The cavern walls grew narrower as they pressed on, jagged stone bleeding faint veins of blue light beneath the surface—like something alive, watching.
No one spoke for a long while. They moved as if underwater, the weight of their visions still clinging to their backs. Myra traced a rune absentmindedly on her sleeve as she walked. Callis adjusted his grip on his blade more than he needed to. Eno kept glancing behind them, afraid of what may come. Rei led them, one step at a time, deeper into a place that wasn't supposed to know them.
Eventually, they came upon a new chamber—unnaturally smooth, domed, and dimly lit by floating globes of static light. Pillars of old "technology" rose from the ground like forgotten trees: fractured brass consoles, twisted crystalline rings, and what looked like the skeletal frame of a golem, half-melded into the wall.
It was a vault of progress.
A warning, not a shrine.
Callis scanned the room. "This doesn't look sacred."
"No," Myra murmured. "It looks like someone was trying to build something. Or unbuild it."
Rei stepped forward, drawn to a pedestal at the chamber's center. Upon it sat a cube-like structure of interlocking hexagonal plates, softly humming. He reached to it and he moment he touched it, the chamber reacted.
A deep mechanical groan sounded, followed by the hiss of steam and shifting gears.
The doors behind them closed and the illusions began.
One by one, panels lit up on the walls, displaying visions—fragments of history, but not from a single life. These were moments of breakthrough; of creation, of power.
A figure inserting a glowing shard into a machine and leveling a mountain.
An ancient mage binding the essence of an Archon to form the first few.
A woman tearing apart her own body to become one with her spell.
And each time the invention worked, so did the destruction that followed.
Eno stepped back. "What… what is this place?"
Callis narrowed his eyes. "A graveyard for ambition."
"No," Myra said quietly. "A mirror. It's showing us what happens when the only thing that matters… is progress."
Then the voice came—not from above or below, but within the chamber itself.
"Do you wish to proceed?"
No figure appeared. Just the voice, low and cold. Artificial, but laced with ancient weariness.
To leave this place is to accept the burden of knowledge, to burn brighter than the world can sustain. The Caverns do not part for the lost—they open only for those who understand the cost..
Myra stepped forward, chin raised. "We've already seen what it costs. We've faced our pasts."
"Emotion is not the only weight," the voice answered. "You are each gifted. Each capable. And each willing to sacrifice the world for what you believe is right."
Three more consoles emerged from the floor, one for each of them.
"To continue, each of you must give up a piece of what you've gained."
They looked at each other.
"What kind of piece?" Eno asked.
A projection appeared—different for each of them.
For Callis: a sword he had used during his recent sword mastery test, honed through trials since Bellenridge.
For Myra: a burst of healing energy, her newly enhanced regeneration spell.
For Eno: a shadowed compass he used to navigate hidden paths—his edge in scouting.
All forged or awakened through their journeys.
The price wasn't life, it was growth.
"Your journey has changed you," the voice said. "Progress without understanding is ruin. Sacrifice one fruit of your journey—or remain here."
Callis stared at his projection. "But if I give this up… I'll be weaker."
Rei didn't say anything immediately, first he thought and then turned to the others. "This is what it's showing us. We've all come far—but if we hold on too tightly to the power we've gained, we might miss the point. This Caverns… it's testing whether we think growth is owed to us. Or earned."
"Easy for you to say," Eno snapped. "It didn't ask you for anything."
Then another console appeared.
Rei's.
On it, not a spell or weapon—but a truth.
A swirling image of his nature, of Vel Kareth's warning. Of who and what he truly was. Not a fragment, not a whisper, but all of it.
The console offered him this: give up his ignorance and accept the full weight of truth about himself.
Rei looked down at his hands.
"I don't know if I'm ready," he whispered.
Callis watched him, arms folded. "Then decide, because if you're not willing to pay what you ask of others…"
But Rei stepped forward. "I will."
He touched the panel—and pain seared through his chest. Not burning. Not cutting.
Knowing.
Vel Kareth's words. The world before this one. The seal. The exile. The reason they locked him away.
He remembered now.
Three of them had been born under the same cursed alignment—marked not by fate, but by rupture. The first Worldbreakers.
Rei was hidden, sealed away in a world without magic. A false life, to keep the real one asleep.
Vel Kareth had been spared, exiled only because his family ran, vanishing into the cracks of the old empires before the cull began.
The third… they never found. No records, no signs, just whispers of a power that vanished the day it was born.
Even now, no one knew where he was—or what he'd become.
When only one could be sealed and with the others vanishing or slipping through their grasp, they realized the truth—Containing Worldbreakers was not efficient so they stopped trying, and turned their efforts instead to control, to doctrine, to fear, and to hunting them down.
Rei gasped, but still held his hand to the panel.
Callis hesitantly followed, placing his sword on his panel. "I've carried blood before. I'll carry it again, even without the edge."
Eno hesitated longest, until Myra quietly placed her vial on hers. "You'll still find your way. Even without directions."
"…Fine," Eno muttered, wiping his eyes and placing his compass on the panel. "But I want this test noted somewhere as deeply unfair."
Each console vanished.
And the voice returned, softer now.
"Progress is not always forward. Sometimes it is restraint."
The doors beyond them opened.
A hallway of unlit lanterns waited.
They passed through silently, changed once again—not by combat, or grief, or even truth—but by the willingness to give something up.
To move forward not as gods, but as people.
And at the end of the tunnel, a breeze touched their faces. Cold, dry, but fresh.
They had passed the final gate of the Caverns.
And ahead, the path to Grellin's Reach stretched across the horizon.