5e Bells of midday are long past.
But I'm still in oldroot.
It's streets feel older than they did this morning. Like something peeled back layers I wasn't meant to see. Each corner hums with the memory of something unspoken.
The figurine in my pocket pulsed again.
Not fast. Not frantic.
Calling.
I follow where the pulse leads.
Past the hollow tree shrine. Past the broken fountain. Past the boy with no footsteps.
Eventually, I reach a narrow alley with no name just a faded symbol above its entrance: a circle split by a jagged bolt.
The same symbol carved beneath the figurine.
I step inside.
The alley leads downward, not by stairs, but by slope. The stone here is smoother. Carved. At the end of the slope, a wall blocks the way flat, wide, covered in old names.
They're carved in thigh, spiraling lines. Not just mermorials bindings. The kind used in ancient oath rites or soul fastening.
I glide my fingers along them, one by one.
The fragment stays silent.
Until one.
A name near the base barley legible under grime, cracked but not faded.
The fragment pulses. Harder than before. I whisper the name aloud.
"Arselin."
The wall responds .
Not like a door. Not like a mechanisme.
It breathes.
Stone flexes, cracks widen, and then the floor drops just a handspan, but enough. A section stinks away, revealing a shallow stair spiraling downward into dark polished stone.
Black. Reflective.
Like water had hardened into marble.
The figurine glows faintly in my palm.
I step down.
At the base: a chamber . Wide, circular. Old beyond telling.
The walls curve up into a low dome, carved with symbols that twist as I look at them, it in a trick of light way really shifting, like language not meant for open air.
In the center stands a pedestal. Upon it: a figurine.
Not like mine.
This one's carved from smoky bone plate and ridged, shaped into the form of a bird with its wings folded thighs against its sides. Its eyes are made of black glass. One is cracked.
When I step closer, the room hums louder.
The bird turns its head.
Just a fraction.
I freeze.
But nothing else moves.
I reach out, slowly, and place my red shard figurine beside the bone one.
The moment they touch, the air thickens.
Not with sound but with memory.
My ears fill with whispers I don't understand.
The domes carvings begin to glow dimly.
And then…
I see them.
Figures cloaked in veils of shadow, walking this very room. One touches the wall. Another draws a symbol in the air. A third places the bone figurine exactly where it now sits.
Veilbound.
But they're not alone. One stands apart unveiled, hesitant.
They reach out. Their hand burns with red pulse.
A fragment bearer.
Like me.
The vision shatters.
When I blink, the room is silent again.
The figurine in my palm is still. Cold.
But the bone bird now pulses.
One beat.
Then another.
I flip it over.
Etched on the base is the same split circle mark but this one is older, more worn.
And beside it, a second glyph:
A keyhole.
Not literal but a digit of entry. Invitation.
Or trial.
I leave the room without taking either figurine. Outside the alley is as it was.
Quiet.
But oldroot no longer feels like a forgotten part of the city.
It feels like a threshold. And I've stepped over.