Chapter 16: The Sundered Prison

Ryn gasped awake with the taste of burnt copper and ozone thick on his tongue. His body convulsed against the cold stone floor, muscles seizing as residual energy from the vision crackled along his nerve endings. The cellar's rough-hewn ceiling swam in and out of focus, the lantern light stabbing his light-sensitive eyes like daggers.

"Easy, Stormcaller." The Brewer's calloused hands pressed Ryn's shoulders down with surprising strength. "Breathe through it. The aftereffects will pass."

Lira's bootsteps echoed nearby, her voice tight with barely restrained fury. "What the hell did you do to him?"

"Showed him the truth." The Brewer held up a glass vial to Ryn's lips. "Drink. This will stabilize the Astra shock."

The liquid burned like swallowing molten glass, but within seconds, the violent tremors subsided. Ryn's vision cleared enough to see the aftermath of whatever psychic tempest he'd unleashed—every metal surface in the cellar bore strange fractal patterns, as if lightning had branched across them. The stone fragments on the table now glowed with an eerie synchrony, pulsing like twin hearts.

[Post-Vision Aftermath]

Physical symptoms:

- Ocular capillaries ruptured (sclera now permanently streaked with red)

- Fingerprints temporarily burned away (regenerating abnormally fast)

- Tongue coated in conductive silver residue

*Mental contamination:*

- Recurring geometric patterns in peripheral vision

- Ability to "hear" approaching storms (estimated 12 minute warning)

- First Stormcaller's memories surfacing during sleep cycles

Ryn tried to speak, but his vocal cords produced only a rasping wheeze. The Brewer pressed a second vial into his hands—this one filled with swirling blue vapor.

"Your throat muscles are paralyzed from screaming," the old alchemist explained. "This will help."

As the vapor hit Ryn's tongue, sensation flooded back in a wave of pins and needles. His first words came out slurred but intelligible. "It's breaking free."

Lira's knife was at the Brewer's throat again before Ryn could blink. "No more games. Explain. Now."

The Brewer sighed, his milky eye reflecting the pulsating stones. "What your young Stormcaller glimpsed is called the Sundered Prison—a dimensional seal created three centuries ago during the Cataclysm Wars." He moved to a section of wall covered in strange carvings, wiping away decades of grime to reveal intricate bas-reliefs.

**[Ancient Relief Depictions]**

1. *The First Stormcaller standing atop seven monoliths*

2. *A gaping void in the earth swallowing entire armies*

3. *Seven figures chaining the void with glowing threads*

4. *The monoliths sinking beneath the earth*

"The First and his six strongest disciples became living anchors," the Brewer continued, tracing the carved chains. "Their bodies transformed into metaphysical locks binding what couldn't be destroyed." His finger stopped at the seventh figure—smaller than the others, its features blurred. "But anchors degrade over time. Especially when someone starts picking at the chains."

Ryn's stone flared in response, projecting another fragmented memory—Malrik standing before a massive obsidian slab covered in void-script, his blade carving through glowing sigils.

"The Crown knew," Ryn realized aloud. "That's why they let Malrik attack us. They wanted the seals weakened."

The Brewer nodded grimly. "Precisely. With no living Stormcallers, the prison fails gradually over decades—plenty of time for their pet voidmages to prepare." His storm-gray eye fixed on Ryn. "But you... you're an anomaly. A true Stormcaller awakening during the collapse."

A sudden gust howled through the cellar's cracks, strong enough to extinguish two lanterns. The remaining light revealed something new in the carvings—tiny figures around the void's edges, their arms raised not in fear, but in worship.

Lira noticed it too. "There were people who wanted it freed."

"Still are." The Brewer produced a blackened fingerbone from his robes—human, but too long and jointed wrong. "The Hollow Creed. Malrik was just their latest pawn."

[Hollow Creed Cult]

Objective: Free the Bound One

Methods: Void corruption, historical revision

Current status: Infiltrating royal courts

Ryn's hands began trembling again, but not from weakness. The stones' glow intensified, casting strange shadows that moved independently. One such shadow stretched toward the relief wall, its inky fingers tracing the seventh figure with unsettling precision.

"That one's different," Ryn murmured. "Who is—"

A thunderous impact shook the cellar doors. Dust rained from the ceiling as the heavy oak splintered inward.

**"Royal Decree!"** boomed a voice from above. **"Surrender the Stormcaller or be purged with voidfire!"**

The Brewer moved faster than his age suggested possible. He slammed the stone fragments together with a sound like shattering crystal—

—and the world exploded in blue light.

[Emergency Teleportation Initiated]

Destination: [Redacted - Anchor Site Theta]

Energy source: Heartwind Stone resonance

Side effect: 89% chance of temporal displacement

Ryn's last sight before disintegration was Lira's horrified face, her mouth forming words lost in the roaring wind:

"Don't trust the seventh—"

Then nothing.