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Chapter 22: Grandpa's Warning
The shard from beneath the well pulsed softly, resting on the wooden table like a sleeping heartbeat.
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't glowing wildly.
It just… waited.
Elric sat across from it with his arms crossed and a piece of bread hanging from his mouth.
"It hasn't exploded yet," he mumbled.
Mira peeked over his shoulder. "Maybe it will if you keep poking it."
"I'm not poking it. I'm studying it."
He nudged it with a stick.
From the other room, Grandpa Riven sighed.
Later that evening, Elric sat with his grandfather outside the house. The stars blinked overhead, and the wind rolled gently across the quiet village fields.
Riven poured two cups of warm leaf-tea. His hands, though calloused and scarred, moved with the steady calm of someone who had seen far too much.
"You've done something important, Elric," he said at last.
"Good important, or 'start-of-a-war' important?"
"…Yes."
Elric groaned. "Why is it never just a weird rock?"
"Because nothing in this world is just anything," Riven said. "Especially not things that glow."
They sat in silence a moment.
Pebble Jr. rolled lazily in the grass. Boneclaw snored under a tree. Even the Sprite, usually chaotic, seemed still.
"I wasn't always a quiet old man, you know," Riven said suddenly.
Elric blinked. "I always assumed you came out of the ground like that. Beard and all."
Riven laughed softly.
"I used to travel. Fight. Protect things that needed protecting. I've seen systems fall apart. Seen beasts smarter than kings. Seen worlds—other worlds—bleed into ours."
Elric sat up straighter. "Wait… worlds? Like more than one?"
Riven looked at him, eyes sharp.
"Your system didn't tell you that yet?"
"No, it mostly gives me sassy comments and sparkles."
The old man leaned forward.
"There are other worlds. Hundreds. Maybe more. Some dying. Some growing. Some like ours. Some not."
Elric swallowed. "…And they're connected?"
Riven nodded. "Through the System. Not yours alone—all of them. Like a web holding everything together."
He pointed at the shard.
"This? This isn't just a seal. It's a door. Locked tight for a reason."
Elric stared at it, a strange weight forming in his chest.
"…Why me?"
"I don't know," Riven admitted. "But something chose you. That means you'll be tested."
They sat a while longer under the stars.
Elric leaned his head against his grandfather's shoulder, quiet for once.
"I didn't ask to be chosen," he whispered.
"No one ever does."
"What if I mess it up?"
"You will," Riven said, smiling. "That's how you learn."
Elric looked up. "You're not gonna be around forever, are you?"
"No."
"…You'll teach me until then?"
"Always."
Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed, the shard flickered once.
The ground beneath it trembled.
Far away, past the forests and hills, in a place where the wind didn't blow and the stars were wrong…
A different shard began to glow.
And something heard.