For one, the road to the Library of the Forgotten was dangerous. The farther they walked into the forest, the more the trees seemed to close around them from all sides, their gnarled branches twisting like skeletal fingers. The air was heavy with unnatural silence, broken only by the occasional stirring of unseen animals.
Lily moved forward, alert to her senses. She felt like the forest was watching them, seemed aware of their purpose. After a few hours of walking, they reached a clearing, which had an ancient structure made of stone, half-hidden by ivy and moss. Heavy, iron-bound doors slightly stood ajar and invited them to go inside.
The instant they stepped in the room, a radical change felt itself established. Old paper and dust scents hung heavy in the air, and the light seemed to flicker between showing and not showing what it carried in its flames.
Massive, with shelves towering so high up into the blackness above, a sea of books, scrolls, and artifacts. The silence within the library was almost profound, punctuated only by their own breathing sounds. Elysia took them to a section near the back of the library with the shelves jammed with old leather-bound tomes.
Lily flipped through the titles. Her fingers ran over the old spines, finally drawing out one inscribed in a faded name: The Chronicles of Shadow's Rise. Opening it, she found an account on the origin of the Harbinger.
The Harbinger is not a being of darkness," Lily read aloud. "It was human-once, at least-a potent mystic who attempted to transcend mortality by merging with shadow. But the ritual went awry, twisting their soul and binding it to darkness.".
The group listened, entranced, as Lily continued: "It goes on to say the spirit of the Harbinger can be weakened by light, but it will only truly perish if its original name is spoken."
"That explains why it reacted so violently to your light," Clara said. "But how do we find out its original name?
Elysia pointed to a passage near the bottom of the page. "There's a reference here to a place called the Valley of Echoes. It says those who enter the valley might be able to hear names of lost souls.".
The group looked at one another, the weight of which hung before them like some anticipated storm. "They said it was treacherous," one whispered, "down there in the Valley of Echoes - souls lost, drifting, and drifting till their names were spoken one last time. They had no choice, or so the others warned.".