Night returned slowly to Kyrbane.
The ruined city was still, but not silent. Somewhere far off, water dripped from a broken aqueduct. The wind stirred tattered banners across rooftops. The remnants of memory still hummed beneath the stones like an old song no one dared sing aloud.
Pag sat on the edge of a crumbling balcony overlooking the western skyline. Below, lanterns glowed in pockets—makeshift camps, civilian shelters, and corners reclaimed by those who refused to flee. From this height, Kyrbane looked less like a city and more like a wounded animal sleeping with one eye open.
He shifted, wincing as the bandages pulled against his ribs. The Oracle fragment hung from a cord around his neck, heavy against his chest—not just with magic, but meaning.
He didn’t hear Toula approach until she settled beside him, her limbs folded neatly, tail flicking once before curling around her ankles.
For a time, neither spoke.
The sky above was cloudless. Moonlight caught the curve of her horns and the desert-scarred metal of her shoulder guard. Pag didn’t look at her. Not right away.
“You know he could’ve killed me,” he said at last. “Pillowhorror. If he’d wanted to. That final strike… it wasn’t fatal.”
Toula’s reply came softly. “He wanted you to feel it. That you lost. That he let you live.”
Pag nodded. “It worked.”
Another pause.
Then she asked, “Do you regret going down there? Facing him?”
Pag’s throat tightened.
“No,” he said finally. “But I regret that I wasn’t strong enough to stop him. Not completely.”
Toula turned to face him now, eyes amber and unreadable. “Strength isn’t the absence of pain, Pag. Or doubt. It’s the choice to act anyway. Even when you’re outmatched. Even when it hurts.”
He chuckled bitterly. “You sound like a mentor.”
“I’ve had to become one,” she replied. “Kyrbane forced that on a lot of us.”
More silence.
Below, someone sang—just a fragment of an old song in a language Pag didn’t recognize. Soft. Melancholy.
Toula said, “You know… I thought this place was already dead when we arrived. Just a city choking on its own ghosts.”
“And now?”
She looked out at the flickering lanterns below.
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“Now I see a city still fighting.”
Pag followed her gaze.
The lights weren’t organized, weren’t neat—but they weren’t fading either. Every little flicker down there was someone still resisting, still living.
He exhaled slowly, then leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“I don’t know where we should go next. The Core. The relics. Pillowhorror…” He shook his head. “Every direction feels like a mistake waiting to happen.”
Toula smiled faintly. “Then we’ll make those mistakes together.”
Pag looked at her, surprised.
She met his gaze, voice low but firm. “I don’t follow leaders, Pag. I follow people who don’t walk away. And you haven’t, not once.”
They held each other’s gaze for a breath longer than necessary.
And then the moment passed.
Footsteps behind them signaled the others—Andromeda’s solid, deliberate stride, Maverick’s looser, almost musical gait.
“Time to choose,” Andromeda said simply.
Pag rose.
He didn’t have all the answers. The city was still fractured, the path uncertain.
But he wasn’t alone.
Not anymore.
>Quest Paths Unlocked:
[Return to Arcane Core] – Rally allies, access ancient libraries, and warn the governing magisters.
[Pursue Pillowhorror] – Intercept at Verdant Caldera. High risk. Potential confrontation.
[Hunt the Relics] – Travel to isolated memory sites. Disrupt the Quang’s foundation before it solidifies.
Current Party Level: 26
Recommended Level for Each Path: 28+<
They gathered beneath the fractured ceiling of the records annex, where half-rotted scrolls still clung to their shelves like offerings to a forgotten past. Starlight spilled through a broken dome above, catching dust motes in midair like drifting echoes. The map projection glowed faintly in the center of the chamber—three Crucible points pulsing across the ghosted silhouette of the continent.
Pag stood with one hand braced on the stone table, the Oracle fragment humming against his chest. Every decision ahead of them carried weight. And every delay invited disaster.
He cleared his throat.
“We have three leads. Three risks. Each demands everything we’ve got.”
He pointed to the hovering image of the Verdant Caldera, its glyph-marked mountains ringed in crescent script.
“This one’s likely where Pillowhorror’s heading. It’s the farthest, the hardest to reach, and likely the most active. If we go there, we try to stop him before he completes another ritual.”
His finger slid to the Arcane Core sigil—steady, bright, nested like a heart.
“The Core gives us access. Resources. Probably insight we can’t find on our own. But if we go back… we leave Pillowhorror free to move.”
Toula folded her arms, tail twitching. “The Core also gives us legitimacy. Right now we’re acting without sanction. Going rogue on this could mean burning every bridge we’ve built.”
Andromeda, ever stoic, leaned in. “It’s not about bridges. It’s about pressure. The longer we delay, the more this network grows. Every relic Pillowhorror finds feeds the lattice.”
A quiet rustle.
Maverick climbed onto a bench to see the map, too small to reach from the floor. His feet swung beneath him, arms tucked into his oversized sleeves. His eyes glowed with that strange, precocious sharpness he’d always had—the kind that cut deeper than most people noticed.
“Why not both?” he asked.
The others turned.
Maverick didn’t flinch. “You’re talking like it’s one or the other, but it’s not. If he’s building something… something big… then we need to break it while it’s still fragile. That means hunting the relics.”
He jabbed a small finger toward the projection of the salt flats. “But if he gets stronger before we understand what he’s doing, we can’t stop him at all. That means following him too.”
Toula frowned. “You’re saying split up?”
Maverick shook his head. “No. I’m saying follow him—but take away the pieces he needs before he gets there. Burn his bridges behind him. Break the tools he doesn’t know he’s lost.”
A beat of silence passed.
Pag looked down at the boy—dirty-faced, sharp-eyed, too young for the weight of this war—and felt a pang in his chest.
“He’s right,” Pag said quietly. “If we go after Pillowhorror without dismantling his work, we’re walking into a trap. And if we go after the relics without keeping pressure on him, we’re giving him free rein.”
Andromeda folded her arms. “So we follow the shadow. But we carry fire.”
Toula’s gaze swept the map, slow and unreadable. Then she nodded. “We strike his trail. And choke his foundation. Not one or the other—both.”
Pag reached out and touched the glowing mark of the Verdant Caldera. The light flared beneath his fingers.
“Then it’s settled,” he said. “We track Pillowhorror. We break his relic lines. And we don’t stop until the threads stop answering him.”
The decision sealed, the projection dimmed.
Outside, the wind stirred Kyrbane’s ashes once more.
But beneath it, something new moved.
Not fire.
Not silence.
A vow.
