The path from Neverwas didn't straighten — it spiraled.
The sky was the wrong color for morning. Trees grew with bark that hummed softly. At some point, Hiro sneezed and accidentally set a bush on fire with his should-be-defunct curse-magic. Dee just raised a brow.
"Bless you," Vampher said.
"I didn't mean to ignite a small ecosystem!"
"You're still new at being a walking apocalypse," Dee offered. "Very common. We all go through it."
"You sneezed an avalanche once," Vampher reminded him.
"It was allergy season and the mountain was rude."
1. The Map that Wasn't
Dee held a map in his hand — except it wasn't a map. It was a folded memory etched into enchanted vellum, stolen from a library that technically didn't exist anymore.
"This should lead to the first seal," Dee muttered. "Or to a pocket dimension full of angry sheep. Hard to tell. Same sigils."
The route took them into a canyon called Briarthorn's Gullet, so named because it looked like the inside of something that once ate dragons for breakfast. Shadows clung to the rocks. Vines slithered where roots should've been.
"I don't like this," Hiro said.
"You don't like spicy food, Hiro," Vampher pointed out.
"That turnip tried to bite me."
"That was in a cursed market. Focus."
2. The Whispering Watchers
As they descended into the canyon, stone faces began to appear. Carved into cliffsides. Ancient, cracked, but watching.
Not statues — watchers. Sentient. Silent. Judging.
Hiro waved awkwardly.
"Do they blink?"
"No," Dee said. "They remember."
"Remember what?"
"Everything."
Vampher touched one gently. It whispered, though only he could hear it.
"You are the dusk-child. The day-walker.
You will break or bind the end."
He blinked. "They're dramatic."
"Said the guy who wears a cloak inside out for 'aesthetic tension,'" Dee muttered.
3. The First Seal – Vault of the Hungering Thread
At the canyon's heart was a door with no handle — just a flat surface of threadglass, woven with symbols.
Dee ran his hand over it. "Aweave lock. First invented by the Arkanum Chorus during the Dawn-Silence."
"So... we knock?" Hiro offered.
"No. We weave."
Dee summoned a thread of golden mana and stitched it through the air. Lines glowed, flickered, and then—
The door unraveled into light.
Inside was a vault. Cold. Humming. In the center: the First Seal.
It looked like a spindle wound with shadow-thread, rotating slowly in a pillar of inverted gravity.
But around it were tendrils. Living threads. Watching. Waiting.
Vampher narrowed his eyes. "They're not just thread. They're hungry."
4. Hunger and Weaving
As they stepped closer, the threads reacted.
One lashed out — fast, aimed for Dee.
Vampher moved in a blink and caught it mid-air with his bare hand. The thread hissed like a thing burned.
"It fears you," Dee murmured. "Interesting."
"I fear me too," Vampher admitted, pulling the shredded thread apart.
The room darkened.
Then came the guardian.
It wasn't a beast or a warrior. It was a knot.
A tangled creature of threads and voices. Each strand held memories, faces, names. It shuddered into shape — arms of yarn, eyes like broken clocks, and a voice that spoke in echoing rewinds.
"Who pulls the thread, risks the snarl.
Who untangles fate must fall.
Who wakes the Seal—"
"—Really needs to get to the point," Hiro said, swinging his sword.
The creature lunged.
5. Battle of the Knotbound
Vampher danced through the attack, his sword drawn — obsidian and daylight-infused, a contradiction made blade.
Dee weaved runes into the air, launching threads of binding that curled like serpents.
Hiro? Hiro ducked, rolled, and yelled.
"You guys are way too graceful for this job!"
"You're immortal," Dee shouted. "Fight immortal!"
Hiro groaned and punched a piece of animated thread so hard it snapped with a musical twang.
Vampher locked blades with the creature — if you could call them blades. Time twisted around its strikes. Each move forced him to remember pain and forget victory.
But then—he saw it.
At the creature's core: a memory. A girl with silver hair and empty eyes.
"The prophet..." Vampher whispered.
He struck true.
The knot shrieked, and unraveled all at once into falling threads of memory — singing as they vanished.
6. The Seal Awakened
With the guardian defeated, the spindle stopped spinning.
Dee approached and knelt. "First Seal. Still intact. Wards holding. Barely."
He traced a sigil and etched a containment glyph into the air. "We'll leave it dormant for now. But we must find the others."
"How many are there?" Hiro asked, panting.
"Seven," Dee said. "Four sealed. Three... unknown."
"What happens if they break?"
Dee looked at him, face unreadable. "Then the future the girl saw won't just be a maybe. It'll be now."
7. A Quiet Walk Away
As they climbed back out of the canyon, the Watchers whispered again.
Vampher paused beside one. This time, it spoke plainly.
"You fixed the first.
But the last?
The last will break you."
He didn't tell the others what it said.
Instead, he looked up at the strange sky and murmured:
"I'm not broken yet."
8. Elsewhere, in the Threads Between Worlds...
The cloaked figure watched from a realm of tangled time.
They smiled as the first Seal pulsed with awakening energy.
"So. You've begun. Let's see how long your thread holds, Daywalker. Let's see what weaves you apart."