The city breathed beneath a shroud of mist. Aetherholt was never kind to the lost. Its narrow cobblestone alleys curled like ink strokes on parchment, fading into shadows and secrets. Here, the gas lamps flickered with tired light, the hum of unseen machinery mingling with distant murmurs of a city that dreamed and forgot.
Ezren Vale opened his eyes to the damp chill of the alley. Cold stone pressed against his cheek, and the metallic scent of rain clung to the air. His breath escaped in shallow clouds.
He did not remember how he had come to be here.
His fingers curled instinctively around something soft, something worn. A notebook, bound in cracked leather, edges frayed and pages yellowed with time. He held it close, as if it were a lifeline.
A whisper of words escaped the book's cracks, barely audible beneath the night's sigh.
*Write or be written.*
Ezren blinked, rising slowly to his knees. His legs trembled with weakness, memories slipping like water through a sieve. A name, a face, a life—all blank. Except for one thing: a silver ring on his left hand, dull and unadorned but for an engraving so faint it seemed to shift when he stared at it.
*Fight the last page.*
He pressed the ring, trying to recall. Nothing. The fog was thick in his mind.
The alley yawned wider ahead, swallowed by darkness and flickering lamps. Footsteps echoed faintly, uneven and hesitant.
Ezren's heart thudded. He clutched the notebook tighter and stood, his breath steadying.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
He stepped forward, boots splashing in a shallow puddle. The reflection showed a young man, pale-skinned with tousled black hair and eyes that gleamed faint violet in the dim light. He looked like a shadow himself part of the mist, lost and wandering.
Ezren knew nothing of his own name, yet the ring felt like a promise, the notebook a curse.
Suddenly, a figure emerged from the fog.
A man, cloaked and stoic, his face hidden beneath the brim of a wide hat. His voice was low, gravelly, but kind.
"You shouldn't be here," the man said.
Ezren froze. "Who are you?"
The stranger's eyes, sharp and unreadable, flickered to the ring. "You're marked. More than you know."
"Marked? What do you mean?"
The man sighed, a sound heavy with centuries. He knelt to meet Ezren's gaze.
"I came to warn you. You're going to die."
The words crashed into Ezren like thunder.
"I don't understand."
The man pulled back his sleeve, revealing a faded tattoo an ancient script curling like smoke.
"You won't believe me. But this is your fate. It's written, but you must fight it. Even if you forget this night, even if your mind erases it to protect itself. You must fight."
Ezren's fingers trembled as he clutched the notebook to his chest.
"Why? Who who would want me dead?"
The man's eyes softened, haunted.
"They call it a tragedy. An accident. But it's no accident. The story wants an ending. And you... are that ending."
He reached into his coat and pressed something cold and heavy into Ezren's palm. A silver ring identical to the one on his finger, except this one shimmered with an otherworldly light.
Ezren stared, heart pounding.
"Hold onto this. It's a key and a burden. It's a reminder that you're not alone, even if you think you are."
Before Ezren could speak, the man vanished into the fog as silently as he had come.
Alone again, Ezren looked down at his hand. The ring glowed faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat.
His notebook trembled in response, pages fluttering as if alive.
A whisper rose, growing louder
*Write or be written.*
Ezren staggered out of the alley and into the cold embrace of Aetherholt's streets. The city loomed an ancient beast wrapped in fog and forgotten verses.
He did not know who he was, where he came from, or why he was marked for death.
But somewhere, buried deep beneath the silence of his amnesia, a question stirred
"Who was the man in the fog?"
The City of Forgotten Words. Aetherholt was a city of layers of stories folded into stories, and secrets whispered beneath gaslight and rain. The city had seen empires rise and fall, seen the ink of authors bleed onto parchment and reality alike.
Here, power was not only held by might or money but by words written, spoken, and imagined.
Ezren's footsteps echoed on cobblestones slick with drizzle. He felt eyes watching from the shadows, silhouettes dissolving like spilled ink at the edge of vision.
The notebook was warm in his hand now, as if pulsing with life.
He flipped it open.
Inside, blank pages stared back.
Until, slowly, letters began to appear—scrawled in a hand not his own:
"The boy who forgets his name walks alone. The verse is broken, but the story is not yet done."
A chill ran down Ezren's spine.
He closed the book.
In the heart of the city stood an ancient building, its facade etched with glyphs and sigils worn by time.
A sign hung from a wrought-iron bracket: The Velvet Quill.
Inside, a group of figures gathered detectives and scholars, seekers of lost knowledge.
They called themselves the Velvet Quill, guardians against the dangers of Versecraft and the mysteries that lurked in the Noctarium.
At the center sat a woman with sharp eyes and a scar tracing her cheek. Her voice was steady, filled with unspoken sorrow.
"We have another case," she said. "A man with no past, but a future written in ink and shadow."
Her gaze sharpened as she pulled a notebook from a leather satchel a notebook much like the one Ezren carried.
Ezren found himself standing at a crossroads not just of streets, but of fate.
He knew he was marked.
He knew he had been warned.
And yet, he could not remember what he must fight.
But one thing was certain:
The story had begun.
And the last page was waiting.