Chapter 23

  Raime left the monk’s chamber in silence, the faint afterimage of Master Velthar’s last moments still hovering behind his eyes. The memory had not faded like a dream; it clung to him with unsettling clarity, every step and gesture of the dead master replaying in his mind as though burned there. He tightened his grip on the iron lever at his side, steadying himself. For the first time since Ithural had swallowed him, his path did not feel like blind stumbling.

  He had been shown where to go.

  The temple corridors stretched ahead, familiar in their alien austerity. Faint purple light leaked through cracks in the high stone ceiling, catching on bas-relief whose meaning had long slipped from living memory. His pace was firm, almost eager, his breathing steady. Confidence wasn’t something Raime often trusted, but now—after the brush with Master Velthar’s memory—it thrummed in his chest like a steady drum.

  The path was precise. He remembered the subtle shift in the wall behind the meditation dais, the faint crack in the stone where he had pressed his palm. Without that glimpse, he could have spent a lifetime scouring the temple and never uncovered it. Now he moved with purpose, retracing not his own steps but another’s.

  He paused before the dais, eyes sweeping the surface. At a glance it looked like solid stone, seamless as the rest of the temple floor. He crouched, fingers tracing until he found the narrow groove his memory told him would be there. His palm pressed, mimicking the old monk’s movement. For a moment, nothing stirred. Then, with a sound like grinding teeth, a portion of the wall recessed inward.

  Raime exhaled slowly. One step in, and already beyond anything I could have managed alone.

  The opening revealed a narrow passageway, choked with stale air. He entered, weapon in hand, shoulders brushing rough walls as the path curved downward. It wasn’t long before he met the first of the defences.

  The corridor terminated in what appeared to be a dead end—a blank wall etched with faint glyphs. As his eyes adjusted, he saw them shimmer faintly, strands of pale violet woven into the stone like veins. He felt a pressure against his mind, a probing weight that made his temples ache. Without Velthar’s memory, he would have walked straight into that presence, ignorant and unprepared, and the thought of what might have followed twisted his stomach.

  Instead, he remembered the monk’s measured steps, the way his hand had moved in a deliberate pattern, tracing sigils in the air. Raime mirrored the gesture, pushing a trace of psionic energy through his fingers like in the memory, clumsily at first, then steadier, recalling every motion with unnatural clarity. When the final motion cut the air, the glyphs pulsed once, then dulled to lifeless stone. The weight in his head lifted.

  He released a shaky breath.

  If I’d come here blind, that would’ve melted my brain. And there are no traces. Not even a faint hum, nothing at all, like this place was never even touched by a living being.

  The vault’s path pressed him further, each defence layered with cruel precision. A stretch of floor that collapsed into a pit of shifting psionic energy, avoided only because Velthar’s memory had shown him where to step. A door that opened not to force, but to the measured rhythm of an ancient chant Raime could not have known without hearing it whispered in memory. Each obstacle was not simply a barrier but a death sentence for the ignorant.

  Finally, the passage ended in a chamber unlike the rest of the temple. Where most of Ithural’s architecture had been austere and silent, this place thrummed faintly with stored power.

  The vault door towered before him. It was a seamless circle of stone, its surface carved with a labyrinth of lines that seemed to writhe when stared at too long. No handle, no hinge—just a riddle of design that screamed to him of finality.

  Again, Velthar’s memory guided him. He pressed his palm to the center, whispering words he didn’t understand but felt deep in his bones. The lines across the door flared, threads of violet peeling outward like veins of fire.

  The vault groaned and shifted. Stone parted, heavy and deliberate, revealing the dark beyond.

  Raime stepped forward, the air cool and sharp against his skin. For the first time since entering the Rift, he felt as though he had stepped off the edge of a cliff into something vast and unknown—but unlike before, this leap had purpose.

  Behind him, the vault door sealed shut, erasing all trace of the path.

  The System’s voice stirred in his mind, he knew that the second phase was completed after following the guidance of Master Velthar, but now it wasn’t the time to check, the moment felt too important to just stop now.

  Raime tightened his grip on his weapon and moved deeper, ready to see what Velthar had guarded for untold time.

  The vault’s interior opened like a hollow sphere. Its walls arched in a perfect circle, every curve smooth as if sculpted not by chisels but by the shaping of will. No torch burned here, yet the air glowed faintly with a purple radiance emanating from runes inscribed into the stone. They pulsed with a rhythm that he couldn’t decipher, vibrating faintly against his mind.

  He took a step forward, breath caught in his throat.

  This isn’t just a vault. It’s a sanctum. A reliquary of everything Velthar’s people wanted to preserve from time itself.

  The chamber was vast, partitioned by concentric rings of shelves and pedestals. Each surface bore an object—some crystalline, others metallic, a few composed of materials Raime’s eyes struggled to categorize. None were dulled by dust or decay; each pulsed with quiet, patient life, as if waiting.

  He reached the nearest pedestal. Resting atop it was a sphere, no larger than his fist, carved from translucent stone that shifted colors as he stared—violet, then silver, then something without name. A faint hum thrummed in his skull the moment his hand hovered near it. He flinched, nearly jerking away, until Velthar’s memory surfaced unbidden.

  A Thought-Knot… memory vessel. A mind can be pressed into it, an idea wound and coiled like thread, to be unwound centuries later.

  The realization made his heart hammer. Velthar had shown him a glimpse of such things, though never in detail. He imagined monks bending over the sphere, whispering into it with their mind, pressing fragments of themselves into the crystalline weave. Knowledge and understanding preserved beyond words, beyond death.

  And here they are… countless voices, maybe thousands. All waiting to be heard.

  But he forced himself to step back. The knot pulsed faintly, as though aware of him, but he knew better than to tamper. He wasn’t ready for something like this.

  Raime circled further into the chamber. A new pedestal caught his eye: a metallic circlet, delicate as spider-silk, forged from a material darker than iron yet reflecting faint inner light. It hovered a finger’s breadth above its stand, spinning slowly. His chest tightened when Velthar’s memory whispered through him again.

  A Crown of Silence. Worn only by direct disciples of the masters in training. It severs external stimuli—no sound, touch or any other sensation. No stray thought, no distraction. Within its silence, discipline sharpens. But the untrained who wear it risk losing themselves in the emptiness.

  He reached toward it, then pulled back with a hiss. The thought of silence that complete made his stomach twist.

  If I put that on… could I even take it off?

  He left the circlet untouched, though his eyes lingered on it as he moved away.

  The deeper he went, the more alien the relics became. Shelves lined with crystal rods, each filled with liquid that seemed to move against gravity. A mask of faceted glass designed not for breathing but for sight, its lenses shimmering with unreadable constellations. A blade thin as paper, vibrating faintly as if alive. Every step unveiled something new, and with each sight Velthar’s memories unspooled, granting him words and context he never would have possessed.

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  One alcove in particular pulled him close. Within lay an object shaped like a heart—organic, pulsing faintly, though clearly not flesh. It was carved from resin or stone, its surface webbed with veins that glowed faint violet. Raime swallowed hard as memory rose again.

  The Core of Symbiosis. A living engine, bound to no body yet capable of joining with one. For those prepared, it strengthens thought, fusing will and flesh. For those unready… it devours. It seems something similar to my new trait…

  The thing pulsed as though hearing him, as though recognizing life nearby. He stepped away quickly, shuddering.

  Not now. Maybe not ever.

  He turned instead to a case of crystalline tablets stacked neatly upon a shelf. As his fingers brushed the surface, the grooves beneath his skin lit faintly, words not his own sparking into his mind. Equations. Theories. Descriptions of meditation stances so precise they could only have been recorded by generations of adepts.

  Velthar’s memories whispered: The Codices of Resonance. To those who read them, the mind expands, synapses carving new paths. Dangerous if taken in too quickly, yet priceless.

  Raime pulled his hand away, heart racing. His skull already ached from just one touch.

  As he walked, the chamber pressed heavier on him. Not with weight, but with presence. Each artifact radiated an echo, and together they built a harmony of will that resonated in his bones. It felt as though hundreds of minds hovered in the chamber with him, watching silently.

  I shouldn’t be here. And Master Velthar knew it. That’s why he showed me the path, and no one else. These aren’t things meant for scavengers. They’re pieces of a civilization that lived and died by thought alone.

  And yet he could not turn away.

  At the chamber’s heart stood the central pedestal—the one Velthar had pressed into his memory more clearly than anything else. Upon it lay a single relic, larger than the rest, cradled in sculpted arms of stone.

  It was a staff.

  At first Raime thought it was wood, dark and polished. But as he stepped closer, he realized the surface shimmered faintly, striations of crystal laced through its length like veins of light. Its top ended in a spiral, a hollow core that contained a shard of something brilliant, glowing faintly violet.

  His breath caught.

  The Beacon of Ithural. Velthar’s voice inside him was clear, as though the master himself whispered in his ear. Given only to the worthy. A conduit for the mind, magnifying thought, binding thread to matter. With it, walls can bend, illusions shape, and minds link as one. And more… much more.

  His fingers hovered, inches away. He felt the air vibrate, recognition pulsing from the shard like a heartbeat.

  If I take this… it changes everything.

  But the memory whispered caution, too. The Beacon answers only those who have the right to wield it. Touch it, and it will strip your mind to ash.

  Raime pulled back, jaw tight. Sweat slicked his palms.

  If Velthar wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have shown me the way here. But he also wouldn’t have told me to claim it. He told me to see. To know what was preserved.

  He turned slowly, scanning the chamber once more. Treasures glowed from every wall, each one whispering promises and dangers alike. He could not take them. He should not. But there were some meant for him, the memory told him.

  First he felt he should go towards the edge of the vault, a relic awaited him. A satchel, plain black leather at first glance, but when he touched it, the material shivered like living skin, and a presence stirred faintly within, the item bonded with Raime in a moment, but it wasn’t the same as with Thunk. It was simple, quiet, but carried weight: refusal to yield to any hands but his own. No other being would be able to access the content of the relic, that was its promise.

  Finally, something that feels… nearly normal. And doesn’t kill me if I watch it wrong.

  His gaze shifted, almost against his will, to a pedestal near the center now. A crystal sphere rested there, no larger than a golf ball, its surface a soft, opalescent shimmer. When he approached, he felt a pulse radiate from within, like a heart beating in a rhythm not his own.

  The eye Xethz. Whispered the memory.

  He reached out, and the instant his fingers brushed the smooth surface, a lattice of light unfurled in his vision—an intricate web of stars, lines, and planes that folded in on themselves, twisting in impossible dimensions. He staggered, breath catching.

  A map… no, more than that.

  It wasn’t just a rendering of space—it was alive, recording, mapping, identifying. He could feel the surrounding energy tugging faintly at the crystal’s core, like it was already drinking the world into itself. Beneath the newly forming lines lay a deeper foundation: Ithural itself, every fold of land and fracture of stone, every river and vein of energy, already inscribed with obsessive precision.

  Velthar left me the whole damn Rift in the palm of my hand… and room for more.

  He clenched the sphere, uncertain whether to marvel or to recoil. The thought that it would remember every place he set foot, that it could peer into the nature of energies themselves, was both exhilarating and suffocating. No more getting lost, he told himself. No more stumbling blind. He stored the bead in the satchel. Yet beneath that comfort, a sharper awareness crept in: this was not just a tool. It was responsibility. Knowledge to be kept, guarded.

  The memory nudged him again, and his gaze turned toward a lacquered case against the far wall. When he opened it, he found rows of small beads, each faintly luminous, their cores shimmering with layered thought. They were nothing like the singular, heavy knot he had seen earlier. These were gentler, restrained—but the moment he brushed one, he felt the edge of it: a tight knot of concentrated insight, compressed into form.

  Lesser thought-knots.

  Novice lessons. A primer, but hardly harmless. He pulled back, throat tight. Even the smallest of them felt like holding a blade by its edge. Knowledge meant to carve directly into the mind.

  He studied the case, noticing how the beads were arranged: the first rows faint and pale, the next richer in hue, the ones beyond faintly crackling with suppressed weight. Lessons layered one upon another, meant to lead a novice into mastery, step by step. But the deeper his eyes wandered, the more dangerous they looked, until a dull shiver warned him away.

  A step at a time, if I try to run before learning to walk, it’ll break me.

  He closed the case gently, forcing himself to breathe he stored these too. The memory guided him again, this time toward a corner where something hung in the still air. Four slabs of metal floated in formation, their edges whispering as they shifted. At first glance, they resembled a single, massive nail nearly Raime’s height, of dark gleaming, razor-edged menace. Then, with a faint hum, the slabs separated.

  Three blades, wide at the top and sharpened to a lethal gleam, hovered apart, while the remaining piece condensed into a triangular core, its sides hollowed, corners jagged and sharp as spearheads. It was strange—alien in design, brutal yet elegant. If the blades spoke of shearing and cutting, the core screamed of piercing and precision.

  A weapon.

  Raime swallowed hard. My lever… Velthar called it a bonded weapon. Mine. But the whisper of memory behind this relic was insistent. The monk had chosen differently. He wanted Raime to master the tetra unum, The weapons of a true master of will.

  Raime circled it, watching how the four pieces rotated as if waiting to be wielded, reuniting into a whole, breaking apart into a storm of edges. He imagined it in battle—cutting, thrusting, tearing—and his pulse quickened despite himself. What the hell are you preparing me for, Velthar? I will take it, but I will not abandon my trusty Thunk, maybe I will learn to use them together, Thunk for melee, and at this range…

  Raime touched the floating menace, and a jolt passed through him. He could feel a new bond waiting to be formed, he refused for now. Establishing just a superficial connection, just enough for nudging the weapon to follow him. There was no reason to lug around several hundred kilos of sharp metal without a handle, and for sure it couldn’t fit in the satchel. Or maybe it could?

  In many stories heroes were gifted a spatial artifact bigger on the inside than the outside… could it be? Raime tried to push his arm deeper in the satchel. Nope, this is not the case.

  He forced himself away, weapon in tow, and the memory pressed him onward.

  Next came a slate of crystal, unassuming but for its faint glow. When he lifted it, he nearly dropped it. A torrent of connections flooded his senses, a well of knowledge so deep he couldn’t see the bottom.

  He clutched it tighter, breathing slow. If the library above is full of books, this… this is the whole internet crammed into a stone.

  A laugh slipped from his throat, thin and half-broken. God, Velthar, you didn’t just leave me relics. You left me a world’s worth of knowledge, and the means to learn it. What is it that you really expect of me?

  But no answers came for him, not even from the memories, just one last gift.

  Raime walked to the far side of the chamber, opposite the door. A mannequin drifted forward, its form draped in shadow until it turned, revealing what it bore.

  The armor was unlike anything Raime had seen. Dark metallic-grey cloth, flowing with the weight of woven metal, caught the light with a muted sheen. The pants were loose, folded in a style he half-remembered from Earth, echoing the ninja of Japanese tradition. Around the waist, an elaborate sash fell in layered knots, trailing down like a banner. The jacket was asymmetrical, longer on the left, patterned subtly with dormant runes, its seams lined with careful embroidery that shimmered faintly.

  Boots lay beneath, armored with sabatons of silvered metal. Vambraces rested on the mannequin’s arms, etched with curling sigils that seemed to breathe in and out, asleep but waiting. And draped across the shoulders was the cloak—a silver weave so fine it almost blurred at the edges, every thread glinting faintly, as though spun from moonlight itself.

  Raime stepped closer, fingertips brushing the sleeve. He startled.

  Metal. Every thread, every stitch, every fold—woven of metal thread so fine they had the softness of cloth. He swallowed hard, staring.

  A ceremonial battle armour… for someone high in the temple.

  The memory said nothing more. Just a lingering weight, like the old monk’s hand had been pressed to his shoulder one last time.

  Raime’s breath left him in a slow hiss as he stood surrounded by the relics. The map, the beads, the weapon, the satchel, the slate, the armour. All of it was his now. A legacy he had not earned, a burden he was not sure he could carry.

  I came into this Rift with nothing but a lever and fear. Now I’m walking out dressed like a ghost of the temple, holding tools that could change everything. What the hell am I supposed to do with all this?