Estello turned to Richard and Jack with that cryptic glint in his eye. "Co on. There’s soone I want you to et."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "This one of your spirit friends?"
"Not quite," Estello said. "But close enough. And you’ll keep this quiet, yeah? No records, no chatter. Promise that."
Richard nodded. Jack muttered, "Yeah, sure. Secret grandpa quests are our thing now."
They followed Estello as he took a narrow path through the side of the warehouse, past the flickering remnants of ritual candles and toward the far edge of the village. It was quieter here. Humid. The air slled of damp wood and distant rain.
They stopped in front of a small wooden house tucked beneath the shade of a massive balete tree. From the outside, it looked nothing special—simple, lived-in, old. Faded curtains. Potted plants. A tin roof half-swallowed by moss. The kind of place you’d pass without a second thought.
But Richard... he felt it.
Sothing inside the house didn’t sit right. Not wrong, exactly—but heavy. Like the pressure shift before a storm. Like a presence waiting just beyond the walls. He narrowed his eyes, trying to parse it. Energy. Familiar, but not. Subtle. It didn’t spike like the amulets. It breathed.
Estello knocked gently. The door creaked open.
An old woman answered, wrapped in a handwoven shawl. Her face was soft but unreadable—wrinkles carved deep from ti and sothing heavier. Loss maybe. Or wisdom that bordered on sothing stranger.
Estello smiled like a kid visiting his grandmother. "Oh, child. Good to see you."
The woman chuckled. "Didn’t expect you this early, Estello. Co in. Bring your boys."
She didn’t blink twice at Richard or Jack.
Jack leaned in and whispered, "Okay... is she human? Or, like, ghost-adjacent?"
Richard stepped in first, ignoring him. The mont his foot crossed the threshold, it hit him—like diving deep beneath the ocean’s surface. Pressure wrapped around his chest, still and suffocating, as if the air itself held its breath.
Estello took his ti entering, then gestured toward the old woman. "Jackie. Richie. et Grandma Maria."
Jack’s eyes twitched. "Grandma?"
Estello nodded. "She’s earned it."
Richard and Jack bowed slightly, offering their right hands and pressing them to their foreheads, a local sign of respect. Maria gave them a warm, distant smile. Her presence was serene, but sothing behind her eyes throbbed with dormant weight.
Estello eased into a nearby chair. "Grandma, I won’t take much of your ti. I ca to ask for your readings on these two... but only if you’re up for it."
Maria waved her hand gently. "When have I ever refused you, child?" She turned her gaze to the two n. "Co. Give your hands."
Richard stepped forward first, extending his palm. Maria’s old, calloused fingers wrapped around it—then stopped.
Her eyes flared.
A deep, molten yellow pulsed behind her pupils like a solar flare, bright enough to cast a glow in the dim house. Jack flinched. Richard held his breath.
"What the hell..." Jack muttered. "That’s so ani-tier glow right there."
Maria’s body trembled. Her knees gave out, and she dropped to the floor in a sudden sob.
"The royal mark..." Her voice cracked. "The royal mark has returned."
Estello stood up fast, his brows furrowed. "What...?"
Richard blinked, stunned. "What the hell is the royal mark?"
Jack stared, speechless.
Maria clutched Richard’s hand tighter, tears streaming down her face. "Two thousand years I’ve waited. Two thousand years... and now—" She broke into gasping sobs, her body trembling with a kind of release that felt almost spiritual. "The Absolute One has answered our prayers."
Richard pulled his hand back slowly. His head was spinning.
Jack whispered beside him, "Did she say two thousand years? As in... literal? Is she immortal or just nuts?"
Neither of them said it out loud. But both were thinking the sa thing.
Estello helped Maria to her feet. "Grandma... please. What do you an? The royal mark... that shouldn’t even be possible."
Maria steadied herself, brushing her hands down her shawl. The light in her eyes faded, but her expression was grim—weighty with history.
"I suppose... I must explain," she said. "You deserve to know."
She looked at both of them, then turned her gaze out the window toward the towering balete trees.
"Two thousand years ago, this land belonged to one of the surviving royal kingdoms. Descendants of Lemuria—the lost continent. Our ancestors didn’t write history on paper. They encoded it inside crystals. Living records."
She paced slowly, hands tracing the edge of a carved shelf.
"Only the bloodline of the Tallano family could read them. They were keepers of truth—histories older than ti."
"But with power cos envy. The noble families turned. Jealousy beca bloodshed. They rewrote history. Erased the Tallano na from mory. Hunted them. Purged them."
Jack’s brow furrowed. "What about the royal family? Did they survive or sothing?"
She nodded.
"We—those loyal to the truth—scattered. Sworn to find the last of the bloodline. We cannot die nor pass on to the spirit realm until our purpose is fulfilled. Until the rightful heir is found. That is the oath we have taken."
Her gaze locked on Richard.
"The proof... lies in the mark. A diamond. Etched in flesh. A birthmark, passed only through the blood."
Richard stiffened. "A diamond?"
Jack’s eyes lit up. "Hold on. Wait. I think I’ve seen sothing on your back before, man. Take it off."
"What? No."
"Co on, it’s just us. Strip, your majesty."
Richard sighed, pulling off his shirt and turning around.
Silence.
There it was.
Centered at the spine, just below the nape—clean, symtrical. A faint diamond-shaped mark. Faded at the edges, but unmistakable.
Maria gasped.
"I have found you, Your Highness..."
She knelt again.
Richard turned, panicked. "Uhh—okay, yeah, no. Please don’t kneel. This is weird. I don’t know what this ans but... don’t do that."
Maria stood, brushing her tears away with her shawl. "Forgive . Habit, I suppose."
She reached for the object she’d unwrapped earlier and held it out—a small, obsidian disk wrapped in aged runes and silver wire.
"Then at least take this, Your highness. It belonged to your ancestors."
Richard hesitated. "Grandma can... can you just call Richard? Seriously."
Maria chuckled, half-weary, half-sentintal. "Of course... Richard."
Estello was quiet, watching with a knowing smile. There was sothing deeper behind his eyes now.
Jack looked between them, then grinned.
"So what now? Do we crown his majesty, king of the warehouse?"
Richard groaned, putting his shirt back on. "If you call your majesty one more ti, I’m deleting your ga saves."
Jack smirked. "Yes, your majesty."
Richard unwrapped the cloth slowly.
Inside—nestled against aged fabric—was a white crystal, no larger than his palm. But it shimred with unnatural light, refracting subtle hues—rainbows that danced just beneath its surface.
It didn’t just glow.
It pulsed.
His fingers brushed it—and sothing inside him stirred.
Fragnts. Echoes. mory.
The Crystals store fragnted history...
The thought ca unbidden. Not from Estello. Not from Maria. But from sowhere buried deeper.
Then he rembered sothing else—a skill, half-forgotten until now.
[Basic Psychotry] – Echoes
Allows the user to perceive residual psychic imprints left on objects or in locations.
Effect:Can gain vague impressions of past events or emotions associated with an object or place.
Richard closed his eyes. Focused. Felt the cool weight of the crystal in his palm.
A jolt ran through his spine.
Suddenly, the room fell away.
The air changed.
The scent of wildflowers and sun-ward grass filled his lungs.
Wind pressed gently against his robes—robes?
He wasn’t in the house anymore.
He stood barefoot on vast, endless grassy plains, the horizon curving gently. In the distance, a pyramid rose, majestic and impossibly white—like carved marble under a midday sun. Its peak? Gold. Gleaming like a second sun.
He turned—without aning to. His body moved on its own.
Behind him, another pyramid—half-constructed. Black-skinned n, muscular and half-dressed in linen, were levitating massive stone blocks—ton-weight slabs—effortlessly placing them into perfect alignnt.
No cranes. No scaffolding. Just willpower.
Telekinesis. Or... sothing older.
Richard—no, the version of him in this mory—turned to a man beside him.
The man wore a reed-woven hat and a golden sash around his waist. Dust clung to his skin, sweat tracing rivers down his spine.
They spoke. But the language wasn’t modern. Still, Richard understood.
"The last pyramid... how long until it stands?"
"Seven hundred and thirty-one light revolutions, sire."
Richard blinked. Light revolutions?
He sohow knew—it ant days. Roughly two Earth years.
The pyramid would be finished in two years.
And then—
The vision fractured.
He was back in the room.
Breath caught in his throat. Knees trembling.
The crystal lay in his hand, still pulsing—faintly now. Like it had just exhaled sothing ancient into him.
Jack was saying sothing, but it took Richard a second to tune in.
"—Okay, are you good? You zoned out like soone unplugged your brain."
Richard finally looked up, eyes wide.
"I saw it."
"...Saw what?"
"A mory. Not mine. From the crystal." He turned to Estello. "I was there. In the past. I think... I was soone else. There were pyramids—white stone, gold tops—and people moving blocks like they weighed nothing."
Estello’s face was unreadable. But Maria, from her seat, whispered sothing in a voice trembling with awe.
"The Lemurian Archives... They still respond."
Jack crossed his arms. "Alright, cool. Ancient pyramids and ti ghosts. This is getting crazy even by our standards."
Richard didn’t laugh. He clutched the crystal tighter.
"It wasn’t a hallucination. I understood everything. Felt it. I think this crystal stores more than just mories. It... it connects to sothing."
Maria nodded. "There are more. Fragnts of the past. Each one holds a truth the world has forgotten."
Estello stepped forward, voice calm, but serious.
"And now, you’ve accessed them. Which ans, ready or not... you’ve inherited more than just a bloodline."
Richard didn’t speak. He just stared at the crystal in his hand—still shimring, still alive.
And sowhere deep within him... a question was forming:
What am I supposed to do with this?
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