The Tower of Unknowing loomed before them, an impossible silhouette against the blood-colored horizon.
Its base was wide and uneven, forged from obsidian and something else—metal that shimmered in and out of visibility, as though rejecting the world around it. The tower stretched so high it pierced the clouds, and its top vanished into the roiling ashstorm above, where lightning danced like veins across a dying sky. A storm brewed in silence, held back only by the Tower's defiant stillness.
Haraza Genso stood before it, glaive gripped in both hands, the pulse of the Seed beneath his ribs in rhythm with the tower's subtle thrum—like a heartbeat echoing across time. He'd felt the Seed react to many things: corrupted beasts, twisted memories, fractured relics. But this… this was different. It was calling.
("This is not a place of knowledge,") Lirien warned beside him, her cloak billowing in the rising wind. ("It's a vault of unasked questions. The kind the world wasn't meant to answer.")
Haraza exhaled slowly. ("Then let's ask them anyway.")
The threshold was a circular gate—ten feet high, etched with shifting glyphs. They pulsed with a faint, ice-blue light, fading as Haraza approached. For a moment, silence reigned.
Then the gate unfolded.
It didn't open. It twisted, like petals of stone and shadow blooming in reverse, revealing a corridor carved into the black. No torches. No fire. Only a silver-blue glow from veins of Riftlight that pulsed like arteries down the length of the hallway.
They stepped inside.
The moment his foot touched the inner floor, the sound outside vanished. No wind. No storm. Just silence.
And then—whispers.
They came from everywhere and nowhere. A thousand voices overlapping, chanting and murmuring in a language he didn't know but somehow understood. He knew these voices. Not personally, but deeply. They were the dead. The lost. The sacrificed.
They were the Rifted.
("Don't listen too long,") Lirien whispered. ("Each voice is a thread. If you pull the wrong one, it pulls back.")
Haraza nodded.("Got it. Don't tug on ghosts.")
The hallway opened into a chamber—massive, circular, and entirely empty save for a dais in the center. Upon it stood a sculpture. No… not a sculpture.
A sarcophagus.
It was levitating a few feet above the stone, suspended by chains of light and shadow, with symbols carved along its edges. Each symbol matched those Haraza had seen in the Ashplains—fractured runes of the Riftborn.
He stepped closer.
Inside, beneath the translucent crystal lid, lay a figure.
A man.
Dressed in Warden armor—black, silver-trimmed, and ancient. His hands were crossed over his chest, gripping a sword that had been broken in half. A crown of thorns rested on his brow. His face was unscarred, serene… familiar.
("Is that…") Haraza's voice faltered.
Lirien answered quietly. ("The First Riftborn.")
Haraza stepped back. ("I thought the First Riftborn was lost in the Hollow Spiral. That his soul was fragmented.")
("It was,") she said. ("But his echo remains. The tower holds his final memory.")
Haraza looked at the sarcophagus again, more carefully now. ("Why show me this?")
("Because your Seed was once part of him. You're carrying the fragment he sealed before death. The Seed of Binding. You are the first in a thousand years to awaken its full inheritance.")
Haraza felt the Seed pulse stronger now, humming beneath his ribs.
Lirien continued, her voice reverent. "This tower doesn't exist in the world. It exists between. A nexus of what was and what might be. And if the Sleeper is stirring… the tower remembers how it was sealed the first time."
("Then this is a key.")
("No,") she said. ("This is a warning.")
The whispers grew louder. Words began to take shape. Phrases slipped into Haraza's thoughts like dreams: He will rise… the echo cannot hold… the veil is thin… the price must be paid…
He backed away.
("I'm not ready for this,") he muttered.
("No one is,") Lirien said softly.
The chamber shuddered. The sarcophagus flashed once with blinding light—and then cracked.
Not shattered. Cracked.
A fine line split down the middle of the crystal lid, and a pulse of Riftlight surged outward, knocking both Haraza and Lirien to the ground. The chains of light snapped and unraveled. The whispers turned into screams.
Then—
The voice came.
("WHO CARRIES MY NAME?")
It was not the voice of a man. It echoed in the soul. It was the voice of the Rift itself, filtered through memory and madness.
Haraza rose, slowly. The Seed in his chest was burning now, wild and uncontrollable.
He grit his teeth. ("I am Haraza Genso. I don't carry your name. I carry your legacy. But I'll forge my own path.")
("AND WOULD YOU STAND AGAINST THE SLEEPER?")
("I'll stand, I'll fight, and if I fall—then I'll do it as myself.")
The tower responded.
Energy burst from the dais, forming a ring around the sarcophagus. Glyphs erupted from the ground, spiraling into the air. The body inside twitched—then stilled.
Lirien reached out, voice frantic. "Haraza! The tower's trying to judge you! You have to fight it!"
A glyph struck his chest. He stumbled back, heart pounding.
Suddenly he was elsewhere.
A vision. A memory. But whose?
He stood atop a burning city. The sky was torn open—bleeding Riftlight—and the Sleeper stood in the center, a monstrous silhouette of void and dreamstuff, devouring reality with every breath. Around him, Wardens lay dead. Lirien was among them, unmoving.
And Haraza—no, not him, but a version of him—knelt before the Sleeper, offering the Seed like a gift.
("This is the future if you surrender,") a voice whispered.
Another vision.
Haraza atop the Sleeper's corpse, bloodied but victorious. But alone. The land around him was desolate. No life remained. Even the sky was empty.
("This is the future if you win." )
A third vision.
Haraza, standing at the Rift's edge, not fighting—but closing it. Not through war, but understanding. Not through power, but sacrifice. A path walked without glory. Without legacy. But one that saved the world.
("This is the future if you choose neither.")
The tower pulled him back.
He fell to his knees, breath ragged.
Lirien caught him, eyes wide.
("What did you see?")
("Paths,") he said. ("Futures. None of them easy.")
She nodded grimly. ("The tower showed you what it hides. The choice of the Riftborn. The First made his. Now you must make yours.")
Haraza stood again. ("Then let's not waste time.")
He turned to the sarcophagus.
It was empty.
Only the broken sword remained.
Haraza reached down and touched it.
The blade shuddered—then reforged itself in his hand. Not with fire or heat, but with memory. The sword was not metal. It was resolve.
The Seed in his chest calmed.
He turned to Lirien.
("We leave now. The Sleeper's awake. And I know what comes next.")
She bowed her head slightly. ("Then let us walk the storm.")
Together, they exited the tower as the sky cracked open.
The storm had arrived.
But so had the warrior fate had forgotten.
Haraza Genso stepped forward, and the world whispered his name.