Dust fell like ash as Silas pushed open the warped wooden door at the top of the cathedral tower.
It wasn't grand like the cathedrals near the city core. This one had decayed in isolation—no priests, no hymns, only silence. Shelves stood crooked along the stone walls, and a single desk rested beneath a shattered stained-glass window. Faint moonlight—or what passed for it in this starless world—filtered in, casting fractured color across the floor.
"This must've been the overseer's office," Cass muttered, stepping lightly over a cracked floor tile.
Velira moved toward the desk, brushing dust from the wood. Her fingers caught on something buried beneath a pile of dry, curling paper.
"A journal," she said softly.
Silas turned. His heartbeat quickened. The spine was bent, the cover flaking. Most of the pages had been torn, rotted, or burned—but a few remained.
Velira handed it to Silas, who cracked it open.
---
Page One:
Why does advancement get harder the higher your level? It should be the opposite, no?
Well, anyways—I still need to climb higher. Reach Scholar rank. Easier said than done. If I start the preparations now, I might have a chance in this lifetime. Like I get a choice. The countdown's begun ever since I stole from those old fossils. They're going to come for me. Unless I can outrun them—with power.
---
Silas didn't realize he was gripping the page until Velira gently tapped his hand.
"Keep going," she said, voice quiet.
He turned the page.
---
Page Two:
Can you believe how much nepotism there is? I have to bleed, beg, and gamble my life just to advance, while someone else has every material prepared before they even breathe air.
How fair. How just. They say 'the system rewards effort.' But all I see is inheritance masking as talent.
---
Cass looked away, jaw clenched.
Velira exhaled slowly. "That… sounds like half the trainees back home."
"Yeah," Cass said. "Except they don't write it down."
Silas's eyes narrowed. He turned to the final page.
---
Page Three:
Haha—I'm a genius. I figured it out.
The secret to more than one effigy. Before even reaching Scholar level. Let those parasites cling to tradition. I'll carve my own laws into the world. My own path.
All I need is time.
And no one to find out.
---
They stood in silence for a moment.
A bird somewhere outside let out a low croak—maybe a trick of the wind.
Velira broke the quiet. "Do you think he made it?"
"No," Silas said immediately.
Cass frowned. "You sound sure."
"He stole from the 'old fossils,' whoever they were," Silas muttered. "And he wrote all this in a tower that's rotting. If he'd succeeded, someone would have come to clean this up."
Velira nodded, but her brow stayed furrowed.
Cass leaned back against a cracked pillar. "He sounds desperate… but brilliant."
"Maybe both," Velira said.
Silas kept reading the final sentence over and over: my own path.
Was that what he was doing?
He closed the journal. "Let's not talk about this to anyone else. If people knew we found something like this…"
"They'd take it from us," Velira finished. "Or worse."
Cass smirked faintly. "Looks like we've got a secret now."
---
As they left the tower room, the journal stashed carefully in Silas's cloak, the city around them remained still.
But the whispers had changed.
Not louder—but more curious.
As if something else was listening now.