To the altar.
PillowHorror was already there, kneeling in front of the blackstone basin like a priest in quiet contemplation. Their robes rippled with a barely perceptible internal wind. The shadows around them lengthened, curving subtly toward the ash-crusted basin like threads drawn to a spindle.
Prolix approached carefully.
This was not a place for bluster.
This place had weight.
The altar had been damaged, but not destroyed. Its structure was intact — a basin hollowed into a low plinth, ringed with runes so worn they had to be seen with peripheral vision more than the naked eye. Faint motes of light rose from the cracked ash bed like floating embers — but they carried no heat.
Only memory.
The sigil on the altar’s surface was an eclipse split by three descending lines. A forbidden emblem. A name scraped from doctrine.
But Prolix recognized it.
Dedisco.
The Pale Tide.
The Eclipsed One.
God of Destruction, Cycles, and Rebirth.
PillowHorror’s voice emerged in a low thread, layered and reverent.
“He was never a god of wrath. That came later — projected by those who feared what could not be preserved. But destruction, real destruction… is an act of liberation. The shattering of the stagnant. The making of room for something new.”
They looked up, eyes glowing dimly.
“That’s why he watches you.”
Prolix crouched slowly. “I didn’t ask for that.”
“No,” PillowHorror said with a smirk. “But you keep building where others would flee. You make order out of things broken. You reach into entropy and dare to mold it. That is his language.”
Prolix looked down into the ash basin.
The moment his fingers brushed the rim of the altar—
The chamber shifted.
A low tone rang out — a subterranean chime that didn’t come from air, but from the bones of the world. The motes of light lifted, swirled — and pulled inward, forming a ring above the basin.
And then the world vanished.
>Vision Triggered: Forgotten Mandala – Altar of the Pale Tide<
>You have been drawn into a mnemonic echo.<
Prolix stood alone.
The chamber was gone.
He stood on a narrow path of fractured stone, suspended over an endless void of churning color — not black, not light, but something between. Above him spun a shattered mandala, each piece a scene unfolding in broken time:
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
A hand reaching down to lift a weeping child from fire.
A sword shattering across a god’s chest.
A temple drowning, then rising again — upside down.
His own face, reflected in dark water. Changing.
The wind here was thought.
And something vast stood behind the veil of stars, watching.
A voice not spoken, but threaded into thought, stirred within him:
“You have taken from ruin. You have shaped remnants.”
“But would you burn what you built, if the world required it?”
“Would you unmake what is beloved, to save what may yet become?”
“Will you hold the cycle — or break it?”
Prolix’s soul-thread vibrated painfully, as if a tuning fork had been struck against his lattice. He fell to one knee, breath stolen by the question. Not because he didn’t know the answer.
Because he did.
“…If it means they live… yes.”
The mandala stopped spinning.
A single shard of it descended, glowing faintly — not warm, not cold.
It hovered in front of him like a fallen moon.
He reached out.
And touched it.
The vision collapsed, spiraling into a single point of pale gold.
He gasped, stumbling back into the world — the true chamber — where PillowHorror stood motionless, their eyes narrowed in appreciation.
>You have received a Fragment of the Pale Mandala<
Destruction. Rebirth. Choice.>
– Slight resistance to entropy-based damage
– +1 Affinity Point (abyssal or Soul)
– Unlocks rare subclass options tied to the Cycle>
>>"You do not bear his mark. But you carry the scent of his choosing."<<
Prolix stood, breathing hard.
The altar was quiet again.
But it knew him now.
And somewhere behind his ribs, where soul-thread met forging spark, something old had laid a quiet claim.
PillowHorror offered a slight bow.
“Well then,” they said, voice soft. “Now we’re both aligned with the god no one dares remember.”
They turned, robes whispering toward the stairwell.
“Come, little fox. You’ve just claimed a piece of legacy the world thought forgotten. I’d hate for it to kill you before we use it.”
They left the chamber in silence.
Not for lack of things to say — but out of something older than reverence, softer than fear. The kind of quiet that follows a door being opened too long thought sealed.
Their steps echoed gently along the sloped passage winding upward, the path now lit by threads of rune-light that hadn’t been there before. Pale lines arced along the walls, tracing constellations in forgotten languages, alive only in memory and moonlight.
Every so often, the light shifted slightly as they passed — not flickering, but noting.
Watching.
Prolix's lattice still pulsed faintly beneath his armor, each beat in tune with something larger, something other. The fragment of the Pale Mandala pulsed at his side, tucked into a compartment lined with leather and soul-thread. It hadn’t spoken since the vision. But it didn’t need to.
He could feel it.
Not just in his hand.
But in his thoughts.
In the way he now considered the weight of every invention.
In the ache that came with knowing every cycle has an end.
And that sometimes, breaking what you love is the cost of making something greater.
PillowHorror walked just ahead of him, for once saying nothing. They moved with fluid grace, but slower now — not out of fatigue, but respect.
When they reached the midpoint stairwell, where the puzzle chamber’s echoes still faintly rippled through the mist, they finally spoke.
“Did you mean it?” they asked, not turning. “What you said in the echo?”
Prolix slowed, brows furrowed. “You were watching?”
“I see threads. Reflections. I don’t intrude… often.” They glanced back over their shoulder, eyes gleaming. “But I heard what mattered.”
He looked away for a moment.
Then nodded. “Yes. I meant it.”
PillowHorror’s smile turned thoughtful.
“You’ll burn brighter than most,” they said quietly. “Just be sure you choose what deserves to be scorched.”
They passed through the cracked mirror-chamber again, where the statues remained bowed, now inert, no longer hostile — as if the Palace itself had granted Prolix a passage not just upward, but inward.
Then, the stairwell grew lighter. The rune-thread dimmed.
And they emerged into the threshold chamber beneath the terrace ruins — where pale light filtered down from the overgrown entry arch high above.
The dungeon no longer pulsed with threat. It felt… slumbering again.
But not because it had forgotten them.
Because it now remembered.
Prolix stepped out into the mist-veiled highlands, the distant sea wind brushing his fur. Below, far across the broken land and blackstone, he could just make out the faint curve of the Vermillion Troupe’s camp — lanterns lit, tiny fires flickering like grounded stars.
A world he nearly lost.
A people he would now burn to protect — if he had to.
PillowHorror stood beside him.
“Not bad for one trip,” they said.
“You always find dungeons this dramatic?”
“No,” they purred, “but they always find me.”
They turned toward the eastern hills, where strange shadows curled beneath the basalt.
“Your path’s your own now, Prolix. But if you need… options?”
They tapped a knuckle against their temple.
“The guild’s channels are still open. Waffles may sound soft, but we do serious work.”
Prolix chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
PillowHorror gave a final grin, then stepped away — their silhouette swallowed by fog and thread-light, their voice lingering long after.
“Until next cycle, little fox.”
Prolix watched them vanish.
Then turned downhill toward the camp.
Toward the Troupe.
Toward the next decision waiting on the horizon.