Morning drags itself over the rooftops like a wounded thing.
The innkeeper looks up from the counter when I come in. He studies me for a moment, brow creased.
"You came back," he says softly. "You all right, lad?"
I nod. "Still breathing."
He nods back, like that's enough.
"Then you're luckier than most."
My room feels smaller than before.
The walls hum faintly, like they're still echoing from last night. I sit on the edge of the bed and drop my pack. The silence settles heavy on my shoulders.
Then, through the quiet, I hear it again.
"Found you."
I clench my teeth. The words aren't real – just echoes burned into my skull.
Still, I can't shake them.
Something inside me knows that voice. Knows the way it curls my name like it's said it before.
I reach into my cloak. My fingers brush leather, The notebook.
It's heavier now – or maybe I'm just more afraid of it.
I lay it on the bed.
It looks older. That shouldn't be possible. The leather's cracked, edges dry, like it aged decades overnight. The metal corners are blackened, faintly warm to the touch.
When I open it, the pages whisper.
Ink everywhere – drawings, runes, fragments of something I half-understand. Circles. Sigils. Words that shouldn't exist next to sword forms and constellations.
Then I freeze.
The handwriting, It's mine.
Same curve of the letters. Same pressure on the downstrokes. Just… older. More deliberate.
Like I wrote it in a past life.
"We who descend are not lost. We are remembered by the roots."
The words feel familiar on my tongue, even though I've never read them before.
I flip the page. More symbols.
A word, Morjen, scratched into the top margin, over and over, until the paper nearly tore.
My pulse quickens. I've heard that word before, whispered by the cultists and I read in the parchemin.
Morjen.
A word that tastes like dirt and memory.
"Those who kneel before the Deep will rise through the Descent."
The letters shimmer faintly, like wet ink catching light that isn't there.
The next page shows a human figure split by white veins, like roots inside flesh. Beneath it, my handwriting again:
"Memory must die for truth to bloom.
Do not let the stars guide you – they belong to "that"."
"What's "that" ?". I say in confusion.
I turn the page again.
At the bottom, a line stands alone, scrawled in shaky ink:
"We must not forget and if you forget, don't trust the stars."
My hand trembles. The ink smudges beneath my thumb. It's fresh.
I wrote this.
Or someone who was me did.
The air changes before I even realize it.
The candle flickers once, then steadies but the light bends strangely.
The book trembles. At first a faint vibration, like breath caught in a chest. Then it starts to shake violently.
The pages turn on their own, Faster.
I step back.
Symbols crawl across the paper, ink bleeding red, not spreading, shifting, as if the letters are alive and trying to escape.
The book's spine splits – not torn, but opening. From it, something like liquid metal pours out and coils into thin chains, twisting around the cover.
The smell of blood hits me – sharp, iron-heavy.
The sound grows – a pulse, deep and ancient. My teeth ache from it.
"Stop–" I reach out, but the air freezes around my hand, biting cold.
The chains tighten, locking themselves with a single hiss.
Then – silence.
The glow fades. The room feels hollow.
The book drops to the floor with a dull thud.
When I pick it up, it's ice-cold. The leather stiff as bone.
No more pages, no more light, just a faint mark burned into the cover: a circle of seven points crossed by one crooked line.
I can't open it.
It sealed itself.
Or… it remembered something I wasn't supposed to.
I sit there for a long time, staring at the floorboards. My hands won't stop shaking.
The air smells faintly of smoke, though the candle's gone out.
Was I one of them?
Or did I betray them?
The questions bite at the back of my skull, and no matter how I twist them, none of the answers feel human.
I shove the book into my cloak, forcing myself to move. My reflection in the mirror stops me for a second – I don't recognize the eyes looking back.
Older.
Tired.
Almost smiling.
I blink, and it's gone.
Outside, the air's clearer. The streets are still being repaired, guards hammering runes into the gate stones.
I walk toward the guild.
Inside, it's quieter than usual.
The chatter's low, like everyone's waiting for something else to go wrong.
I head to the quest board, I search a F tier quest and then I find one, I need to collect herb in the east of the city.
I head straight to the counter to approve the quest.
The receptionist looks up and lets out a small sigh. "You're alive."
"Mostly," I say and give her the quet
She flips through her papers. "That's an herb-collecting quest in the east of the city. Pays little, but no monsters and you have a week to accomplish it."
"Perfect."
She slides the form toward me, then pauses when she sees I haven't moved.
"You need something else?"
"Yeah," I say. "Where's the guild library?"
Her brows rise. "The library? Hardly anyone goes there. It's in the east wing – past the old archives. Watch your step, though. Some of that part hasn't been repaired since ages."
I nod and leave her desk.
My boots echo on the stone floor. The guild's east wing smells of dust and old parchment. The walls are lined with plaques – names of adventurers long dead.
At the end of the hall, I find a door.
Heavy oak. Slightly open. Beyond it, the faint smell of candle wax and something metallic and familiar.
I take a step closer. The floor creaks.
Then I hear it.
A whisper.
The same tone the mist used.
It's not saying my name this time.
It's listening.
And then – just before I touch the handle – a voice, soft as breath:
"Welcome..."