✨Chapter 13: Memories of the Past
🌍 April 2nd, 88 BCE — Early Spring 🌱
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🌠 The Descent of the Relic
The temple of the Three Flames glowed brighter than at any festival. Silver lamps burned without smoke, and incense drifted like mist between the carved pillars. The people filled the marble floor to its farthest corner, for the Prophet had spoken of a new vision — a gift that would descend from the heavens that very night.
At the center of the altar stood a broad stone bowl carved with spirals of flowing script. It waited empty. To the right of the altar, a freshly crafted tripod gleamed softly — built by human artisans following Junjie's precise instruction from his "vision." The metal was pale and polished, the design simple but graceful, awaiting its divine occupant.
He stood before it, robes white beneath the firelight, his family behind him, the Elders and artisans below. He raised his hand. "I dreamt again," he said solemnly, his voice carrying through the stillness. "A light of remembrance will descend upon this altar, that no life in our people shall ever fade."
The air rippled. A column of radiance unfolded above the altar, coalescing into a silver sphere that drifted downward until it settled gently into the waiting bowl. Its light pulsed, alive and breathing.
The people gasped and knelt, whispering prayers. Junjie stood before them, calm amid the reverence. In his mind, Nano's voice sounded with quiet precision. "Subspace delivery complete. Local cloaking restored. No trace remains." Perfect timing, Junjie thought back.
Junjie approached the orb and placed his palm upon it. "This Relic of Remembrance shall hold the thoughts of all who live beneath our sun. Each year, upon your birthday, you will come here and share your brightest memory, that your joy may live forever."
The crowd murmured with reverence. One by one, they came to touch it: masons, healers, children, scholars, and travelers from the elven forests and the dwarven halls alike. All through the night, the temple doors remained open, and by dawn the orb shimmered with the warmth of countless lives.
When morning light poured through the arches, Junjie and Claudia stood alone before the relic. Nano's voice spoke quietly in their minds. "Replication protocols are stable. Shall I prepare division?"
🔮The Miracle of Division
Claudia looked toward the altar. "We'll need three. One for each city. The people will expect their own." "Confirmed," Nano replied. "Additional relics can be formed using the same subspace matrix. Materials required: crystalline dust, noble metals, and trace harmonics. All components must be placed beside the relic during division."
Junjie nodded slowly. "Then I have dreamt once more. Tonight I will tell the people that the relic may multiply, that each race shall receive its light."
That evening, the dwarves arrived in cloaks dusted with forge soot, and the elves came robed in woven leaves and crystal filaments that shimmered under the lamps. Another bowl was placed beside the relic, filled with fine powders, crystals, and rare metals that glittered like captured starlight.
Junjie placed his hand upon the relic and silently shaped the prayer. The orb brightened, the hum of its energy deepening until the air trembled. From one side of the sphere, a swelling formed and reached toward the bowl, as though drawn by unseen roots.
The ingredients lifted grain by grain, dissolving into the radiance until the bowl lay empty. By the third dawn, the bud detached with a soft chime and settled into the vessel below. Claudia lifted it carefully, cradled it for a moment, and placed it upon the waiting tripod to the right of the altar. The new relic locked itself into place with a faint flash, and a quiet shimmer ran down the stand to the floor where it anchored.
The crowd gasped as the first relic and its twin pulsed together in rhythm. Junjie raised his hands. "Thus the gods provide for all their children. One light shall remain here in the Human Capital. One shall travel to the Dwarven mountains. Tomorrow, another shall be born for the Elves."
The dwarven leader Brokk Ironhand stepped forward, bowed low, and placed his hand over his heart. "We shall guard it as flame and forge."
The elven matriarch Ilthariel inclined her head. "And we shall tend ours as memory and song, that its light will never fade."
On the following day, the third relic grew in the same manner, completing the triad. When all three pulsed together across the valley, joined through invisible subspace threads, the people called it The Miracle of Division.
After the celebrations ended, Junjie gathered three elders from each race in the temple's inner sanctum. Claudia spoke quietly. "You will each learn the sacred mixture and the silent prayer. They must never be written or spoken aloud. Only when a new city rises may you call forth another relic. The thought, not the voice, awakens it."
Each elder placed a hand upon a relic, eyes closed, committing every detail to memory. The spheres pulsed once in silent acknowledgment.
Nano's whisper filled the quiet. "Replication keys distributed. Network secured. Unauthorized duplication impossible."
Claudia nodded. "Then even a thief cannot take one. The relic itself will refuse all but rightful hands."
"The security field is active," Nano confirmed. "Any attempt to move it without permission will meet containment force proportional to the threat."
Junjie looked across the relics and their keepers. "May these lights bind our peoples together. May remembrance unite us when distance divides us."
The three relics glowed in perfect harmony, their rhythm steady as a shared heartbeat. And from that day forward, every birthday in the valley carried a quiet pilgrimage to the Relic of Remembrance, where joy became eternal and the illusion of divinity remained unbroken.