Present Chronicle (Monastery, Year 0)I awaken before dawn, the silence in the Silent Monastery more oppressive than any storm. Outside, the twin suns have yet to rise, but here my candles are guttering—one by one—as if starved of truth. My quill hovers over a fresh sheet, stained lightly at its corner by yesterday's ink. Behind my eyelids, I still see the shattered threshold of the eastern stacks, the revenant's scorched grin, and the flash of that red shard.
My Inner Echoes argue again:
"You summoned more than he," rasps the older voice.
"You barely remember who you are," counters the younger.
I close my eyes and press my palm to the cold wood of the desk, as though seeking solidity. The desert wind seeps through cracks in the stone walls, carrying with it the scent of sand and distant fire. This chapter must be more than tremors and half-light. It must be a tether—something real I once did, before the lines blurred.
I dip the quill.
Retrospective Scene (Circa – 120 Years, Va'rakan Desert)The dawn sky over Va'rakan glowed with a violet haze, the twin suns suspended like watchful eyes. I stood at the edge of a great dune sea, cloak whipping in the wind, staff in hand, heart pounding. Behind me lay the ruined caravan, flaming timbers still smoldering; ahead was the lost shrine of Sur'ut, buried beneath shifting sands.
They called me Arren, then—a lieutenant of the Rada Dziesięciu. My task was simple: infiltrate the shrine, steal the fabled Prism of Echoes, and return it to the oligarchs before they discovered the ritual's true cost. Few knew why the Prism was sealed here, or why the Rada's council feared the desert's whispers. I cared little; power was a resource, and my loyalty lay with the highest bidder.
My boots sank in hot sand as I ascended the dune's lip. At the crest, I paused and scanned the horizon. In the distance, the sunlit spire of the shrine pierced the sky—a crystalline tower half-swallowed by earth. Its facets trembled with pale blue light, humming like a caged bird. Around its base, sandstone pillars carved with glyphs stood sentinel, their inscriptions warning: "To unbind memory is to invite oblivion."
I smirked. Warnings were for the timid. I tapped the Prism's location into my staff's rune—an ivory splinter crowned with a fragment of Memory Stone—and felt its warmth. With each step toward the shrine, the air crackled, and the sand beneath my feet shifted unnaturally, as if alive.
At the foot of the spire, I found the side entrance: a collapsed archway half-buried. I pried aside stones and squeezed through. Inside, the air was cooler, but heavy with incense—stale, metallic, oppressive. My torchlight revealed walls lined with bas-reliefs: scenes of pilgrims offering their memories in crystalline vials, priests chanting over their skulls, and shadowed figures dissolving into motes of light.
I swallowed hard. This was no ordinary tomb. I advanced into the central chamber: a circular hall with a domed ceiling painted like a night sky. In its center stood a stone dais, and atop it, the Prism of Echoes: a multifaceted crystal the size of a man's fist, glowing from within with shifting colors—violet, silver, and pale blue.
I approached, staff raised. The ground trembled. From the shadows emerged two guardians—tall constructs of sandstone and desert glass, eyes aflame with inner fire. Their movements were silent, deliberate. I hesitated only a fraction of a heartbeat before the first sentinel lunged.
I braced my staff. The fragment of Memory Stone at its tip blazed with cerulean light, and I unleashed a pulse that shattered the construct's shoulder. It disintegrated into sand and glass shards. The second guardian rose its arm—an obsidian blade—and I ducked, rolling across the hall. I struck its knee: blue light met red-hot edge, sending ripples through the room.
As it fell, the Prism on the dais pulsed violently, unleashing a wave of soundless energy. My ears filled with distant cries—lost voices pleading, cursing, begging. Visions flashed: a child's laughter in a ruined courtyard; a general's last command as flames consumed an army; the final prayer of a priest who offered his mind to the Prism.
Pain lanced through my skull. I staggered. The guardians were gone, but the hall had become a void of memory and illusion. The Prism hovered off its pedestal, rotating faster than earthly physics should allow. I forced myself forward, hands shaking, and reached out.
The second I touched its surface, the world rippled. My vision filled with sandstorms, starlit voids, and a single, unending scream. I glimpsed my own reflection inside the crystal: eyes glazed, features gaunt, like the man I would become. Then the Prism cracked, splintering into fragments that rained down.
I collapsed backward as shards embedded in the dais. Light exploded. Pain and revelation: I tasted every stolen memory I had ever claimed, every secret I had unearthed and hoarded. The mosaic of my life shattered, and I lay amid the ruins, mind ablaze.
When consciousness returned, dawn had broken fully. The hall was silent. The Prism's pieces lay scattered, hidden among sand and glass. I rose on trembling legs, gathered as many fragments as I could, and pried them into leather pouches. Each felt warm—alive with memory.
I limped back to my steed outside, ignoring the open wounds on my palms. The desert wind was calm now, as if holding its breath. I mounted and rode away, clutching the shards. Behind me, the shrine's spire dimmed until it was no more than a sand-buried myth.
I delivered the fragments to the Rada Dziesięciu. They cheered my success but did not ask how I survived. They did not see the terror in my eyes. They did not know that as I rode through the dunes, every shard whispered: "You stole my life."
Present Chronicle (Monastery, Year 0)My hand trembles as I record these events. How much of that memory belongs to me? The Prism's fragments were lost centuries ago—yet here I am, holding their echo on this page.
The novice watches me write, concern in her eyes. I dare not tell her the truth: that each shard I carried once whispered its owner's final thoughts into my mind, and that some echoes never fade.
Tonight, I will seal my past again in ink and parchment. But I know the desert still calls—and the shards of memory lie waiting beneath the dunes, ready to speak once more.