The morning sun filtered through the towering trees of the Felyari training grounds, casting dappled golden light over the clearing. Dew clung to the grass, sparkling like stardust. In the centre, three figures stood shoulder to shoulder — wild-haired, battle-ready, and crackling with quiet energy.
Nyra stretched lazily, her twin tails flicking with rhythmic defiance. Her golden eyes shimmered as she rotated her shoulders and cracked her knuckles. Mira slammed her fists together, the ground under her boots groaning in protest. Kaeli crouched beside them, sniffing the air like a predator on a hunt, her ears twitching at the slightest movement.
They'd trained through bruises and burns, through blisters and exhaustion. And now, they moved like gears in a perfect machine.
"Someone's been eating extra meat," Mira said with a grin, elbowing Nyra lightly. "Your punches have weight now."
Nyra scoffed, her smile cocky. "You're just slower than usual. Maybe lay off the second breakfasts?"
"Never," Mira replied proudly, rubbing her stomach.
Kaeli groaned from where she was crouched. "Can you two not flirt until after we train? My nose is sensitive enough already."
Before Nyra could retort, a voice rang out from the edge of the clearing.
"Oh good, you're all alive," Veska said, arms crossed, dark hair pulled into a loose braid today. Her sharp eyes swept over the trio, sizing them up like a weaponsmith admiring her latest blades.
Selune appeared just behind her, languid as always, sipping something from a carved crystal cup that was not water. "Mmm, fresh kittens ready for the fire."
"...Stop calling us kittens," Mira grumbled, already lifting a boulder for warm-up.
"Then stop being adorable," Selune teased, her eyes twinkling.
Just then, Tanya popped out of the bushes carrying a tray of still-steaming buns. "Figured you'd burn off enough to deserve these later. Or earlier. Time is fake, I'm tired." She plopped down on a nearby stump with a dramatic sigh.
"Did… did she just bring snacks to a training ground?" Kaeli whispered.
"Yep," Nyra nodded. "Peak Tanya."
Veska snorted. "Ignore her. She's fueled by sarcasm and caffeine."
As the girls took their stances, ready to begin another set of drills, an odd breeze passed through the clearing. The trees rustled — not from wind, but something deeper. The leaves shimmered briefly with faint bioluminescence.
Kaeli's nose twitched. "...That didn't feel normal."
Nyra turned toward the woods, narrowing her eyes. "It felt like... a hum. Like something just blinked in the air."
For a moment, no one said anything.
Then Selune broke the silence, sipping her drink loudly. "Probably just indigestion from Tanya's questionable mushroom buns."
"HEY—" Tanya started, but was immediately ignored.
Veska's eyes lingered on Nyra for a second longer than usual. "...Stay sharp. The forest remembers more than we do."
The moment passed, the weight of it forgotten — but only for now.
The morning drills had escalated from warm-up sparring to high-speed evasive manoeuvres. Kaeli darted through the trees like a whisper, Mira hurled heavy logs with ease, and Nyra, light on her feet, slipped between shadows, weaving through their mock ambush like wind through silk.
The instructors watched in silence. Veska stood atop a boulder with her arms crossed, every twitch of her tail betraying quiet approval. Selune leaned against a tree, absently tossing pebbles into the air and humming something off-key.
Just as Mira let out a triumphant yell, having caught Kaeli mid-pounce and launched her skyward in a controlled throw, Nyra skidded to a halt.
She wasn't looking at her sisters. Her eyes were fixed to the ground, ears perked, lips parted slightly.
There it was again. That strange… hum.
But it didn't sound. It was a rhythm under her skin. Like static pressing into her from every direction. A resonance she shouldn't be able to hear, let alone feel.
She did, though. Loud and clear.
"Nyra?" Kaeli landed beside her with a thud, brushing dirt from her knees. "You okay?"
Nyra didn't answer right away. Her gaze was distant. Focused not on what was, but on something just beyond. A moment that hadn't happened yet. A memory that didn't belong here.
She took a shaky breath.
"There's something buried," she whispered.
Mira raised an eyebrow. "Buried… where? You sniffing ancient trees now like Kaeli?"
"I'm serious," Nyra said, finally snapping back. "It's like… something ancient. Like an energy trying to seep out, but stuck. Every time we move through this area, I feel it echo through me. Like it deliberately wants me to free it."
Selune straightened, suddenly alert.
Veska was already moving.
"You felt it earlier, too," Veska said, approaching Nyra. Not a question—an observation.
Nyra nodded. "Back during warm-up. The air shimmered. It wasn't just me, right?"
Selune's eyes glowed faintly for a moment, her gaze sweeping the clearing. "No... the aether's too dense in this section of the woods. You are right, something's trying to bleed through."
Kaeli and Mira exchanged confused glances.
"So… there's a ghost in the trees now?" Mira muttered.
"No, it's worse," Veska said grimly. "It's memory. Memory buried in the ley lines. Something wants to be found."
Selune smirked. "Oh, how delightfully ominous. I love it."
Tanya peeked from behind a tree, still holding a half-eaten bun. "Anyone else think we should maybe, I dunno, not poke the mysterious psychic tree ghost?"
Nyra stepped forward, ignoring her. Her hand reached out and gently touched the bark of one of the older trees at the edge of the clearing. It vibrated faintly beneath her palm, like a heart trapped in a stone cage.
Suddenly, a pulse surged through her arm. Her vision blurred.
For a split second, she saw it.
A towering black obelisk, cracked with molten runes. Floating in a skyless void. Something… calling her from within.
The vision snapped away.
Nyra gasped, stumbling back.
"I saw it," she whispered. "I know where to go next."
Elder Yaro's quarters. The elder sat in a lotus position and was meditating, Suddenly, he started laughing like a maniac. " Oh lord, Tanya would hate this."
Tanya suddenly felt chills. Nyra tilted her head as if asking Tanya if something was wrong " I think that old coot is planning something." Tanya was thinking about what sort of leg pulling the Elder is planning.
Veska knocked twice at a door and entered without waiting. Selune strolled in behind her, absently stealing one of the caramel sticks from the Elder's desk and popping it in her mouth.
Yaro sat hunched over a floating scroll, muttering to himself while tracing runes in the air. "Spirits above, if one more squirrel god sends me a dream, I swear I'm moving to the coast—"
He paused, looking up.
"Ah. My favourite bruiser and the moonlit menace. What's this? A surprise performance review?"
Veska rolled her eyes and dropped a hand-drawn map onto the desk. "Nyra sensed something in the training zone. A distortion. A memory locked in the leyline network. She saw something."
Yaro leaned forward, squinting. "Define something."
"A black obelisk. Floating. Fractured. Alive with runes she couldn't understand—but felt it," Selune added. "And here's the kicker: the same pulse triggered a localised time flicker."
Yaro's playful demeanour fell off him like a dropped cloak. He stared down at the map in silence.
"…Time magic doesn't just happen," he said, fingers steepling.
"No. It doesn't," Veska agreed. "Especially not around Nyra, who's already proven she's more than just 'a bright kitten with attitude.' Maybe this is a pattern. A leak in an ancient seal? Whatever it is, it's waking up."
Selune perched on the edge of a nearby table, kicking her legs lazily. "Oh, and before you ask, yes—we double-checked the energy signatures. The pulse wasn't natural. The aether web has not been tampered with."
Yaro sighed, rubbing his temples.
"That spot in the woods… It's near the Heartgrove Sink, isn't it?" he muttered. "No wonder. The Chrono Obelisk fragments were buried somewhere beneath that scar centuries ago."
Veska straightened. "Then we need clearance. If Nyra's resonance synced with the pulse, it means the obelisk is reacting. Or worse—responding."
Selune leaned forward, her grin sharp. "You should let us dig."
Yaro grumbled, reaching into his robe and pulling out a cracked crystal orb. "I was saving this for my mid-moon bath, but fine. You two have clearance. Take the girls, keep the training disguised, but no deep dives without backup. And no awakening the damn thing, understood?"
Veska nodded.
Selune saluted dramatically. "No unsupervised time-hopping. Scout's honour."
"You were never a scout," Veska muttered.
"Details."
Yaro waved them off, already pulling scrolls from a hidden drawer. "If this thing wakes up fully, the resonance won't just reach Nyra. It'll ripple across the entire aether circuit. And if it calls back—gods help us all."
The forest was quiet. Unnaturally so.
No birdsong. No rustle of wind.
Even the insects seemed to be holding their breath.
Nyra stepped cautiously onto the glade, her boots making no sound against the moss-covered ground. Beside her, Mira cracked her knuckles while Kaeli twitched her nose every few seconds, sniffing the air like a bloodhound wired on espresso.
"Alright, kittens," Veska called from a tree branch above them, lazily swinging her legs. "Welcome to round two of 'Try Not to Get Cursed by Ancient Technology.' Your objective: find the disturbance."
Selune leaned against a nearby trunk, arms crossed. "No Essentia manipulation, no fancy tricks. This is pure instinct work. Follow what your body tells you. Not what your mind thinks it knows."
Nyra's tail flicked nervously. The air was thick—not with danger, but… memory.
She closed her eyes.
A pressure buzzed beneath her skin. Not painful. Just there. Like an itch at the edge of thought. A directionless pull.
Kaeli suddenly pointed. "That way. Something's… singing."
"Smells like burnt ozone and wet stone," Mira muttered, squinting.
The trio moved cautiously, deeper into the forest's belly. The trees grew gnarled here, their roots twisted like petrified serpents. Time felt different—like every step took them a second too long, or perhaps not long enough.
Then they saw it.
A wide clearing.
In its centre, an ancient stone disk half-buried beneath dirt and vines. Its surface shimmered faintly, covered in carved symbols that pulsed with dim orange light, not aetheric in nature. Not organic either.
Essentia-stabilised runes. Cold. Precise. Machine-like.
The patterns weren't fluid like magic glyphs. They were rigid. Binary. Code in stone.
Nyra stepped forward instinctively, drawn like a magnet. Her fingertips brushed the edge—
And the moment she touched it, her vision fractured.
A flash of the same floating obelisk. The same one from her vision.
Its body is jagged, broken at the top. Runes across its surface, cycling faster and faster. A heartbeat that wasn't hers pulsed inside her head. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Then—nothing.
She gasped, falling back into Mira's arms.
Kaeli dropped to her knees beside them, ears flat. "Her pulse is up. But she's okay."
Above them, Veska was already leaping down. "You found it faster than I expected."
Selune crouched beside Nyra, her expression unreadable for once. "You didn't just feel the echo. You heard it, didn't you?"
Nyra nodded shakily. "It was calling something. Not me… but something through me."
Veska stood up and scanned the surrounding trees. "This isn't just a training site anymore. This is a breach point. One of the old ones."
Kaeli glanced up, eyes wide. "Wait. You mean…"
Selune put a finger to her lips, smiling with no warmth at all. "Not yet, little shadow. The obelisk sleeps, but its dreams reach far."
Mira frowned. "So what now?"
Veska cracked her neck and grinned. "Now? Now we train harder. Whatever this thing's tied to… It's not staying buried forever."
Selune looked to Nyra. "And you? You need to learn the spells better, for your own protection. You are now something like a tribe treasure."
Nyra looked back down at the stone. Her reflection shimmered on the surface, flickering with light.
Not her reflection.
Not quite.
And somewhere—just faintly—she heard a voice whisper:
Bootsequence Reinitialising… Core Fragment Detected.