The night began with the group pressing forward on their infiltration of Saigo no Toshi while the sky churned with the promise of rain and the approaching chaos.

The night before everything changed, Weslyn woke with a start. His dreams had been too vivid, too heavy with truth. Dr. Harrow had spoken to him there, as real as any waking voice. But when he opened his eyes to the dim light outside Saigo no Toshi, he decided not to tell Slate. The truth of it felt too sharp to hand over. Instead, he found himself standing awkwardly beside Dash’s tent, waiting for the man to stir.

The group lingered on the outskirts of Saigo no Toshi, studying the barricaded walls that once welcomed travellers and merchants with open gates. Now the city stood silent, its beauty smothered beneath cruelty and decay. They needed a way in, but every route seemed sealed.

The group stood before the walls of Saigo no Toshi, and what once had been a city of warmth and grace now looked more like a tomb. Corpses hung from its ramparts, its great gates sealed shut, the air thick with the smell of death.

A large, black-furred predator, upright and unnaturally lithe, moved with the patient cruelty of a thing that relished violence. Its fur drank the light around it. Its eyes were small, bright coals, and its mouth opened on a cluster of needle teeth. Long, hooked claws flexed and flexed again, and an old, ragged scent of iron and old rot clung to it like a halo.

Eldrin held the unconscious Chicken close, his hands steady but his mind reeling. There was something profoundly calm about it, a peace that washed through him like sunlight filtering through leaves. Whatever had changed in the little fox, it brought him a quiet strength he hadn’t known before.

The party’s story in Asazaki continued with Eldrin visiting a shrine dedicated to Tempestas, a marble pillar crowned with the bust of a bald, bearded man radiating power.

The companions found themselves in Asazaki, where old ties and new revelations intertwined.

The night began with raised glasses and sharp stakes. Slate, still disguised as Dash, continued his drinking contest with the dread captain, Sarran.

The night began with simple conversation. Rest was fleeting.

They had been trapped in the book realm for what felt like a thousand years—surely their shared struggle warranted something to bind them in name as well as deed.

With the Crescent Pearl silent and lifeless around them, the companions turned to the question of survival.

It was only when the chaos passed that they realised the true cost. Time itself had slipped from their grasp. At a minimum, seven long months lost inside the Seal. However the environment of the Crescent Pearl suggested it may have been considerably longer.

In a moment that bent time and identity, Slate reached out to take a familiar hand—his own, though from another life entirely. As the two selves merged, memory and presence became one.

Amaedrianna found herself in her journey within the pages of this book. Sprinting across the rooftops of Vurduar, the city’s edges shrouded in familiar shadows. She wasn’t alone—Bantun, her childhood friend from long-forgotten escapades, ran beside her.

The group arrived in the grove just as the evening shadows began to stretch across the earth. One by one, they stepped into a memory that didn’t quite belong to them—but was painfully real to one among them.

After plunging into the strange prison that was once a book—bound to Vathros and steeped in memory—the group was met not with chains, but with a whisper: "Memory is not truth. It is allegiance."

The group began in uncertainty. Exhausted and low on supplies, they debated their next steps—returning to Ashrest, pushing onward to an unknown town, or finding another way entirely.

The group reunited once more. No time for rest. They fled under moonlight, leaving the fortress behind them, and ran until dawn.

The group stood at a distance, watching the fortress ahead. Quiet discussions circled around the best way to approach. Some, like Eos, were ready to walk right up and knock.