Interrogation and Debrief
Back at the Halloween Banner's base, the squad is separated and debriefed individually by royal inquisitors and ranking officers. Tensions run high as officials try to frame the incident as a hallucination or anomaly.
Ashen's vision is left unspoken.
Drael shields his squad from deeper questioning but is clearly disturbed by what happened. Privately, he consults an ancient tome hidden in the Banner's archives — the same glyphs from the obelisk appear on its cover.
Meanwhile, Ashen is summoned to a chamber beneath the base for a "private" check-up with an unfamiliar mage named Vessan, a quiet, silver-eyed man in clean gray robes that bear no squad or guild insignia.
Vessan's hands move over Ashen with clinical precision, but his attention never leaves the pendant.
Vessan (smiling coldly): "Artifacts respond to hunger, not morality. This one is still choosing you — fascinating."
Ashen shifts. "Why are you looking at it like that?"
Vessan traces a rune in the air. "Because I've seen only one other like it. And that one refused everyone."
Ashen narrows his eyes. "You're not with the Royal Healers."
Vessan's smile fades slightly. "No. My office is smaller. Less advertised."
He taps the side of his head. "We study... deviations."
Ashen's grip tightens on the pendant. It pulses — tense. Watchful.
Vessan leans closer, voice softening. "What you wear is not a weapon. It's a lock. And something inside it remembers a war that didn't end."
Ashen says nothing.
Vessan straightens. "Dismissed."
Ashen leaves with more questions than answers.
Squad Reflection
Later that night, the squad regathers around their fire pit.
Tess, Kael, and Brill try to normalize things — sharing wine, teasing, half-joking about what they "didn't" see in the marsh. But beneath the banter, there's shared unease. Lina watches Ashen more closely now. Drael remains distant.
Brill quietly admits the glyphs were erased from most magical tomes before the Concord Pact — "Which means someone wanted them forgotten."
Ashen remains quiet — unsure whether to tell them about the door, the sigil, or the feeling of being recognized.
Just before dawn, he scribbles the rune he saw in the sky on parchment… and the ink fades on its own.
"It doesn't want to be written," he whispers.
The Old Wall Mission
Two days later, the Halloween Banner was dispatched again — this time not to wild marshland, but to the eastern cliffs where the last arcane border wall had once stood. The mission was quiet, civilian-facing: assess a growing fracture in the landscape near a retired ley-channel.
On the surface, it was simple. But Drael's face said otherwise.
"We're not here for the crack," he said as they descended the ridge trail. "We're here because something passed through it."
Tess frowned. "Passed through stone?"
"No magic residue. No trace spell. Just stone melted at the base."
Brill muttered, "Like something not made of magic touched it."
Ashen said nothing. His pendant had been silent for days, but the silence had weight — like a breath being held deep underground.
They reached the broken ridge by noon. The wall was a remnant from before the Concord — a time when kingdoms carved boundaries using pure spell-thread. Now it stood half-crumbled, unguarded, and ignored.
Except for the crack.
Lina stepped forward. "Something peeled the rock. Like a claw."
Kael drew his blade. "Or like a doorway opened without permission."
Tess crouched beside the crack. "There's ink here. Not modern. Like someone tried to mark it."
Drael nodded. "Scan it."
Brill knelt and muttered a charm. The ink flared briefly — then faded.
Ashen stepped closer. The pendant pulsed once.
Then a voice, low and unfamiliar, spoke into his mind.
"They broke what was made to divide. I warned them."
He staggered. Lina caught his elbow. "Ashen?"
He blinked. "It spoke."
Kael stiffened. "Who?"
Ashen touched the pendant. "It… it used words. Not images. Not visions."
Tess's eyes narrowed. "What did it say?"
Ashen hesitated. "It said: 'They broke what was made to divide. I warned them.'"
No one spoke.
Then the crack began to hum.
Drael barked, "Defensive circle. Now."
The ground below the fracture shimmered — and for a moment, they glimpsed something behind the wall. Not a beast. Not a man.
Just… an eye. Vast and wrong. Watching.
Then it was gone.
The crack sealed itself with a sound like breath being reversed.
Ashen exhaled. "I don't think it's sealed forever."
Drael stared at the stone. "No. That was a knock."
The Voice in the Flame
That night, Ashen dreams again. But this time, the vision isn't chaotic or fragmented. It's lucid.
He stands in a vast field of obsidian dust under a sunless sky. The pendant hovers before him — but now it has eyes. Not human ones. Not animal either. Just shifting light that notices.
"Why now?" Ashen asks aloud.
The pendant pulses. Its voice is clear, layered with echoes, both male and female, young and ancient.
"Because you didn't run."
"What are you?"
"All that was denied. All that refused to be erased. They tried to scatter me, but I gathered. They tried to seal me, but I endured."
Ashen takes a step forward. "You're not a weapon."
"I am memory. And forgetting. I am what magic pretends never lived."
"The Hollow Force?"
"I am not of them. But I am near them."
Ashen's breath catches. "What do they want?"
"To rewrite. To remake. They think they understand power, but power isn't light or fire or dominion."
The eyes pulse closer.
"It's absence. It's choice. It's the moment before the word is spoken."
Ashen closes his eyes.
"Then what am I?"
"The first. And if you are wise — not the last."
He wakes with a gasp. The fire's gone out. The others still sleep.
The pendant is warm. Not in warning. In… comfort.
Ashen whispers, "You're not mine, are you?"
A pause. Then, for the first time, it replies aloud — not in thought, but in sound only he can hear:
"No. But I am with you."
A Visitor from the Crown
Word of the Old Wall incident spreads faster than expected.
The next morning, an envoy arrives from the Crown — not from the palace directly, but from the Royal Research Circle. Leading the envoy is Sir Caldrein Volne, a polished knight-mage with violet ceremonial armor and a smooth voice that hides little malice.
Drael greets him with formality, but doesn't bother with warmth.
"Sir Volne. To what do we owe this visit?"
"The Crown is concerned. Your squad has reported two irregular arcane events within a week. That's not a coincidence. That's contagion."
He speaks calmly, but his eyes flick to Ashen.
"We'd like to reassess the status of the artifact your orphan is carrying."
Drael steps forward. "The orphan has a name."
Volne raises a brow. "Does it answer to it?"
Ashen, standing at the rear, grips the pendant.
"Do not speak," the pendant says.
"Why?" Ashen replies internally.
"Because he is not here for truth. He is here for possession."
Tension grows. Lina reaches subtly toward her dagger. Kael adjusts his stance. Tess doesn't blink.
Volne places a sealed scroll on the table. "A request — not a demand. We'd like to take the artifact to Reignlight for study. In return, Ashen will be granted full squire access, potential nobility assessment, and… comfort."
Drael doesn't even open the scroll. "Denied."
Volne's smile is cool. "This is not a good time to play favorites, Captain."
Drael's voice turns to steel. "This is not a good time to forget what my squad can do."
Ashen steps forward at last. "The pendant stays with me."
Volne eyes him with a long, calculating stare. Then nods once.
"You've made your choice. I hope you survive it."
The envoy leaves without further incident.
Tess finally breathes. "He smells like roses and murder."
Brill whispers, "He's not a mage. He's a curator. And curators don't ask twice."
Drael pockets the scroll without reading it.
"We've just made enemies in the Capital. Stay ready."
The Line Drawn
Later that evening, Drael gathers the squad behind locked doors. There's no fire lit. No jokes. Just silence, then:
"We are no longer just a squad. We're a liability."
He lays the unopened scroll from Volne on the table.
"This isn't a request. This is a ledger. We're being watched."
Kael curses under his breath. Tess swears louder.
Lina leans forward. "What do we do?"
Drael looks to Ashen.
"We get stronger. Fast."
He opens a second drawer and pulls out a faded map of the kingdom. On it are marked notations — old battlefield sites, collapsed shrines, erased towns.
"If anti-magic returned, it didn't come from nowhere. We track absence. We go where magic fails."
Brill mutters, "You're planning a rogue circuit."
"I'm planning survival."
Ashen finally speaks. "What if the pendant doesn't want me to go?"
The pendant pulses.
"I do."
Everyone hears it this time. Not in their heads. In the air.
Kael swallows. "Okay then. We're listening."
Tess grins wide. "Halloween Banner, unofficial division of don't-ask-who-sent-us."
Lina cracks her knuckles. "Let's become something they can't predict."
Brill nods slowly. "Or something they can't bury."
Drael draws a symbol over the map. A line drawn across enemy territory.
"No more waiting. No more defense."
"We move."