Episode 13
Arrival at the Mountain
Mount Nyomi didn’t just rise, it loomed.
A spiraled peak of obsidian and ivory stone, wrapped in constant mist that moved like slow breath. It was said the mountain had once been a living being part Titan, part spirit, who fell into slumber during the Maker Wars. Elana had hidden the Threadspire inside it, sewn into the dream of the mountain itself.
Only one with a pure Maker’s spark could enter its sleep and return.
Only one who knew how to thread fate without unraveling it.
Rudolph stood at the foot of a smooth stone archway. Symbols carved in Maker Script pulsed faintly.
Sunny gripped his hand. “You sure you’re ready?”
He nodded. “She was a Flame. I’m the Thread.”
Kito stretched and transformed into a long, golden-furred serpent. “Well. If you see a version of me in there that’s more charming, bring him back.”
Rudolph placed a hand on the arch.
The world turned inside out.
Inside the Dream
There was no tunnel.
No climb.
He opened his eyes and found himself in a place of threads hundreds of thousands of them, stretching infinitely across a colorless sky, each thread a choice, a life, a moment waiting to happen.
Mount Nyomi’s dream wasn’t of stone.
It was of possibility.
And deep within, tied into every string, pulsing like a living needle, was the Threadspire.
Then,
A voice boomed.
Splintered. Cracked. Tired.
“WHO DARES TOUCH THE LOOM OF ME?”
“WHO SEEKS TO PULL FROM MY HEART THE FINAL STITCH?”
A shape appeared.
A titan of white bone and golden thread.
Once, perhaps, a Maker Guardian. Now warped by time and solitude.
“I am the Warden of Knots,” it said. “To reach the Threadspire, you must first unbind three truths:
- What you were.
- What you could have been.
- What you fear becoming.”
Trial One: What You Were
A single thread glowed.
Rudolph touched it.
He was back in his childhood home. The night Major took them away.
His mother, Lexi, was crying on the floor.
His little brother was screaming.
His own hands trembling, holding a wooden toy he made to comfort himself.
The trial whispered:
“You left her behind.”
Rudolph clenched his jaw. “I had to.”
“No. You did.”
“Do you still carry her shadow?”
He nodded.
“I do. But I won’t let it blind me.”
The thread turned silver.
Trial Two: What You Could Have Been
This thread was black gold.
Rudolph was older. He wore Maker armor. Led armies. Cold, strategic, powerful.
Sunny was gone.
Kito was a chained war-beast.
Minerva had been forgotten.
This Rudolph had won—but lost everything.
The voice whispered:
“This is your destiny… if you do not resist it.”
Rudolph stepped forward, stared this version of himself in the eye.
“You’re strong. But you’re alone.”
He broke the illusion. The thread unraveled.
Trial Three: What You Fear Becoming
The final thread was frayed.
And when he touched it, he saw nothing.
No fire. No voice. No Kito. No town.
Just a void.
The fear wasn’t failure. It was vanishing.
Never mattering. Never being remembered.
“I… I don’t want to disappear,” he whispered.
Silence.
Then: Sunny’s voice. In the dark.
“You won’t. Not while I remember.”
Light returned. The final thread shimmered like starlight.
The Threadspire Awakens
The threads around Rudolph tightened, then opened like a blooming flower.
At the center was a spool of impossible thread woven from time, memory, and fate itself. It hummed.
He touched it.
The Threadspire fused with his hands.
And suddenly… Rudolph understood how to bind ideas. How to patch wounds in space. How to weave hope into the very bones of the world.
Back in the Real World
Rudolph fell forward out of the dream and landed in Sunny’s arms.
Kito, back in feline form, leapt onto his shoulder. “You smell like existential dread. And success.”
Minerva approached from the mist. She smiled.
“You have the first Tool. Now…”
She looked toward the darkening horizon.
“…we must prepare for the Foundry’s next move.”
The Mourner’s Lament
Rumors rise that one of the Fallen, the Mourner, Elana’s ancient lover has awakened. He walks the Ruin Marsh, drawing lost souls into his sorrow. If Rudolph cannot stop him, the Foundry may twist the grief of the world into its sharpest weapon yet.
To be continued…
Brufay 
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