The Academy's Grand Library had always carried a faint scent of aged parchment and magic. Under the flickering glow of enchanted sconces, it loomed vast and orderly—shelves winding into archways, staircases spiralling up to mezzanines, and walls etched with runes that dampened noise and kept knowledge humming silently in the air.
But tonight, it felt… different.
Kieran—his real self hidden under a simple illusion spell—stood at the farthest alcove of the third floor. The place was nearly empty, save for the sound of a shifting candle and the faint, eerie scratching of parchment from below.
He blinked, slowing his perception with a skill he rarely used—Temporal Echo—and tilted his head.
A noise. A whisper.
"…open it again…"
His system chimed softly.
[Warning: Unknown magical signature detected. Analysis... Complete.][A dimensional veil is weakening beneath this point. Hidden entrance marked.]
Kieran crouched. His hand brushed over the old marble floor—smooth to the eye, but warped subtly with illusion. He triggered Spectral Perception and watched as the image peeled back like ash blown from a fire, revealing a staircase—old, spiral, and carved not with stone, but with obsidian etched in forbidden glyphs.
[Quest Unlocked: Hidden Scenario - "The Tome That Breathes"]Description: Investigate the source of the echo beneath the Grand Library.Reward: ???Warning: [Cursed Environment] detected.
A grin curled at the corner of his mouth. "Well, well."
With a final glance behind him, he vanished into the shadow. The staircase sighed as if inhaling dust and memory.
Beneath the Library — The Sealed Chamber
The descent stretched longer than it should've. Spatial warping. He activated his Dimensional Anchor, and the stairs straightened, finally revealing a room.
No door.
Just a curtain of shadow, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Kieran stepped through.
The chamber was round, completely smooth, and impossibly silent.
In the centre stood a pedestal… and upon it lay a book bound in crimson-scaled leather, as if stitched from the skin of a beast long extinct. The cover bore a single eye, half-closed.
As Kieran approached, the eye twitched open. A slit pupil swirled with golden runes.
He read the title scrawled beneath in an archaic language.
"Codex of Sable Memories"A Testament of the Forgotten Empire.
His system pulsed with unease.
[Warning: Tier 9 Cursed Artifact detected. Contents contain fragmented world history, forbidden truths, and emotional resonance magic.]
[Option: Absorb partial contents through System-filtered relay?]
Y/N
Kieran whispered, "Yes."
The moment he agreed, the air trembled. The eye on the book shut tight, and a ghostly voice echoed through the chamber, not spoken aloud but inside his mind.
"Do you wish to remember what the world was made to forget?"
His vision blurred.
He saw flashes—cities buried beneath the sea, dragons bound in chains made of divine scripts, and a tower standing above clouds, its apex shattered, wrapped in thorns of time.
Blood flowed backward. A figure in a black crown walked across broken stars.
Then silence.
[Partial Download Complete: 7.8%]Entry Logged: [Volume I - The Tower Before Time]
New Function Unlocked: "Memory Weave" – Allows cross-referencing hidden history fragments with current world state.
Kieran exhaled, fingers trembling ever so slightly.
"…So the world was rewritten."
The realization shook him—not in panic, but in awe. He could feel it now: threads of manipulated fate, edited timelines, erased records.
Who had the power to do that?
He reached out again—but the book had already turned to stone.
Its eye shut. Its whispers gone.
Kieran didn't need more. This was just the beginning.
Meanwhile… Elsewhere in the World
[In the city of Viremont — Border of the Sylvan Marshlands]
A hooded figure strolled into a tavern with no name. His eyes glowed dimly with violet fire. A cultist—one of the rising sects known only as "The Eclipsed Faith."
He sat across a woman veiled in silver.
"Another fragment has awakened."
She nodded. "The tower trembles. The Crown has begun to stir."
"The false tyrant will rise again."
Their drinks clinked softly.
A crow landed on the tavern's ledge, its eyes hollow—glass marbles of unnatural colour. It cawed once.
And the cultists smiled.
Back at the Academy
Kieran emerged quietly from the hidden chamber, the entrance sealing behind him like a dream ending.
He didn't speak. Not yet.
But his mind raced with a thousand things.
He now had a partial record—7.8%—of a world that no longer existed. The Codex of Sable Memories would likely be one of many cursed remnants. Each likely protected by death, distortion, or worse.
He would need help deciphering more… and he knew exactly who to call.
That night, under moonlight, he summoned Elira through the Crown Crest Link.
Kieran:Prepare the Memory Division. We're going hunting for truths the gods tried to bury.
And from the shadows of Hidden Crown, the wheels began to turn again.