Not metaphorical warmth—actual heat, rising from golden tiles beneath his feet. The walls shimmered like desert sands under moonlight, and a great banquet hall stretched out before him, filled with decadent food and eerie silence. Roasted beasts the size of carriages. Fruits cut into the shape of lost constellations. Wine that sparkled like dying stars.
A table ran down the center. Ornate. Impossibly long. At the head of it sat a figure wearing a mask of bone and ink.
Revelation Dominion activated.
[Floor Type: Temptation of Consumption]
[Objective: Refuse the feast. Discover the truth beneath.]
Veyne stepped forward cautiously. His stomach growled. The Tower didn't often feed him, and this wasn't the illusion of nourishment—it smelled real. Spices, herbs, flame-roasted marrow. The scent of a life not devoured.
The masked figure stood.
"You have eaten nothing of substance since floor seven. You are dying."
Veyne didn't answer. He examined the figure's posture—upright but too still. Like a puppet waiting for a command.
"You may eat," the figure said, gesturing grandly. "Your victories entitle you. One bite, and your body will be restored. Ten, and your soul will quiet. A hundred, and even the Tower will bow."
Veyne clenched his fists. "What's the cost?"
The figure tilted its head. "You only lose what you're ready to forget."
He walked the length of the table. Each seat was occupied—not by people, but memories. He saw frozen moments: a childhood friend with burned hands offering a stolen apple. A rival warrior who once spared him. His own mother, dying, face blurred.
The food at each place mirrored the memory.
"This is no feast," he muttered. "It's a graveyard of meaning."
The figure's voice softened. "What use are burdens to a man ascending? You carry so much. Let it go. Be light."
But Veyne had learned. On the Mirror Floor, he chose to remember.
He summoned his Echo Blade, formed from the version of himself who never surrendered. The weapon sang with sorrow.
"I refuse," Veyne said. "I don't feast on the dead."
The masked figure snapped its fingers.
The food writhed.
Rot spread in reverse—life rushing into meat and fruit. The roasted creatures groaned, reassembling. The wine flowed backward into mouths stitched shut. Chairs splintered. Bones cracked into place.
The banquet guests rose.
Each one was a version of someone Veyne had forgotten or betrayed.
A girl he'd abandoned on floor three. A boy he couldn't save from the Ink Flood. A friend who died screaming his name.
"You should have let us go," they whispered. "You should have eaten."
They attacked.
The fight was unlike any before. Each blow landed with guilt. The Echo Blade grew heavier with every swing. Not because of mass—but memory. Each face reminded him of a failure.
"Why do you carry us?" the girl cried. "We don't want to be remembered."
Veyne dropped his blade.
"I remember not to honor you," he said. "But so I never repeat what made you ghosts."
The girl stopped. The others wavered.
He picked up a goblet from the table.
Drank.
Not wine. Not poison. But memory itself.
His body shook as recollection returned: details he'd buried. Their last words. Their real names.
[Trial Progress: 75% – Self-Sustained Remembrance Initiated]
The masked figure's mask cracked. Beneath it was a face like his own—but starved, eyes sunken, teeth rotted.
"You'll never survive like this," it rasped. "You'll die clinging to ghosts."
Veyne stepped closer. "Maybe. But at least I'll die as me."
He thrust the goblet into the creature's hands. "Drink."
It did. And screamed.
The figure burst into light, and the hall collapsed inward, the guests fading into stillness, each returning to their seats like statues carved from time.
[Floor Cleared]
[New Passive: Archive of the Blooded Table – Veyne retains memory echoes of fallen allies and enemies. Usable in future narrative branches.]
As he walked into the spiral stairwell to Floor 16, he whispered their names.
All of them.
And not a single one was forgotten.