Location: Hidden Crown HQ, Hidden Valley – Inner Command Hall
Despite its location deep within a monster-infested zone, the Hidden Crown HQ pulsed with stability—a city-sized subterranean fortress of obsidian walls, rune-forged lighting, and ever-adapting living quarters powered by the System. Its corridors echoed not with marching boots, but with whispers of strategy, reports, and evolving missions.
But tonight… the air had shifted.
In the Inner Command Hall—a central crystal-chamber ringed by floating projection glyphs—Elira Virelle, cloaked in her usual high-collared black and silver uniform, stood before a hovering topographic map of Farlane Forest.
Beside her, Mira Solvine, demure and thoughtful as always, cradled her leather-bound diary, its silver-etched title softly glowing:
"Tea Thoughts & Tactics."
Mira's eyes, violet and wide, didn't blink as she stared at the region where Kael's signal had originated."It's tainted now," she whispered, "but it's old taint. Not like the others we've seen before."
Elira nodded slowly. "No external damage. No fluctuation from the mana veins surrounding the shrine. But something beneath it stirred."
"I dreamed about it last night," Mira murmured. "Not directly… more like, I heard dripping ink. Like words writing themselves into the void."She shivered slightly. "The diary showed me a page this morning… I didn't write it."
Elira tilted her head. "What did it say?"
Mira opened the book, turning a few pages until she reached a section inked in unfamiliar script. At first glance, it resembled a child's frantic scribbles. But as Elira focused, the words began to rearrange—shifting into legible text in her mind, line by line.
"When false lights dim and names are forgotten,The Stars Below will speak through Silence.Beware the Unwritten, for it remembers what even the world does not."
"Is this—?" Elira's voice was carefully measured.
Mira nodded. "I've cross-referenced it with the Book of Severed Verses we retrieved from the Ruins of Tharn. The same style. The same intent. Something ancient… is remembering."
Elira's expression hardened.
Across the chamber, a minor Crown member entered—Vell Ashmoor, the soft-spoken necromancer from Umbra Division, accompanied by a skeletal raven perched silently on her shoulder.
"The perimeter of Farlane's southern edge is showing undead displacement," Vell reported, her voice barely above a whisper. "Things buried are… walking. But not raised. Not by any of our magic."
Elira turned swiftly to a control glyph and transmitted a command across multiple divisions.
Command: High Alert – Farlane Forest Region.Umbra, Aether, and Aegis Divisions—deploy silent recon units.Initiate Shadow Barrier Protocol—do not let surface factions detect movement.Priority: Investigation, not confrontation.Crown Crest Priority Level: Midnight Echo.
The glyph pulsed as the command dispersed across the system-linked operatives scattered worldwide. Within minutes, 18 pairs of eyes, ears, and spells began quietly converging on the edges of a sleeping threat.
Elsewhere – Mira's Private Chambers
Later that evening, Mira returned to her private quarters within the HQ. Though ranked as a defensive vanguard, her personal chambers resembled more of a scholar's sanctuary than a warrior's rest.
There were tea sets from all regions—northern ceramic with frost-glaze, eastern cast-iron pots, a few peculiar levitating cups crafted by Talia for "floating steeping." Books lined her walls, and beside her bed sat a set of tiny wooden chairs meant for her barrier-familiar spirits.
She opened her diary again.
This time, the ink didn't wait.A new page unfurled slowly, as if it was being written in real-time.
"They buried it in silence, but silence forgets nothing.""They called it the Tower Below, though none climbed it.""Inside it waits—the Book That Doesn't End."
Her hand trembled.
She reached for the stabilizing charm Kieran had given her—a simple obsidian ring, laced with a sliver of his core mana. It warmed in her palm, anchoring her thoughts.
"The Tower Below…?" she thought, her mind racing.There were no towers beneath Farlane—or so the surface maps claimed.
But what if the shrine was merely the mouth of something buried?A wound, stitched shut with forgotten time?
She whispered to her diary.
"...what are you trying to warn me about?"
The candle in the corner flickered.The shadows behind her bookshelf lengthened.And from within the diary, ink bled—not into words, but into a map.
A spiral.
Descending.