Light shone from everywhere, and nowhere. There was no discernible source. No torches. No crystals. Just an ambient glow, soft and haunting, that pulsed faintly through the walls like the heartbeat of the Sanctum itself.
Our footsteps echoed, unnaturally loud in the silence. Every breath we took curled in the air, white and visible, lingering too long before fading. The warmth of my aura still surrounded us, but it was like it was fighting something, pushing back against an unseen pressure that loomed closer the farther we walked.
Then we found it.
A single door stood ahead, tall and seamless, carved entirely of a dense, milky ice that seemed thicker than the walls around us. Strange runes shimmered faintly across its surface, curling and unraveling like frost patterns in reverse.
At its center, a crystalline plaque had been embedded in the ice. As we stepped closer, glowing words scrawled across its surface.
One path ahead, yet none the same.
Reflections walk, but do not name.
Face yourself and do not stray,
Lest shadowed truth shall steal your way.
Only those who truly know,
Which self is real, may onward go.
The writing vanished the moment I finished reading it aloud, the glowing letters fading into the frost like melting snow.
I blinked at the now-empty plaque. “What the hells does that mean?” I asked, eyes narrowing at the icy surface.
Leo didn’t answer right away. He was already deep in thought, arms crossed, lips moving faintly as he repeated the riddle to himself.
“Something about reflections… selves… but also names?” he murmured.
“Uh, I don’t think we have time to figure it out,” Mel said, her tone tight as she pointed up at the door.
Golden numbers appeared above the frozen arch, hovering in midair, unmistakably a countdown.
20:00
19:59
19:58
Max threw up his hands. “Of course there’s a timer. Because why wouldn’t there be one?”
“That’s not much time,” Trish said, her voice low. “Not for a puzzle this cryptic.”
“No,” Leo agreed. “But rushing it might be worse.”
The door gave a low, groaning crack, ice splintering as its two halves began to creak open, revealing only darkness beyond.
A cold wind spilled out from the gap, one that didn’t just chill the skin, but felt like it swept through memory itself. Like it was trying to brush something away.
I took a breath. “We go in together. Stay close, stay sharp. This isn’t just about what we see. It’s about what we believe.”
The moment we crossed the threshold, the temperature plummeted again, not in our skin, but somewhere deeper, like a weight on the mind.
The chamber before us was enormous, circular, and eerily symmetrical. Polished ice covered every surface, floor, ceiling, walls. It was impossible to tell where one ended and the next began. Our reflections followed us in every direction, hundreds of them, each mimicking our movements with impossible clarity.
I took a cautious step forward, and every version of me stepped with me. So did the others. But then…
“Wait,” Trish said, voice sharp. “Stop moving.”
We froze.
She pointed toward the reflections.
They were still moving.
Half a second behind us.
I blinked. “They’re… delayed?”
“No,” Leo muttered, his voice suddenly sharp with realization. “They’re choosing to mirror us. They’re watching first. Then reacting.”
I stepped to the side.
So did my reflection.
But the way its eyes tracked me, there was something off. Too focused. Too aware.
Max took another step forward, watching his own copy. “Okay, weird. Mine blinked. I didn’t.”
Mel’s voice was quiet. “These aren’t reflections. They’re watching us. Mimicking us. But they’re not us.”
We turned in a slow circle, the mirrored versions of ourselves still surrounding us like a crowd held behind glass.
At the far end of the room, another door stood closed, sealed tight behind a wall of ice. A plaque sat above it, this one already glowing.
"Only the true selves may pass."
Trish stepped forward, her eyes scanning the wall of copies. “What if we have to find the real ones?”
Leo snapped his fingers. “No. We already are the real ones. That door, it's not about solving which is real. It's about staying true to ourselves.”
“So… we just move,” I said. “Act naturally. Don’t overthink it. Just be who we are.”
“Exactly,” Leo confirmed. “If we hesitate, second-guess… the reflections will gain control. They’re feeding off doubt.”
We exchanged glances. Then, without another word, we moved.
Together, we walked toward the door, keeping pace, keeping focused. I caught flashes of the false versions, hesitations, wrong strides, strange ticks. One of them tripped. Another blinked too many times. But none of them followed us exactly.
When we reached the far side of the chamber, the ice wall barring the next doorway shimmered, then cracked.
The door swung open without a sound.
We stepped through.
A moment of silence passed before Max spoke.
“Well… that wasn’t so bad.”
Mel let out a slow breath. “Still weird though. That room gave me the creeps.”
“Same,” Trish said. “Let’s just stay sharp. It might not all be that simple.”
Leo nodded. “Yeah. Don’t let your guard down.”
We pressed on, deeper into the sanctum, into silence, frost, and whatever waited for us beyond the next door.
As we stepped into the next chamber, the shift was immediate.
The corridor behind us vanished, literally vanished, as if it had never existed. The moment the last of us crossed the threshold, the door sealed shut without sound, its edges blending seamlessly back into the icy wall.
The room was smaller than the last. Narrower. Colder in a way I couldn’t explain. Not physically, but spiritually.
The silence here was different, not empty, but watchful.
Pillars of shimmering crystal rose in a perfect circle around a low pedestal at the center. Each pillar pulsed with soft, rhythmic light, like frozen heartbeats. A cluster of six orbs floated above the pedestal, each glowing with a faint, shifting color: silver, crimson, emerald, azure, violet, and a dull black.
We stepped forward, eyes sweeping the chamber.
And that’s when I realized… the others weren’t moving.
I turned, heart lurching.
Trish was frozen mid-step. Max mid-blink. Mel’s breath hung still in the air, suspended like glass. Leo stood with a hand on his chin, unmoving.
“Guys?” I called.
Nothing.
I turned back to the orbs.
A voice spoke, not aloud, but through the ice itself, resonating deep within me like a memory long buried:
“What is real, and what is remembered?
One belongs to you.
One is the story you’ve been told.
Choose the soul that is truly yours.”
The room dimmed.
The crystals flickered, and then they showed me.
Visions danced across the pillars, like memories made of light and shadow.
I saw myself as a child… but the setting was wrong. The streets, the sky, they didn’t belong to Earth.
I saw Trish and I, but she didn’t call me James. She called me Calen, and we were in a city I’d never been to.
I saw myself alone, standing at the edge of a cliff, tossing Virellia into the sea with a look of bitter regret.
I saw myself older, a golden crown resting in my hands, the same halo on my back… but no one around me. No friends. No love. Just silence.
Then I saw myself in the moment we first arrived here, laughing with Max, holding Trish close as we stared at the stars.
The orbs pulsed, each one whispering promises. Memories that weren’t mine, at least, not how I remembered them. Maybe not even memories at all.
I stared at them, breath catching in my throat.
The vision of Trish calling me Calen. The crown. The cliff. The laughter. None of them felt completely wrong… and yet none of them felt right either. They were close. Too close. Like forgeries painted by someone who had seen into my soul but didn’t understand it.
The room began to spin.
My breath quickened.
What if none of them were real?
What if I wasn’t real?
I dropped to one knee, eyes clenched shut as nausea churned through me. I could hear my name echoing faintly, Trish’s voice? Max’s? No. Not here. Not now. I was alone in this.
My hands clenched, drawing blood as the world blurred.
“Choose.”
“Choose.”
“Choose.”
The orbs pressed inward, humming like a heartbeat inside my skull.
I couldn’t breathe.
And then…
A flash.
A moment.
Not a memory from this world. Not from the Rift. But before.
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It was that moment. A moment I could never forget, the night I met Trish.
I was at a bar with Max and another old friend. Just another night.
She walked in with someone else… but she saw me.
She didn’t even hesitate. She sat right next to me like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Hey, I’m Trish. What’s your name?” she asked.
My heartbeat spiked, but I kept it cool. “James. Nice to meet you.”
The rest of the night? A blur.
But that moment, looking into her eyes, seeing that smile, feeling how she faced me like I was the only one in the room, that moment was seared into my soul.
Her beauty knocked the breath out of me that night.
I would never forget it.
My eyes snapped open.
The orbs no longer pulsed. They flickered, unstable, losing their power.
I stood.
Not because I solved the puzzle.
Because I remembered who I was.
I reached out and touched the orb furthest from the rest. The dim one. The quiet one. The one that wasn’t trying to be anything.
The one that felt like me.
The moment my fingers brushed it, the room exploded with light. Not heat. Not fire. Just clarity.
The illusion shattered.
The light faded, and I stumbled forward, breath catching in my throat.
I was back.
The chamber snapped into focus around me. I turned quickly, heart pounding.
Max was bent forward, clutching his head, breath ragged as if he'd just broken through the surface of deep water. Trish stood frozen a few paces from him, tears streaking down her cheeks, her lips parted like she’d forgotten how to breathe. Mel had braced herself against the wall, hand pressed firmly to her chest, eyes wide and distant.
They were all moving again. All awake.
They made it.
But…
“Leo?” I called out, voice sharper than I intended.
He stood in the center of the chamber, utterly still. The orbs were still floating before him, casting soft, shifting light across his face. His eyes were locked ahead, unblinking, unfocused. His body didn’t move. Not even to breathe.
“Leo!” Max shouted, stepping forward.
I reached out instinctively, stopping him with a hand. “Wait.”
The air tightened again, the silence deeper somehow. The orbs pulsed, drawing closer to Leo like they sensed his hesitation, like they wanted to consume what little clarity he had left.
For a moment, I feared we’d lost him.
Then he gasped, sharp and sudden.
His eyes flared open, panic flashing through them. He stumbled backward, nearly falling as he blinked rapidly, sweat glistening on his brow. His hands trembled at his sides.
“I’m… I’m good,” he said, voice hoarse. “I’m okay.”
The orbs vanished instantly, winking out like dying embers. A low, groaning crack echoed through the chamber as the wall behind us split open, revealing the next corridor.
Trish moved beside me, her fingers quietly sliding into mine.
As the next door opened, a cold rush of air swept past us, not sharp or painful, but strangely still. It didn’t sting. It didn’t bite.
It stilled.
Like the silence just before a snowfall.
The corridor beyond was carved smooth, almost unnaturally so. The glacial walls reflected us in shifting shapes, slightly delayed, like echoes in light.
As we stepped into the room, it was like the world stopped breathing.
The moment my boot crossed the threshold, sound vanished.
No crunch of footsteps. No hum of magic. No whisper of breath.
I turned quickly, lips parting to speak, but no words came. Not even to myself.
I tried again. Nothing. Not a whisper in my mind. Not even Virellia’s voice. Empty.
The chamber was vast and circular, a wide-open room with five raised platforms arranged in a loose star pattern, each equidistant from the center. Each platform held a glowing pedestal etched with ancient, ice-bound runes, shifting constantly, symbols twisting over themselves in patterns I didn’t understand.
Max mouthed something. Probably “What the hell is this?”
I shrugged, then lifted a hand, trying to gesture us to move.
We spread out cautiously, each drawn toward a pedestal. They weren’t identical. Some runes were jagged, others fluid, like each one was tuned to a different person.
When I approached mine, the runes flared to life in a soft violet hue. Behind me, I caught glimpses of the same from the others.
Then, across the room, another light ignited in the air, a ring of glyphs forming above us, slowly spinning.
Something had begun.
A countdown. Maybe a limit. Or just the start of the test.
A notification appeared.
Solve your pedestal. Without words. Without magic. Together.
I focused.
Each rune changed shape when touched, shifting into something new, but only in relation to the other platforms. If I altered mine, the pattern on Trish’s changed slightly. Mel’s flickered in response. It was a chain. They were Interdependent.
Coordination was key, but how could we coordinate without sound?
We began trying. Hand gestures. Eye contact. Small nods.
It was slow. Maddeningly so. Like trying to conduct surgery with mittens.
Mel figured out her pedestal reacted if she mirrored Leo’s movements.
Trish used her hand to draw shapes in the air, copying the runes as best she could to signal ideas.
I adjusted mine to match hers, and Max started to gesture quickly, pointing, waving, spinning his fingers to show sequence.
He was fast, more observant than I expected. Calm, too.
The platform responded.
Light began to build around the edges of the room. The puzzle was working. We were close.
That’s when it changed.
My vision swam, just for a second, and then I saw Trish falter, her hands dropping to her sides. She blinked slowly, like sleep had taken hold of her mid-thought.
She was frozen. Literally.
A faint layer of frost crept along her limbs, holding her still.
Mel was next. Her pedestal surged with cold light, and her fingers slipped from its surface. She gasped, but no sound came. She clutched her head and fell backward into the wall, eyes glassy.
Leo tried to reach for her but staggered, his steps unsteady. He turned towards me, mouth moving, but I couldn’t read it.
He collapsed moments later.
Only Max and I remained.
I gritted my teeth, gesturing frantically. Pointing at patterns. Trying to hold the process together as the glyphs above us began to spin faster, agitated, hungry.
Max's eyes locked onto mine. He nodded once.
I nodded back.
We moved.
Pattern. Twist. Align. Reset. Sync.
Then the cold hit me. My hands turned numb.
I didn’t feel it at first, not truly. It crept in quietly, like a thief. One moment I was reaching to adjust the next sequence of runes on my pedestal, the next... I couldn’t move. Not my fingers. Not my lips. Not even my eyes. My breath stilled in my lungs, suspended mid-exhale, caught in an invisible web of ice.
Max stood alone, unmoving for a few seconds, scanning each of us in turn.
I could see the fear spark in his eyes, sharp and immediate, but it didn’t last.
That’s when he moved.
No, not moved, vanished.
A ripple of black mist exploded around his feet as he disappeared, only to reappear less than a heartbeat later beside Mel’s pedestal. His fingers moved with purpose, tracing the glyphs, rotating one, tapping another.
Another burst of darkness.
He appeared beside Leo’s pedestal next, adjusting a sequence I hadn’t even noticed had gone out of alignment.
Then to Trish’s.
Then to mine.
Then back to his own.
Again and again, he moved, so quickly it felt like he was standing at each of them at once. His body flickered in and out of reality, like he was stitched between shadows, here, there, then gone again.
My eyes could barely follow him.
His form was a blur of motion and smoke, and with each platform he touched, the floating glyphs above began to change, rotating faster, more fluid, as though responding to his pace. What once required five minds working in harmony was now being simulated by one. One mind. One rhythm. One will.
He wasn’t guessing. He wasn’t experimenting.
He understood.
Each movement built on the last. Each adjustment was calculated. His hands worked like a conductor orchestrating silence, weaving the entire mechanism together with instinct sharpened by shadow.
The final step landed him back at his original pedestal.
His hand hovered over the last rune for a breath.
Then he pressed it.
The room exploded in a silent flash of violet and blue light.
The frost shattered off my limbs like glass. I gasped and staggered forward, pulling in a desperate breath as sensation returned to my fingers, my legs, my chest. Around me, the others came alive again, Trish dropping to one knee beside me, Mel leaning heavily on Leo’s shoulder, all of us stunned and breathless.
And there, in the center of the chamber, Max stood alone, steam rising from his body in soft tendrils, his hands at his sides, chest rising and falling with each controlled breath.
Above his pedestal, a small crystalline shard hovered midair. It spun slowly, pulsing with a cold blue light infused with drifting tendrils of darkness. It felt… ancient. Intelligent. Waiting.
Max was clearly exhausted. His shoulders sagged, and each breath came in wheezing gasps. He’d burned through more energy than I’d realized, more than any of us had.
Trish flew toward him without a word and began casting, her hands glowing with soft light. A pulse of warmth passed through him, and slowly, he straightened. His breathing remained heavy, but the strain had lessened.
At the center of the room, the crystal stirred, rising gently from Max’s pedestal, then drifting outward until it hovered just above the floor. Its glow pulsed softly, casting shifting reflections of shadow and frost across the icy walls.
We approached as one, stepping down from our platforms, drawn to it like moths to flame.
Within its core, I saw it, a deep, swirling darkness. Not malevolent. Not cruel.
Just… cold. Quiet. Enduring.
“I feel like this one’s for Max,” Leo said, his voice low, almost reverent.
“Aye,” Mel added, crossing her arms. “Looks like it was made for him anyway, with that creepy darkness swirling in the middle.”
“Hey!” Max shot back, flashing a tired grin. “Shadows aren’t creepy. They just saved your asses.”
We chuckled lightly, the tension beginning to lift.
But the crystal didn’t wait.
Before Max could take another step, it launched forward, fast and sharp, and struck him square in the chest.
The crystal vanished the moment it struck, dissolving into shadow and frost that sank straight into Max’s chest. It was gone, as if it had never existed.
Max rocked backward from the impact, bracing himself with one hand against his knee. For a breath, he stood there stunned, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. Then… he started to grin.
“What the hells was that?” I asked, stepping closer.
He let out a breathless chuckle, one hand still pressed to his chest. “I don’t know,” he said, voice a little shaky, “but whatever it was…”
His grin spread wider. “I just got a new bonus ability.”
Groans of jealousy escaped all our lips.
But he deserved it. Earned it, even. For saving all our asses.
Before anyone could say more, a notification appeared showing we had twenty minutes till we were ported out of the dungeon. But that was far from the least appealing notification.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have defeated an Epic dungeon!
A 1-time 2x Bonus experience has been rewarded for your first Epic dungeon!
You have 20 minutes to loot whatever you may find, great job Adventurer!
A wave of experience surged into me, hitting like a silent shockwave.
Without thinking, I opened my stats menu, just in time to catch glimpses of the others doing the same in my periphery.
My eyes widened. My stats were all halved, and so was my level. I’d been marked as a Traveler again.
Oh, right. The aura. I thought to myself.
“Guys,” I said quickly, “no offense, but I want to drop the aura before I do anything with my stats.”
They nodded, already bundling themselves back up.
Go ahead and drop it, Virellia. We may need to reactivate it after I’m done.
“It is dropped,” she confirmed, her voice calm as ever.
I felt the change instantly. The warmth dimmed, and the slow climb of my stats began to tick upward on the screen. I waited the full minute, watching the values rise until they settled back into place.
A grin pulled at my lips as I saw the final total, eighty-four points.
I split them evenly, twenty-eight each into strength, dexterity, and intellect I grinned at the growth.
STATS
LEVEL – 124, Adventurer
STRENGTH – 572
DEXTERITY – 439
INTELLECT – 458
WISDOM – 133
LUCK – 65
ARMOR – 82 (Physical damage reduction: 47%)
RACIAL PASSIVES:
- INNATE ARMOR BONUS – 10% of maximum armor added
- INNATE FIRE BONUS TO MELEE ATTACKS – 10% increased fire damage on melee attacks
“Okay, I can reactivate it now,” I said, glancing around at the group.
“No need,” Mel replied, rolling her shoulders. “It’s actually still pretty warm.”
“I wonder if it’s because the dungeon was beaten?” Max asked, scanning the walls like he expected the ice to melt any second.
“I think it was that cold to try and distract us from the trials,” Trish said, her brows furrowed. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Leo’s eyebrows shot up, like a realization had smacked him in the face. “Dude… without you, I think we would’ve had a way harder time in here,” he said, staring directly at me.
That landed hard. On all of us.
“He’s right,” Max added. “Without that aura you and Virellia gave off, we probably would’ve failed the first trial room. Even when there weren’t enemies to fight, you still protected us.”
I flexed my arms… not that anyone could see the muscle through the armor. “All in a day’s work,” I said with a grin. “Ain’t that right, Virellia?”
I could feel her roll her eyes, even though she didn’t have any. I smirked and gave her haft a pat at my side. Seriously… thank you.
“Of course,” she said, her voice warm in my mind. “It is our purpose to protect the others.”
Then, aloud, she added, “I’m glad we were able to help the group through this. Though… James made more of a sacrifice than I in this.”
We sat in silence, letting the last few minutes tick by as the dungeon's timer wound down. No one spoke. There was nothing left to say, just quiet breaths and the soft crackle of lingering magic in the chamber.
Then, in a flash of light, the world shifted.
What we saw when we reappeared… none of us were ready for.
We knew the Lepidomare had gotten stronger. We even thought they’d be just fine on their own.
What we didn’t realize was just how much the wild had underestimated them.
Corpses of predators littered the area, scattered like wildflowers across an open field in spring.
“Holy…” was all I managed as I looked around. There had to be hundreds, clawed, fang-ridden, and very, very dead.
“What the hells happened here?” Leo muttered, scanning the area with wide eyes.
“I didn’t even think there were this many predators in the region,” Trish added, her gaze locked on Nyxala. The majestic creature hovered before us, chest puffed out in pride, as if daring anything else in the woods to step forward and try their luck.
“Good freaking job, you guys,” I said, walking over to the group of Lepidomare. One by one, I gave them each a firm pat of appreciation. They dipped their heads in unison, a silent show of acknowledgment.
“Hell yes!” Mel cheered, rushing over to Thundermaw and wrapping her in a massive bear hug.
The rest of the party followed her lead, showering their companions with affection and praise. After the congratulations, we got to work clearing the area, harvesting what we could from the corpses, setting up a proper camp, and building a fire.
I sat by the flames for a moment, then turned to the group. “I guess this is where I split off and head up the mountain.”
My gaze shifted to Nyxala. “You ready, girl?”
She spun once in place, a shimmer of excitement pulsing across her scales. I’d never seen her do that before. Trish and I both laughed at the display.
“I think she’s more excited to go with you than she would be to adventure with me,” Trish teased, clutching her chest in mock betrayal.
Nyxala immediately floated over and gave Trish an affectionate nuzzle.
“Oh, I’m joking, girl,” Trish giggled, running her hand along Nyxala’s side. “I know you’re just excited to see your sister-kin.”
I stood at the edge of camp, eyes fixed on the mountain ahead. Its peak soared so high that the clouds swallowed it whole, a towering mystery cloaked in mist and snow. I let my gaze drift back over the others, each bundled near the fire, concern etched into their faces.
“Stay warm. Stay safe,” I said quietly.
Max met my eyes. “Keep your mind open to me. Just in case.”
“We could just go with…” Mel started, but I raised a hand to stop her.
“No,” I said gently. “I can’t keep the aura going on the climb. Who knows what’s up there? At least here you’ve got the fire, and each other.”
She slumped slightly; lips pressed in a tight line. “Just… be safe up there, brother.”
I gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Trish stepped forward, wrapping her arms around me in a silent farewell. Tears welled in her eyes, and I knew if she spoke, they’d spill over. But she didn’t need to say a word.
‘Come back to me.’ I heard it all the same.
“I will, my love. I promise.” I knew I shouldn’t make promises like that… but I needed to believe it. So did she.
With a final round of goodbyes, I turned toward the towering spire of ice and stone.
Nyxala fell in beside me, quiet and steady.
Together, we disappeared into the mist of the cold forest, the firelight fading behind us.