[You have received a memory.]
'Oh please tell me its the sword and I'll do anything, Spell'
Asteria opened her runes, her heart hammering against her ribs, praying internally for the starlight jian she had just wielded.
Memory: [Monarch's Talisman]
Memory Rank: Ascended
Memory Tier: IV
Memory Type: Tool
'Damnation...' Asteria slumped against the cold altar. 'Of course it's not the sword. The Spell never gives you exactly what you want...'
She focused on the shimmer text, reading the history of the shard now resting in her soul sea.
Memory Description: ["This talisman was once the Monarch's prized possession. A weightless shard of the very first glass ever forged within the heart of the Kingdom of Glass, ———. It was never intended to be a trinket of vanity, but a master key to the kingdom's most guarded truths.
When the ritual fractured their kingdom, the Monarch did not flee. Instead, they retreated to the Vault of Splendor — a sanctuary hidden beneath the palace foundations where the history, wealth and forbidden relics of the glass-born were stored for an eternity that never came.
Bound by a vow for absolute guardianship, the Monarch locked the vault from the inside, ensuring that the only one who carried their sorrow — and their mask — could ever hope to disturb the treasures within. To hold this talisman is to hear the faint, crystalline echoes of a reign that refused to shatter — unlike their palace — even when the gods themselves turned to dust.]
Memory Enchantments: [Key of Glass]
[Key of Glass]: "This talisman acts as a physical and spiritual tether to the hidden chambers of the Glass Palace. When brought within the vicinity of the royal seal, the talisman will hum with the frequency of the Monarch's will, parting the 'unbreakable' glass and revealing the treasures of the lost dynasty."
Asteria stared at the description, her fingers twitching. "A 'Vault of Splendor,'" She whispered. "Great. I have the key to a dead king's basement, but I'm still standing in a tomb of my own."
She reached up and unfastened the [Mask of Glass]. The moment it left her skin, white sparks erupted, blinding her as the memory was dismissed back into her soul sea. Relied washed over her like a physical wave. While the mask was on, her soul felt as though it were slowly being crushed under a mountain of centuries-old grief.
She scrambled out of the darkness of the cellar, her boots slipping on shards of broken glass. When she finally emerged and the blistering sun hit her skin once more, she gasped. The heat should have been a burden, but after the creeping chill of that altar, it felt like a homecoming.
However, the silence of the city was gone.
A deep, tectonic rumbling vibrated through the soles of her boots, followed by a chorus of shrieks that sounded like a thousand windows shattering at once. Asteria didn't hesitate; she sprinted toward a nearby glass house, digging her fingers into the ornamental carvings of the wall and hauling herself onto the roof.
She peered towards the city center, and her blood ran cold.
Below, the streets were no longer empty. A tide of humanoid statues — slimmer, faster, but radiating a slightly weaker pressure as the Guardian she had just slain — were marching in a jagged procession.
"Fallen." She hissed, her [Glass Eyes] widening. "Hundreds of them."
And behind, looming like the mountains of smoked crystal were gargantuan sculptures that dwarfed the houses. They moved with a slow, agonizing weight, each step cracking the glass pavement. Elara had warned her about there being fallen & corrupted. Now, Asteria was looking at them. An army.
But it wasn't the monsters that stopped her heart. It was the horizon.
Rising from the center of the city was an enormous, spiralling crystal palace. It was a masterpiece of impossible shapes, its spires twisting towards the heavens like frozen light. It was gorgeous, terrifying and hauntingly familiar.
Asteria's breath hitched. Her mind raced back to the cold, flickering memories of her first nightmare — the place where she had first been tested.
"It's the same." She whispered, her voice trembling. "It's the same place."
Had she traveled all this way just to loop back into her own nightmare? Was the Citadel she was searching for actually the source of her own soul's trauma?
As she stared at the glass spires, she felt it — a presence. A cold, vast consciousness that seemed to fill the entire valley. The monsters below didn't feel like animals; they felt like extensions of a singular, hungry will.
They weren't looking for her yet, but she could feel their gazes hovering at the edge of her perception. The ominous, hungry mouths of the sculptures seemed to be calling her name.
Asteria looked at the palace, then at the talisman in her soul. The joke was on her. She hadn't found a way out of the desert; she found a way back to the beginning.
"Fine," She muttered, her eyes hardening as she unsheathed her blade. "If this is where it started, I guess this is where it has to end."
'What the hell am I supposed to do? Can I run away? Can I get past them?'
She was terrified, and really, really; did not want to fight them. After all, how can a sleeper ever hope to win against a being two or even three ranks above her?