Scene 1 – A Faultline in Thought
As they camp beneath a jagged crescent moon, Cael meditates for the first time since Lysara's tower.
He attempts to stabilize his mana core with standard alignment patterns… but they fail.Suddenly, time bends.
A pulse from the shard slips free—and Cael's soul splinters for a moment.
He is no longer in the woods.
He's in a ruined version of the temple it's burning.
Ash and symbols swirl around him.
And someone stands in the center:Another Cael.
Older. Paler.
Eyes glowing with script. A sigil carved into his chest: a seal he put on himself.
Dialogue Across Time
The vision-Cael stares at him.
He's not hostile—but he's hollow, strange, tired.
"You're early," the older Cael says."You haven't failed yet."
Cael demands answers.
Is this the future? Is this who he becomes?
"I'm a possibility," Older Cael replies.
"A timeline where we don't seal it fast enough.
Where we learn too much.
"He touches Cael's shard. It flares.
"We cracked the core of Essentia.
We became the equation.
And we lost everything for it."
The Offer
Older Cael makes a desperate offer:
"Let me take it now.Let me absorb your shard and break this loop."
Cael hesitates.
It feels real.
The fear.
The logic.
The burn of his Essentia core.
But as he raises his hand, he sees something—the symbols in Older Cael's eyes match the glyphs Lysara was drawing.
"No," Cael says.
"You're not a future. You're a warning."
He refuses.The vision collapses. The world shatters into mirrored shards.
Back in the Woods
Cael wakes gasping. Mireth is by his side, blades drawn.
"What just happened? Your shard blacked out. For a full minute."Cael:
"I saw… myself. But broken.
Built like Lysara's tower."Mireth:
"We need to stop pushing it."
Cael: "We can't stop now."
He clutches the shard tighter. It pulses once—and doesn't stop. It now hums constantly at his touch.
The First Mutation
Later that night, Cael casts a basic detection spell.It fails.Instead, his hand twists mid-incantation into a strange glyph. The spell activates—but also opens a tiny rift.Reality flickers.Something watches him through it.
"Your seal is weakening," it whispers.
Cael: "I know."