The world was not always broken. Long before silence conquered the lands, the Record Halls stood tall against the sky—a constellation of grand libraries guarding the memories of creation. Within their stone walls, knowledge glowed in script and sigil, a light to challenge the encroaching dark. It was an era when truth was kept close and sacred, watched over by those chosen to bear its weight.
They were the Sigilborn—men and women marked at birth by an ancient symbol, an oath etched into their flesh and soul. These guardians carried the weight of every story, every secret, their sigils burning bright with the power of remembered truths. In the halls under their care, whispers of ages past were not allowed to fade. The Sigilborn wandered endless archive corridors, tending to living words inscribed on scrolls and tablets, ensuring that the light of knowledge never dimmed.
But in the shadow of great light, envy and despair took root. From among the trusted arose a darkness unseen: a guardian whose heart faltered. What began as a flicker of doubt swelled into a hunger for forbidden power. The Eclipsed were born the night one Sigilborn betrayed the rest. Once-brothers and sisters in truth, they turned on their kin, cloaked in shadows, their glowing sigils blackened to void. They who had sworn to preserve wisdom now sought to shatter it, each of them an eclipse blotting out the sun they once worshipped.
The betrayal of knowledge was swift and devastating. With cunning and malice, the traitors opened the gates from within. In a single moonless night, the great Record Halls fell. Shelves of illuminated manuscripts and tablets of stone—treasures of all mortal understanding—were put to the torch. Flames danced hungrily along oak and parchment, turning centuries of wisdom into bitter ash. The sky itself reddened as if bleeding for the loss.
The Sigilborn who remained loyal made their last stand among the flames—silent silhouettes against towering infernos—only to be cut down by their fallen kin. In that infernal dawn, truth itself screamed and then fell deathly quiet.
When the embers cooled, the world awoke to find its memory amputated. Where once stood ivory towers brimming with learning, now only charred ruins and drifting cinders remained. The Record Halls, pillars of civilization, were broken.
History was stolen—names of heroes, maps of ancient realms, the cures for plagues, the songs of the first dawn—all gone or twisted beyond recognition. In the void left behind, ignorance spread like a smothering fog. People forgot not just their stories but their purpose, their hope. Under a slate-gray sky, they lived unaware of what had been torn from them, feeling only a hollow ache where certainty once dwelled.
Yet the war did not end with the burning of the halls. Unseen by the masses, an endless silent war began to rage beneath the veneer of ordinary life. By night, in collapsed catacombs and hidden grottos, the scattered survivors of the Sigilborn gather what fragments of lore they can, fighting to rekindle the light. By day, the Eclipsed move like wraiths through courts and kingdoms, sowing lies and snuffing out the faintest spark of remembered truth. No trumpets sound for this war in shadow; no banners fly. Most alive now know nothing of the conflict that persists. But every stolen artifact, every secret safeguarded or destroyed, is another battle in this ceaseless struggle for the soul of the world.
Time flows on, and even legends fade to myth. Generations have passed in dimming twilight, born into a wounded earth that cannot heal while its past remains severed. Still, in that quiet devastation, the promise of conflict yet simmers. The Sigilborn refuse to forget, even as their number dwindles and their sigils flicker. The Eclipsed, bound by their lust for dominion over truth, will not rest until every last light is extinguished. Both sides sense an inevitable dawn approaching—a moment when the silent war will erupt into the light of day, when all hidden things shall finally be revealed or destroyed.
In the deepest darkness, a single spark endures. A whisper echoes through forsaken ruins, carried on the breath of those who remember. It speaks of truths buried but not slain, of an endless night that shall finally yield to dawn.
And in that dawn yet to come, the forgotten shall rise.