded,a surge of light rushed from beneath him.Something ancient.Elemental.
A spinal cord rose from the ground.White.Cracked.Alive.
It hovered before him.
Caledor knelt.Not in defeat—but in acceptance.
He whispered:
"Let my spine carry the weight I refused."
And the cord entered him.Not through bone—but through memory.
PHASE IV – Preparation for the Body
He opened his eyes.
Still in the same chamber.But now, he stood with a posture he had long forgotten.Whole.Ready.
Not for power.Not for vengeance.
But for something harder:
To carry the identity he once abandoned.
From the walls,a voice spoke:
"The body will return…But the identity still refuses you."
He didn't respond.
Instead, he walked to the edge of the room—where no door stood—and waited.