The flickering light from the altar danced on the jagged walls, casting shifting shadows that seemed to crawl across the stone like sentient ink. The air was thick with the scent of scorched ash and ancient blood. The Protagonist stood still, his cloak torn at the hem, the remnants of the Memory Storm still whispering at the edge of his thoughts.
His hands trembled slightly. Not from fear—he had burned that out of himself long ago—but from something he could not define. Something primal. As if some ancient instinct screamed in protest at what lay before him.
The obsidian altar pulsed.
Not with life, but with memory. The stone was etched with spirals of curse-script so old they felt like they belonged to a time before time. When his foot accidentally brushed the edge of the central glyph, the symbols flared red-hot, like embers breathing in reverse.
And then she appeared.
A woman, or the ghost of one, stepped from the far shadows. She wore a robe of threadbare silk, blackened as if dipped in oil and fire. One half of her face was intact—noble, timeless, cold. The other half was a ruin of burned flesh and exposed bone, her eye a hollow void that shimmered faintly.
"You've broken the Loom," she said without introduction. Her voice was layered—like multiple echoes folded into one.
He watched her with calculating silence.
"And yet... your thread still weaves. Do you know what that means?"
He didn't answer.
She approached, bare feet silent on the stone, the cursed altar responding to her presence with a deeper thrum. "It means the Weave resists your fate. You are an anomaly, a stray thread in a design that cannot afford mistakes."
"Then fix it," he said simply.
The Weaver laughed—a sound like silk tearing.
"You misunderstand. A Loom that breaks is never the same. It births new patterns... patterns the World doesn't like. That's why it sends things to cut you. Things like me."
The Protagonist took a step forward, his eyes narrowing.
"But I'm tired of cutting," she whispered. "Tired of watching fate eat the ones who dare to write their own thread. So I offer you this instead: descend. Beneath this altar is the Path of Forgotten Threads. Only those whose fate was never meant to be may walk it."
He didn't trust her.
But he trusted the System less. The [Fragmented Skill: Threadwalk] he acquired after the Memory Storm had begun to act up—triggering visions, pulling emotions from unknown sources. As if someone else's story had been grafted to his own.
Something was broken.
And this Path might hold answers.
Without another word, he stepped past her, placing his hand on the altar. The obsidian stone dissolved beneath his fingers, revealing a spiral staircase of bone and wire descending into the dark. The temperature dropped. The System flickered.
[System Alert: You are leaving the Woven Path.]
[Warning: No thread has ever returned from the Forgotten.]
He smirked. That was fine.
He wasn't planning on coming back the same.
And so, the Protagonist descended into the forgotten depths of the world—where curses remembered names long erased, and the story he thought he knew would begin to unravel, thread by thread.
Here's Chapter 7 in full:
Chapter 7 – Threads of the Forgotten
The flickering light from the altar danced on the jagged walls, casting shifting shadows that seemed to crawl across the stone like sentient ink. The air was thick with the scent of scorched ash and ancient blood. The Protagonist stood still, his cloak torn at the hem, the remnants of the Memory Storm still whispering at the edge of his thoughts.
His hands trembled slightly. Not from fear—he had burned that out of himself long ago—but from something he could not define. Something primal. As if some ancient instinct screamed in protest at what lay before him.
The obsidian altar pulsed.
Not with life, but with memory. The stone was etched with spirals of curse-script so old they felt like they belonged to a time before time. When his foot accidentally brushed the edge of the central glyph, the symbols flared red-hot, like embers breathing in reverse.
And then she appeared.
A woman, or the ghost of one, stepped from the far shadows. She wore a robe of threadbare silk, blackened as if dipped in oil and fire. One half of her face was intact—noble, timeless, cold. The other half was a ruin of burned flesh and exposed bone, her eye a hollow void that shimmered faintly.
"You've broken the Loom," she said without introduction. Her voice was layered—like multiple echoes folded into one.
He watched her with calculating silence.
"And yet... your thread still weaves. Do you know what that means?"
He didn't answer.
She approached, bare feet silent on the stone, the cursed altar responding to her presence with a deeper thrum. "It means the Weave resists your fate. You are an anomaly, a stray thread in a design that cannot afford mistakes."
"Then fix it," he said simply.
The Weaver laughed—a sound like silk tearing.
"You misunderstand. A Loom that breaks is never the same. It births new patterns... patterns the World doesn't like. That's why it sends things to cut you. Things like me."
The Protagonist took a step forward, his eyes narrowing.
"But I'm tired of cutting," she whispered. "Tired of watching fate eat the ones who dare to write their own thread. So I offer you this instead: descend. Beneath this altar is the Path of Forgotten Threads. Only those whose fate was never meant to be may walk it."
He didn't trust her.
But he trusted the System less. The [Fragmented Skill: Threadwalk] he acquired after the Memory Storm had begun to act up—triggering visions, pulling emotions from unknown sources. As if someone else's story had been grafted to his own.
Something was broken.
And this Path might hold answers.
Without another word, he stepped past her, placing his hand on the altar. The obsidian stone dissolved beneath his fingers, revealing a spiral staircase of bone and wire descending into the dark. The temperature dropped. The System flickered.
[System Alert: You are leaving the Woven Path.]
[Warning: No thread has ever returned from the Forgotten.]
He smirked. That was fine.
He wasn't planning on coming back the same.
And so, the Protagonist descended into the forgotten depths of the world—where curses remembered names long erased, and the story he thought he knew would begin to unravel, thread by thread.