The path from Neverwas didn't straighten — it spiraled.
The sky was the wrong color for morning. Trees rustled with leaves of polished glass, and the bark hummed softly in reply. Somewhere along the winding trail, Hiro sneezed — and accidentally set a bush ablaze with what should have been defunct curse-magic.
Dee didn't flinch. He just raised an eyebrow.
"Bless you," Vampher said dryly.
"I didn't mean to ignite a small ecosystem!"
"You're still new at being a walking apocalypse," Dee offered. "Very common. We all go through it."
"You sneezed an avalanche once," Vampher reminded him.
"It was allergy season," Dee said, shrugging. "And the mountain was rude."
1. The Map that Wasn't
Dee held a map in his hands — except it wasn't a map. It was a folded memory, etched into enchanted vellum and stolen from a library that technically hadn't existed for three hundred years.
"This should lead to the First Seal," he muttered. "Or to a pocket dimension full of angry sheep. Hard to tell. Same sigils."
They followed its spiraled path into Briarthorn's Gullet, a canyon so twisted it looked like the inside of something that once swallowed dragons whole. Shadows clung to the walls like regrets. Vines slithered where roots should have been.
"I don't like this," Hiro muttered.
"You don't like spicy food," Vampher pointed out.
"That turnip tried to bite me."
"That was in a cursed market," Dee said. "Focus."
2. The Whispering Watchers
As they descended, stone faces emerged — carved into the cliffs. Old, cracked, watching.
Not statues.
Watchers.
Sentient. Silent. Judging.
Hiro gave one a small wave. "Do they blink?"
"No," Dee said. "They remember."
"Remember what?"
"Everything."
Vampher paused, laying his hand against one. It whispered in a voice only he could hear:
"You are the dusk-child. The day-walker.
You will break or bind the end."
He pulled his hand away. "They're dramatic."
"Said the guy who wears his cloak inside-out for 'aesthetic tension,'" Dee muttered.
3. The Vault of the Hungering Thread
At the canyon's heart stood a door — no hinges, no handle. Just a surface of threadglass, woven with living symbols.
Dee ran his palm across it. "An aweave lock. Arkanum Chorus design. Dawn-Silence era. Rare. Pretentious."
"So… we knock?" Hiro asked.
"No. We weave."
Dee summoned a filament of golden mana and stitched the air with practiced ease. Symbols shimmered, pulled tight — and then unraveled the door into radiant strands of light.
Inside: a vault.
Cold. Quiet.
In the center: the First Seal — a spindle wrapped in shadow-thread, rotating slowly within a pillar of inverted gravity.
But around it: tendrils. Living threads.
Watching.
Waiting.
"They're not just thread," Vampher said, eyes narrowing. "They're hungry."
4. Hunger and Weaving
The threads twitched.
One lashed out at Dee — fast.
Vampher moved faster.
He caught the tendril mid-air, barehanded. It hissed like a thing scalded.
"It fears you," Dee murmured. "Fascinating."
"I fear me too," Vampher muttered, shredding the thread into unraveling coils.
The room pulsed darker.
Then — the guardian arrived.
It wasn't a beast or a knight.
It was a knot.
A tangled mass of memory-thread and voice. Arms like yarn. Eyes like cracked clocks. A mouth that spoke in rewinds.
"Who pulls the thread… risks the snarl.
Who untangles fate… must fall.
Who wakes the Seal—"
"—Really needs to get to the point," Hiro snapped, and swung his sword.
5. Battle of the Knotbound
The creature lunged.
Vampher met it in a blur of motion, his blade a contradiction — obsidian tempered in daylight. Every strike bent time. Every counter defied it.
Dee summoned glyphs and wove radiant chains in the air, snapping at limbs like coiling serpents.
Hiro ducked, rolled, and yelled.
"You guys are way too graceful for this job!"
"You're immortal," Dee barked. "Fight immortal!"
"I am! Just—panicked immortal!"
Hiro punched a tendril. It snapped with a musical twang.
Vampher parried the guardian's strike — and then saw it.
At its core: a memory.
A girl with silver hair. Hollow eyes.
The prophet.
He hesitated.
Then drove his blade through.
The creature screamed — and unraveled. Threads scattered like singing ashes.
6. The Seal Awakened
The spindle slowed.
Dee approached and knelt. "First Seal. Still intact. Wards… holding. Barely."
He etched a containment glyph into the air — a golden net of symbols.
"We'll leave it dormant for now," he said. "But we'll need to find the rest. Soon."
"How many?" Hiro asked, panting.
"Seven," Dee said. "Four sealed. Three… unknown."
"What happens if they break?"
Dee didn't answer right away.
Then: "The future the girl saw won't just be a maybe. It'll be now."
7. A Quiet Walk Away
They climbed back out of the canyon.
The Watchers whispered again.
Vampher paused beside one. This time, the voice was clear:
"You fixed the first.
But the last?
The last will break you."
He didn't tell the others.
Instead, he looked at the wrong-colored sky and whispered,
"I'm not broken yet."
8. Elsewhere, in the Threads Between Worlds...
In a realm of tangled time, a cloaked figure watched as the First Seal pulsed with new light.
They smiled.
"A thread tugs loose," they murmured. "Let's see what unravels you first, Daywalker — the seals, or yourself."
Behind them, other spindles began to stir.
Some cracked.
Some hummed.
All of them hungry.