The Whispering Wastes lived up to their name in every way. Stretching across a vast swath of the eastern edge of Eldoria, the desert was not lifeless, but haunted by echoes—voices that drifted on the wind, fragments of memory and madness.
Aelric stood at the edge of the Wastes, his cloak whipping around him as he gazed out over dunes the color of old bone. The Heartstone pulsed faintly at his side, now nestled within a leather pouch secured tightly to his belt. Its light had faded somewhat since the Marshes, as though retreating inward.
Liora walked beside him, the hilt of her sword glinting beneath her cloak. "I hate deserts," she muttered. "They always feel like they're watching you."
Thalin, bringing up the rear, consulted a map etched on ancient parchment. "They are," he said quietly. "This place was once home to the Whispering Keepers—a people who preserved knowledge through soulbinding. They wove their voices into the sands."
Aelric raised a brow. "So the whispers we hear... they're real?"
"Real enough," Thalin replied. "Echoes of what once was. Warnings, perhaps. Or lamentations."
Nyara padded silently ahead of them, her luminous fur dimmed by a layer of fine sand already accumulating along her back. Her ears twitched with every phantom breeze.
They had left the Shattered Marshes three days prior, traveling with haste and secrecy. Morvath had vanished into shadow, but the Void's corruption continued to spread. According to Eldra's visions, something awaited them in the Wastes—a ruin called the Hollow Gate, where an artifact lay hidden: the Shard of Memory. Aelric had no idea what it did, only that Eldoria's fate could hinge upon it.
Sands of Memory
As they journeyed deeper into the dunes, the heat became a tangible weight. The sun burned mercilessly during the day, and the nights brought a frigid silence, broken only by the soft howling of wind.
The voices came in snatches.
Aelric heard his mother calling his name, though she had died when he was a child.
Liora swore under her breath when the wind whispered battle cries from a long-forgotten war.
Thalin seemed most affected. One night, Aelric found him staring into the darkness, lips moving as if in silent conversation. When asked, he only said, "They remember everything here. Even the things you try to forget."
The First Trial
On the fifth day, they encountered the first guardian.
It began as a shimmer on the horizon—a mirage, they thought, until it grew into a figure of sand and bone, wrapped in tattered robes. Its voice rasped like dry wind through leaves.
"Turn back, starborn. This place is not for the living."
Aelric stepped forward. "We seek the Hollow Gate. We mean no harm."
The guardian raised an arm, and the dunes behind it rose like a tidal wave, coalescing into jagged forms.
"Then prove your worth. Face the memories you fear."
Before they could react, the sands engulfed them.
Dreams of the Past
Aelric awoke in a familiar place. The village of his youth, whole and bright. Liora stood beside him, but younger, her face softer, her armor gone. Thalin appeared near a well, cloaked in the robes of a scholar rather than a battle-mage.
It was a vision, but it felt real. Too real.
Then the village began to burn.
Darkness poured in from the edges—shadows with eyes, tearing through the streets. Aelric saw himself as a child, hiding beneath the floorboards of his home. He tried to move toward the boy, to save him, but he couldn't.
The memory held him.
Beside him, Liora fought phantoms that wore the faces of her fallen comrades. Thalin cried out in a language Aelric did not understand, struggling to hold a rift closed with raw magic.
"You must accept it!" came Nyara's voice, clear and commanding, though she was nowhere to be seen.
Aelric forced himself to face the memory. He watched his younger self sob in silence as shadow claimed the village. Watched the way the flame first sparked in his hand, unbidden, uncontrolled.
"I was afraid," he whispered.
The boy turned and looked at him. "It's all right to be afraid. But don't run from it."
The illusion shattered.
The Hollow Gate
They awoke on the sand, breathless but whole. The guardian was gone, the path ahead cleared.
By twilight, they reached a ridge overlooking a massive ruin half-buried in the sand. Obsidian spires jutted from the ground like broken teeth, and the entrance to the Hollow Gate yawned wide and dark.
"What is this place?" Liora asked, wiping sand from her brow.
Thalin's voice was reverent. "It was once a temple to memory. The Keepers stored truths here, binding them to relics so they could never be lost."
Aelric drew the Heartstone from his pouch. It pulsed faintly in response to the Gate.
They descended into the ruins.
Echoes Below
The inside of the Hollow Gate was colder than expected, the walls carved from black stone etched with glyphs that shimmered faintly.
Nyara moved ahead, sniffing the air. "Something is wrong."
"Be on guard," Thalin said. "There may be more guardians."
As they moved deeper, the whispers grew louder. This time, they did not mimic voices of the past but spoke in strange tongues, weaving through the corridors like serpents.
They entered a grand hall where a massive dais rose in the center. Atop it floated a crystalline shard suspended in a beam of pale light—the Shard of Memory.
As Aelric approached, the light dimmed, and a figure materialized beside the shard.
A woman. Tall, regal, her eyes empty sockets burning with blue flame.
"You seek what was lost," she intoned. "But memory has a cost."
Liora stepped forward. "We've paid it. In blood and soul."
The figure's smile was sorrowful. "Then take it. But beware: the Shard does not lie. It reveals."
Aelric reached out. His fingers closed around the Shard.
Visions of Truth
In an instant, the hall was gone.
He stood in the Spire again, but not as it was—this was the future. The stone was cracked, the skies black with storm. Morvath stood atop the tower, shadows writhing around him.
At his feet lay the bodies of his friends.
"You were too late," the vision whispered.
"No!"
Another flash—Eldoria burning, the Void bleeding across the land, the stars themselves dimming.
"This is what awaits. Unless you change the path."
Aelric screamed.
When he opened his eyes, he was back in the hall. The Shard pulsed with light.
"It showed me... everything."
Nyara nuzzled his leg gently. "Then now you know what is at stake."
A Warning from the Void
As they prepared to leave the Hollow Gate, the ground trembled. Cracks formed along the floor. From the largest erupted a creature unlike anything they had seen—a construct of obsidian and shadow, stitched with tendrils of dark magic.
"It followed us," Thalin shouted. "The Void knows!"
Liora charged, blade flashing. Aelric summoned the Heartstone's fire, mixing it with the Shard's clarity. The light that burst forth was pure and blinding, searing through the creature's form.
With a final roar, it disintegrated into ash.
But the message was clear.
The Void was watching.
The Road Ahead
They emerged from the Hollow Gate as the sun rose, painting the dunes in gold and crimson.
Aelric looked out across the sand and clenched his fists.
"We can't stop. Not now."
Thalin nodded. "There's one place left. The Celestial Forge."
Liora added, "And if we don't reach it before Morvath..."
"We will," Aelric said.
He turned, the Heartstone glowing at his side, the Shard of Memory embedded in a new place on his belt. Each step forward echoed with resolve.
In the distance, thunder rolled over the mountains.
The final leg of their journey had begun.
~to be continued