Altha wandered the near endless rows of bookshelves, trailing his fingers along ancient spines like a priest touching reliquaries.
Each one bore the weight of centuries—flaked leather, crumbling parchment, and titles half-swallowed by time.
Most of the tomes seemed preoccupied with the divine, and one name surfaced repeatedly:
"The Lord of the Ashen Pyre..."
He muttered the title aloud, brow furrowing.
It was a god, clearly. Revered, feared... perhaps both. But no closer did the name bring him to solving the puzzle of the barrier.
Its shimmering wall still loomed at the edge of his memory—blinding, impenetrable, and utterly foreign.
For all his eagerness to leave this cathedral-prison and make his way to one of the distant Spires, a single truth gnawed at him:
He had no idea where to begin.
The thought clung to him like damp air, oppressive and unsheddable.
He spent hours pacing the mezzanines, climbing ladders, and rifling through faded manuscripts.
Each page was a prayer to another god, a hymn to some celestial doctrine, or an invocation of obscure rituals. Beautiful, cryptic, and completely useless.
Eventually, frustration wore him thin.
He collapsed into a chair and leaned forward, letting his forehead gently meet the counter with a soft thud.
Then again. Thud.
And again. Thud.
"Heavens forbid," he mumbled between impacts. "I curse this indecisiveness."
A beat passed. Then he stilled, exhaling against the dusty wood.
"Okay... okay. We just need to—uhh..."
Silence...
He groaned into the counter, fingers splaying across its surface like someone appealing to a higher power. A very indifferent one.
"Well I can't read the whole damn library," he admitted aloud. "It would take years. Lifetimes, maybe."
He sat up and looked around. Endless shelves. Interweaving staircases. A sacred maze built to trap the studious.
"What I need," he muttered, "is something that predates this place's destruction. A book written during its construction… something that explains what this place was before that." He pointed at the window to the barrier outside.
He stood again and glanced around the grand chamber. Lanterns still floated in their quiet halos.
"But I don't even know how they organized anything here…"
His voice echoed slightly, as though the library itself were holding its breath.
He scanned the nearest shelf. No numbers. No categories. No color coding or sigils indicating a system.
"Of course," he sighed. "Leave it to zealots and thiest arcanists to trust divine intuition over an index."
He pushed himself off the table, the chair creaking faintly as he leaned back, staring into the canopy of vaulted shelves.
"I need to... or rather, I should pause this for now," he muttered. "Before I spiral into obsession."
He turned his gaze to the window. Beyond the window panes, the world outside stretched into a barren wasteland—cracked earth and wavering heat. No signs of life. No breeze. Just the soft shimmer of mirage and ruin or at least that's the case for everything inside the barrier.
"I have food and water to worry about… that is if I hope to even live long enough to escape."
His eyes fell to the bracer on his wrist. The cold sheen of its surface caught the lanternlight, casting back a sharp glint—like flint striking steel. Like a spark of inspiration, an idea came to him.
"We've been here for hours," he whispered. "But I don't even know what my status is let alone my Meaning or Supposition.
He scratched the back of his head, the weight of his thoughts gathering like dust in the quiet.
"Maybe… maybe we slow down. Take this step by step." He took in some deep breaths. "Maybe I'll start there. Finding out what those two are is sure to be helpful, I think."
Drawing in a breath, he centered himself.
He focused inward, drawing Psyche through the channels of his body. It was like navigating a map with no... more like he was in the dark with lanterns looking for himself. He traced the familiar paths, then suddenly—
There, somewhere in the distance. A foreign presence. Lurking at the edge of his awareness. Cold and Untethered.
"That must be it," he thought.
He channeled Psyche into the alien presence—slow at first, then with increasing pressure. The presence stirred, drawing closer now.
Then, a voice—not spoken, but embedded in the into him—whispered across his consciousness:
> [Ethear Vessel: Dormant]
[Ethear Vessel: Active]
[Ethear Vessel Completion: 0%]
Altha's eyes flicked open.
Before him, a screen unfolded into view—hovering in the air, cast in ghostly shades of grey, it seemed like a hologram.
Lines of corrupted code and system readouts scrolled across it like cracks splintering glass:
> [Exception...]
[Error...]
[System Breakdown...]
[Ethear Vessel Breached...]
[Ethear Vessel: @###@####@@*@...]
The text kept updating in real-time, jittering, unraveling—like a machine caught mid-stutter, or someone trying to scream through a damaged throat.
Altha stared.
"No no no no no no please," he muttered, "don't tell me I've messed this up already. How does someone mess up something like this?"
He waited. Hopelessly, Helplessly for the screen to return.
Then the screen flickered... and vanished.
Silence reigned over the scholarly library, almost sacrosanct.
Only the rustling quiet of the library remained.
But inside—he felt it. His reserves of Psyche draining almost entirely.
He stood up abruptly, fury biting his voice.
"Oh, come on! How—how does everything I touch mysteriously combust?!"
The anger crumbled just as quickly as it rose. He slumped back into the chair, eyes fluttering shut.
Now it was all catching up to him.
His body felt heavy—like it had soaked up the weight of the entire temple. Hunger twisted in his stomach. His throat felt scorched. Muscles ached. His head throbbed like a war drum in the distance.
He gritted his teeth from the head ache that followed nearly collapsing to the floor from its intensity alone.
A part of him wished he could pass out from the pain but no such mercy was granted to him. This went on for an hour or two just trying to keep himself together.
But the pain eventually subsided and a grey holographic screen appeared in front of him, sweat drenched as he was.
A voice emerged croachy yet melodic. It said:
> [Alterations: Successful]
[Ethear Vessel —> Outer-Altar]
> [Outer-Altar: Active]
[Outer-Altar Completion: 0%]
[Profile: Complete]
He desperately wanted to take a look at it but felt the strain on his mind as his eyes felt as though they could burst from his head at any moment from the debilitating pain.
He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing as he collapsed into his arms.
The light of the barrier from outside the window slowly transitioned to a dimmer blurred blue colour as the hours danced on a crimson string.