In a realm beyond mortal comprehension, where light and darkness dance in an eternal ballet, two figures stand amidst the cosmic tapestry.
The void around them pulsates with an otherworldly energy—neither warm nor cold, simply present.
Aether, a being of pure, radiant light, slowly rises to his feet. His form flickers and wavers, like a candle flame caught in a gentle breeze. Tendrils of darkness creep along the edges of his luminous body.
With effort, Aether focuses his gaze, perceiving a stark divide in the space around them. To one side, an impenetrable darkness stretches into infinity; to the other, a blinding light that seems to hold secrets of its own.
"Your left arm is gone." The words hang in the air, weighty with implication.
Aether looks up and nods. His light pulses, slow and sickly, like a dying star.
"Aether..." the figure intones. Its featureless face somehow conveys a deep, penetrating gaze.
A flicker of reluctance passes through Leonidas's mind. Ah, that name, he thinks to himself.
"Call me Ghost," it says, its tone contemplative, as if choosing its words with great care.
"Ghost?" Aether responds. The name feels foreign, yet oddly fitting in this liminal space.
Ghost continues, its words measured and deliberate. "Is Aether really your name? On your mother's soul, your father's, and your brother's? And on your present self?"
The question hangs in the air, weighted with an importance Leonidas can't quite grasp. "Yeah..." he responds, uncertainty coloring his tone.
Ghost nods—an almost imperceptible movement in the swirling darkness. "Your skillset should still be visible, yes? Show me."
As Aether prepares to comply, his mind races. How will I change my name? he wonders.
"Acknowledge it. It's your new name. Accept it."
But doubt gnaws at him. I don't want to lose that name, he argues with himself.
How would Ronald find me? The weight of his past, his connections, his identity presses down on him.
He feels an urge to cry—a reflex so deeply ingrained in his human experience. But no tears come. There are no eyes to produce them, no organs, no brain, no blood. He is a walking, talking soul, adrift in a sea of cosmic energy.
Pushing aside his existential crisis, Aether focuses on Ghost's request. "Here," he says, willing his skillset into visibility.
Before them, glowing text appears:
Aether Salvius Nox – Status
Age: 16
Story Skill: Tour Guide Practical Officer (Stage 5)
Attachment Skill: Adaptive Evolution
Unwritten Skill: King (4 Unwritten Skills)
Title Skill: [Uninvited Guest], Champion Stage
Rasvian Control Rank: Adept
Ghost's attention fixates on the title skill. "You were a known person, trespasser," Ghost hissed, the word cracking like ice. "The Garden of Stories spits you out... so to the Crucible you come."
Aether watches as Ghost's gaze moves upward, taking in the rest of the information.
Aether's light flickers wildly. "Garden? What—"
"Where finished tales bloom." Ghost's white-heart pulsed. "You... unfinished... fester here."
The Museum?
There is silence—not true silence, as concepts rage. This is a silence that exhibits knowing.
Ghost knows something and doesn't tell Aether. And in that space, Aether doesn't know if he truly cares.
Ghost's form seems to shiver. "Sixteen revolutions... brief fuel for the Crucible."
This shocks Aether more than he expected. Even with the pain gnawing at him, he wishes he could cry.
"Let's go," Ghost urges, a note of impatience creeping into its voice. "You don't know how much I love but despise mysticals..." The last part is muttered, almost inaudible, but laden with an ancient grudge.
"What?" Aether replies suddenly. The words vibrate in Aether's core, threatening to unravel him. He continues, "That 'mystical'... was it what took my left arm?"
"I didn't say that, did I?" Ghost responds.
Aether stops mid-stride. He isn't someone I know. He isn't someone I should trust, he thinks, nodding slowly toward Ghost. Light scalds the edges of Aether's being as darkness tries to snuff him.
As they begin their journey, the seemingly unchanging space around them begins to shift. Landscape features materialize out of the void—trees, though minor and pure black in every aspect, start to appear.
It's as if reality itself is responding to their presence, crafting a world around them.
A black branch lashed from the void—a whip of pure shadow. It struck Aether's light-form. A shriek tore through his being as emerald edges frayed where the branch made contact.
Ghost moved; where shadow met shadow, the wood eroded.
"You lived," Ghost intoned, the void resonating with its voice. "You died. Did mortality teach you nothing?" The last branch-fragment hissed into oblivion beneath its grip. "The Crucible is less forgiving. Forget survival, and it unmakes you."
Aether's light pulses erratically, retreating from the point of impact. He nods, a jerky motion that costs him stability.
He takes another step. The ground—if it existed—doesn't yield. Instead, the darkness thickens like tar around his essence. With each movement, he sinks deeper into the suffocating nothingness, light dimming as the void drinks his radiance. Terror wasn't an emotion here; it was assimilation.
"Where—" His voice fractures, eaten by the hungry dark. He forces resonance, light flaring weakly. "Where am I? Truly?"
Ghost, ever enigmatic, doesn't respond directly.
Ghost's form darkens, leaching warmth from Aether's light.
"Two realms await the dead." Its voice scrapes like stone on bone.
A pause. The void inhales.
"One: a gallery of tales. Souls calcify into stories."
Aether's missing arm pulses—phantom pain echoing.
"The other…" Ghost's white-heart flares, bleaching the shadows raw.
"Here. Where sins fester."
Darkness thickens like clotting blood.
"There, they curate. Here… they compost."
The word compost decays as it leaves Ghost, leaving rot in the air.
"Sins seed. Regrets root."
Aether feels the Crucible's teeth in those words.
"Until what changes…"
—a whisper now—
"…becomes fertile enough to crawl back down."