Legacy of the Lost Sigil

The sun bled gold across the jagged tree line, a halo of fire casting shadows over the thatched roofs of Brenmoor Village. The wind was beginning to shift—Kael could feel it in his bones. He always did on his birthday.

Seventeen today. Not that it meant much.

He tugged at the string holding his worn satchel, a few bundles of mountain sage and dried yarrow sticking out the top. His boots scraped against the path leading home, a modest cottage tucked between the hills. Smoke drifted gently from the chimney, and the familiar smell of drying herbs reached him before the front door even came into view.

A voice greeted him—thin, worn by time.

Kael dropped the herbs on the counter. “Ran into a pack of dustrabbits. One tried to make off with the yarrow.”

Later that night, after the stew and silence, Kael lay on his straw mat, eyes fixed on the cracked ceiling. He didn’t feel seventeen. He felt... stalled. In Brenmoor, boys his age had already joined the Orders—those with talent, anyway. Some trained at the Bladewarden camps; others, if they had the gift, studied magic under the Arcanists.

But Kael?

Kael had no fire to summon, no sword to wield. No legacy, either.

Just a name passed down from missing parents and a thousand unanswered questions.

He turned on his side, facing the wall. That’s when he noticed it again—that odd breeze. Not wind from outside. No window open. It came from below.

Curiosity gnawed harder than hunger ever had.

He crept to the kitchen, barefoot and cautious. A loose floorboard had always creaked by the hearth. Tonight, it didn’t. Instead, something below it glowed faintly—like moonlight dancing behind a veil.

Kael pried it up. A box lay hidden beneath. Small. Metallic. Etched with curling runes that shimmered the color of wet ash.

He reached out—and the room changed.

The fire dimmed. The very air seemed to pause. As his fingers touched the cold silver surface, a pulse traveled up his arm, warm and ancient. The box clicked open.

Inside lay a folded note and a pendant carved with sigils.

“To the one born of twilight and memory. Blood calls blood. The system awaits.”

The moment he touched the pendant, pain exploded in his chest—then clarity.

Words burned into his mind, not in sound, but pure thought:

[SYSTEM BOOT SEQUENCE: INHERITOR PROTOCOL ONLINE]

User Identified: Kael Ardyn

Initializing Sigil Core...

He didn’t understand. He wasn’t ready. But a pull—deep, instinctual—answered for him.

[Y]

His knees buckled.

Visions tore through him: a blade wreathed in flame, hands moving over torn flesh, healing it in seconds. Monsters crashing through burning trees. His own body—older, stronger—moving faster than thought. And then... a voice.

“You are the last of the Hidden Path. Survive. Or the world will fall with you.”

He awoke to Ilna shaking him, panic in her eyes.

He sat up, gasping. The pendant still pulsed at his neck.

“I think… I think I just woke up.”

The morning after the system awakened, Kael saw the world with different eyes.

He could feel it now—currents under the skin of the earth, pulsing with ancient threads. His breath matched the wind without effort. His steps, previously clumsy, moved with unconscious rhythm. But none of that prepared him for what happened when he whispered:

“System... open.”