Episode 3 Part 3 Sneak Peak #3

Further ahead you pass an arcade leading to the remains of a ruined library. Its arched windows are intact, but the grand doors are destroyed. Chunks of bronze sloughed off in rivulets to pool in the threshold, the scenes sculpted into their reliefs damaged beyond recognition.

Something sparks in the corner of your eye. You pivot, spine tingling, and search the arcade.

[CHOICE] 1. Investigate.
2. You don’t have time for this. Press on.

You take a step towards the library.

“$name,” Aeran calls softly. The warning in his voice is clear.

You glance over your shoulder, squinting into the yellow-orange light. His brows are drawn together, a dark shadow passing across his face, the muscles of his arms tensed and ready to spring into action. Though he is trying to hide it, his unease is palpable. He wants nothing more than to get in and out as quickly as possible, all other possibilities be damned.

The taste of ash lingers on your tongue. “Humour me, please, Aeran,” you say. “There’s something strange going on here.”

His teeth scrape his lower lip. “Do what you have to,” he replies. “Just… don’t take too long. We need to keep moving.”

“I know.”

You approach the library, stealing cautiously through the arcade’s arches. Aeran curses under his breath and follows, keeping his distance as he shadows you. You pause, putting your back to a pillar and crouching as you search the entrance. Though no living soul could have followed you through the barrier, you can’t shake the feeling someone else is here. It must be your ingrained habits, some instinctual part of your mind refusing to believe the truth you know.

You’re not used to this much silence. It sets your teeth on edge.

1. [PERCEPTION] Peer in through the doors and examine the inside of the library.
[CHOICE] 2. [PERCEPTION] Examine the windows.
3. [PERCEPTION] Scan the building for the light.
4. You’re done searching.

The library’s windows glitter in the orange-yellow light, the fractured stained glass clouded and dull. At first glance, you can’t see anything unusual about them, but upon closer inspection you find something odd. The outline of a humanoid shape is impressed upon the window—head, shoulders, even a hand with fingers spread wide, as if splayed against the surface.

Discomfort twists in your gut. You inspect a second window and find the same—vague impressions of people pressed into the glass. By the time you view the third window and discover more, you feel safe in the assumption that the rest will be the same.

You don’t know what you’re looking at. For all you know it could be nothing, a coincidence in how the explosion left its mark on the buildings. Sero would tell you not to get ahead of yourself, warning that an escalating imagination will only hamper your investigations. But they would also tell you that if your instincts are so certain of a possibility, you should listen to your gut.

And your gut tells you that these impressions were once people—echoes of Guild mages caught in their final seconds of life, their essence crystalized against these windows as they desperately tried to escape the oncoming deluge of magical energy.

You look away. The realization leaves you feeling sick to your stomach.