The first sensation was color.
Not the muted glow of Alkora’s streets or the sterile amber of the AeroWing, but a kaleidoscope alive with vibrance. The station bloomed before your eyes like a dream made tangible - its corridors lined with banners of shifting hues, its avenues crowded with merchants and wanderers whose faces carried no shadow of fear. Voices mingled in polite harmony, the rhythm of trade and laughter forming a melody unlike any you had known.
Her gaze lingered on every arch, every light, every pattern woven into the walls. “This place…” Alexis murmured, almost to herself. “I’ve never been here… but still, I remember it.”
And in that paradox, it was more real than anything else.
Though the AeroWing’s instruments insisted you floated in emptiness, here stretched a thriving world of order and light. Buildings rose in impossible symmetry, crystalline towers bending inward as though bowing to a hidden center. Children played freely in plazas where seemingly artificial streams shimmered like liquid glass. The people you passed bowed their heads in greeting, every gesture courteous, every word spoken with care. As their eyes touched yours, there was a flicker; subtle, undeniable. Not curiosity, not surprise, but the softened look one gives a long-lost friend. They smiled gently, as though you had walked among them before, though you knew you had not.
To you, the marvel carried a different weight. Memoryless, you could not compare it to what came before. But something in your very being resonated - an uncanny sense of knowing without learning, of recognizing the station’s structures, its patterns, its purpose. The sight was new, unfolding in your mind like the page of a book long studied.
“It feels unreal,” Alexis said, drawing closer to you as you walked. “Like we’ve stepped into someone’s imagination…” She trailed off, fingertips grazing a pillar carved with sigils that pulsed faintly as she touched them. “And it feels true. More true than the places I’ve spent my life.”
You nodded, though for you, truth had never worn any other shape.
Robed figures appeared at the far end of the hall, silver-threaded garments catching the light like water on stone. Their faces remained obscured by masks that shimmered with liquid-metal sheen. They moved with solemn grace, neither threatening nor deferential, and when they reached you, one bowed low and extended a hand toward the corridor beyond.
No words were spoken. None were needed.
They guided you and Alexis through a passage that widened into a chamber vast and luminous. At its center were placed a circle of seats, each occupied save one: the lone chair left unclaimed. Its vacancy felt deliberate, as though it had witnessed ages pass, designated for one alone, saving itself for this moment. Its silence carried a weight more alive than the voices around it.
Alexis leaned close, her voice low, reverent. “Do you remember the coordinates? The path that brought us here?”
You searched yourself. The numbers flickered and scrambled in your mind like a fading dream, real and unreal at once. “I… see them. But only as one sees a dream. They were always meant to lead here.”
She smiled faintly. “Then it isn’t just me. I see this place, these people, and I know them. I shouldn’t, but I do.”
Your eyes swept the chamber. Each structure, each object, each soul seemed transparent - revealed to you in ways that defied sight, as if their essence lay bare before your understanding. It was not revelation through study, it was recognition woven into your very existence.
From among the robed assembly, a figure stepped forward. He bore no mask, only steady eyes and a silent presence. Benjamin. He offered no greeting. Instead, he extended his arm toward the vacant seat at the chamber’s heart, with a slight nod.
The unspoken invitation rang louder than words.
Alexis walked with you, her hand not purposefully brushing against your arm, her presence a shield of quiet strength. When you reached the chair, you lowered yourself into its waiting embrace. She remained at your side, standing to your right, watchful and resolute.
Benjamin inclined his head once, then withdrew, his silence a language of its own.
The chamber hushed. The Al-Akoulou had received you.
The silence stretched on, though it did not weigh upon you.
It was not the silence of uncertainty, nor the silence of unease. It was rest itself, as though the chamber breathed with you, around you, through you. Alexis stood steady at your side, her presence felt by yours, and together you were enveloped in the same truth: there was no hurry here. No agenda. No pressure. Only being.
The robed figures made no motion to disturb the quiet. They did not fidget, did not glance at one another for cues. They simply remained - serene, present, whole. And in that stillness, time seemed to dissolve. Whether moments passed or years slipped by, you could not tell.
When Benjamin finally “spoke,” no sound carried across the chamber. His voice was not voice, his words not words. Yet they entered you all the same, resonating with a clarity beyond the senses. The message was directed at the gathering, but it struck your core with undeniable intimacy.
You have returned.
The phrase bloomed inside you like a chord struck on some great unseen instrument.
Your creation has yearned for you.
The meaning pressed upon you with gentle finality, yet you could not grasp its depth. What creation? What yearning? The truth swirled around you like a symphony whose music would not resolve..
Alexis turned toward you, her eyes bright with wonder. In them you saw delight, recognition, and something like reverence - an understanding she could not yet voice. She looked at you as if you were a verse finally sung, a prophecy confirmed.
Your own lips parted, and though your voice trembled, the answer carried a certainty you did not feel:
“…Creation.”
The word fell from you like an admission, though its meaning eluded you. A fragment of recognition without comprehension.
You lifted your gaze toward Benjamin, your voice steadier this time. “Who are you?”
The question lingered in the air, almost a friendly inquisition; fragile yet profound, the first sound to break the stillness of the chamber.
Benjamin did not answer with a name.
Instead, the chamber itself seemed to stir, the silence thickening into something more than absence of sound. The air shimmered faintly, as if light itself bent to carry meaning. And within you, the reply formed - not words spoken, but truths impressed upon the marrow of your being.
We are the Al-Akoulou.
Visions arose unbidden: figures in flowing robes, wandering unseen across zones, guarding secrets not their own. A people overlooked, smaller than the vast powers around them, yet bound by a thread of purpose that endured where others faltered. Their existence was not chance, nor survival alone, but selection - chosen to preserve what others would have squandered, to carry a design forward when the greater tribes had forgotten.
Born in shadow, kept in the light. We are few, and we are not broken.
The visions shifted: battlefields strewn with ruin, the Al-Akoulou standing resilient though diminished. Then, a city rising at the center of their lands - birthed from the ruins of the battlefield. Adorned with jewels and splendor - radiant, untouchable, covered and protected as if by unseen hands. Theirs was not power through multitude, but through favor - endurance carved into their destiny, protection placed upon them so they might safeguard the heart of Alament’s design.
Alexis’s breath caught softly beside you, as though she too felt the sweep of history uncoiling in silence. She lifted her gaze skyward, her expression transfigured. Part revelation, part reverence, like one who had just glimpsed a truth not from within herself, but from above, a knowledge meant for more than words.
The weight of it pressed close: Benjamin was not merely a man, nor only a leader. He was the embodiment of memory incarnate. His presence carried the legacy of a people chosen to stand between darkness and light, to produce leaders when none else would, to preserve the flame when all else fell to ash.
And you… The thought resonated deeper, directed at you alone. You are the one for whom your creation has yearned. Our endurance was not for ourselves, but for this. For you.
Meaning swirled around you, too immense to hold. From its weight a single phrase escaped, fragile as a reed upon water.
‘…my creation,’ you whispered, more a tether than an echo, binding you to what had been revealed.
Your eyes searched Benjamin’s. ‘Who are you?’”
The silence grew heavy once more, then filled with a new vision: the Al-Akoulou kneeling before Alament, chosen not for might, but for resilience. A tribe beloved, a people who carried safety upon their shoulders, not by dominance but by devotion. A bridge between what was fractured. A remnant that endured so Alament’s design might not perish.
Benjamin’s gaze remained upon you, steady, unyielding. The truth settled not as answer but as inheritance.
You understood - yet not fully.
Benjamin’s gaze deepened, and once more the chamber stirred. What came to you was memory wrapped in symbol, not mere language. An unveiling vision so quiet it felt as if you were remembering something of your own past. A time once lived.
You ask who we are. But the greater question is who you are.
The vision broadened: the Al-Akoulou across ages, their robes changing with eras, their numbers, although few, never extinguished. They stood as guardians at gates unseen, preserving fragments of knowledge others would call dangerous, whispering of a design larger than themselves. A design they had never claimed to author, only to protect.
We are not the architects. We are the keepers. We were chosen to preserve what was set in motion before us, so that when the moment came, nothing would be lost.
The images flickered faster now. You saw worlds and lands rising from nothing, physics bending into harmony, patterns inscribed on the very fabric of time. You saw generations of families bound together across the ages, their love enduring when kingdoms fell. You saw sacrifices etched into memory, lives offered so that others might endure. You saw councils and thrones rising and fading, fragile governments struggling, striving to reflect the order written in the stars.
Benjamin’s silent speech pressed closer:
The reason we endured, the reason your creation yearned, is you. You are the one who returns. The one for whom memory and design wait.
It was for the bonds of love that we endured, for the families who carried light through shadow, for the sacrifices etched into the marrow of our people. It was for the order that must outlast chaos, for the councils that rise and fall, for the hearths that burn when thrones turn to dust.
You are not a vessel to carry our story forward. You are the story itself: love and loss, sacrifice and survival, devotion and dominion - clothed in flesh, walking among what was once only thought.
Your chest tightened, though you did not fully understand. Alexis looked at you again, her eyes shimmering with awe, as though she saw some echo of the truth reflected in your face.
You found breath enough to speak: “Why me?”
The chamber itself seemed to shiver in response.
What was broken seeks its source. Only the one who set the design can restore it. The darkness you named Isardeth is not outside the pattern, but born from the fracture within it.
The words thundered inside you, implicating your design, though no sound touched the air. You felt as if the walls themselves leaned in, pressing the weight of a cosmos upon your shoulders.
Benjamin’s hand lifted, palm outward - not in command, but in benediction. His eyes, unblinking, fixed on yours.
The path ahead will test you. You will question who you are, and why the shards call to you. You were made with choice, and with purpose, and the two need not be enemies. You are not empty; you are filled with design. Know this: you are not here by chance. You are here because we remembered, even while you do not.
A silence fell again - final, unyielding. The visions receded, leaving only the chamber, the circle of robed figures, and Alexis at your side with wonder still glowing in her eyes.
Benjamin lowered his hand and withdrew a single pace, the motion completing the unspoken address.
No more would be revealed. Not yet.
The stillness returned, vast and unbroken, as though the chamber itself held its breath in expectation.
The chamber held its silence, weightless yet full, until at last one of the Al-Akoulou stepped forward. With a motion both generous and gracious, it extended a hand toward the great door through which you and Alexis had entered.
Their voice was soft, but it carried as though the chamber itself spoke with them:
“It is time.The pattern calls.”
And with those summoning words, the silence finally concluded. The path ahead was the calling of the unchanging Al-Akoulou.