“Writ,” he said, voice level, “can you confirm the last time you interacted with this book?”
She kept her tone steady, “I last read it the moment I survived the drop at the waterfall. I checked to make sure it was intact, and that nothing had been altered.”
She let a breath slip past her teeth, just enough to ground herself, “even before that, I made a habit of rereading it every time I woke in the ruin. It was the only anchor I had. I always made sure it hadn’t changed.”
Tiran’s expression didn’t shift. His eyes stayed fixed, steady as weights on a scale.
“Yet it’s still altered,” he said, “to every eye except yours. How?”
Writ inhaled once, slow, “I have no answer for that question.”
Silence pressed into the space between them. Not the idle kind, this was the silence of someone measuring where to place the knife.
“We asked the mages behind you to do the same thing you did, trace every page in the notebook. The handwriting, the margins, the crossed notes. Exactly as it is.”
He set the notebook back down and tapped a finger against a second bundle of papers, neat and pale against the table.
“The version they traced matched what we see.”
A pause. Then, with the faintest incline of his head, “come and compare them.”
Writ stepped forward.
She ignored the empty chair waiting at the side of the table, she wasn’t here to sit. She pulled both her notebook and the strange tracing toward her, the paper edges whispering against the wood.
She opened them side by side.
Her fingers moved automatically. Thumb at the spine, forefinger turning the pages in practiced rhythm. She’d done this countless times before, in ruins where light bled dim through ancient mana lamp. This time, the light was bright, but her stomach still felt as if she were deep underground.
The first few pages mirrored each other. Titles, headings, spacing. But then...
She blinked.
A map was different. Not just a wrong curve here or there, but an entirely changed route. A path she’d never seen, drawn as if it had always been there.
The next page, notes rewritten, the sentences no longer hers. The structure was wrong. Not a copyist’s slip, but a deliberate hand.
She flipped faster. The sound of turning pages grew sharper in the still room.
Even the Ancient Morthen passages, the ones she’d copied without thinking, each curl and bar seared into her muscle memory, were wrong. The script in the tracing looked like something grown rather than written. Rootlike letters with alien joins, twisting in directions they shouldn’t.
She stood still for a moment. Her eyes scanned the pages as her mind worked in the dark.
“I’ve compared the tracing,” she said finally, “and confirmed it’s mostly different.”
A beat, “I still don’t have the answer why.”
Tiran’s voice stayed flat, “we found traces of mana belong to magical creature in your book. We want to know why.”
She tilted her head, just enough to signal confusion without inviting more.
She’d guessed this question would come the moment Kion told her to omit him from her report.
“They exist?” she asked.
“Didn’t you have any encounter with them?”
“None that I know of.”
Breathe.
Normally.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Don’t show anything.
“Really?” Tiran’s gaze sharpened, “even in Tenzurah?”
“None. I didn’t see anyone, or any mythical creature in Tenzurah. And I didn’t feel any traces of magic from my book. You told me to check myself. I did that, in front of you.”
They knew she couldn’t prove she hadn’t met anyone. Yet they still asked. And if they already believed otherwise, there was no way she could win.
Tiran said, “the mages found it. Subtle, but there. Cast into your book, masking the content for everyone but you.”
A measured pause, “and doing that exception meant the caster had to know your mana signature.”
Of course it ended up as her fault again.
“I never met any magical creatures,” she said evenly, “if you believe otherwise, then I trust you’ve already prepared the way I can prove that claim.”
Behind her, the Verdant Wings pair gasped.
Caedern hummed, amused. The Veiled’s glare cut toward him.
Tiran’s tone dropped a shade, “Recall it. Is there anything you omitted in Tenzurah that might be the cause? Trap, room, anything?”
The last word landed heavier than the rest, “think. Take your time.”
In the ruin?
The blissbane flower? No. That spread blight, not spell.
The mural trap? No. That one destroyed half the ruin instead.
The truth door? Only a lie check. Harmless.
The bronze vault’s watching presence? They’d closed their door on her without incident.
Wait.
The web trap. The one that tore her satchel away, knocked Kion out, left her scrambling with nothing. Could that be it?
“The distortion trap,” she said, “the one I triggered while looking for another exit, because I couldn’t retrace my entry path after the collapse.”
She paused, “it happened in a corridor full of web strands. I felt faint traces of magic, thought it was dried. That’s how I got caught.”
The Veiled shifted in her seat.
“Why did you omit that in your report?” Tiran asked.
“...Are you sure you want me to answer that here?”
“Answer it,” Tiran said.
“Because decades ago, when I gave you detailed reports on every trap I found and how I handled it, you told me to only mention details if they were related to the objective.”
She let the pause stretch.
“I thought the web corridor wasn’t related. So I only wrote, ‘I found a distortion trap. I escaped,’ in my Tenzurah report.”
Caedern’s low chuckle slid into the air. The Veiled’s glare shifted to Tiran.
“Noted,” he said flatly, “but you’re telling me the only part you withheld happens to be the one corridor where a trap capable of tampering with your belongings was triggered?”
He leaned forward slightly. “That coincidence is... interesting.”
“As per your previous direction,” Writ replied, “I omit every trap I managed to disarm and only mentioned traps I triggered and that were relevant to the flow of events. Which is the mural trap, destroying the gallery and most of the scriptorium, and the distortion trap. Both of which I escaped with minimal damage.”
A beat passed.
“I’m willing to describe more if you allow me.”
“Before you start...” Tiran’s gaze flicked past her. “Black Quill. Verdict Wings. If you have any questions, you’re free to interrupt.”
“Understood,” all four answered.
The silence that followed stretched long enough for Writ to feel each breath in the room. Measured, deliberate, loud in her own ears. A chair creaked faintly. Someone shifted cloth. No one spoke.
“Writ,” Tiran said, “you may start.”
She adjusted her stance, one boot easing back half a step so she could balance her weight.
“The first trap I triggered was the mural trap,” she said evenly, “it was mechanical. Activated when I tapped the wrong part of a mural, thinking it was a glyph to open a hidden area.”
Her voice stayed steady, but she felt her jaw tighten at the memory.
“It did open a hallway behind the mural... and also brought down that part of the building. I didn’t realize the destruction reached the scriptorium until Black Quill brought me back to retrace my entry.”
Caedern leaned forward, elbows on the table. His expression was unreadable.
“The hallway also collapsed not long after I entered,” she went on, “structurally. From the entrance, slowly creeping forward, chasing me. The walls were covered in sigils. Some triggered the collapse faster. Some opened spike-lined openings. Others slowed the collapse. I kept trying until I found one that opened to another alleyway. Seemed stable. So I gambled and jumped in.”
From the corner of her vision, Caustic blinked more than once during her telling. The Quill woman’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
“That’s how I reached the twin vaults,” Writ finished, “the trap didn’t affect that passage.”
A pause. Long enough for the sound of clothes shifting somewhere behind her.
Caedern spoke first, “how did you know it was the right sigil?”
“I didn’t,” she replied, “I tapped anything I could reach. That’s how I found the spikes.”
“And you avoided the spikes?”
“Yes. Barely.”
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Kion had actually been the one to open the safe zone, but that name wouldn’t leave her mouth here.
The Verdict Wing on her right broke in, “did you sense any residual magic from the sigils, apart from the structural effects?”
“The collapse was closing in within seconds,” she said flatly, “I couldn’t afford to sense anything then.”
The Veiled’s voice cut through next, “you say you ‘just tapped anything’, was that your professional judgment at work?”
“I couldn’t read the sigil while in that trap,” Writ said, “it was a language I didn’t recognize. I only realized it was Ancient Morthen after seeing the same lettering system in the bronze vault.”
Caustic’s turn, “you said it ‘seemed stable.’ What made you think it was safe enough to gamble?”
“The passage was dark with cool, stale air,” Writ said, “the kind that hasn’t moved in ages. Compared to the collapsing one behind me... I picked that, braced for whatever might be inside. Found nothing.”
Another pause. Chairs didn’t creak this time, just stillness.
Tiran’s voice was calm, deliberate.
“If that’s all for the mural trap...” His gaze swept the others. “...and there are no further questions.”
A beat passed.
“We’ll proceed to the next one.”
He let the silence hang before turning a page in his notes.
“The next is the distortion trap,” Tiran said, still looking down at the paper, “the one you omitted in detail.”
Then Tiran looked up, meeting her eyes without blinking, “you may start.”
The Veiled folded her hands. Caedern leaned back in his chair, his gaze a mild, unreadable weight. Behind her, the Verdict Wing shifted their stance, attention sharpening.
Writ adjusted her posture.
This was the tricky part.
The trap had stripped her of every supply and left her dependent on Kion. A fact none of them could ever know.
“I’d already concluded there was no way back the way I came after the collapse,” she began, “from the vault to every branching corner, I searched for another hidden passage. Found none. Dead end on one side. Twin vaults on the other.”
She let her voice stay even, measured, “I’d noticed another door the moment I entered. Simple, wooden, but didn’t touch it until I’d finished transcribing the vaults. In case it triggered another collapse.”
The Verdict Wing to her right asked, “did you feel anything in the vault?”
“Pressure,” Writ said, “like I was being watched. Constantly. But no sightings, no attack, no magical trace. I swept both vaults the moment I entered. Nothing there but old tomes and ledgers. Nothing happened during the nine days I worked.”
Caustic’s voice cut in, “nine days. Transcribing in a sealed ruin.”
“Yes. Oathroot section was done by the end of day two. Bronze took longer, Ancient Morthen script. Finished by day nine. Never left the vaults in that time. If anyone needed my mana signature for an exception in the notebook’s spell, that was their window.”
The Veiled tilted her head, “who’s ‘they’?”
“The ruin. The vault. The distortion trap next door. Or whoever was watching. I don’t have the exact answer.”
A small nod, “continue.”
“I explored the wooden door on day ten. Corridor beyond was long, endless at first glance. Faint traces of magic. Old, dried, barely there. Didn’t seem like a trigger. So I walked.”
She drew a steadying breath, hating the memory that still clung.
“Walked maybe twenty minutes before I heard footsteps. Fast. Faster than human. Closing in. When they reached just behind me, I turned to strike.”
“But met nothing. No pursuer. No corridor. No door. Everything gone. Just black. Deeper than the black room. Couldn’t see or feel my hands. Even my light was smothered.”
Her fingers curled against her knee. She forced them loose.
“Tried mana sense. Nothing. No weak points. But sometimes, there's a flicker. And in those moments, I could see enough to reach the ground. Found webbing under my hands. When the dark came back, I still felt it. So I used it. Climbed forward. Walking and crawling didn’t work, only pulling myself along the strands.”
A breath caught somewhere behind her.
“The web continued until the end. The blackness thinned several steps before the far door. Then I saw the truth of the corridor. Short, barely twenty steps, every inch covered in white strands. Floor, walls, ceiling. That’s how I knew the endless hall was a distortion trap. I used the door to escape. The distortion didn’t follow.”
Silence settled. The Verdict Wing pair shifted faintly.
Tiran’s tone stayed calm, “and you omitted this from your report.”
“I noted it as a ‘distortion trap.’ I didn’t think it was related to the objective. As per your instructions.”
Caedern’s brows rose a fraction, “and you’re certain this wasn’t part of the vault’s primary defense?”
“The entrance was sealed shut. Even without the collapse, I found nothing that could open the descent from there. One-way structure. That corridor was the only exit. They wouldn’t trap their own way out, especially with the Truth Door room beyond.”
Her voice cooled, “the Truth Door felt like Bronze. The web corridor didn’t.”
“You’re using feeling now?” Caedern asked.
“I used whatever I had to process an incomprehensible situation. One that could have trapped me there indefinitely. It didn’t occur to me the webs might be defensive.”
Caustic leaned forward slightly, “physical, or illusory?”
“Webs were physical. Darkness and the long corridor, magical. My guess. I didn’t linger to test. Not worth the risk.”
The Veiled’s voice was soft, but cutting, “If you’d died there... who would have found you?”
Writ blinked. Turned toward her, but stopped halfway, fixing her gaze back on Tiran.
“I thought that was the point.”
A pause, “you sent me to a buried ruin so you could bury me with it.”
The words fell like a stone into deep water.
Silence thickened. Caedern’s jaw shifted once, then stilled. Caustic’s eyes narrowed. The air felt heavier, edges sharper.
When Caedern finally spoke, it was slow, “and you found no issue with that.”
“There was nothing I could do about it,” Writ said flatly, “not then. Not now.”
Another pause, longer still. Fabric rasped somewhere behind her. The Quill pair’s gaze had sharpened, as if reassessing her weight.
When the Verdict Wing on her right spoke, it was careful, low, meant not to stir tempers, “...during your time in the corridor... did you observe whether the strands carried enchantment?”
“Ambient sensing was blocked by the blackness. Couldn’t tell. Might’ve been the cause of the distortion, but I can’t confirm.”
The left-hand Verdict Wing ventured, “when your vision cleared... you didn’t see anyone nearby? Maybe small? Or invisible?”
“No one physical. Didn’t use mana sense. Was too shaken. Escape was my priority.”
The right-hand Wing hesitated, “and... your book? Where was it during this?”
“Strapped to my belt. I kept tapping it out of habit, making sure it was still there. It never moved during the whole trap.”
A pause.
“Is it... possible you only thought you felt it there? That it was tampered with...?”
Writ blinked. The image of her scattered gear flashed back, the notebook lying apart from her.
“If that happened,” she said evenly, “I have no recollection of it.”
Caedern’s gaze narrowed, “so you don’t deny the possibility?”
“I can’t answer what I don’t know.”
Caustic asked, “any gear out of place after the encounter?”
“Nothing out of place after. I can’t speak for the ‘during.’”
The vision of everything strewn across the floor pushed at her again. She forced it down. They don’t need to know that.
Aloud, she said, “I checked my gear in the next room. After a sweep confirmed no immediate danger. Everything intact. Just as I’d placed it. Including the book. I reread every page. Nothing changed.”
Silence closed in again.
Tiran turned a page in his notes, the sound faint but deliberate.
“If there’s no other question,” his gaze stayed on the paper a moment longer than necessary, “proceed to your next telling, Writ.”
“I’ve told you the Truth Door in detail in my last report,” she said, “do you want me to retell it now?”
“Do you have anything to add?”
“No. I’ve mentioned everything I know.”
“Then no. Proceed to the next relevant incident.”
She hesitated.
“There’s no more traps worth mentioning.”
A beat.
“...Unless the detonation trap I used to open the tunnel to the cave counted.”
Tiran's pen stilled over the paper, “elaborate.”
“After the Truth Door, I reached a dead end, soil-packed. The only way forward was a narrow rock tunnel. Could barely fit my head.”
She shifted her weight, the words pulling her back into that cramped dark, “I backtracked. Retraced the path to the Truth Door. Again. Again. Found no other way. None.”
Her fingertips tapped once against her thigh before stilling.
“The corridor was full of traps. I disarmed most. But I kept one detonation trap alive, adjusted its power, and rerouted the anchor to open the tunnel.”
Silence.
Caustic blinked once, “you opened a tunnel. With a detonation trap. Underground.”
“Yes.”
“Did you understand what you’d done?”
She met his gaze evenly, “I was running out of supply. If the worst happened, it’d be faster than starving.”
The Quill woman blinked, too long. Caedern’s low chuckle followed, curling at the edges. Again. The Veiled’s glare met him, flat and unamused. Again.
Verdant Wing on her right, “did you feel... anything in that corridor?”
“No. Neither physical sweep nor mana sense revealed anything. Only walls, and hollow spaces containing the traps. No trace of habitation, human remains, or lingering mana beyond what powered the traps.”
A pause, “no magical creatures either. If we’ve already decided they exist.”
Verdant Wing on her left leaned forward, “what about in the tunnel?”
The right one gasped softly.
The left fumbled, bowing her head, “I-I apologize. I overstepped.”
“If there’s no other question,” Tiran said, voice even, “continue.”
Writ waited a beat, just to be sure no one spoke again, before continuing.
“The tunnel led to a cave with a running river splitting it in two. I checked every wall, only stone. Bioluminescent moss across the surface like veins. Several fungi. No exit on the upper ledge, no mana presence. Nothing alive that wasn’t moss or fungus.”
Verdant Wing on the left shifted, hesitant, “the moss... did you check if it was naturally luminous, or magically enhanced? Or if it... formed patterns?”
“Neither moss nor fungi responded to physical or mana probing. No rune pattern. No trace of cultivation.”
The right one leaned in slightly, “did you... collect a sample?”
“No. I had no container that wouldn’t contaminate it. And it wasn’t relevant to the objective.”
She could almost hear their disappointment in the silence that followed.
“Then I tried to cross the river,” she continued, “lost my footing. Forced to follow the current.”
Caustic’s brow furrowed, “it was an open river?”
“Open in the cave, closed after that. The water dropped into another tunnel, mostly submerged. I found air pockets here and there. Used my satchel to break impact against the wall so I could breathe. Curled tight and held my breath for the next one.”
Two gasps from behind.
“You chose to keep going after the first air pocket instead of stopping?”
“There was nowhere to stop,” she said flatly, “the current decided for me.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. It feels longer when you have no control over your body or your breath.”
A moment passed before the right Verdant Wing asked, quieter, “the book was on your belt the whole time?”
“I secured it inside my clothes before I crossed the river. Against my skin. So I could feel if it separated from me.”
“Oh... sorry, I didn’t mean-”
The left leaned forward, “how was the book not wet?”
“Eidryn’s product. Watertight book cover.”
The left whispered, “that’s a thing?”
The right shushed her.
“Then came the waterfall,” Writ said, “and I was out of the ruin.”
The left, "waterfall?"
“Yes,” she added, “the river broke into a waterfall aboveground.”
Both gasped again.
Their wide-eyed surprise almost made her smile. Almost. They reminded her too much of the Relay Nine, Junior especially. The Verdant Wings clearly nurtured that softness.
“Continue,” Tiran said.
“I stopped to make sure the book was intact. Reread every page to confirm it wasn’t altered. My bag had torn open. I couldn’t risk the same happening to the notebook.”
She shifted her weight.
“Followed the river for... maybe two hours. Found Zeirath. Scaled the wall, avoided the guards, checked in.”
Caedern’s eyes narrowed slightly, “did you meet anyone?”
“No. Only saw people near Zeirath. Merchants, traders, travellers. At the main gate. Didn’t interact.”
Verdant Wing on the right, “was there... any mana trace near the waterfall?”
“None. I’ve retraced the exit route up to the waterfall. The Black Quill can confirm.”
The Veiled inclined her head, “confirmed. Just a normal canyon.”
Tiran, “was there anything else unusual?”
Writ held his gaze, “none that I could verify.”
A faint shift from the Quill woman.
The left asked, “Did you... keep anything from the ruin? Other than the book?”
“No. I left with less than I went in with.”
Caedern leaned back, smile curling, “that’s one way to lighten your load.”
The Veiled’s glance cut him short.
The right added, “No fragments? Moss, stone, water?”
“If I’d thought any of it relevant, I’d have brought it.”
Silence again. The Verdant pair shifted. The right one almost spoke, but stopped herself.
Tiran broke the stillness, “final opportunity for questions.”
He let it stretch. His eyes swept the table. No one spoke.
“Then we are done here. This matter remains under review until the grade-four briefing,” his gaze flicked toward the two behind her, “Verdant Wings. You’re dismissed. Return to your post.”
They bowed a heartbeat too quickly, and all but hurried to the door, nearly bumping into each other in their haste.
When the door shut, Tiran looked back at her, “fifteen hundred hours. Same chamber. We will discuss the actual mission then.”
“Understood.”
Caedern’s low chuckle followed as she rose. The Veiled’s eyes stayed fixed on her until she stepped into the hall.
When they dismissed her, the air outside the door felt thinner, easier to breathe. She made it halfway down the corridor before she noticed her hands weren’t shaking. A rare mercy.
And then... the wrongness set in.
The corridor seemed narrower than before, the air colder. Her pulse thudded in her ears, each step too loud on the stone.
The corridor felt... wrong. Shadows pooled in unnatural shapes, and the mana light seemed hesitant, flickering as if afraid to touch the walls.
Her pulse thudded against her ribs, echoing in her ears. Something wasn’t right. Something they hadn’t told her.
A faint hum lingered in the air. Not wind, not footsteps. A presence. Watching. Waiting. Measuring.
The words replayed in her mind, heavy and deliberate.
“Return to your post. Fifteen hundred hours. We will discuss the actual mission then.”
Her relief dissolved.
That wasn’t the briefing.
And she realized, with a cold certainty that prickled across her skin, that whatever came next... she was already standing inside it.
Volume 3 closes here~
I’ll be taking a one-week break from posting before we step into heavier ground. Think of it as our breath before Writ loses hers.
Thank you for walking beside Writ through every shadow, every step!