The Last Testament of Stars

Chapter 3: The Tower of Lost Echoes

Baroth's eyes scanned the barren landscape, the distant ruins looming like a broken monument to forgotten times. The air here was thick with an unsettling quiet, broken only by the faint rustle of distant winds. The ground beneath their feet was cracked and dry, as if the land itself had long since bled dry of life and hope. Yet there was something in the atmosphere—something faintly pulsating, alive, a sense of something ancient and powerful stirring from its slumber.

"This place..." Vornath's voice was low, the weight of the words hanging heavy between them. The dragon's wings twitched slightly, as though readying for flight, his posture tense and watchful. "It feels wrong. Like we're intruding on something... sacred."

Baroth couldn't disagree. The tower in the distance loomed with an almost menacing presence, its jagged silhouette casting strange shadows in the shifting light. It seemed to pull at the very fabric of reality, distorting the air around it, making the ground beneath their feet feel unstable, as if they stood on the edge of something vast and unknowable.

The stranger stood at the edge of the mist, watching them with an expression that was both patient and knowing. "You have come," they said softly. "Now you must enter. The answers you seek are within, but so too are the consequences."

Baroth glanced back at the stranger, his brow furrowing in confusion and irritation. "Consequences? You speak in riddles. What exactly is this place?"

The stranger's lips curled into a faint smile, but there was no humor in it. "This is the Tower of Lost Echoes. It is where the histories of the world are kept, where the actions of the past are etched into the very stone. But it is not a place for the faint of heart. It is a place of reckoning. It will show you your past, your mistakes, your failures—everything you've tried to bury."

Baroth felt a shiver crawl up his spine. His past was something he had long since tried to forget, but now it was impossible to ignore. He had built empires, waged wars, and burned entire cities to the ground—all in the name of power, of glory. But it had all crumbled, leaving only ashes behind. The weight of his actions, the lives lost in his wake, had haunted him for years, like ghosts that refused to let him rest.

"I didn't come here to relive my failures," Baroth said, his voice hard, but the underlying vulnerability was impossible to hide. "I came to find a way forward. I need a solution, not more memories."

The stranger's gaze softened, just for a moment, before hardening again. "The solution is in the truth. The path forward will be revealed to you only when you face what you've done. Only when you confront the past and accept its consequences."

Baroth's jaw clenched, his grip tightening on the hilt of his sword. He had fought for everything he had—fought for dominance, for respect, for a place in history. To have all of that reduced to nothing more than a series of mistakes was unbearable. But he knew, deep down, that the stranger spoke the truth. There could be no future without confronting the past.

Vornath, sensing Baroth's growing unease, lowered his massive head, his golden eyes narrowing. "We don't know what lies within that tower. Are you sure we should trust them?"

Baroth turned toward the dragon, meeting his gaze. Vornath had always been his fiercest ally, his closest companion, and though the dragon's words were laced with doubt, Baroth knew that Vornath was right to question. They were standing on the edge of something ancient, something beyond their understanding. But the pull to uncover the truth, to find the answers that had eluded him for so long, was too strong to ignore.

"We don't have a choice," Baroth said, his voice resolute. "We came here for a reason. I'll face whatever is inside that tower. I have to."