Luckborn

Marcus knelt on a rise of dead stone, hands clasped tight, breath shallow.

The prayer left his lips in a rasp. A moment later, a small basket of bread shimmered into existence before him. Next to it appeared a flask of clean water. Both flickered with the faintest hint of divine light, the barest echo of Caelum's Will. Distant. Strained.

Marcus opened his eyes, saw the gift lying in front of him, and whispered another prayer—this one of thanks. But his voice was hoarse, and the words sounded hollow to his ears. His knees ached. His back burned. And the damned fog pressed in from every direction.

For the last two weeks, Marcus had been trapped in this realm of shadows and illusions.

Down the slope, the world unraveled—flat plains of ash twisting into forests that were made of nothing but doorframes and stairs. Beyond that, a crumbling bridge arced into a sky that blinked.

The Shadow Realm had no logic. It swirled with illusions. Familiar buildings stood with windows that watched him. Voices spoke in perfect cadence, but said nothing. More than once, he'd followed a false temple bell, only to find himself standing ankle-deep in something foul and smelling of rot.

There were no people. No animals. No food.

But there were creatures.

They watched from the edges—shapes that didn't move until you looked away. Shadowy beasts moved just on the edge of perception. They had not attacked. Yet. He wished they would. The waiting was exhausting.

The worst part about this place was how weak his connection to Caelum was. His Divine Mana pool refilled incredibly slowly—so slowly that he could only cast his Daily Bread spell once per day.

Daily Bread

Level: 1st Class: Divine Conduit

School:Conjuration Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Touch Duration: Instantaneous

Description

You call upon divine providence to manifest humble sustenance. This spell conjures a modest but nourishing meal — enough simple food and clean water to sustain one person for a full day. The food appears in a small basket or wrapped bundle of cloth, and the water in a simple flask or skin.

The food is plain (bread, dried fruits, cheese, legumes), but always filling and fresh.

The water is pure and free of disease or toxins.

The provisions vanish if not consumed within 24 hours.

It was enough to survive. Barely.

Marcus lifted the bread, broke it, and chewed in silence. It was soft, warm, and tasted of home. He drank slowly, letting each sip remind him that he was not completely forsaken. It was his last vestige of hope.

The fog shifted below him, rising and curling like a living thing.

You failed Him.

The thought came unbidden. Like so many times before.

Much of this place was a lie. It twisted thought, vision, and memory in unnatural ways, showing him impossible things. But wrapped in those lies were nuggets of truth, obscured and hidden. This voice was one such truth.

He had failed Caelum. Maybe not in faith, but in action. The god had sent him to stop the seal from being broken. Marcus had confronted the boy, pleaded with him to change course, but to no avail. The boy—Marcus didn't even know his name—refused! He'd even had the audacity to attack, loosing an infernal jet of fire upon Marcus and his temple soldiers, before making his escape. His face still burned, his magic unable to erase the scars. The soldiers' screams of agony still rang in his ears.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It took Marcus hours to tunnel into the room with the mirror. He burned through his mana and had to rest for several hours before continuing on. By the time he got there, his quarry was gone. So he'd followed. But he had never expected to end up here, so far from everything he knew and understood.

And now he was trapped. For days, he'd wandered through the Shadows and found nothing but false memories and trickery. And so he stopped wandering. Instead, he prayed. He reached into the hollow of his chest, toward that thin thread of Divine Mana still tethered to him. Faint. Weak. But present.

The dark tendrils of shadow around him coiled tighter. A whisper broke the silence, not from his lips, not from any throat.

You followed the wrong one.

He stood sharply, fists clenched, his heart spiking against his ribs. "Lies," he said. To the fog, to the ground, to himself.

The terrain to the east had shifted again—now it resembled the temple courtyard from his childhood, only the statues were faceless. One raised its hand in benediction. Another held a torch. A third bled shadow from empty eyes.

He turned away. "I am not lost," he muttered. But that was the fear that ate at his soul. What if he was truly lost to his god? What if there was no way back?

And still, he prayed. Not for rescue, but for permission to keep going.

***

"Wait…you're telling me Altheris actually spoke to you?" Piper's voice rose in incredulity.

"Shhh!" warned Otter. "Not so loud. People will hear you." He glanced around quickly. While there wasn't anyone in this row of shelves with them, the Library was always busy this close to exam time. There could be someone they couldn't see on the other side of the shelf.

Piper scoffed, but lowered her volume. "Like anybody would believe it, anyway."

"I don't know if it was Altheris herself, an aspect, an avatar, or just some disembodied voice. But I know what she said, and I know I need your help to unravel it."

She crossed her arms. "You've been awfully tight-lipped about what happened on your little adventure. Why bring it up now?"

"I didn't mean to hide it from you," Otter said. "I've been trying to process it. A lot happened very quickly. I guess I'm finally at a point where I need to talk about it."

She narrowed her eyes, but uncrossed her arms and picked up a book from the cart in front of her. "That's fair, I guess." She placed the book on a shelf. "So what, exactly, do you want my help with?"

"Well, she mostly spoke in riddles—"

"That sounds about right. For the goddess of secrets."

"—But for one question, she gave a pretty straightforward answer. I think. Maybe it's also a riddle. But if it is a straight answer, I still don't know what it means. I think I'm missing context or background information, or something."

"Okay. What did she say?"

"I asked where my father was and she said, 'Elias Bennett is caught in a web of despair, bound and guarded by those who twist fate for their own ends in the shade of the Shattered Spire.' On the surface, it sounds like he's being held prisoner somewhere near a place called the Shattered Spire. But I've never heard of it. Have you?"

Piper paused in her work, tapped her fingers against her lips, and said, "No. I've never heard of that. But something about that phrase seems familiar. Hang on a sec." She left her cart and hurried to the main aisle. Otter followed behind her.

After a few moments, she turned down a row of scrolls that Otter remembered as being full of old songs and poems. Piper stopped, ran her finger along the shelf, and pulled out a scroll. She unfurled it and tapped a line. "Here. The Needle of Kyreth. It's from a folk ballad—mid Era of Sundering. Obscure, but I found it last year while looking into collapsed divine sites."

Otter leaned over her shoulder, squinting at the text. The script was aged but legible—elegant strokes winding down yellowed parchment.

A tower needled into sky, Broke the stars with fatal cry.

Threads of gold and fate unspun, Buried deep, the silent one.

Beneath the root of broken breath,

The gods turned blind and swore him death.

Piper read aloud, softly, her voice oddly solemn.

"What makes you think that's the Shattered Spire?" Otter asked.

"Most scholars dismiss the story as simple allegory, but some say it was real—a god-built tower that reached impossibly high. Then the Kaos Wars came and something snapped it in half. Voilà: shattered spire."

Otter nodded. "I guess that makes sense."

But Piper wasn't finished. "Furthermore, we have that reference to 'fate unspun' which sounds suspiciously similar to 'those who twist fate to their own ends.' Don't you think?"

Otter's head was really bobbing now. "Yes. Yes, that makes perfect sense."

Piper sighed. "Still, the Shattered Spire might not be the Needle. It's a vague name. Could be a dozen different ruins, or none at all. I'll dig around. If there's a better match, I'll find it."

Otter felt the sharp sting of disappointment looming over him. This wasn't the clean, easy answer he'd hoped for. But he was learning that not everything fell into place that easily. Sometimes, it took time, patience, and a lot of hard work to make progress. "Thanks. I appreciate it. "

"Don't mention it," she said, rolling the scroll up again. "You brought me a goddess and a mystery. What am I supposed to do—not get involved?"

He smiled. "Good point."

She began walking back to her cart. "Now get back to work. These books won't shelve themselves."

As Piper disappeared around a corner, muttering to herself, Otter wondered why someone hadn't figured out how to use magic to re-shelve books. There was still a lot he didn't understand about how the world worked.