Prologue
The rain came in sheets, cold and wet.
Renn didn't stop running.
Boots slammed against stone, breath rasped in his throat, and the shouts of the city guard echoed behind him. The stolen bread was already gone, devoured in three bites an hour ago, but they'd seen his face. Or at least thought they had.
It was enough to hang him.
Enough to chase.
He vaulted a half-collapsed wall, landed hard on his shoulder, and winced. Not broken, luckily. The guards were getting closer, steel-tipped boots clanging louder.
Just like last time.
Renn dove through a rusted grate into the under-city, slamming it shut behind him. Darkness swallowed him whole. The stench hit harder than the fall, a mix of human waste, rotting meat, and something new he couldn't quite figure out.
He kept crawling.
The guards didn't follow.
They never did.
Not down here.
He limped through half-flooded tunnels, forgotten by the city above. The sewer system had been built by someone who believed in right angles and perfect circles, but time had made a mockery of that faith. Everything was cracked, tilted, and out of place.
Renn followed the faint current. The stones whispered beneath his steps. At first, he thought it was his imagination. Then he heard words.
Not in any tongue he knew.
Something older.
"...w̷h̷o̸ ̸s̴e̶e̶k̷s̷ ̵t̷o̷ ̵r̸e̸m̶e̷m̴b̴e̴r̶..."
The tunnel widened into a circular chamber, dry at its center, marked by a stone dais etched with concentric circles and long-dead script.
Atop the dais floated something Renn had never seen before.
It pulsed faintly. Bone-white. The size of a fist. Like a piece of a statue carved from moonlight. The light was enough to help Renn see most of the room. He turned around and noticed that the path he had taken was no longer there. Was he hallucinating?
Renn stared.
He knew how to recognize value; he grew up making most of his coin by stealing it from others or selling things that didn't belong to him. This wasn't coin or silver; it was older than that. Priceless in a way that made the hairs on his arms stand up, he salivated thinking of the meat he would buy for dinner.
He stepped forward.
The moment he did, the air changed, the glow brightened, and the relic began to hum.
And a voice, not his own, filled the room.
"ONE MAY LEAVE IF THEY ANSWER CORRECTLY ."
The floor lit up in lines of dull fire, forming a circle around the relic.
Renn froze, and at that moment, he noticed the course dirt under his feet was pale white... then he saw the various bones around the altar.
"One may leave if they answer correctly... but answer wrong and I end up like them," he muttered.
As if the voice was trying to cut him off, it suddenly boomed.
"I cannot be touched, yet I shape who you are.
I vanish in moments, yet can linger for life.
I hold no weight, yet can crush you with sorrow.
What am I?"
Renn's stomach twisted. A riddle. He hated riddles. Always had.
The glow pulsed.
He looked at the relic. Then at the edges of the chamber. No exits. No way out.
A chill passed through him. It wasn't the sewer's cold.
It was the kind of chill that told him he was moments from death.
He swallowed.
"I cannot be touched?"
"I hold no weight but can crush you with sorrow?"
His stomach was in knots. "What could crush you with sorrow?"
Suddenly, he lit up, the first thing that was said before he was in the chamber, who seeks to remember.
"The answer is memory."
The silence that followed was more terrifying than anything he had ever experienced.
Then the relic flared.
The chamber shook.
Renn stumbled back, raising his arms as the relic cracked. From the crack spilled light so bright he could have sworn the sun had burst into the chamber.
He screamed.
He had a sudden vision behind his eyelids while trying to keep them shut to protect himself from the blinding light.
The sky above the city split, everywhere at once, then suddenly repaired.
The voice came again, not from the chamber, but from the world.
"ARCHIVE UNSEALED.
FRAGMENTATION COMPLETE.
VESTIGES UNLOCKED.
THE WORLD NOW BELONGS TO THOSE WHO CAN REMEMBER."
In the sewers, Renn collapsed, shaking.
A tome unfolded behind his eyes, massive, endless, and impossibly old.
Its pages turned with invisible hands, each one inscribed with flickering runes.
[Codex]
Name: Renn
Status: Alive
Codex Rank: E
Vestige Acquired: Forgotten Fragment (Sealed)
Vestige Class: IV: The Emperor
Vestige Rank: Unique
The pain faded.
But something else took its place.
A voice. Not the relics. Not the world's.
Older. Personal.
"Ah. So they still remember riddles."
"You crawled through filth and shadow, little thief. And yet you hold me."
"Tell me, was it desperation or fate that led you here?"
Renn staggered to his feet.
His hand was no longer empty.
A sword rested in his grip, black as night, cold as the voice that now lived in his head.
"No matter."
"You carry the first shard of something broken, something buried."
"Let us see if you're worthy of remembering."
Above, the sky cracked once more, but he didn't see it this time.
Below, in the dark, a thief stood reborn.
And the world turned its page.
Chapter 1: Rats and Revelations
The chamber had gone quiet. It was the quiet of stillness, the silence of a held breath.
Renn stood motionless in the aftermath of light, ribs sore, arms quivering from the weight of the sword that now rested in his hands. It wasn't there moments before. The blade had been summoned, he knew that, but didn't understand how or why.
The sword was black as night. Its edge bore a faint sheen, and glyphs shimmered down its length, illegible and abstract, conveying more emotion than language. When he tried to focus, something shifted behind his vision, and the Codex itself stirred in answer.
[Archive Interface – Weapon Entry]
Name: [00000000]
Designation: Bound Relic
Status: Vestige-Linked
Recognition Level: Insufficient
Note: Further access requires Codex Rank D or higher.
Renn narrowed his eyes, scoffing under his breath.
"Of course it's sealed, why would I possibly need any answers?"
The words echoed off stone, brittle and thin.
He turned slowly, taking in the chamber. The relic that had started this still cracked and softly glowing, sat dead in the center of the stone dais, its pulse reduced to a phantom rhythm, and then it vanished. No new exit revealed itself. Only the tunnel behind him remained open, and from it came the scent of rot and cold iron.
"You could've given me answers," he muttered toward the relic.
"You were given a beginning."
The voice returned measured, regal, and amused.
"If you seek answers, then you must be willing to actually seek."
Renn tensed.
"You again."
"I never left."
"That's not exactly comforting."
"In time it will be."
" Why exactly do I hear your voice in my head? Who are you? "
"I am your vestige, or the memory held within it, and I believe I may have been a king before this despite being in.. your head.”
He didn't answer.
"And for both of our sakes, please just think about your responses. If you go around talking to me, people may think you're a bit off."
Instead, he inhaled and closed his eyes, focusing inward, not on the blade, but on the space just behind his thoughts, where the Codex now lived. It opened smoothly this time, like a book that has been read often.
[CODEX]
Name: Renn
Level: 1
Codex Rank: E
Vestige: Forgotten Fragment (Sealed)
Vestige class: IV: The Emperor
Vestige Rank: E
Titles: Fracture Catalyst
Stats:
Vitality: 2
Strength: 3
Agility: 4
Intelligence: 6
Resonance: 5
Clarity: 1 (Locked)
Skills:
Renn exhaled slowly.
"How exactly do I know how to do this?"
"The Archive imparts the knowledge to you."
He wasn't dreaming. He wasn't mad. The words were too sharp, too true . The Codex wasn't just information; it was information about him. He barely understood the stats, but they made sense. However, he struggled to grasp Resonance and Clarity.
He sat down against the wall, sliding until the stone caught the back of his shoulders. The sword rested across his lap, unnaturally still. It didn't hum or glow. It simply existed, heavy and mysterious.
Then came the sound.
A wet scrape. Nails on stone.
Renn's breath caught.
He pushed himself upright just as a shape scuttled into view at the tunnel's edge. He realized the chamber had opened back up, and there it stood.
A rat.
But no rat should be that large. No rat should move with such poise.
Its matted fur twitched, bristling along its back. Beady eyes, glinting with something more than animal instinct, locked onto Renn.
It didn't run.
It waited .
Then it lunged.
Renn moved purely on instinct. The sword felt unwieldy and unfamiliar, yet it obeyed force. He swung wide, steel crashing into fur and flesh. The rat screeched, body tumbling across stone, leaving a smear of blood behind.
It was dying, but not dead.
Not yet.
Another sound, a screech, high and sharp, echoed from the tunnel.
Then came more.
Two. Four. Six.
They emerged in coordinated silence, surrounding the edges of the room in a half-circle formation.
"What the hell?" Renn whispered. "Why are they moving like"
"A pack."
The voice finished for him.
"Because they, too, have fractured."
Renn turned his head slightly.
"You're telling me this... thing ... happened to rats ?"
"The Archive did not choose humans alone."
"The seal broke for all things with memory. All things have instinct. Even vermin may now ascend, given the will, you fractured, did you not?"
"Are you calling me vermin?"
The rats advanced in eerie unison.
Renn raised the sword and braced his stance.
He didn't wait.
The first came at him low and fast. He stepped to the side, slashing downward. Bone crunched. The second leapt from the side, and he turned, barely catching it mid-air with the flat of the blade, deflecting it into the wall. They were swift, but Renn realized he wasn't exactly slow himself.
One sank its teeth into his ankle.
Renn roared, stabbing downward until he felt its body go limp beneath the blade.
Another lunged from behind. Claws raked his shoulder.
He twisted, ignoring the pain, and swung a wide arc. The sword bit through two bodies at once. Screeches rang out, deeper than any normal rat's cry.
Blood now slicked the floor. His legs ached. His breath came fast and shallow.
They didn't fear him.
They understood him.
And they were learning.
One feinted left. Another came from the right. It darted past his swing, snapped at his ribs, then retreated before he could react.
"They're adapting," Renn hissed.
"Then adapt faster."
The voice wasn't mocking this time; it was hungry.
Another came at his knee, he dropped his weight and drove the sword up through its gut, then spun and carved through a second mid-lunge. His chest burned. Blood ran down his side. One final rat crept along the edge of the dais, hesitant, watching.
Renn met its gaze.
"You're not just animals anymore, are you?"
The rat growled, as if mocking him.
Renn didn't let it speak.
He drove the sword through its head with a two-handed thrust that buried the blade halfway into the stone beneath.
Silence fell.
His arms trembled from the effort.
He dropped to his knees, panting.
Codex Update
Enemies Defeated: Sewer Rats (x7)
Experience Gained: 70
Level Up!
Renn – Level 2
Unassigned Stat Points: 5
"Great," he muttered. "Fighting rats, and what the hell is a level up?"
"Do not mock what bleeds for you."
"Power is not earned only in a grand battle. It is proven in persistence."
Renn leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment.
"Five points," he said aloud. "What the hell am I supposed to do with them? I'm clueless."
"Then learn. Shape yourself. Or let the world shape you, but beware, it will not be kind."
The voice wasn't angry.
It was distant, cold, and ancient.
The Codex glimmered faintly in his mind as he reviewed the options.
Stats:
Vitality: 2
Strength: 3
Agility: 4
Intelligence: 6
Resonance: 5
Clarity: 1 (Locked)
He considered for a moment how he just knew what all of this meant.
Vitality. He was bleeding. He could barely stay upright. A few more hits and he'd drop.
He placed 1 point there.
Strength. The sword still felt heavy. And the rats had come fast, if others came stronger...
He placed 2 points.
Agility. He'd survived by slipping hits, not blocking them. Speed had always saved him.
He added 1 point.
Then Resonance.
He hesitated.
He didn't fully understand what it meant, but every time he thought of it, it made him feel like it was important.
He placed the last point into Resonance.
Stats:
Vitality: 3
Strength: 5
Agility: 5
Intelligence: 6
Resonance: 6
Clarity: 1 (Locked)
Remaining Points: 0
Renn let out a long, ragged breath.
The pain dulled slightly. The sword didn't weigh so much. His thoughts were clearer.
But he didn't feel stronger.
Not yet.
"This isn't power," he said. "It's scaffolding. I'm still falling."
"Then climb."
"Do not beg the Archive for mercy. It offers only a path."
Renn pushed himself to his feet, unsteady but standing. The corpses around him twitched in cooling silence. His boots left dark trails across the blood-slick floor.
He stared down the tunnel ahead.
One way out.
One direction forward.
"The page has turned," the voice said again, quieter now.
"Let's see if you're worth the ink."