It took me an hour, three wrong turns, and a very awkward encounter with a herd of what I really hope were magically enlarged raccoons before I finally found the place.
And “tower” was… generous.
The archivist had made it sound impressive. Mysterious. A forgotten wizard’s spire, maybe—something with stained glass, ivy-choked stone, and a heavy door that whispered secrets when you knocked.
This?
This was a squat, crumbling lookout tower halfway sunk into a grassy hill, leaning like it had been napping for a few centuries and forgot to get back up. Moss coated the base. The upper windows were broken. One of the old flags still hung from a rusted hook, bleached bone-white by the sun and flapping like it didn’t know the war had ended.
Glint huffed from my shoulder, ears twitching as he stared up at the structure like it was a major disappointment.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Not quite the majestic arcane fortress I was picturing, either.”
He chirped once. Displeased.
The place wasn’t even on my map—not that that meant anything. My Cartogropher talent marked cities and guildhalls, vendors and dungeon portals. But half-buried relics of pre-system history? Those didn’t show up. Especially not ones with sigils drifting like lazy fish around the perimeter.
The sigils weren’t just floating decorations, either.
The closer I got, the more wrong they felt.Like floating warnings. They shimmered just above the grass, flickering through patterns that made no sense, each one out of sync with the next. Some hovered like they were waiting. Others spun slowly, carving loops in the air that left faint, stinging trails across my vision.
And when I reached out—just to see if one would react—Glint hissed and slapped my hand with his tail.
I froze.
Because the second my fingers had twitched toward that nearest glyph, it pulsed. Hard. A ripple spread out from it in every direction, activating a whole web of smaller runes I hadn’t even seen before.
I pulled my hand back.
The glow faded, but slowly. Like it had noticed me.
Glint growled under his breath and pressed tighter against my neck.
“Right,” I whispered. “No touching. Got it.”
I took a careful step to the side, eyes scanning the hill. There were gaps between the sigils, but they weren’t obvious—just slight dead zones where the grass still moved with the breeze.
I took another step. Then a third.
The tower watched.
Or maybe the tower didn’t—but the wards definitely did.
One of the runes drifted too close to my knee and buzzed faintly. Just sound, no light. But it was enough to make my heart stutter and my legs lock.
I breathed in.
Out.
And moved.
I didn’t run. I didn’t sneak. I flowed—awkwardly, nervously, carefully. My foot caught on something and I nearly face-planted into a glyph that looked like a screaming eye. Glint shrieked like it was my fault and launched off my shoulder into a nearby bush.
But I didn’t die.
Lucky me.
Eventually, the grass evened out, and the strain in the air eased. I looked up—and there it was.
The tower’s front door.
It looked… normal, all things considered. Heavy wood, black iron bands, a little warped from age but not nearly as intimidating as the arcane minefield I’d just tiptoed through. No handle. No knocker. Just a circular sigil etched dead-center on the wood, glowing faintly blue.
It was clean.
New.
Everything else here was rotting under the weight of time. But that rune? That rune pulsed like it had just been drawn. And it sensed me.
The moment I stepped onto the final stone in front of the door, the sigil brightened—once. Then it dimmed.
I lifted a hand and knocked—softly at first, because I’m not an idiot.
No answer.
“Hello?” I called, raising my voice just enough to carry past the door. “Is this… Merden’s tower?”
Still nothing.
I knocked again, a little harder. “I’m not here to cause trouble! I just want to talk!”
Silence stretched.
Then—just when I was starting to wonder if I’d gotten the wrong ancient hermit tower, something shifted behind the door.
A scuff of movement. The creak of old floorboards. Then a thump. Followed by the unmistakable sound of something clicking into place.
Panic hit me so fast it short-circuited my thoughts. My heart skipped. My skin went cold. I didn’t think—I just moved.
Shadow step.
And then the door exploded.
Not shattered. Exploded.
The blast was deafening. Wood splintered into a hundred smoking shards and iron bands twisted mid-air before embedding themselves in the dirt where I’d been standing seconds before. Heat seared across my face. A pulse of raw force knocked me back a step.
Glint shrieked and covered his eyes with his ears.
I stared at the smoking crater where the door used to be.
“…Okay,” I rasped. “So maybe knocking was a bad idea.”
The doorway now gaped like a wound, smoke curling from blackened hinges and scorched stone. Cautiously, I leaned just far enough to peer inside.
And there he was.
An old man stood rigid in the ruined threshold, framed by what little remained of the doorway. His hair was a wiry tangle of gray and white, sticking out like he’d just rolled out of a storm cloud. He wore a ragged, oversized robe that might have once been navy blue and now resembled a half-burned blanket. And in his shaking hand—leveled right where my chest had been—was a wand.
An old wand. It was cracked, scarred, and humming with unstable energy, like it wanted to finish what the explosion started.
The old man’s eyes locked on mine.
They were sunken. Shadowed. Haunted.
Like he hadn’t slept in a month. Maybe a year.
Like he’d spent too long staring into something no one else believed was real.
“Trespasser,” he rasped, voice like torn paper. “You don’t belong here.”
I didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Not with that wand humming like a live wire aimed dead at my face.
“Wait—wait!” I blurted, hands shooting up, palms out. “I’m not here to hurt you! I just—I just wanted to talk!”
The old man’s arm didn’t waver. If anything, the tip of the wand pulsed brighter, casting a faint blue light that shimmered against the smoke curling in from the blown door.
“Talk,” he echoed, but it wasn’t a question. It was a sneer. A crackling accusation from somewhere deep in his throat. “That’s what they all say. Talk. Mock. Spy.”Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“No! No, I swear—I’m not spying, I just—please.” I crouched low, slow, like one wrong twitch might get me turned into a pile of ash and regrets. Glint, for once in his life, didn’t make a sound. He hunkered low against my back, eyes locked on the wand like it was a predator.
“I’m not one of them,” I said, barely above a whisper. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m not with the guilds or the scholars or anyone. I just… I’ve seen something. Something wrong. Something I think you saw too.”
The wand didn’t lower.
Merden’s eyes—gods, those eyes—darted wildly over my face, like he was trying to read the truth through sheer desperation. Or maybe trying to remember what truth even looked like.
“You lie,” he spat, the word sharp and raw. “They send sweet faces now, hmm? Youth and honesty, painted up with fear and pretty manners. Think the old man won’t notice. Think Merden forgets.” His voice cracked, turned inward, became a mumble. “Laughing like the rest… like the rest, like all of them…”
He raised the wand higher.
I flinched, every muscle screaming to run—but I forced myself not to.
“I believe you,” I said, chest tight. “I believe the system isn’t right. I think there are pieces missing—broken pieces. Things no one talks about. Things that shouldn’t exist.”
The light at the wand’s tip flickered. Just slightly.
“Glitch doors,” I added, fast and quiet. “Portals no one else can see. Items that level up. Hidden dungeons with corrupted code. I’ve seen them. I’ve been in one.”
That got him.
The wand trembled in his hand, and for the first time, his eyes widened—not in rage, but in something jagged and brittle.
Hope.
Or maybe the ghost of it.
“You… you’ve seen the black glyphs,” he rasped, stepping forward. “The ones that scream in the dark. The places with no name—where time twitches and the walls bleed numbers…”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah. Yeah, I have.”
He stared at me like I was a hallucination. Like any second, I’d flicker and vanish.
“Words lie,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Voices twist. But you… no fear in your mouth. Not the fake kind.”
“I’m not here to laugh at you,” I said again, softer now. “I’m here because I think you might be the only person in this city who can help me.”
Merden lowered the wand.
Just an inch.
But it felt like a mountain moved.
He blinked. Once. Twice. And then, almost imperceptibly, the lines around his mouth cracked into something that might’ve once been a smile—but had long since forgotten how to be anything but sad.
“Come,” he whispered, turning away. “Before the watchers blink. Before the glyphs grow teeth again. Come in. Come quick.”
And with that, the old man shuffled back into the wreck of his tower, muttering to himself, wand still trailing smoke behind him.
I stood there a second longer, heart pounding, Glint shaking like a leaf against my back.
Then I followed.
Because whatever Merden had seen?
I needed to know.
 
The stairs groaned beneath our feet as we climbed—slow, spiraling, and steep. Every step felt like it might be the one that gave out completely, and the walls were so close I could barely stretch my arms without scraping stone.
“Up, up, up,” the old man mumbled, wand trailing his side now, no longer pointed at my face but still crackling faintly. “Safe at the top. Not safe down low. Wards too thin. Too many eyes.”
The tower’s insides were exactly what you’d expect from someone who hadn’t seen a guest—or sanity—in years. Dust blanketed everything. The walls were etched with runes I didn’t recognize. Half of them were unfinished, like he’d started some complex enchantment and lost track halfway through, then never came back to fix it.
By the time we reached the top, I was out of breath—and out of illusions.
This wasn’t a tower.
It was a crypt for someone time forgot to bury.
The top room was a single circular space, wide and cluttered and, somehow, sad. Papers covered nearly every inch of the floor—scrolls, torn books, even napkins scrawled with notes in a frantic, looping script. The only furniture was a rotting table, three cracked chairs, and a bedroll wedged under the narrow window. There were candles stuck on every available surface—some burned low, others fresh—and a faint blue light glowed from a half-finished sigil carved directly into the ceiling.
And the food. Gods.
There were tins of fish stacked taller than me, barrels of sealed water in the corner, and sacks—actual burlap sacks—of rice piled like a fort around the room’s perimeter. It looked like he stocked up once a year and just… stayed put. Lived up here like the world didn’t exist beyond the tower’s crumbling stones.
I stepped carefully over a mound of parchment as Merden shuffled to the table and collapsed into a chair with a creak that echoed through the room.
I stayed standing.
Mostly because I didn’t trust the other chairs.
“So,” I said, trying to find a polite way to ask why he’d nearly murdered me, “you live here.”
Merden didn’t respond. He was busy digging through a rusted tin for some kind of food, which he offered to Glint with one trembling hand.
Glint sniffed it, considered it, and then took it gently. Traitor.
“Purple,” Merden said at last, without looking up.
I blinked. “What?”
“Purple doors. That’s what you said. Yes. Yes. I remember. Wrong doors.”
I took a cautious step closer. “You’ve seen them too?”
He nodded, slow and deliberate. “Only me. For a long time. Only me. They hum in the bones. The system can’t see them, so it ignores them. But they’re there. Waiting.”
I sat down. Carefully. The chair didn’t collapse, which felt like a minor miracle.
“I’ve been in one,” I said quietly. “A dungeon with no name. Everything inside was… off. The monsters. The interface. Even the text was glitched. It felt like the world itself didn’t know how to explain it.”
Merden’s eyes twitched. He leaned forward.
“They show you the cracks,” he whispered, eyes wide. “The pieces they tried to erase. They shouldn’t be here. They’re not meant to be here. The system hides them. But the ones with eyes—real eyes—can see.”
“The system?” I frowned. “What’s it hiding? Why?”
Merden just shook his head. “Not why. When.”
“…That doesn’t make sense.”
“Good!” He slapped the table. “Then you’re still sane. That’s good. Don’t try to make it make sense. It’s like folding water. You break more than you fix.”
I stared at him. “Right. So what does it mean? Why can I see them? What does it want?”
Merden blinked slowly, then sagged back in his chair, like the weight of all the years and all the madness had caught up at once.
“I don’t know,” he murmured, quieter now. “But if the system gave you something… something different… it means you’re part of the patch. Or the test. Or the error.”
He looked at me then. Really looked. Like he saw through the layers I didn’t know I had.
“And it means you’re not safe.”
The silence stretched. The tower creaked.
I glanced at his wand—now resting on the edge of the table, still humming faintly but no longer aimed at anything but air.
 
I leaned in, keeping my voice gentle. “What happened to it? The item you had. The one that leveled up. Like a Chosen.”
Merden flinched, his eyes snapping to mine like I’d just spoken a forbidden word.
“Gone,” he muttered. “Threw it away. Gave it up. Not safe. Not good. Nope. Not for me. Not anymore.”
He rocked in his chair, fingers twitching against his robe.
I reached into my satchel, heart hammering. “Mine looks like this.” I pulled the orb from its padded pouch—just enough for the glassy surface to catch the room’s light, faintly pulsing. “It doesn’t behave like other artifacts. It… changes. Grows. And it reacts to the portals—”
“No.”
The word came out flat. Not shouted, not gasped. Just… final.
I barely had time to look up before Merden recoiled from the table like I’d pointed a loaded crossbow at his chest. He staggered back, his chair tipping with a clatter, one hand outstretched like the orb burned his eyes just by existing.
“No. No no no no no—get it out. Get it out!” His voice cracked. “Not again. No more. Not safe, not safe!”
I flinched, stuffed the orb back in the pouch, hands fumbling with the drawstring. “Okay! Okay, it’s away—see? I put it away.”
Merden kept retreating until he hit the wall. His fingers trembled against the stone as he pressed himself there like he could vanish into it.
“Leave,” he whispered. “You have to leave. He’ll come for you. He knows now. You brought it here. You brought him here.”
“Who?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady even though my pulse was sprinting. “Who’s going to come for me?”
Merden just shook his head, muttering in a broken rhythm, rocking back and forth. “You don’t say the name. You don’t think the name.”
My stomach dropped.
“What if I already did?” I said, quietly. “What if… what if his name was Hollow?”
The effect was instant.
It was like every muscle in Merden’s body locked at once. The panic didn’t rise gradually—it snapped into place, like a trap springing shut. Whatever color he had drained from his face. His lips parted like he wanted to speak, but nothing came out. Just breath. Just fear.
He lurched forward—fast, sudden, reaching for the table, for the wand.
I moved without thinking.
My hand closed around the wand a half-second before his did. I didn’t raise it, didn’t aim it, just held it. He stared at my hand, wide-eyed and trembling.
“Please,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just… need to understand.”
Merden staggered away again, hands flying to his ears like they could block out the world. He paced the room in tight, uneven circles, his boots crunching old parchment, eyes flicking to every shadow like they might suddenly whisper his name.
“No one’s safe. No one. He finds us. Finds all who know. We vanish. One by one by one—gone, gone, gone. Blood on the door. Smoke in the system. He kills, he kills, he kills.”
I stood slowly. “Wait,” I said. “You said us.”
Merden froze mid-step.
“There are others?” I asked, pulse spiking. “Others who know? Who’ve seen what we’ve seen?”
His mouth twitched.
Then—barely, barely—he nodded.
“Where are they?”
Merden turned, staring at me with something between pity and despair. “Dead. Hiding. Forgotten. Maybe worse. If you know—if you’ve met him—it’s too late.”
He pointed a shaking finger at me.
“He’s coming.”
 
Merden’s breathing hitched. Then quickened. Then broke into sharp, ragged gasps as he backed away from me like I’d grown teeth.
“No, no, no—too late, too late,” he rasped, clawing at his hair. “You brought him here. The moment you said it, he heard. He always hears.”
“Merden—”
“He hears.”
He spun, knocking over a stack of journals as he lunged for the wall. “He comes in the dark! He comes through the cracks! Through the silence! He erases!”
“Merden, stop!”
“He’ll kill me. Kill you. Kill everyone!” he shrieked. “The system won’t stop him! Nothing stops him! He eats Chosen, eats the rules—eats the code!”
He was sprinting now—wild, erratic—elbows banging against shelves, feet scattering papers and tins as he staggered to the window.
“Merden!” I shouted, taking a step forward.
But I was too slow.
He threw the shutters open with a wheeze, eyes wild and wet. “He comes for the ones who see! I won’t let him take me again. Not again. Never again!”
And then—
He jumped.
The scream tore from my throat as I stumbled toward the window, Glint screeching behind me. But before I reached the ledge—before I could process the madness I’d just witnessed—
The world snapped.
A blinding arc of light burst across the field, sharp and silent—just a crack of energy, like the air itself had torn in half. The wards activated all at once, lines of glyphs flaring in a brilliant, synchronized web. And at the center—
Gone.
No smoke. No debris. Just the faint sizzle of ozone and the ghost of a shape that had stood there only seconds before. Books and scrolls rattled on their shelves behind me, but the tower held still. No explosion. No fire. Just an electric stillness settling over everything like a final breath held too long.
I froze.
The wards.
The glyphs.
The arcane tripwire net.
He hadn’t just triggered them—he’d been erased by them. Wiped out in a single, merciless pulse.
“No, no, no…” I whispered, forcing myself toward the window. Heart pounding. Mind reeling.
I gripped the crumbling stone and leaned out.
Below, the grass twitched in the wind. The glyphs glowed faintly, resetting themselves in slow ripples of light. The scent of burned air clung to the ground—sharp, metallic, wrong.
But Merden?
He was gone.
No body. No sound. No trace.
Just the wind.
And the soft hum of magic settling back into place like nothing had happened at all.