Journey unknown
And far away—so far it could not be measured by land or stars—a bell rang.
No sound. No echo.
Just a tremor in the bones of the world.
Kael'thar stood in the morning fog, eyes scanning the distant hills as if expecting the temple to rise from the land like a memory. But nothing stirred. The name Ashen Temple burned in his mind, but it was as if the world itself refused to acknowledge it.
No direction. No sign. No path.
He clenched his jaw.
He'd led armies through cursed realms and void-blasted skies. He'd hunted gods. Now he couldn't find a damn road.
He needed a map.
But not just any map. One that showed what shouldn't be. Something crafted in secrecy, buried in shadow. Something old.
Very old.
A whisper came from within—a memory of a memory.
"In the city of Eldreth, beneath the black archives... a vault sealed by flame… forbidden knowledge kept alive by the desperate and the damned."
His eyes narrowed.
Yes. There was once a map, carved into obsidian. Crafted by a cartographer who vanished after claiming to have seen the Ashen monks himself. The artifact was confiscated, locked away, deemed dangerous. Even he had heard rumors of it, and at the time ordered it destroyed.
He laughed bitterly under his breath.
Of course.
He had buried the key to his salvation with his own damn pride.
And now he needed to get it back.
He turned sharply and began pacing. If Eldreth still stood—and that was a big if—the archives would be near-impossible to breach. Magical wards. Arcane guardians. And worse… librarians.
But it was the only lead he had.
He paused, glancing over his shoulder at the sleeping form of Lira. He would need to leave soon. Quietly. But he would come back. Before his final leave.
He murmured to himself, half a growl, half a vow:
"The Ashen Temple will not hide from me forever. And if the only way to reach it is to steal back what I once ordered buried… so be it."
His next step was clear:
Find Eldreth.
He knew where it's was. Fresh in his memories
Break into the Black Archives.
And steal the map that points to the impossible.
Immediately he, go a plane papar sketching his way to the black achieve. He sketched like a possessed soul, didn't know what he was doing, but for some reason he trusted it.
---
Dawn crept slowly across the horizon, bleeding pale light into the mist. The forest around them stirred—birds rustling in the canopy, the soft creak of branches waking from stillness—but none of it reached Kael'thar. His world had narrowed to a single objective.
He stepped away from the firepit, careful not to disturb the embers or the sleeping form curled near them. Lira's breath rose and fell in steady rhythm beneath her cloak, one hand still loosely gripping the hilt of her blade, as if even in dreams she sensed danger might return.
Kael'thar hesitated.
She would follow him if he asked. No questions. No hesitation. But this wasn't a fight she could win for him. This path… this madness… was his alone. The vault in Eldreth had swallowed stronger souls than his. Even the name of the city had vanished from most tongues, as though the world had conspired to forget it.
He crouched by her side for a moment, brushing a loose curl from her brow. "Watch the stars for me," he whispered.
Then he was gone, a shadow slipping between trees.
---
Two days later.
The ruins of Eldreth loomed before him like a scar on the land.
Time had not been kind.
Half-buried in the foothills of the Daggerpeak Mountains, the city was a maze of crumbling towers and shattered stone. Black ivy strangled the old spires. Statues of forgotten scholars lay decapitated in courtyards overgrown with thorn. The wind howled through narrow streets like it remembered the screams.
And yet... the air pulsed with something deeper. Power. Magic. Secrets pressed into mortar and bone.
Kael'thar's boots crunched on ancient gravel as he stepped into the outer ring of the ruins. His fingers brushed the hilt of his curved dagger, a warding habit more than intent to draw. Steel would be useless if the old wards still held.
He moved carefully, eyes scanning every shadow. Somewhere beneath the central tower—if it still stood—lay the entrance to the Black Archives. Hidden beneath illusions, traps, and layers of forgotten enchantments.
He pulled a rune-stone from his belt and whispered an invocation. The glyph flared faintly, then shimmered and revealed a faint trail of residual magic, like a thread pulled through time.
He followed it.
Down twisting halls where the dead language of the Arcanum whispered from cracked frescoes.
Past a shattered doorway where someone—or something—had tried and failed to break through.
Finally, he stood before a gate of obsidian and steel, untouched by rust, inlaid with seven burning sigils. The flames didn't flicker. They watched.
Kael'thar frowned. "Still active. Of course."
He reached into his satchel and retrieved a phial of silver ichor—the blood of a fire-born wraith, rare as starlight and thrice as costly. He smeared a line across the lowest sigil.
The gate hissed, then pulsed once like a heartbeat.
The ground trembled.
Stone groaned as mechanisms older than memory stirred. With a thunderous sigh, the gate split down the middle and slid open, revealing a stairwell that spiraled into darkness thick as tar.
He didn't wait.
The stairs swallowed him.
---
Deep beneath the ruins...
The Black Archives were not made for the living.
Shelves of chained tomes rose to impossible heights. Crystals drifted in midair, whispering fragmented incantations. The air reeked of burnt parchment and old curses.
And at the center, encased in a glass sarcophagus lined with molten sigils, was the map.
The obsidian slab glowed faintly, etched in a language even Kael'thar hadn't spoken in centuries.
He stepped toward it—and froze.
A sound.
Not the whisper of books or shifting shelves.
Footsteps.
Deliberate.
Measured.
Not a guardian. Not a ghost.
Someone else was here.