What sings in the dark does not wish to be found… but always hopes to be heard.
Kael, Riven, and Lia travel through a region known as the Weeping Scar, a desolate valley where rain never falls, and the soil hums with low, unsettling hymns. The locals believe Mirazal is cursed — a city swallowed by time during the First Sundering, when gods walked and died.
On the fourth night, the group is attacked by dust wraiths — shadows that sing forgotten names to blind their victims. Kael uses Velcarion's ring to repel them. His connection to the dead begins to strengthen… and whisper back.
Riven looks pale afterward. "We're nearing the Choir. I can feel the pull."
Lia, exhausted, adds, "We're not just walking into the past. We're walking into its tomb."
At dawn, they find it.
Mirazal.
A sunken city half-swallowed by the earth, with spires and towers protruding like blackened ribs from a corpse. Faint chanting echoes through the wind.
They descend through shattered catacombs, following glyphs in Old Flame Script — likely left by Kael's ancestors. The city's architecture is wrong: angles that bend space subtly, statues with too many eyes, murals that shift when unobserved.
At its center stands a massive cathedral, split down the middle by a chasm. Above it, a floating stone heart pulses with dim light — the Heart of Seralyth.
[🔔 Quest Triggered: "The Dust Remembers" — Uncover the origin of the Choir and survive their hymn.]
Inside the cathedral, the Choir waits.
They wear masks made of bone and ash. They sing in harmony, words that resurrect memory itself. Their leader, Archcantor Embaran, greets Kael by name.
"You are Flame-born. You carry her silence in your marrow. The world seeks to bury the gods. But we remember. And so we raise them."
Kael demands answers about the Heart of Seralyth.
Embaran offers him a deal: "Enter the Choir's Hymn. Survive the song of the god-fragment. If your soul remains whole… she will speak to you."
Kael agrees.
Embaran leads Kael to a Well of Echoes — a pool of ash and starlight. Kael steps in.
Instantly, reality shifts.
He awakens in a twisted dreamscape: Mirazal as it once was — golden, thriving, ruled by a woman with silver flames in her eyes. Seralyth, a goddess of memory and rebirth.
But Kael sees her betrayal too:
The Pantheon turned on her for seeking to resurrect a dead world.
Her followers were buried alive, singing to her even as the dust filled their lungs.
Before her death, she fragmented herself — heart, voice, and name — to escape the gods' erasure.
Kael sees a vision of her speaking to Velcarion, his ancestor.
"I give you my flame, not to rule, but to remember me. Do not let the dust win."
Kael reaches out to her heart.
Kael awakens screaming.
The Choir surrounds him, silent.
Embaran whispers, "She chose you. We felt it."
Kael now bears a mark on his chest: a silver flame wrapped in roots.
[🔔 Trait Gained: Memory of Seralyth — Grants temporary access to divine memory magic. May resist memory-altering effects. Warning: Extended use may fracture identity.]
But the temple begins to collapse.
The Ash Choir, sensing they've succeeded, begins a mass self-immolation ritual, singing louder as they burn — trying to become memory incarnate.
Kael, Lia, and Riven escape as the city begins to crumble.
As they flee, Kael hears a voice whisper:
"Now you remember me… Now the gods will fear again."
The trio returns to the academy to find it in lockdown.
The Council of Nine Pillars has arrived. Their purpose: to determine whether Kael should be sealed, weaponized, or erased.
A summons awaits him.
"Attend the tribunal at dawn. Your soul stands trial."