The silence after Maizel's vision was unbearable.
Garfield sat against the wall of the chamber for hours, his chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. The phantoms were gone. The whispers had retreated. Only the faint, rhythmic thrum of the tomb remained—like the heartbeat of something ancient buried in stone.
He raised his hand. His palm was bleeding from where his nails had dug deep crescents, but he didn't care. His eyes were locked on the wall before him, where the inscription still shimmered faintly in the afterglow of his spoken word.
The symbols had changed.
At first, he thought his mind was playing tricks. But no—the strokes were sharper now, more defined, as if the tomb itself had responded to his voice. Where once the markings had been vague scratches, they now gleamed with structure. He could almost… read them.
"...Architects," Garfield whispered to himself, his voice rasping.
The Being stirred weakly inside his skull, its tone subdued, as though weary from the earlier clash. "Do not pry further. Each word you speak binds you tighter to this place. To him."
Garfield ignored it. He traced the glowing lines with his fingertip, whispering each curve like a man committing scripture to memory. The meaning came not through understanding, but through sensation—the way the symbols *felt.* When his skin brushed them, emotions flooded his mind: order, foundation, endurance.
Thirteen. Always thirteen.
Every sequence he traced led back to that number. Thirteen figures kneeling. Thirteen towers raised. Thirteen blades drawn across the sky.
The 13 Architects of the World.
He had heard fragments of the legend as a child, whispered during Turner feasts when the elders grew drunk enough to let secrets slip. The Architects were said to be neither gods nor mortals, but something in between. Builders of the first bridges between worlds. Guardians who left behind their designs so the world would not collapse into chaos.
But here, on these walls, their names were written differently—not as guardians, but as jailers.
Garfield's breath caught as his eyes landed on a single sequence near the bottom of the wall. Unlike the others, it was broken—unfinished. Thirteen names in perfect order, but the fourteenth space… empty.
His finger hovered above it, trembling. Something in his chest throbbed violently when he looked at that space, as though his very blood was warning him away.
The Being hissed, static snapping like fire: "Do not touch it. That one is forbidden."
Garfield pressed harder against the stone anyway.
Instantly, pain ripped through his hand—an invisible force searing into his flesh like acid. He staggered back, clutching his palm, his teeth grinding as blood ran down his wrist. Yet through the agony, something else seared into him: a word.
Not spoken, not written, but burned into his veins like a brand.
He gasped, the syllables tearing free from his lips without thought:
"…Maizel."
The tomb shuddered.
Dust rained from the ceiling. The symbols along the wall rippled, the light inside them pulsing violently, as if the chamber itself had inhaled.
The Being shrieked, panicked now: "Enough! You will wake it—do you not understand? You play with chains that bound even gods!"
Garfield slammed his back against the wall, sweat soaking his brow, but despite the terror clawing at his gut, his lips curled into a thin smile.
He wasn't just reading anymore.
He was learning to write.
The glow of the walls did not fade.
Garfield sat cross-legged in the center of the chamber, sweat running down his back, blood dripping steadily from his palm onto the cold floor. Every drop seemed to echo, as though the tomb counted each sacrifice.
The word burned still within him—*Maizel.*
It wasn't a name. Not entirely. It was a lock, a thread, a scar etched into the foundation of the tomb. And now it lived inside him.
He flexed his fingers, watching as faint strands of mana curled around them, darker and denser than before. He had used mana all his life—wild, uncontrolled, crushing him from the inside. But now, when he whispered the syllable under his breath, the mana responded like a hound to a master's call.
Not perfectly. Not completely. But enough.
Enough to terrify the Being.
"You should not have done that." Its voice lashed at him, raw, almost desperate. "You think you gained a key, but what you hold is a curse. That word was never meant for your tongue."
Garfield ignored it. He dipped his finger into his own blood and began sketching the inscriptions he had memorized. Slowly, carefully, he recreated the curves of the Architects' language across the floor in a circle. The glyphs shimmered faintly, like embers beneath ash.
As he finished the thirteenth mark, the air thickened. His breath grew heavy, his chest tight. A faint vibration trembled beneath the stone.
And then the circle pulsed once, twice, like a beating heart.
Garfield leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "So it's true… this language isn't just knowledge. It's power."
The Being snarled. "You play at building altars to forces you cannot comprehend. That circle is a summons. Do you even know what it calls?"
"I'll know when it answers."
The pulse grew stronger, rising into a low hum that made the chamber walls groan. Shadows warped along the floor, stretching and twisting, and for a moment Garfield thought something was about to claw its way out of the circle. His heart pounded, but he did not flinch.
Instead, he whispered again: 'Maizel.'
The hum stopped. The glow died. The circle collapsed into nothingness, leaving only silence.
Garfield sat back, panting lightly, but a smile tugged at his lips. Failure, yes. But a controlled failure. He had spoken a single word, and the tomb itself had obeyed.
He looked toward the wall again, where the empty fourteenth space loomed like a wound. The Being's static hiss returned, low and cold.
"You think you seek truth, Garfield Van Turner. But the more you carve, the less you remain. Language is not a tool—it is a leash. And soon you will not know whether you are writing… or being written."
Garfield chuckled under his breath, though his body trembled from exhaustion. "Then let the leash tighten. If it gives me control… I'll gladly wear chains."
The tomb whispered in response. Not words—never words—but a faint sigh of stone shifting, as though some hidden door deep below had stirred at his declaration.