After what could’ve been days or centuries—I found him.
The pull had grown into a tremor within me, leading me to a forge nestled at the edge of a mountain village. Smoke curled from the chimney. Sparks flew with rhythm. There he was, hammer in hand, lost in his work. Every strike sang.
I whispered to him. Not aloud but just a flicker, a ripple in the threads of existence that connected us.
He paused.
His brow furrowed, grip tightening on the hammer.
“…No. No, I’m not hearing voices. I’ve been breathing too much iron dust again. That’s it,” he muttered, shaking his head.
I whispered again, slower this time. A thought, barely shaped: You’re not mad. I’m real.
He dropped the hammer.
“Then what are you?” he asked aloud, eyes darting around the empty forge. “A god? A ghost? I knew the iron had more to say, but—”
I let my presence settle just at the edge of the forge fire, where heat dances like life. You already believe there’s magic in the metal, Darnic Hale. You’ve always known.
His eyes widened.
He stepped closer to the flame, slowly, like approaching a dream. “…Then why me?”
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I could have explained why but I didn’t.
“Why not?” I answered, like a breeze slipping through cracks in stone. His forge fell silent once more, his eyes still fixed on a fire that no longer spoke.
I drifted onward.
The pull stirred again.
Not north, not south—but down. Down into a canyon where wind carved stories into the stone and silence weighed like judgment.
There she was—Selene Ward. Kneeling, palms against the earth. Still. Listening.
Her body was rigid, her armor worn not from battle but from weathering belief. Her eyes opened slowly, as though waking from a prayer turned to ash.
I spoke, not with sound but with weight—like a hand pressed gently to her shoulder. "You’ve been waiting without knowing."
She didn’t flinch. Instead, she stood with a soldier’s poise, scanning the horizon.
“Who speaks?” she asked, voice calm, almost accusing.
“A god. Or something close.”
She frowned. “Lies! Gods left us long ago.”
“Or perhaps they were waiting for us to find them.” She mumbled, her thoughts drifts away for a moment.
Her fingers touched the earth again, seeking answers in the stone. “And you ask me to follow?”
“I ask you to accept me.”
Her silence held more weight than most speeches. Then, at last, she whispered—not to the sky, but to the earth below her feet.
“…why me?”
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The streets were loud with life. Merchants shouting, carts rattling, and bells tolling in the distance but Selene moved through it all paying attention to none.
She kept her hood low, her steps steady. The temple was her goal. Her sanctuary.
As she turned down a narrow lane toward the old square, she passed a small group of teenagers lounging on worn steps. Their laughter drew her attention. Not because of their laughs, but their words.
“Did you know that magic isn’t as old as you think it is?” one of them said, tone conspiratorial.
“What do you mean by that?” another asked, more curious than dismissive.
“My grandfather told me that even though they used to talk about miracles and the acts of the temple, they never saw anything happen. Not like now. Not like the things people can do out in the open.”
There was a beat of silence, then murmurs. Some teens nodded in thought. Others shrugged it off.
Selene slowed, her hand brushing the stone wall beside her.
"Not as old as we think…?" The words echoed uncomfortably. Her mind raced, churning through memories. The sermons, chants, relics passed down, unquestioned rituals. Could it be… recent? Could magic have only awakened in this age?
No. It had to be older. The temple said so. Still, doubt wormed into her chest. She quickened her pace.
Within minutes she stood at the steps of the temple, passing beneath carved archways of saints. She found a priest inside. An old man, face drawn with years of wisdom. She asked her questions carefully and respectfully.
His response came like a wall.
“Do not give voice to the murmurs of heretics,” he said, eyes hard. “The temple’s knowledge is sacred. If you seek answers, seek them in the scriptures, not in idle gossip. The path is clear. You’ve walked it before. Stay upon it.”
He kept speaking, words spilling like the drone of a rainless storm. She heard them all yet she remembered none. At the moment, they meant nothing. The seed of doubt had already taken a root.
As she left the inner sanctum, she felt it. A pull in her chest. Something unspoken. A question that wouldn’t leave. She stepped outside, the light hitting her face harshly. She looked up on instinct—at the sky, at the sun.
And past it. She squinted, as if her eyes might pierce reality itself. And then— She woke up.
Info Dump #4:
- Even though temples and religions exists in this world, presence of divine was never really discovered. Until now.