Some doors aren't locked to keep you out. They're locked to keep something in. The Hollowed Moon isn't a place you find. It's a place that remembers you—and demands you remember it in return.
Kael sat by a broken pillar in the ruins outside Ashport, his halberd resting across his knees. The stars had begun to shift in the sky — one of the many signs that the world was no longer what it used to be. Since the Eye had opened, since his name had been spoken aloud by gods who once conspired to erase him, nothing felt grounded.
Even the earth breathed differently now.
Kara Yil returned in silence, dragging behind her the corpse of something once divine — part angel, part machine. Her coat was torn, her face bruised, and one eye was bandaged in blood-soaked gauze.
Kael stood quickly. "What happened?"
"They sent a probe. Guild-aligned, but carrying divine sigils. They tried to take my Core." She tossed a glowing shard into Kael's hand. "So I fed them to the abyss instead."
Despite the blood, she smirked. That signature grin — savage and sharp. Kael didn't smile back, but he nodded. A silent show of respect.
Kara reached into her cloak and pulled out something wrapped in aged leather and sealed with blood. An ancient map — its edges cracked like sun-dried bone. Glyphs shimmered faintly across it, refusing to stay still.
"This is what I promised," she said. "It belonged to Aeon. You — before you fell."
Kael unrolled it slowly. The map showed no continent. No seas. No cities. Only a swirling black void cradling a pale, cratered sphere suspended in a ring of broken light.
"The third fragment," Kara said, her voice low. "It's not on Eidria. It's in a pocket realm... one Aeon created himself."
Kael's brow furrowed. "A world within a world?"
"Worse," she replied. "A graveyard of memories. Locked in eclipse. The Hollowed Moon."
Kael touched the sigil on the map, and it pulsed — not with power, but recognition. Like it knew him. Like it missed him.
His chest tightened. Was this where the last piece of his humanity still slept? Or the last piece of Aeon that had refused to die?
To enter that realm, Kara explained, he needed a gatekeeper: Izel — the last disciple of Aeon, thought to have died during the First Sundering. But he wasn't dead.
"He's trapped in the Mirrored Maze," Kara said. "A dungeon where time eats itself. It resets every time you lie."
Kael turned to Ress Fen, now walking beside them. His body bore new black tattoos, etched in flickering shadowrunes. His eyes, once human, now mirrored glass — reflecting Kael's own face back at him.
"You sure you're up for this?" Kael asked.
Ress smirked. "I've followed worse gods than you."
They stood before the entrance to the Mirrored Maze — a shimmering wall of silver light shaped like a doorway but leading into pure distortion. Whispers floated from it, fragments of truth and memory.
Kara touched Kael's shoulder before he stepped in. "Don't speak unless it's true. Don't look unless you're ready."
Kael nodded and stepped through.
The maze breathed.
It wasn't a structure — it was a mind. Glass corridors shifted, memories flickered on walls like living paintings. Each lie spoken made the layout reset, doors vanish, rooms devour themselves.
As Kael walked, the maze responded. Illusions formed — his mother, weeping. The Guild priest who'd sold him. The Reaver he'd killed. Each one asked a question:
"Did you ever want to be a god?"
No.The hallway folded in on itself. Lie.
He was forced back to the entrance.
"Did you hate them for fearing you?"...Yes.The path opened.
He wasn't walking through architecture — he was peeling back pieces of himself. With every honest answer, the maze offered a route deeper. Until they reached the center.
There, upon a throne of frozen tears and rusted swords, sat Izel.
Or what remained of him.
Half his body had turned to stone. His beard was white ash. His eyes flickered with gold light, but dimmed with each breath.
"You're late," Izel whispered. "But not unexpected."
Kael stepped closer. "You know who I am."
"You were Aeon. Now you are Kael. But you're not yet whole. That's why the third fragment eludes you."
Kael stared at the disciple, and for a moment, something ancient stirred behind his ribs. Not memory — remorse.
"I made this realm," Kael murmured, realization crashing into him. "I sealed the fragment away... not to protect it, but to protect me from it."
Izel nodded. "The fragment is guarded by your own wrath — Aeon's rage, unfiltered and unbound. The part of you that never forgave."
Kael gritted his teeth. "Then I'll unseal it. Not because I want power — but because if I don't... they'll keep hunting me. And this world will keep bleeding."
Izel raised a shaking hand. A silver ring floated to Kael — the key to the Hollowed Moon. "Then go. And may you survive yourself."
Kael took the ring.
And the Maze began to collapse.
[End Of Chapter 12]
As Kael stepped into the eclipse gate, a voice echoed from the darkness beyond the moon:
"I remember you. Do you remember me?"
⟡ Preview Teaser: Chapter 13 - Eclipse of the Self ⟡The Hollowed Moon is not just a prison. It's a mirror. And what Kael locked away inside it… has been waiting. The next battle isn't against gods, or Guilds, or monsters.It's against the wrath he abandoned — the fury that wore his face.And it does not want to return to him.