By the ti I returned, Mira had claid the sweetroll by invoking an obscure clause in our classroom’s "Finders-Keepers Food Treaty." Julien objected. Wallace demanded a recount. Felix suggested splitting it into equal parts, and Leo proposed burning it to prevent further conflict.
I walked past them and tossed the bone-tied scroll onto the table. It landed with a heavy thunk.
They all shut up.
"Is that...?" Mira leaned forward.
"Yes," I said. "An invitation. Or a threat. Possibly both."
Garrick, who’d been quiet up to now, furrowed his brow. "From who?"
I looked him in the eye. "That’s the fun part. I don’t know."
Felix nearly fainted.
Later that night, I sat in the living room—feet up, tea in hand, the scroll unrolled on the table like a cursed relic in a horror movie.
The ssage inside was elegant, full of cryptic wording and obnoxiously expensive calligraphy. Every capital letter was hand-etched in mana-ink. Whoever made this had too much ti and not enough friends.
___
"To Lucian Drelmont of Noctis Ardentis Academy,
You are hereby invited to attend the Solstice Convergence.
Location: Withheld. Ti: You’ll Know.
Attire: Your better judgnt.
Reason: Eyes have turned. Patterns shift. The Stone stirs.
Bring no guards. Bring no lies.
Your presence is already expected."
___
I let the silence settle before muttering, "...what the hell does ’The Stone stirs’ even an?"
Julien, who was reading upside-down beside , offered helpfully, "It ans you’re probably screwed."
"Thank you, Smartass."
He grinned.
The next day, I walked into the Faculty Wing to find Gale waiting outside my office. Not inside. Outside. Standing. Perfect posture. Sword cleaned and sheathed like a well-behaved noble hound.
"I heard," he said calmly.
"About the duel?"
"About the scroll."
So much for secrecy.
"You have... powerful friends, Lucian," he said. "They are watching. They are listening."
I smiled. "Oh, good. I was worried they’d forgotten ."
Gale stepped closer, voice lowering. "Be careful. Whatever you think you’ve stumbled into—it won’t end with students cheering and a cute little title card saying ’You Win.’"
"That’s a sha," I said. "I had a victory song picked out and everything."
He stared for a long ti, then laughed—short, sharp.
"For a puppet, you’re very good at pretending to cut your own strings."
I walked past him, replying, "And you’re very good at pretending you’re not scared of what’s coming."
He didn’t follow.
That night, the seal on the scroll lit up. No knock. No ssenger. Just a glowing pulse.
A portal opened.
Round, swirling, tinged with whispers and the scent of burnt sage.
I turned to my students.
"Do not follow ," I said.
Julien opened his mouth.
"Not even as a joke."
He closed it.
With a sigh, I stepped through.
Stepping through the portal was like being swallowed by a sigh. Not a gasp, not a scream—just a long, tired exhale. One mont I was standing in my quarters, lit by oil-lamps and the flickering candle Felix had insisted was good for "positive mana flow." The next, I was sowhere else entirely.
Cold.
Silent.
Empty.
The air was heavy, like I’d just stepped underwater, but not the drowning kind. The kind where sound becos muffled, where space feels deeper than it should be.
My boots echoed against polished black stone. Above , the ceiling arched like a cathedral’s, carved from a single obsidian slab. Runes danced faintly across the surface, blinking like distant stars. The walls were covered in tapestry-like illusions—rippling images that shifted the more I tried to focus.
Faces.
Symbols.
Patterns I didn’t understand but my Grimoire of Patterns pulsed softly at my side. I didn’t touch it. Not yet.
A single voice broke the silence.
"You ca."
It echoed.
"That puts you above most."
I turned, expecting a robed elder. A masked figure. A secret cultist council.
Instead, I saw a boy.
Maybe fifteen. Maybe twenty-five. Hard to tell with the way his eyes looked. Too old for his skin. Pale hair, thinner than mine. Wearing a coat that didn’t belong to this era—long, patchy, stitched with symbols I didn’t recognize.
"Who are you?" I asked.
He tilted his head. "You may call ... Curator."
"Pretentious."
"Accurate," he said, smiling faintly. "And you... are Lucian Drelmont. Once a man nad Allen. Fanatic. Survivor. Puppet."
My spine stiffened. "You know about Allen?"
"I know everything you rember. The runes. The ga. The forums. Your late-night paranoia about update 1.4 removing the Broken Staff ta."
I blinked. "That was a bug, not a ta."
He grinned. "Spoken like a true relic."
I took a step forward. "Where am I?"
He gestured. "Nowhere you should be. But sowhere you were always ant to reach. Welco to the Interim Vault."
I frowned. "That sounds... made up."
"All nas are," he said. "But the Vault is real. Here lies the information between truths. Not lies. Not prophecy. Possibility."
The Grimoire at my side grew warr.
"You have the book. The failed relic."
"Failed for most," I said, "Not for ."
He chuckled. "Arrogance. Survival’s favorite flavor."
He began to walk. I followed, reluctantly. Each step seed to pull mory from the air—I saw flashes. People. Places. Battlefields I never stood on. A woman in black armor bleeding under a dying tree. A golden bird plucked from a cage. A rune carved into the sky.
"These are future threads," Curator said. "Or maybe discarded drafts. Ti is ssy."
"Why show this?"
"Because you already changed sothing. You punched Gale."
"The system told to."
"And yet you chose how. That matters. The system observes. It doesn’t act."
That sent a chill through .
"So what now?"
We entered a chamber where the air shifted. A round table sat in the center, etched with glowing concentric runes. Nine chairs. All empty.
"Now," Curator said, "You listen. And you decide."
He gestured to the table. The runes flared, and I saw them.
Visions.
Julien on a battlefield, bloodied but laughing.
Mira cloaked in shadow, holding a cursed crown.
Felix—eyes wide, teeth clenched, surrounded by fire and not screaming.
Wallace dissecting a living construct.
Leo fleeing from a burning academy, carrying a scroll marked "Void Protocol."
Garrick holding the broken pieces of a shield that looked eerily like mine.
Cassandra...
She was missing. Her seat remained dark.
I looked at Curator. "What are these? Futures?"
"Options. Not all pleasant. Not all possible. But the world shifts around fixed points. You are one of them now."
I swallowed. "Why ?"
"Because you were never supposed to care. You were supposed to lose. Yet here you are, teaching Class C, mocking their flaws, saving their lives. Why?"
"Because no one else would."
Curator stared.
"That," he said softly, "Is why they chose you."
I looked back at the table.
The flas.
The choices.
The students who had sohow beco mine.
Curator moved toward .
"The Convergence is real. The stone will stir. The world will demand a price."
"What kind of price?"
He touched my shoulder.
"The kind you can’t pay twice."
A pulse. The portal reopened.
"Go. Watch. Prepare. The next ga has already started."
I turned to ask sothing—anything.
But the Vault was gone.
Just the quiet hum of my quarters.
And Julien yelling through the door: "Professor! Mira stole my pants again!"
I groaned. Back to normal.
For now.
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