The air below Hollowrest was cold and dry, like something long dead had been exhaling for centuries.
Joe followed Riven down the spiral staircase. Dust fell in thin curtains from the ceiling. The stone walls pulsed faintly with forgotten glyphs, glowing whenever Joe passed by. Lightning in his core responded, flickering in time with the ancient runes.
"This place is… old," Joe whispered.
"Pre-Torn," Riven said. "Some of these crypts are from the first generation of Breakers—those who tried to fight back before the system changed the rules."
Joe didn't know what that meant, but he kept quiet.
At the bottom, the tunnel opened into a chamber carved from black stone and rusted metal. A broken lectern stood in the center. Surrounding it were circles etched into the ground—binding runes. Empty sockets for relics. Chains fused into the floor.
Something had been contained here once.
Joe stepped closer. A glimmering shard of crystal lay half-buried in dust. The moment he touched it—
---
[Memory Echo Recovered – Subject: Magister Kiros]
A vision slammed into Joe's mind.
A man in robes stood here, alone, lightning bleeding from his fingertips.
"I can hear it," Kiros whispered. "The storm doesn't want to be used. It wants to break us."
He placed his hand on the chains. "If I fail… if I lose control… seal me."
A second voice echoed—older, colder. "We will."
Kiros turned to a circle of armored mages. "And if I become like the others… remember me as I am. Not what I become."
---
Joe staggered back.
"What did you see?" Riven asked.
"They tried to seal it," Joe said. "The storm. One of them—Kiros—volunteered to be bound."
Riven nodded slowly. "The Pale Flame. That's where they took him after this. The Well. It's the only place strong enough to contain a full core surge."
Joe looked at his hands. They trembled.
"I'm headed there, aren't I?"
"Yeah," Riven said. "If you want to survive."
Before they could move, something shimmered in the air—an echo of heat and sound. A whisper of ice. Joe turned, but there was nothing.
Unseen, from high above the ruins, a pair of pale eyes watched them from a shattered window in the chapel.
The frost mage tilted their head.
They had been following the stormborn since the crater. Watching. Measuring. Judging. From behind their porcelain half-mask, their breath plumed white.
"He's adapting," the mage murmured.
They turned and vanished into frost, leaving only a faint trace of cold in their wake.
---
Back underground, Joe and Riven resurfaced from the crypt and stood in the daylight again. The sky was no less broken. But Joe felt heavier now—rooted. He was more than just a castaway.
They left Hollowrest and headed toward the Bloodspire Region, where the Well of Pale Flame waited.
The land shifted again—flatlands of cracked glass and rust-colored wind. Massive bones jutted from the ground like petrified lightning bolts. The air here buzzed with static. Aberrants skittered along the horizon, too far to engage, but close enough to see.
Joe kept his power close to his chest. He'd already felt it flare once, involuntarily. He was getting stronger. Too fast.
And that scared him.
"We're being watched," Riven said suddenly, scanning the cliffs.
Joe turned. "The frost mage?"
Riven didn't answer. But he didn't deny it either.
---
They reached the outskirts of an abandoned watchtower at dusk. It loomed crooked against the skyline, half-buried in the cliffside like a forgotten tooth.
Inside, the walls were scarred by claw marks. Burned handprints covered the stone. Joe touched one.
Still warm.
They weren't alone.
An Echospawn lunged from the ceiling—jagged and fast, its body mimicking stormlight, its claws crackling.
Joe reacted on instinct.
"Conductor's Grasp!"
A current burst from his palm, arcing through the creature's limbs, locking it mid-air. Riven struck it down a second later, sword slicing through its core.
More came.
Three. Four. Then six.
The Echospawn moved like they were all sharing a single mind, reacting to Joe's magic before he could even finish casting.
"They're absorbing your spells!" Riven shouted.
"Then I'll change the rhythm!"
Joe snapped his fingers. Lightning exploded upward in a whip.
"Tempest Lash!"
He chained it between two of them, then detonated a mine near their feet.
Boom.
Aberrant gore coated the walls.
By the time the last spawn fell, Joe was on his knees, panting.
[Level Up – Level 6]
+1 CTRL
+2 MAG
New Synergy Unlocked – Storm Adaptation: Hostile Copy Resistance
Title Updated: "Storm-Eater → Echobreaker"
The tower quieted.
"We rest," Riven said.
"Then we head to the Well?"
Riven nodded. "Tomorrow."
As they settled into the broken watchtower, the storm above whispered across the sky like a pulse waiting to burst.