The echoes of the Hollow Choir lingered long after Solan had returned to his body.
He awoke curled in the same corner of his chamber beneath the ash-laced tower, veins humming with remnants of spectral voices. Dust clung to his skin. He felt no warmth, no pulse, only the murmur of something ancient threading through him like smoke.
The ritual had worked—but not as expected.
The Oracle's voice had not only answered, it had awakened. A chorus of broken memories hummed behind his thoughts, like wind sifting through a thousand locked doors. Each was etched with a symbol he didn't recognize. Names half-remembered. Shapes not born of man.
He clutched his head.
"I spoke no question," he whispered to himself. "And yet... it gave me an answer."
His fingers trembled as he retrieved the mirror shard used in the ritual. It had blackened at the edges. Faint runes bled from the reflection, twitching like worms beneath water. One word surfaced.
Vareth'alun.
A Name. Not one he knew—but one the Oracle had carved into his essence.
The system pulsed silently, absorbing the event. No interface emerged this time, no cold voice to summarize the damage. It was as if the system itself had gone quiet, either stunned or waiting.
Solan stood. His limbs felt brittle, overextended, like a blade drawn too thin. Every movement risked splintering. But the pull was still there—an unrelenting draw deeper into the Veiled Labyrinth.
He opened the grimoire.
Its pages had changed.
Where once there were runic maps of the first five Tiers, now there appeared a sixth: a tier bathed in white and gray, where all sound was drowned beneath a mantle of silence.
Tier VI: The White Hollow
Theme: Revelation
Warden: The Oracle Without Eyes
Hazard: Pure Conceptuality — Language dissolves. Perception collapses into symbols. Identity unravels.
His breath hitched.
And yet, one phrase repeated itself across the margin, etched in black veinwork:
To speak is to be hunted.
Veiled Labyrinth Descent
Solan prepared for the dive.
Two new Soulchains had been stabilized: one forged from a Wraith of Silence—a lacerated figure wrapped in runes of absence—and one from the Trial of Names, where he'd abandoned a memory of his mother's voice.
The chains coiled tighter around his arms, their black sigils glowing faintly.
He let sleep claim him.
His body dropped.
The Labyrinth greeted him with a corridor of stark white pillars, each etched with whisper-runes that flinched when he passed. His footfalls made no sound. Even his thoughts resisted forming words.
No echoes. No breath.
He was in Tier VI now.
And something was watching.
Shapes floated near the ceiling—gargantuan spheres wrapped in veils of silk and eyes that blinked sideways. Oracle Wraiths. They observed without pupils, without expression, feeding on unspoken truths. One turned toward him, and Solan felt his own Name start to fray. A rune rippled across his chest.
He bit the inside of his cheek until blood formed a seal of grounding.
A Reckoning Shrine stood ahead.
This one was different. No runes. Just a pool of dark water, still as a dead star.
Solan knelt and saw not himself—but a version of himself covered in vines, half-turned into a statue, with no eyes and runes burning from his throat.
He reached out.
Contact.
A flare of memory:
A throne beneath the sea.
A voice, not his own, whispering My name is never mine.
The Nameless Core.
His soul spasmed.
The reflection grabbed him.
True Name Trial
Darkness. Then light.
Solan stood inside an inverted cathedral. The walls bled ink. Statues wore his face. Runes rained from the sky like ash.
At the altar stood a figure in a mask of infinite shifting: The Oracle Without Eyes.
"You have come," it said. Voice like pages turning.
Solan tried to speak. Nothing emerged.
The Oracle raised one hand. "Only one question must be answered."
A rune appeared between them.
Name: ???
"Do you accept what you are?"
Solan trembled.
A thousand echoes responded inside him—voices he did not own, screams he had not screamed. The Nameless Core surged like a wound behind his spine. The Mask of the Forsaken Tongue pulsed once.
He nodded.
The rune shone.
System Alert
• Reckoning Complete: The Oracle's Trial • True Name Acquired: Vareth'alun [Sealed] • Trait Gained: Unspoken Sigil – All words carry conceptual weight. Damage scales with silence. • Warning: Conceptual Anchoring at 87% • Warning: Host approaching symbolic instability
Solan collapsed.
The Oracle vanished.
A whisper, trailing through the folds of the Labyrinth:
"Do not speak it… not yet."
He awoke to find blood running from his nose and ears.
The page of his grimoire had burned away. In its place, a single symbol remained.
It pulsed. Not ink. Not blood. Something else.
Wyrm spoke for the first time in days.
"We are not alone anymore."
Solan turned toward the rising sun outside his window. It looked wrong now—bent at the edges, light trembling like a candle in wind.
The Labyrinth was bleeding into the real.
And something had followed him back.