I wasn't supposed to be in the garden.
Not this late. Not when the moons were out. Not when the air smelled like stone and sulfur.
But the whispers led me.
Not words this time. Just… pulling.
The central garden of House Virdane had a fountain shaped like a sleeping hydra, heads curled in spirals. Behind it, thorns covered a wall of twisted ivy—untouched for decades.
I passed the thorns. They parted. Not like plants, but like they knew I was coming.
Behind them: stone steps, curling down. Cold breath blew from the opening. My legs trembled, but I walked down anyway.
> "System interface dimmed. Area below not recognized."
The system message hovered in the dark like a ghost. Then vanished.
That was the first time I realized—even the system was afraid of something.
---
The steps ended in a room made of black brick. Dust hung thick in the air, unmoved by time.
And in the center, a pedestal with a shard of crystal—pulsing.
> [UNREGISTERED OBJECT DETECTED]
Would you like to initiate resonance?
Y / N
I didn't even touch it. I just thought: Yes.
The room lit up.
Not with fire, or light, but memory.
A battlefield. Sky like ink. Creatures crawling out of moons. A man with one eye screaming names older than language.
Then a scream—my own. My skin burned with glyphs.
And in the darkness:
> [SYSTEM UPDATE: Trait Acquired – Dream-Echo Instinct]
Rank: Unknown
Effect: Allows the user to tap into ancestral or forbidden memories
I collapsed. But before blacking out, I saw something move across the wall—an eye.
It wasn't part of the system. It was something older.
And it blinked.
When I woke, I was not in my room.
I was in the old crypt library, a place no one had entered for over a hundred years. Scrolls scattered, books opened, dust unsettled.
And someone was watching me.
"Who are you?" I asked.
A figure cloaked in silver stepped out from behind a column. Her eyes shone like twin moons.
"I'm one of the Observers," she said softly. "And you've touched something you shouldn't have."
> [CHARACTER STATUS UNLOCKED]
Name: Vel Eshra
Race: Half-Seer
Class: Observer of the Forgotten – Lv. 26
Traits: [Moon Veil], [Ancient Sight], [Chrono-Touch]
"I need answers," I said.
"And I need time," she replied. "But it's running out, Kael. Something in you woke up. And others... they felt it."