Location: South-Eastern Edge of Farlane Forest – Midnight Sector
The wind carried no sound here.
The trees were tall and ancient—gnarled bark like twisted faces frozen in agony, leaves blackened not by rot, but by something stranger. Magic here was... sluggish, like it passed through honey instead of air. It clung to skin and skinwalked in shadows.
Yui Nocthollow, the shadow-draped Dark Elf, crouched beneath a knotted tree. Beside her, the air shimmered briefly as Nyssa Thorne, the aerial recon beastkin, descended without a sound, her feathers humming softly with wind-resistance magic.
"This place is wrong," Nyssa whispered, voice barely a breeze.
Yui's deadpan gaze remained fixed on the glade ahead. "Define 'wrong.' You think it's cursed?"
"No," Nyssa muttered. "If it were cursed, it'd have flavor. This feels... inverted. Like we're standing inside a place that wants to be forgotten."
Yui didn't respond immediately.
Instead, she unsheathed a dagger from her thigh holster—obsidian edge laced with moonlight runes. With the other hand, she activated her Crown Crest. A faint pulse of connection tugged at her mind.
"Umbra-3 to Elira. We've reached the outer circle. No visible enemies. No sound. Mana stream is warping—frequency inconsistent. Request permission to probe deeper."
Elira's voice came moments later—clear, crisp, calm.
"Permission granted. Avoid surface contact with the shrine. Prioritize mapping the underground spiral signature. Avoid light magic. Stay in relay range."
The three other scouts with them, all Umbra-trained operatives, shifted like blurs across the forest edge—no footsteps, no scent, no aura.
Yui motioned forward with two fingers. They slipped into the glade like falling mist.
And they found the shrine.
✦ The Forgotten Shrine
It stood alone—half-crushed by vines and roots, as if the forest itself had tried to bury it. Moss had overtaken the once-white marble, and symbols etched across the outer wall were mostly worn away, save for one:
A spiral.Winding inward.Unfinished.
Nyssa's wings retracted as she hovered above the shrine's cracked dome. "No life. No spirits. Even insects don't crawl here."
Yui approached one of the broken statues lining the perimeter. The statue—of a figure robed and hooded—had no face. Only a stretched blank surface where eyes should have been.
Umbra-2, a shadowmancer named Vane, spoke for the first time. "The deeper layers are bleeding into the surface."
He raised his palm. A spectral tendril of shadow magic slipped into the ground—and recoiled.
"It's not just buried magic," he whispered. "There's movement down there."
"Creatures?" Yui asked.
"...Worse. Concepts."
✦ Descent
Behind the shrine, partially hidden beneath a flattened tree, they found the entrance.
A circular stone stairwell, spiraling down into pitch darkness. The walls were lined with runes too eroded to read—except one. Mira had sketched it in her diary earlier that morning.
𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦.𝘈𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵.
Yui marked the wall, activated a low-level teleport anchor, and led the team downward.
The temperature plummeted immediately. The steps were oddly angled—designed for something that walked with different legs. The echo of their steps didn't bounce back. Sound vanished entirely after a few meters.
Then they felt it.
A pressure.
Not physical—mental. As if walking too deep into this place meant leaving parts of yourself behind. Not all at once. Just... one memory. One word. One breath at a time.
"Shadow Protocol Theta," Yui murmured. Each member of the squad activated small silver anklets—linked to the System. Auto-purge spells for mind interference.
They kept moving.
✦ The Chamber Below
After minutes—or maybe an hour; time felt different—they reached the bottom.
It was vast. A circular stone chamber lined with empty book pedestals. Dust covered nothing. There was no dust. As if nothing had touched this place in centuries.
In the center of the room sat a podium, atop which lay a closed book. Bound in dark velvet. Gold filigree warped around its corners. And in its center was a single phrase burned into the cover:
The Index of Things That Should Not Be Remembered
Yui stepped closer. She didn't open it. Not yet. Her breath fogged, though the air was still.
"It's not warded," she said, surprised.
Nyssa crouched, eyes darting to the walls. "It doesn't need to be. This place is the ward."
The moment Yui reached out—
The book pulsed.
Not visually. Not magically. But in memory.
Suddenly, she remembered a face she'd forgotten from her childhood. A stranger. A woman bleeding beneath a tree. Yui had been six. That memory had been gone for over a decade.
But now… the memory smiled at her.
And whispered:
"Don't forget me again."
She staggered back. Cold sweat. The dagger in her hand vibrated.
"Get out," she snapped. "Now. This isn't a vault. It's a trap made of remembrance."
The team fled—leaving the book untouched.
For now.
✦ Return & Report
Back in HQ, the scouts regrouped before the central System crystal. Elira stood waiting, arms folded.
Yui delivered the report with crisp precision—but her eyes lingered on the phrase from the book's cover.
When Elira turned to Mira for insight, the gentle girl was already scribbling.
She held up the diary.
The next line had already appeared.
"One Tower has stirred.But it is only the first."