The storm had passed over Phantasia, but its echo lingered — rolling like distant thunder beyond the horizon. To the north, where the clouds kissed the earth, stood a fortress that seemed half-temple, half-machine of thought: the Citadel of Auranthos, crown of the Arcane Guild.
Its towers gleamed in the dawn mist, spires of glass and silver reaching toward the heavens as if the sky itself were a thing to be studied. To mortals below, it was legend. To magisters within, it was prison and purpose alike.
Section I — The Gathering of Twelve
The Council Chamber was vast enough to swallow voices. Its floor was a mirror of living quartz, and every whisper echoed like a distant bell. Around a circular table carved from translucent stone sat twelve figures cloaked in differing shades of authority.
Above them, constellations flickered within a dome of suspended starlight — each star marking the resting place of an Archmagister long past. In the center of it all floated a single rune, older than kingdoms: EIDOS.
Archmagister Solmir Vael, First of the Circle, leaned upon his staff as he regarded his peers. His hair had gone to frost, his gaze carved by centuries of decisions that had cost him parts of himself.
"A disturbance in the southern plains," he said quietly. "Something… alive."
His words rippled through the chamber. The magisters murmured like shifting sand.
"Unregulated conjuration?""No. They say it responds.""To what?""Emotion."
Solmir's eyes glowed faintly blue. "Then the old legends stir again."
Section II — The Scholar's Vision
A crystal sphere materialized in the center of the chamber, shimmering with pale light. The image within was grainy, projected through distance and Aether.
A man appeared — Eryndor Valen, a field scholar of the Third Circle. His robes were torn by wind; the plains of Phantasia stretched behind him like a living sea of light.
"High Council," he began, his voice distorted through static, "I have found the source. A child. No older than sixteen. His Arcana manifests as harmonic resonance — spheres of matter formed by emotional projection."
The Council leaned forward as one.
"He calls them bubbles, but they are more than that. They carry imprint, intent… sometimes even reflection. When he dreams, they shimmer brighter. When he fears, they collapse. I believe—"
The image flickered violently. Lightning split the sky behind him.
"—I believe he is resonating with the latent frequencies of the Aether Veil itself."
Gasps broke through the hall. Someone muttered, "That's impossible."
But Solmir said nothing. He simply watched, unreadable, as if he had waited his whole life for this impossible sentence.
Section III — The Debate of Balance
When the vision ended, silence reigned. Then came the storm of words.
"Contain him!""Observe!""Destroy the site before it spreads!""He's just a child!"
The youngest among them, Seraphine Drael, rose from her seat. Her eyes, a bright gold hue uncommon among magisters, reflected both fury and hope.
"You speak as if creation were a disease," she said. "Have you all forgotten the First Law? 'To imagine is to live twice.' The Codex itself honors emotion as the root of power."
An elder answered sharply, "And the Fracture nearly ended the world because of that sentimentality!"
Seraphine's hand trembled on the table. "Perhaps it ended because we stopped listening."
Solmir's staff struck once — silence.
"Enough," he said. "Both reason and compassion must hold court here. The Codex forbids unbound creation… yet the Codex also records the myth of Eidos — the Breath that shaped life itself. What if this boy's gift is not corruption… but remembrance?"
The Council exchanged glances. The word Eidos hadn't been spoken in a century.
Section IV — The Chamber of Memories
After adjournment, Solmir descended alone into the Vault of Echoes, a subterranean hall sealed beneath the Citadel. Here, ancient relics whispered to those who remembered how to listen.
The walls pulsed faintly with stored light. Each crystal shard held a fragment of history — a voice, a memory, a warning.
Solmir passed one and heard it murmur: "The Breath will return when the world forgets how to sing."
He paused. The prophecy had haunted him since his apprenticeship.
"A boy of the plains," he whispered. "Born without lineage, yet touching the source…"
He approached a suspended monolith etched with runes of the old tongue. The stone glowed faintly as his presence neared, responding to his thought. Within its surface, a single vision flickered — a young figure by a river, surrounded by orbs of light.
The image was faint, incomplete. But Solmir knew what he was seeing.
"So it begins again."
Section V — The Hidden Letter
That night, within his tower above the clouds, Solmir wrote by candlelight. Outside, the stars drifted slow and patient.
To Eryndor Valen,Continue surveillance. Do not intervene. Do not alert local authorities.We must see how far his resonance extends. If he stabilizes, he may awaken the dormant Aether currents beneath Phantasia — and with them, perhaps the forgotten art of Symphonic Creation.The world is fragile, but the song must be heard again.— S. Vael
He sealed it with molten rune-wax, pressing the insignia of the Guild — a spiral enclosing a single breath mark.
As he turned away, a faint light glimmered outside his window. A single bubble — translucent, glowing — drifted upward through the night air.
Solmir watched it rise into the starlit fog. For the first time in decades, he smiled. "So the echo reaches even here…"
Section VI — The Plains Stir
Far below, Leandros sat by the river once more, the night breeze combing through his hair. Around him, hundreds of bubbles floated like captive moons, each reflecting tiny images of the world — trees, stars, fragments of his own heart.
He touched one gently, and it shimmered, revealing a fleeting vision — a marble hall, robed figures, a name he didn't know: Auranthos.
Leandros blinked. The image vanished.
"Strange…" he murmured. "You're showing me dreams now?"
He smiled, unaware that what he saw was real — a ripple through distance, the Guild's chamber reflected in the mind of magic itself.
Behind him, the reeds swayed as a presence moved unseen — a faint outline watching, recording, waiting. Eryndor Valen. The scholar obeying orders he did not fully understand.
Section VII — The Pulse Beneath
Deep below Phantasia, beneath rock and river, beneath the bones of forgotten civilizations, something ancient stirred.
A network of crystal veins — dormant since the First Era — flickered as if remembering light. The resonance spread, a pulse like the slow heartbeat of the world.
Each bubble Leandros conjured fed that pulse. Each emotion awakened another vein.
And in the depths, where the Aether Veil touched creation's memory, a whisper rose once more:
"The Breath returns…"
The sound traveled through stone and sky alike, reaching even the Citadel's highest spire. Solmir woke from his trance, eyes wide.
"It's begun," he said to the night.
Outside, bubbles rose through moonlight — countless, infinite, each one reflecting a different possible future.