The journey to Mount Talos was not merely arduous—it was a gauntlet of mythic reckoning. Word of the Maw's sealing had spread like wildfire across arcane networks and ancient tongues. The world had begun to stir, whispering its unease to those attuned to the deeper threads. Birds flew in disjointed patterns, predators abandoned their dens, and clouds took on the shapes of beasts from forgotten scriptures. Something was unraveling beneath reality.
Lucian felt it keenly as he led his companions toward Talos's jagged summit. He walked ahead, his cloak sweeping the wind, his aura cloaked but unshakably firm. Every movement was deliberate. Every step pressed a story into the ground.
Clara followed just behind, eyes constantly scanning the terrain with her hand resting on her staff. A trail of soft light shimmered around her fingers, a ward to keep lesser spirits at bay. Isaiah, though physically struggling with the incline and the weight of his bags, moved with purpose. His mind was ablaze, processing prophecy and patterns as he poured over scrolls and glyphs he'd transcribed during the journey.
Above, Velkyr soared, her wings slicing through thin mountain air. She'd taken to the skies early to scout the area, but even she reported that Talos seemed to repel her very presence the closer she came to the summit.
"You feel that?" Clara muttered, as they paused at a rocky ridge cloaked in mist. The air shimmered unnaturally, bending light into half-formed illusions.
"The ley-line under the mountain," Lucian murmured. "It's pulsing. But more than that... it's remembering."
Isaiah squinted toward the summit. "The oldest texts spoke of the Spiral Flame—energy that twists into itself, forming vaults where memory and will merge into form."
Lucian touched the ground, and a pulse of deep, resonant power flowed through his arm. The rock vibrated faintly. His eyes narrowed. "This Vault doesn't hold relics. It holds legacy. The kind that shaped the first gods."
---
Hours later, they reached the veil.
A massive stone face hidden by an illusion ward stretched across a mountainside. From afar it appeared as part of the natural rock, but Lucian's senses picked up the boundary—a ripple in the weave of the world. He drew his blade, its myth-forged edge humming with latent potential.
With a single, clean strike, he parted the illusion like cloth. The entrance to the Vault yawned before them—a circular mouth of obsidian that seemed to breathe darkness.
"No going back now," Clara said quietly.
Lucian stepped inside. "There never was."
---
The Vault was a spiral descent, unlike any cavern they had encountered. The walls were unnaturally smooth, covered in glyphs that pulsed faintly with indigo light. The entire structure thrummed with a heartbeat not their own.
Isaiah translated as they moved:
"Here lies the fire that gave form to gods. Here sleeps the name that once unmade kingdoms. Here waits the soul of the Everking."
Lucian moved ahead without hesitation, drawn by a force older than language. Each step deepened the pressure on their chests, like they were sinking through layers of time.
They reached the heart of the Vault: a wide, circular chamber with eight stone spires arranged in a sunburst pattern. At the center floated a crystal shard suspended above an obsidian pedestal, spinning slowly and radiating arcs of volatile mythic energy.
"We're not alone," Clara whispered, and the air thickened.
From the shadows emerged a guardian.
A creature formed of ancient myth—shifting between beast, man, flame, and shadow. Its presence distorted time; Isaiah's scrolls began to unwrite themselves, and Clara's wards flared then dimmed.
Lucian raised a hand. "I know you."
The creature stilled.
"You were the Sentinel at the Edge of the World. The one whose name was struck from records, whose memory kept the void at bay."
The beast shuddered. Form congealed into something vaguely human—a warrior in tattered armor, a sword bound in chains.
Lucian stepped forward. "You were never meant to be forgotten."
A sound like thunder rolled through the chamber. The guardian dropped to one knee.
Clara and Isaiah watched, stunned.
"He didn't defeat it," Isaiah whispered. "He remembered it."
The shard pulsed brighter. Lucian approached and touched it.
A torrent of visions exploded into his mind:
—A golden city crumbling beneath a god's scream.
—A mortal child reaching up and seizing starlight.
—A war where memories were weapons and names could kill.
—And finally, the face of the Everking—Lucian's forefather—looking directly at him from within the crystal, eyes filled with sorrow and pride.
Lucian gasped, stumbling back as the shard floated to his side.
Clara steadied him. "What did you see?"
"The Everking. He knew this would happen. He seeded these Vaults with fragments of himself—not to preserve power, but to prepare us."
Isaiah rifled through his notes. "Then there's more. These shards... they're not just artifacts. They're pieces of the truth."
Lucian nodded. "We need them all."
"Where's the next one?" Clara asked.
Lucian looked up. "The City of Forgotten Kings."
---
They began their ascent back toward the surface, but the Vault groaned behind them. Walls shook, and the glyphs began to dim.
"Something's wrong," Velkyr called from above, gliding down with wings half-folded. "The storm. It's not natural. It's forming around the mountain."
Lucian emerged from the cavern mouth just in time to see the sky twist into a vortex. Lightning lashed the heavens, not in bolts, but in runes—burning symbols of old.
"A response," Isaiah breathed. "The gods know we've begun."
Lucian faced the storm with grim resolve. "Let them come. Let them rage. For every name they remember, I will reclaim ten they've buried."
Clara's staff sparked with protective runes. "And we'll stand with you."
Lucian raised the shard, and it resonated like a bell tolling across worlds. The storm paused, as if shocked.
He lowered it. "Now we run. We gather. We prepare."
As the first drop of silver rain fell, they vanished into the veil of mist.
The war for memory had begun.