The silver envelope remained untouched on Lucien's desk for three days. He would glance at it occasionally while sipping tea or scribbling coded entries in his journal, but never once did he open it. In this city where secrets crawled beneath the cobblestones and whispers stitched the air, he knew patience was as much a weapon as knowledge.
His apartment, modest yet functional, was filled with orderly stacks of notes, arcane sketches, and translations of ancient Rorsted texts. From the window, the gaslights of Trier shimmered through the mist like half-remembered dreams.
On the fourth evening, he finally broke the seal.
There were no instructions inside. Only a location: a theater he had never heard of, deep in the old quarter.
No time. No sender. No symbol. That, in itself, was telling.
He arrived just before midnight. The building looked abandoned—its facade faded, windows like blackened eyes, roof tiles missing. Yet a faint candlelight glowed behind the cracked door.
Inside, the stage was dark, the curtains moth-eaten. Empty rows stretched back into shadow.
Only one figure waited, seated in the third row.
"Elise," Lucien whispered inwardly, masking his surprise.
She turned slowly, her expression unreadable. She wore civilian clothes, not her usual academic attire, and her eyes, usually clear and light, seemed shadowed with something else—awareness, maybe. Or weariness.
"I didn't expect to see you here," Lucien said as he approached.
"And yet here we are," she replied.
His posture relaxed, but his mind raced.
Had she followed the same thread? Or had someone else pulled her here?
"You've been distant," she said, watching him.
"You've been observant."
A faint smirk, then a long pause.
"Do you know where we are?" she asked.
Lucien glanced around. The answer was obvious—and yet not.
"The Theater Below," he said slowly. "Or a fragment of it."
She didn't react. Not visibly.
"That book you carry," she said, "it showed me something too. Not words. Images. Symbols I've seen before… in dreams."
So she wasn't just watching him. She had her own piece of the puzzle.
Lucien's thoughts narrowed to a pinpoint.
She had read it. She had seen visions. The implications spiraled outward. Was she like him? Reincarnated? A reader of the original text?
"You've been quiet," she said. "I wonder if you're starting to doubt the plan."
"I never said I had a plan."
"But you always do."
She turned back toward the stage. "There's someone else coming. I can feel it."
Lucien stood beside her now, though he kept half an eye on the exits. His body language was casual. His mind, however, sharpened like a drawn blade.
Then he felt it too—the shift in the air. A prickling sensation in the skin, like a memory trying to reassert itself.
From behind the curtain, someone stepped forward.
A man in a coat far too neat for this ruined place. Dull eyes. Forgettable face.
Lucien's breath caught for a fraction of a second. Not out of fear, but recognition.
He knew this man.
No. Not man.
"Welcome," the newcomer said, with a voice that felt slightly too smooth, too balanced.
Lucien didn't move. Neither did Elise.
But inwardly, he began rearranging the board. Every assumption. Every inference. This was no longer about hidden societies or books.
This was a convergence.
And then came the reasoning—subtle, quiet, like smoke.
He observed the man's bearing: the way he held himself as if unsure of the space, the coat too formal for the setting, the hollow look in the eyes. It wasn't the presence of danger that made the hairs on Lucien's neck rise—but the dissonance. The man felt unreal, like an idea still trying to manifest.
Lucien recalled a passage from his past life's reading. A moment when a certain someone—Klein Moretti—stood at the threshold of mystery. A man dressed too properly, too stiffly, thrown by fate into the gears of the Beyonder world.
And now, in this place of symbolism and gathering threads, that same pattern echoed.
He didn't need to see a name.
He understood the story had begun.
Klein Moretti had entered the game.
To be continued...