The city of Varenthal lay far from the ancient ruins where the Egg of Elarion slept, but its shadows stretched deep into the bones of the world. At its heart, hidden beneath the guise of the mundane, Damon continued to live as the quiet grocer. The sun filtered through the grimy glass of his shop, illuminating grains and jars and a man with a secret that threatened to awaken.
That morning, as Damon arranged apples with unnatural perfection, a whisper tugged at the edge of his thoughts—not a voice, but a sensation. The earth beneath his feet had shifted. A vibration older than language pulsed in the ley-lines running under Varenthal. He paused, his fingers trembling. Elarion stirred within him.
"It is time," the voice said—not aloud, but in the marrow of his bones.
He left the shop in the care of a silent automaton and walked toward the outskirts of the city. Past twisted alleys and flickering streetlamps, he found himself at a grove that shouldn't exist—a patch of ancient trees where a modern factory once stood. The air buzzed with energy.
There, in the center of the grove, stood a figure wrapped in robes of indigo and smoke: a Seer of the Forgotten Order. Her eyes were covered with woven silver thread, her mouth stitched shut with rune-wrought sinew. Yet Damon understood her perfectly.
"The path to the Egg has opened," she whispered into his mind. "But it is not yours alone."
A flicker of memory ignited in Damon's eyes—a man of sharp wit, eyes like oil on water, voice smooth as silk dipped in poison. Vireth.
Vireth, the god's once-loyal aide, was alive. Damon had assumed him lost with the rest of the Pantheon, vanished during the Burning Collapse. But the Seer's visions confirmed what Elarion had long feared: Vireth had fled the divine plane before the downfall. He had survived, wandered, and now hungered for the Egg.
"He searches in the south," the Seer warned. "He has sought the witches. The path will bring you together. Conflict is the next inevitability."
Damon exhaled slowly. The weight of centuries sat behind his eyes.
"Then I must remember who I was," he said.
He stepped into the grove's circle of stones. Glyphs carved in languages older than stars lit up under his feet. A beam of pure white cut down from the heavens, and Damon closed his eyes.
For a moment, he was no longer a grocer. He was a god.
Feathers of radiant light bloomed from his shoulders. His plain robe unraveled, revealing a garment woven from threads of creation—gold, black, and sapphire, humming with silent might. His eyes glowed like twin moons.
The Seer bowed deeply, though blind. "The Era of Sleep ends. The race begins."
Far to the south, in a sunless hall beneath a ruined temple, Vireth stood before a cauldron of blood and whispers. Three witches, pale and ageless, circled him. Their price had been steep—a secret of the gods, traded in pain. But they had told him what he needed to know.
"The Egg of Elarion lies where time folds. You must follow the pulse in your dreams."
Vireth smiled, and it was not a kind thing. "Then we begin."
The world turned beneath them, old wheels beginning to spin once more.
The game was set.
And the Egg stirred in its metal cradle, humming an echo of forgotten divinity.