The Veiled Quarter didn't appear on any map printed after the Year of the Red Flood.
It had been quarantined, condemned, and eventually erased. Not with fire or demolition, but with forgetting—a ritual more potent than flame, conducted by Guild historians, sanctioned by the Church, and executed by the Mirror born.
Now it slept beneath the outer ring of Vinterra like a rotting organ, silent and still.
But it dreamed.
Oh, how it dreamed.
Nameless and Elira stood at the lip of the chasm where the Quarter had once risen—a jagged scar in the city's underbelly. Overgrown with rusted ironweed and stalks of deadlight moss, the ruins pulsed faintly with residual dream-energy. Pieces of buildings jutted from the earth like broken teeth.
A cracked streetlamp flickered.
And beneath it, a staircase spiraled downward, carved from petrified bone.
Elira raised her walking stick and murmured a ward under her breath. The cane's runes sparked.
"No map shows this," she said.
"Because it's not on a map," Nameless replied. "It's on a memory."
He held out his hand.
The mirror shard—the last remaining piece of his first crucible—floated above his palm, trembling.
It pulled toward the stair.
Toward her.
Below the Quarter
They descended in silence, the only sound the drip of time leaking between cracks in the dream-vein stone.
The further they went, the more the air changed. Not heavier. Not colder. Just… deeper.
Like swimming through someone else's soul.
Reflections formed on the walls without mirrors. Glimpses of scenes they hadn't lived. Nameless paused at one:
Aveline, younger—laughing as she lit a candle with no flame.
Her eyes glowed with silver.
She turned, smiling.
"I can't die here," she said. "I'm not done writing yet."
Nameless reached toward the image.
It vanished.
The laughter stayed.
Echoing down the stairwell until they reached the base.
The Grave
The grave wasn't a grave in the traditional sense.
It was a library.
Caved in.
Overgrown.
Bookshelves collapsed into roots, tomes melted into bark and memory. Vines bore paper-thin leaves etched with words no longer legible—spoken truths no longer allowed to be written.
At the center, atop a pedestal, sat a mirror.
It wasn't cracked.
It wasn't fogged.
It was empty.
Nameless stepped forward. Elira held back, eyes darting across the walls, tracing sigils faintly carved into the dirt—warnings, seals, forgotten prayers.
"This place was her sanctuary," she said. "She recorded echoes here. Catalogued impossible names. She believed if you wrote something enough, it couldn't be taken."
Nameless nodded.
He touched the mirror.
It sank beneath his palm, soft as water.
And then—
She spoke.
"I was not the first dream walker. But I was the first to leave footsteps."
Aveline's voice resonated not from the mirror—but from beneath it.
The stone cracked.
The floor fell away.
And Nameless fell with it.
The Mind Below the Grave
He landed in light.
Not blinding. Not divine.
Soft. Flickering. Scented like old ink and childhood warmth.
A room unfolded around him—a place that existed only in her memories.
A desk.
A notebook.
A candle burning upside down.
And her.
Aveline.
Sitting, writing, surrounded by mirrors turned inward—none reflecting anything but her words.
She didn't look up.
"You came too soon," she said softly.
Nameless stepped forward.
"They're erasing you. Again."
"They always do."
"They sent the Choir."
Aveline's pen stopped.
"Did you silence them?"
"No," Nameless said. "I reminded them."
She looked up at last.
And her eyes… were mirrors.
But in them, he saw himself—not now, not who he was, but who he would become if he stayed on this path.
A cathedral of echoes.
A city remembering itself through his name.
A storm of voices too loud to contain.
"I'm not ready," he said quietly.
She stood and crossed the space between them, placing a hand to his heart.
"Neither was I."
The world trembled.
From far above, Elira's voice echoed, distant:
"They're here! The Mirror born—they're coming down!"
Aveline leaned closer.
"Then take what I couldn't finish."
She opened her palm.
In it, a single line of text written on a ribbon of dream-thread:
Aveline Mercir, Path of the Echo-Scribe
The thread wrapped around his fingers.
And vanished.
[Path Update: Fractured Echo — Branch Unlocked]
Subclass: Echo-Scribe (Inherited)
Your dreamforge techniques evolve. You may now write anchors into the dreamline—embedding memory not as passive observation, but as command.
— Trait: Memory Ink
Allows recording of true or false events as persistent phenomena in dream-realms. Can be used to rewrite, trap, or guide.
— Ability: Dreamward
Write a phrase into the air that becomes a temporary shield or trigger effect. Wards last longer the more deeply you believe them.
— Passive: Echo Inheritance
Some of Aveline's knowledge—rituals, glyphs, and enemies—may surface in dreams. Her unfinished work is now your burden.
The mirror behind him shattered.
And light poured in.
Nameless turned.
Elira stood above, hand outstretched, bleeding from a cut on her forehead.
Behind her— Guild Enforcers. Mirror born. Crimson-robed Archivists.
And walking at their front, eyes blindfolded, lips sewn shut again…
A Choir figure rebuilt.
Nameless reached up.
Took Elira's hand.
And pulled the memory with him as the world shifted again.
The Ruins Beneath Vinterra—Now a Warzone
Screams echoed. Mirrors cracked. Glyphs burned.
But Nameless stood in the center of it all.
Alive.
Changed.
And behind his eyes, her voice sang:
"You were never supposed to end the dream."
"You were supposed to wake it."