The Chase
Elias ran.
The palace corridors twisted endlessly before him, torchlight flickering as if the very walls struggled to remain real. The whispers pursued him—not just in the air, but inside his mind. They clawed at the edges of his thoughts, pressing against his skull like unseen fingers.
"Elias Vael."
"The one who spoke."
"The one who will speak again."
He clenched his jaw, forcing the voices away.
Behind him, the Silent Monks advanced without sound.
They did not rush, did not call out. But their presence filled the air like a rising tide, devouring all noise, all life.
He risked a glance back.
The monks moved like shadows, their veiled faces unreadable, their black robes billowing despite the still air. There were more now—at least a dozen—emerging from corridors, stepping from places they should not have been able to reach so quickly.
They were closing in.
Elias's lungs burned as he turned a corner, feet pounding against the cold stone. He needed to get out.
But where?
The gates were too far. The halls led nowhere safe.
Then, it struck him.
The Archive.
---
The Hall of Echoes
The corridor narrowed, the torches lining the walls flickering violently as he passed. The air grew heavier, charged with unseen forces.
He was close.
The Silent Monks would not follow him there.
They couldn't.
Ahead, the arched entryway loomed—a vast marble passage leading into the Hall of Echoes, a place where words never faded.
Elias burst through the threshold—
And the whispers exploded.
Thousands of voices crashed over him like a tidal wave.
Every word ever spoken in this place remained.
The chamber stretched high and wide, its stone pillars lined with engravings that shimmered in the dim light. The air pulsed with memories, fragments of conversations from centuries past, lingering in the very walls.
> The Name must never be spoken.
To utter it is to unmake.
Erase him. Silence him.
Elias stumbled, his hands flying to his ears. The whispers weren't just sound—they were alive, pressing into his thoughts, filling his lungs like drowning water.
The Silent Monks halted at the entrance.
They did not enter.
Even they feared this place.
For in the Hall of Echoes, even a whisper could last forever.
---
The Doors to the Archive
Elias forced himself forward.
At the far end of the hall stood a pair of ancient doors, sealed for centuries, untouched by time.
The Archive of Forgotten Names.
It was said that no name truly vanished, only lost its place in the world. This chamber housed those names—words erased from history, buried by time, removed by force.
The Silent Monks had made sure of that.
And yet, tonight, the doors stood open.
Elias hesitated.
The Archive had not been opened in generations. The magic woven into its seals should have held indefinitely.
But something had broken them.
Something had called him here.
Behind him, the whispers churned, pressing against his mind with increasing desperation.
He stepped inside.
---
A Place That Should Not Exist
Darkness swallowed him whole.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then, the torches flared to life.
Rows upon rows of stone shelves stretched endlessly in all directions, towering overhead in a vast, circular chamber. Unlike the grand libraries of the palace, these shelves did not hold books.
They held names.
Names carved into metal plates.
Names etched into shattered tablets.
Names written in ink that refused to fade.
Some were simple. Others impossibly long, twisting in ways no human tongue could pronounce.
Names that should not exist.
And at the center of the room, upon a pedestal of polished obsidian, lay a single name.
Written in shifting ink.
His name.
Elias Vael.
The ink pulsed.
And suddenly—
Elias remembered.
---
The First Name
A rush of something slammed into him.
His vision blurred. His breath hitched.
He was no longer standing in the Archive.
He was somewhere else.
Somewhen else.
A city rose around him—not Vareth, but something older, something grander. A vast palace loomed in the distance, its towers carved from a stone that shimmered like molten gold.
He stood within a great chamber, its floor etched with sigils, its walls lined with scholars draped in deep blue robes. They formed a circle around him, their hands raised in warning.
> "The Name must never be spoken."
"It is the root of all things. The thread that binds the world."
"To utter it is to unmake."
Elias—or the one who bore his name before—stood in the center of it all, heart pounding, fingers curling around a quill that had never been held before.
He had written something.
Spoken something.
A Name.
And the moment he did—
The world shattered.
A roar of collapsing stone. A scream of unraveling time.
Cities crumbled. Kingdoms fell.
Reality itself broke apart—
And was rewritten.
---
The Awakening
Elias gasped.
The vision snapped away.
He staggered, gripping the edge of the pedestal, his breath coming in ragged, uneven bursts. The ink beneath his hands trembled.
This was no ordinary archive.
This was his prison.
The Silent Monks had not been keepers of knowledge.
They had been his jailers.
And the world outside—the world that had forgotten his name—
It had been rewritten to keep him from remembering.
A deep, shuddering breath escaped him.
His fingers hovered over the ink.
The whispers swirled around him, screaming, pleading, demanding.
> Speak.
Silence.
Remember.
Forget.
He could do it.
He could say the Name again.
Undo it all.
Beyond the doors, the Silent Monks waited, motionless.
They knew what was at stake.
If Elias spoke the Name again, reality itself would break.
His breath shook.
His fingers curled into a fist.
And he had to choose.
Find out Next time one Ancient Legends!