The path led downward—spiraling, suffocating, carved through obsidian and silence. Kael and Saerin descended for what felt like hours, their only guide the soft golden glow emanating from the pendant, now pulsing with the power of the Flame Shard.
The air grew colder. Not the chill of ice or wind—but the kind that gnawed at memory, at emotion. Saerin clutched her blade tighter.
"They say the deeper you go beneath Eldros, the more the city remembers you," she whispered.
"Or the more it makes you forget," Kael replied.
At the bottom of the spiral, they entered a grand hall—roofless, broken, bathed in starlight that should not have reached this deep. Ruins of a long-dead civilization lay scattered across the floor: shattered mosaics, collapsed columns, and a fountain still trickling water that shimmered like liquid moonlight.
But it was not empty.
A figure waited at the center. Cloaked in twilight shadows, his face hidden beneath a silver mask shaped like a cracked moon.
"I wondered when the bearer of the Pendant would find me," the masked man said, his voice calm, echoing unnaturally.
Kael stepped forward. "You know what this is?"
"I know what it was. And what it can become."
He raised his hand—and from the ruins, stone guardians rose, ancient constructs with blue fire in their hollow eyes.
Saerin drew her blade. "We don't have time for riddles."
The masked man bowed mockingly. "Then let the stones speak truth."
The battle was instant—violent.
Kael dodged a crushing blow, the impact cracking the floor. Saerin danced between two guardians, her sword flashing arcs of silver in the dim light. But the constructs were relentless, powered by ancient magic and memory.
Kael's pendant glowed brighter—reacting. Words whispered in a forgotten tongue filled his mind.
Call the memory. Let it guide.
He closed his eyes and spoke the word instinctively.
"Veren'aleth."
Light exploded outward. For a moment, the hall was filled with visions—snippets of Eldros as it once was. Children playing in sunlit streets. Towers of gold and light. A city before its fall.
And then—it faded.
But the guardians halted. Their fire dimmed. They turned to the masked man... and knelt.
The man stepped back in shock. "You… you accessed the Core Memory."
Kael opened his eyes, breathless. "And now I want answers."
The man slowly removed his mask. Beneath it was a face Kael recognized from murals, from stories, from the oldest myths.
"Welcome, Kael," he said. "I am Lioren. First Guardian of Eldros. And your enemy is no longer asleep."