The Archive's First Trial
A cold wind swept through the Academy, scattering the petals from the blossom trees lining the tower courtyard. Atop the central spire, the giant raven let out a soundless cry—its wings still despite the gale. The masked envoy dismounted with eerie grace, her silver eyes unreadable beneath the porcelain half-mask that covered her face.
Students gathered below in clusters. Professors lined the edges of the walkways, tense. Even the spellblades, normally defiant and armored, stood without movement.
The air had weight.
She stepped forward. No fanfare. No magic flares. Just stillness, followed by her voice—calm, exacting, and cutting.
"By order of the Central Codex Authority, and in response to unauthorized systemic mutation, the Archive Protocols are now active."
A collective murmur rippled across the audience.
"Seven trials will be conducted over the next cycle," she continued. "Each one drawn from the Forgotten Archive—a remnant of the First Code. Success will reveal hidden pathways. Failure will result in extraction."
The word "extraction" carried a weight most couldn't define.
But Riven felt it. Deep in his bones. As if his system was already bracing for something it didn't want to face.
Lira stepped closer to him. "What does it mean?"
He shook his head. "Nothing good."
The masked woman turned, and suddenly, the world shifted. The courtyard's color bled away, transforming into ink and void. The tower behind her bent impossibly upward, vanishing into a mirror sky. One by one, the students around Riven flickered—not gone, but rewritten. As if reality had split.
[Trial Initiated: Archive Sequence One – Labyrinth of the Self]
[Objective: Reach the core before the veil consumes your anchor. Teaming permitted. Memories will be tested.]
Riven didn't have time to react.
The world snapped.
They were inside.
A corridor of floating stairs, spiraling around a central void. Walls made of parchment stretched endlessly, covered in ink that shifted and reshaped itself. There were no doors, only shifting runes that sometimes formed gates.
Lira stood beside him, pale but calm. Behind them, Arien—a flame-elemental user from House Thorne—clutched her staff, eyes darting. Three others followed, including an older student named Kaldran who was known for memory magic.
"Why are we together?" Arien asked.
[Team Formation Detected. Memory Alignment Level: 63%. Synchronization Active.]
"Looks like the Archive grouped us by... compatibility?" Kaldran muttered.
The floor shifted. A door appeared ahead, framed by a web of glowing threads.
[Gate One: The Echo Room]
They moved together.
As they passed through, the walls rippled. The parchment turned to glass. Riven stepped inside and froze.
He saw himself.
But not the version he knew. This Riven was older, weary. His eyes were hollow. His sword was broken, and his right arm glowed faintly with necrotic runes.
"You made it," the reflection said. "But at what cost?"
Behind Riven, the others faced their own reflections—echoes pulled from paths they hadn't walked yet. Lira gasped.
Her mirror-self had no eyes. Only the starlit void. Her hands were chains. And she was alone.
"I never meant to forget," her reflection said.
[Warning: Psychological Feedback Engaged. Emotional anchors compromised.]
Kaldran clutched his head. Arien screamed and backed away. The door forward flickered.
"Ignore them!" Riven shouted. "They're meant to stall us!"
He drew his blade and swung.
The glass cracked.
The echoes shattered.
The light returned.
[Gate Cleared. Proceeding to Layer Two.]
This time, they found themselves in a vast hall of floating books. No gravity. Just volumes orbiting a sunless star.
[Gate Two: The Index of Forgotten Paths]
A voice echoed: "Choose one book each. Only one will show truth. The others, lies that become real."
Kaldran hovered toward a silver-bound tome. Arien grabbed a book that pulsed with fire runes.
Riven hesitated.
Then he reached for a plain black volume. No title.
The moment his fingers touched it, the room changed.
He stood in his childhood home.
But everything was twisted. His father was dying on the floor. His mother cried blood. Lira stood in the corner, watching silently.
"This didn't happen," he whispered.
[You chose a lie. You must break it.]
The house caught fire.
The walls screamed.
Riven closed his eyes, took a breath—and drove his sword into the floor.
The illusion shattered.
He woke again, kneeling in the archive.
Kaldran was pale. Arien was crying. One of the others was missing.
"She... she believed it," Lira said softly.
The girl who had vanished had believed her illusion was truth. She'd chosen to stay in it. And the Archive had removed her.
"That's what extraction means," Riven murmured.
They pressed on.
[Gate Three: The Hall of Names]
Endless doors stretched down the corridor, each marked with a name. Riven found his own, glowing faintly.
The rule appeared:
[Enter only your door. Do not open another's.]
He entered.
Inside was a simple room—a table, a chair, a journal. He opened the book.
It recorded every thought he'd ever suppressed.
Every moment he doubted himself. Every fear he buried.
His hands trembled.
The last page was blank.
Then words appeared, written by an unseen quill:
"What do you want to become?"
He didn't know.
But he wrote:
"Someone who doesn't run. Not anymore."
The room faded.
He stepped back into the corridor.
The others emerged one by one. Except one. Kaldran.
His door remained closed.
It flickered once.
Then turned to ash.
Lira clenched her fists. "That's two gone."
Only four remained.
The fourth gate appeared without warning.
[Gate Four: The Room of Borrowed Time]
A massive clock dominated the room. Each of them had a sandglass floating above their head.
The rule:
[Each second spent grants knowledge. But too much borrowed time requires a toll.]
Arien rushed to the books.
Riven hesitated.
The pages offered secrets—how to unlock hidden skills, details about the Chaos Pathway, even glimpses of Lira's origin.
He read three pages.
The sand in his glass dropped faster.
Lira read none. She stood still, eyes closed.
The fourth member of their team screamed.
His glass shattered.
He aged decades in a heartbeat and crumbled.
Riven dropped the book.
[Gate Cleared. Survivors: 3]
The fifth trial was silence.
A room where no one could speak. Where memories flashed visually—each one designed to manipulate the others. Arien nearly attacked Riven after seeing a false vision of him abandoning her.
Lira stopped her with a touch.
Riven used his system to isolate emotional bleed.
[Passive Activated: Memory Anchor]
They passed.
Two gates remained.
The sixth was the worst yet.
[Gate Six: The Mirror Grave]
Each of them had to bury a memory.
Willingly.
A part of themselves they would never retrieve.
Riven chose the image of his first battle kill—a terrified boy who never wanted to fight again. He buried that innocence.
Lira chose the lullaby her mother used to sing. She wept. But she let it go.
Arien chose something none of them asked about.
The gate allowed them through.
Finally, they reached the seventh gate.
A single phrase glowed above it:
[You made it. Now choose what to remember.]
They stepped through.
And were home.
Back in the courtyard.
The tower stood. The petals drifted again. The masked woman watched.
[Archive Trial One Complete. Survivors: 3. Hidden Reward Unlocked.]
[System Update: Archive Insight Granted – Memory Constructs now visible. Hidden Class Resonance increased. Title Acquired: Trialborn.]
Lira looked at him.
Riven exhaled. "Six more to go."
The envoy tilted her head. "Now the real tests begin."