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Chapter 108 – The Remembrance Engine
It began with a heartbeat.
Not Erevan's. Not Serah's. Not anyone's.
The chamber itself was pulsing—soft, rhythmic, almost alive. The Vault of the Ashborne had led them deeper, into a hollowed sanctum beneath the known structure. Here, the stone wasn't stone anymore—it was something else. Memory-crystal, latticed with ember-veins. The air had weight. Like the breath of something ancient had been trapped here for too long.
Serah whispered, "It's breathing."
Yuren narrowed his eyes. "No. It's remembering."
Erevan stepped forward. The ground lit beneath each footfall. No danger—yet. But the more he walked, the more resistance he felt. Not physical. Not even magical. Something… emotional. A weight pressing on the chest. As if the Vault was asking, Are you sure you want to see this?
He nodded. "Let me through."
A pulse. The walls responded. A shimmer of glyphs spiraled open, revealing a long corridor—arched and ribbed like the spine of a forgotten beast.
At the end: a door.
No lock. No handle.
Just one word etched into its center, glowing dimly:
REMEMBRANCE.
Erevan reached for it, and the door dissolved into light.
Inside, the chamber was unlike anything he'd seen in the Tower. It was a garden—but not of flowers or trees. Instead, it grew moments. Hanging like fruit on delicate crystalline branches were flickering memories. Some pulsed golden with warmth. Others dripped black ink, suspended in decay. Time had no meaning here. It was a graveyard of forgotten selves.
Serah gasped. "What is this place?"
"The Remembrance Engine," Erevan said quietly. "The Ashborne's last safeguard."
Nyara tilted her head. "A machine?"
"A soul-forge," Erevan replied. "It doesn't store data. It remembers you better than you remember yourself."
Yuren reached toward a floating memory—a vision of Erevan, younger, laughing with a group of rebels as they painted slogans on the outer walls of a Tower barracks. But before he touched it, Erevan stopped him.
"Don't."
"Why?"
Erevan's expression was hollow. "Some memories feed. Others bleed."
Suddenly, the garden reacted.
The branches twisted. The golden lights dimmed. The air trembled.
From the far end, a figure emerged—blurry, shifting, made of raw static. Its body was stitched together from broken recollections: Erevan crying in a cell, Erevan holding a dying comrade, Erevan staring at his reflection while the Tower burned behind him.
It spoke with his voice.
"I am the version you forgot to become."
Serah readied her blade. "Another corrupted echo?"
"No," Erevan said grimly. "This one isn't corrupted. It's complete."
The echo spread its arms.
"I remember every choice you abandoned. Every path you refused to walk. I am the rebellion you could have led. The lives you didn't save. The truths you silenced for peace."
Yuren grit his teeth. "So what, you want him to relive it all?"
The echo shook its head. "No. I want him to own it."
And then it attacked.
The echo moved like a storm of memory—flickering between past versions of Erevan, each with their own fighting style. The rebel-saboteur with twin daggers. The tower-defector wielding chained code-whips. The tyrant-savant who conjured commands from raw script. It wasn't just a battle—it was a reckoning.
Erevan met it head-on, activating Ash-Step to dodge a whip strike, blinking behind the echo's form and striking with his gauntlet. The hit landed—but the echo unraveled into a younger version of himself, eyes wide with fear.
Erevan froze. "No... that's—"
He hesitated.
The echo struck back.
Pain bloomed across his ribs. Not just physical pain—emotional. The memory behind the blow hit harder than steel: the moment he had walked away from a burning safehouse, leaving comrades behind to save a code fragment.
"I had to choose!" Erevan shouted.
"You always did," the echo snarled, "and you always chose survival over sorrow!"
Serah jumped in, flanking the echo with Yuren and Nyara. But each time they tried to land a blow, the echo split—becoming a different version of Erevan, tailored to guilt. A leader who ordered an ambush that killed innocents. A soldier who chose the mission over mercy.
None of it was false.
All of it was him.
Erevan finally knelt, panting. "I remember. I do. But I had to keep moving, or I would've shattered."
The echo stood over him. "Then stop running. You cannot defeat what you refuse to accept."
Erevan looked up, blood running from his lip. He touched the ground—and the chamber responded. Memories ignited across the crystal-branches, spinning into a blinding spiral.
He whispered one word:
"Anchor."
Suddenly, the garden shook.
From the branches, a figure descended.
Arwen.
The Flamebound Scout. Her form shimmered with embers, her rifle glowing faintly with searing runes. She landed beside Erevan and took aim at the echo.
"You left me to die," she said softly.
"I know."
"But you didn't forget."
He shook his head. "I couldn't."
She smiled, then pulled the trigger.
The shot didn't destroy the echo. It shattered it into clarity. Fragment by fragment, the echo dissolved—each piece turning into a glowing memory, and returning to the crystalline branches where it belonged.
Not erased.
Integrated.
A new system prompt appeared:
> Remembrance Trial Complete.
Inner Echo accepted.
Trait Evolved:
Ashbearer's Legacy → Remnant Sovereign
– You may now shape memory-constructs into active allies.
– Emotional resonance shields granted against amnesia-based attacks.
– Archives expanded: 2 new soulbound relics recoverable.
Remembrance Engine Reactivated.
Erevan exhaled. His shoulders dropped. Not in defeat—but in release.
Serah placed a hand on his back. "You alright?"
"For the first time," he said, "I know what I left behind. And I'm still walking."
The Vault began to shift around them, as if its purpose had been fulfilled. The garden slowly folded into crystal, compacting into a single ember-like sphere that floated to Erevan's hand.
The Engine's core.
Nyara stepped beside him. "Where do we go next?"
Erevan looked ahead.
"Wherever the forgotten still burn."
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Author's Note:
This chapter marks a huge emotional and spiritual milestone for Erevan. The Remembrance Engine is more than a relic—it's a narrative mechanic that will allow Erevan to draw on the weight of who he was, not just what he can do. Expect more of these evolving soul-constructs.
10 power stones = 2 extra chapters
1 review = 1 extra chapter
Drop them below if you want Erevan to remember more than just pain.
— Dorian Blackthorn