The journey to the Spiral was not one that could be mapped.
The Bedrock Sea lay far to the south, beyond the reach of known kingdoms, hidden under miles of stone and storms. It was not water, but petrified memory—an ocean of fossilized time, where the sediment of creation itself layered over the oldest truths.
The Warden's garden did not have roads.
Only roots.
She led them herself to the edge of the Reaches—an act that stunned even Lirien. The Warden of Thorns had not left her domain in millennia. Yet now, she carved a path through her living forest, each step unweaving a part of her soul into the dirt.
("You do not need to guide us,") Haraza said as they passed under a canopy of bone-white leaves.
The Warden smiled faintly. ("I do. For I must give you a piece of me.")
Haraza opened his mouth to ask, but the forest answered for him.
Before them rose a tree unlike any other. It was colossal—thicker than a fortress tower, taller than mountains. Its bark was obsidian. Its leaves glimmered with silver veins.
And at its base was a door.
Carved in symbols from the age before glyphs. Shapes that made Haraza's blood heat and his Helm shimmer.
("This is the Gate of Descent,") the Warden said.
Lirien bowed her head, voice hushed. ("The first root.")
The Warden nodded. ("The Accord was born here. Beneath the Sea. The Spiral waits in its heart. If you wish to remember what the others have forgotten, you must follow the path of descent.")
She placed her hand upon the bark.
A segment of the tree peeled open, revealing a staircase made of light and memory.
("And if I fail?") Haraza asked.
("Then you will not return,") she said simply. ("And the world will forget you.")
Haraza turned to Lirien.
("Will you come?")
She hesitated—just long enough for Haraza to see the weight in her eyes. But she stepped forward.
("I follow until the end.")
They entered the tree.
The bark sealed behind them.
And the descent began.
It was not a staircase.
It was a timeline.
Each step downwards folded reality tighter. The air grew heavy, not with pressure, but with remembrance. With every level they passed, something in Haraza's mind unlocked. Details of dreams he didn't know he had. A vision of a shattered moon. A song he remembered hearing at a subway station—now sung in a chorus of voices from a world that had never known Earth.
Lirien held the Radiant Sigil aloft. Its light bent and warped, shifting colors with every breath.
("This place…") she whispered, ("... it feeds on story.")
Haraza nodded, clutching the Helm tighter.
("Then we give it one.")
The lowest level of the descent was a mirror.
Not glass—but memory made solid.
Before them, stretched across the horizon like an ocean of polished stone, was the Bedrock Sea.
A cracked plain of petrified time.
Fossils of moments long lost jutted from the earth—half-faded thrones, broken spears, stilled lightning frozen in midair. Colors did not behave here. Some hues refused to be named. Some bled from one shape into another.
Far beyond, looming like a forgotten titan, was a spiral-shaped spire—black as void, tall as sky.
("The Spiral,") Lirien whispered.
Haraza stepped forward, and the sea sang.
Not a song of welcome.
But of testing.
The Bedrock Sea was not inert.
It watched.
Every step across it was a trial. The very ground shifted with memory. Echoes of lives not their own erupted in flashes—visions bursting across their minds.
A soldier dying for a love he could not name.
A child burning with untamed magic.
A dragon mourning the mountain it once called home.
Haraza stumbled at one such vision, knees buckling. He saw himself—not as he was, but as he could have been: sitting on a subway in Tokyo, headphones on, eyes dull. A stranger to everything, a ghost in his own life.
Then the Helm pulsed.
And the vision shattered.
He stood, gasping, sweat on his brow.
("You saw it too,") Lirien said.
He nodded.
("Why does it show us this?")
She looked toward the Spiral. ("Because the Spiral is not a place. It is a truth. To reach it, you must be willing to confront what was, is, and will never be.")
("Great,") Haraza muttered. ("Another test.")
Lirien smirked faintly. ("You'd think you'd be used to them by now.")
He chuckled—and immediately regretted it.
Because the ground beneath him cracked.
And a voice spoke.
("Not yet.")
It rose from the stone like a corpse from a grave.
A creature of memory.
A beast of forgotten guilt.
It had no face—only masks. Dozens, maybe hundreds, all swirling around a central void. Each mask bore a different expression: sorrow, rage, hope, betrayal. They shifted constantly, aligning themselves to match Haraza's thoughts.
("He who seeks the Spiral must pass the Watcher of Could-Have-Been.")
Lirien raised her blade.
But the beast ignored her.
It focused only on Haraza.
("You are fractured,") it intoned. "Born of a world without myth. Brought to one steeped in it. You think yourself savior."
("But you are chance.")
("A ripple. An echo of a moment never meant to matter.")
Haraza clenched his fists. ("I'm here. That's what matters.")
("Is it?")
The creature surged forward—not with motion, but with weight. Haraza's knees buckled. His breath caught.
Suddenly, he wasn't standing in the Bedrock Sea.
He was back in Tokyo.
Rain drummed on glass.
His apartment was dim.
He sat alone.
The Helm lay on a table, inert. Forgotten.
And he felt nothing.
No purpose. No pull. No destiny.
Just stillness.
Hopelessness.
Nothingness.
("This is who you were," the Watcher whispered. "A man who waited. And waited. And never chose.")
Haraza's chest tightened.
But then—
The Helm glowed.
And he remembered.
He did choose.
He jumped into the Rift.
He stood before gods.
He shattered seals.
He fought.
And he was still here.
The illusion cracked.
The Watcher reeled.
("You deny your past?")
Haraza stood, eyes blazing.
("No,") he growled. ("I forge it.")
He leapt forward.
And the Helm answered.
The glyphs burned as he struck—five now, each a memory, each a truth. Fire, Breath, Shadow, Mind, and now—Will.
The Watcher screamed, its masks shattering one by one.
And when it fell, it did not bleed.
It remembered.
A name long lost.
A promise once made.
And then it was gone.
Lirien helped him up.
She did not speak.
But she looked at him differently.
Not as a warrior. Not as a champion.
But as something becoming.
The Spiral loomed ever closer.
And as they neared, the air changed again.
No longer heavy.
No longer surreal.
But clear.
Like the moment before a storm.
The structure was vast—its base buried in petrified time, its peak lost to the stars. A door lay at its root. Carved not with words, but with questions.
Three questions.
Each one glowing faintly.
Haraza stepped forward.
The first question pulsed.
("What do you remember?")
He exhaled.
And spoke...