Present Chronicle (Monastery, Year 0)I rise before the eastern bell tolls, though I know not the hour. The corridors lie in stillness, broken only by the distant drip of condensation from the vaulted ceiling. My desk awaits, stacked with the tattered remnants of memory: ink-stained pages, half-erased maps, and empty vials once used to hold the dust of broken crystals. I light three candles, their flames wavering like unsure thoughts, and settle into my chair.
The air here tastes of stone and mildew. I close my eyes and steady my breath, willing the haze in my mind to clear. But it remains—a pall over my thoughts, shifting and impenetrable. My quill hovers above a blank sheet. The novice pressed a question on me last night: "Master, why do you keep writing if you cannot trust your own memories?" I dared not answer then, but now I know: because these pages are all that separate the world from unraveling.
I write a single line:
"The desert sings at night—and its melody is a dirge for the forgotten."
I pause. That phrase feels both foreign and intimately mine. The Inner Echoes whisper:
"You speak in riddles."
"Better a riddle than a lie."
I dip the quill and begin.
Retrospective Scene (Circa –115 Years, Northern Edge of Va'rakan)The sand stretched to the horizon in a living sea of orange and gold. Two suns bore down relentlessly, turning the dunes into a shifting furnace. I was younger then—my back straight, my shoulders unburdened by age or guilt. The Rada Dziesięciu had tasked me with leading an expedition to the Crystal Labyrinth: a hidden network of caverns beneath the desert, rumored to house a lost shrine of the Memory Gods.
My contingent comprised thirty men: desert raiders, scholars versed in ancient tongues, and two silent mystics from Orisylwia. They called themselves the Veilbearers, robed in green velvet and ivory masks. They spoke little, but their hands moved in gestures that sent ripples of chill wind across the dunes.
At twilight, we gathered at the entry point: a fissure in a cliff face, half-concealed by tumbling sand. Carved above it was a single symbol—a winged eye—and beneath, in ancient script: "He who seeks the Heart must offer his own." The warning was clear. I nodded to the Veilbearer at my side, who inclined his masked head. We lit torches and entered.
Inside, the air was cool, scented with damp stone and the distant hum of magic. The walls glimmered with crystalline veins, reflecting the torchlight in fractured patterns. We descended winding stairs hewn from bedrock, deeper and deeper, until the sands of the desert felt a world away.
In the heart of the labyrinth lay a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow. At its center stood a lotus-shaped dais, upon which floated the Heart of Dawn—a gem like molten gold, pulsing softly. Around it, stalactites dripped water into shallow pools that echoed with each drop. The Veilbearers advanced, their voices chanting in a low, mournful cadence.
I stepped forward. Distrust niggled at my mind: memories of the Prism had left me scarred. Yet this quest was different: the Heart of Dawn was said to grant clarity, to purge the mind of fragments not your own. If I could obtain it, perhaps I could restore what Alzheimer had stolen.
But one does not simply take the Heart of Dawn. As I reached the dais, the ground trembled. Shadows slid along the walls, forming shapes—figures of those whose memories I had plundered. The lieutenant who betrayed me at Sur'ut's gates, the priest whose prayers I silenced, the child whose laughter I crushed—each emerged as a wavering silhouette, eyes empty yet accusatory.
I raised my staff. The Heart's glow intensified, and a high note rang through the chamber, as if the gem itself lamented my intrusion. The Veilbearers froze, their chant faltering. I forced my voice above the sound:
"Step back!" I commanded. "This power is mine to claim!"
The specters advanced. Pain lanced through my skull—each brought with it a memory I had stolen: the zealot's conviction, the general's ruthlessness, the child's innocence. I staggered, but I held my ground. I whispered a binding rune, and azure light snaked from my staff, wrapping around the silhouettes and dissipating them into motes of light.
The Heart of Dawn flickered and descended into my palm as though drawn by gravity. I felt its warmth flood my veins, a quiet hum that untangled the knotted threads in my mind. For a heartbeat, I saw clearly: the desert's folds, the distant caravans, the twin suns climbing the sky. I recognized the path I had trodden, the men who followed me, the cost of each action.
Then the gem pulsed violently, and clarity turned to terror. I saw the labyrinth's true nature: not a prison of stone, but the vessel of a god's mind—an infinite fold of memories folded into cavern walls. By seizing the Heart, I had trespassed upon a divine consciousness. The voices returned, not as echoes but as unity, calling me "Intruder."
A surge of panic washed through me. I hurled the gem against the dais. It shattered with a deafening crack, golden shards scattering like stars. The chamber convulsed. Sand cascaded from above. The walls trembled, and the entrance collapsed.
I ran blindly, torch in one hand, staff in the other, as the labyrinth caved behind me. Dust and rock rained down. I burst into the desert night, lungs burning, heart pounding. Behind me, the fissure sealed itself as if it had never existed. The expedition lay scattered—some buried, others fled. I alone escaped with my life, haunted by the choice to break the Heart in order to save my mind.
Present Chronicle (Monastery, Year 0) — ConclusionI set down my quill, sweating despite the chill. The desert's echo still rings in my ears: a lament, a warning, a promise. The broken fragments of the Heart of Dawn are lost to time, but their memory persists here on these pages. I cannot travel back to reclaim what I shattered, nor mend the fissure I opened in that divine mind.
The novice stands unseen behind me, waiting. I dare not reveal the full truth: that every artifact I seized has left a wound not just in the world, but in my soul. Yet the chronicle grows heavier with each line. My hand trembles anew.
I lift the quill once more:
"Beware the promise of clarity, for it may blind as surely as any curse."
The candlelight flickers, and I feel the desert's wind stirring outside the monastery walls, carrying whispers I cannot yet understand. But I will write them down, fragment by fragment, until the truth—whichever truth it may be—emerges from the sands of memory.