The sanctuary trembled behind him as Kael stepped out, the Riftstone door sealing shut with a sigh that felt like an ending.
The map burned in his hand—no longer mere guidance, but a living contract. Six points pulsed like hearts in the void. Kael's gaze locked onto the one furthest east. The Sea of Waking Bones.
He didn't know why he chose it. Maybe it was the name. Maybe it was the whisper he heard when the Gatekeeper spoke of it: "There, the past remembers." Or maybe it was because something inside him already ached for the truth buried beneath its tides.
Whatever the reason, Kael began walking—toward salt, wind, and the dead.
Crossing the Pale Wastes
The journey to the sea was madness stitched into terrain.
The Pale Wastes were endless dunes of bone-white dust, where the sun never rose but the sky never darkened. Kael passed twisted relics of ancient battles—half-buried titans, swords as tall as towers, and fossilized leviathans split open like cracked eggs.
At night, ghostly figures drifted across the horizon, chanting hymns in forgotten tongues. Kael didn't speak. He walked. His boots left no prints, and his thoughts grew heavy with visions—memories not his own.
Each one showed oceans drained, ships shattered, and a city that whispered across waves.
Arrival at the Sea
When Kael finally saw it, the Sea of Waking Bones was silent.
A pale expanse stretched to the horizon—its waters thick and motionless, filled not with waves, but with bones. Skulls floated like buoys. Ribs formed coral reefs. Massive spines arched like the backs of sea serpents frozen mid-motion.
A dock jutted out into the silence, and tethered to it: a boat made of driftwood and tethered memories. Waiting.
A figure stood aboard.
Cloaked in seaweed and bandages, with eyes like tidepools.
"You seek the first relic," she rasped.
Kael nodded. "I do."
She turned, stepping aside. "Then board. But know this—here, the dead do not sleep. And what you wake may not want to be found."
Into the Bones
As the boat pushed off, the sea hissed softly. Kael looked down—beneath the surface, countless faces stared upward, locked in screams or silence. The water wasn't water at all. It was memory. Suspended. Preserved.
And it was hungry.
The cloaked guide began to chant.
The sea answered.
A current stirred, guiding them toward the heart of the sea. In the distance: a spire made of vertebrae and shipwrecks, rising like a cathedral from the waves.
"The Ossuary Crown," the guide said. "Where the first relic sleeps."
Kael's hand drifted to the hilt of his Riftblade.
Something stirred beneath the surface—massive. Watching.