Rudolph: The Covenant Rekindled

Episode 19

Reuben — The Watcher’s Descent

Beneath the cliffside temple of Reuben, storms carved faces into stone.

The Reubenites were First Sons, trained to see what others denied—time ghosts, ancestral echoes, even coming storms. But they had sealed themselves off after the First Breaking, convinced all other tribes had lost their way.

Rudolph entered their hall in silence, carrying no weapon—only a memory: the voice of his father, Major, telling bedtime stories about cliffwatchers who never looked away.

The Reuben High Seer, a woman of a thousand braided rings, tested him with a question:

“What’s worse than forgetting the truth?”

Rudolph: “Remembering it wrong.”

She smiled.

The seal was broken. The Reubenites joined the Circle.

The Tower of Bone

Simeon’s descendants carved the memory into stone and marrow. Their tower had fallen in the last war, yet beneath it, the bone-crypt still pulsed with ancestral thought.

To enter, one had to bring a sacrifice—not of blood, but of a memory willingly let go.

Sunny stepped forward.

She gave up the memory of her first kiss with Rudolph. Gave it to the crypt. Lost it forever.

In return, the bones sang.

The Simeonites emerged—quiet, grim, and fierce. Their words now echoed through unbreakable stone.

They joined the Circle.

Issachar — The Cathedral of Time

The hardest to reach.

Issachar’s people had vanished into time folds, their sanctuary caught in a loop of forgotten days. Some said they’d become ghosts. Others said they had become clocks.

To find them, Rudolph and Kito let themselves become unstuck in time—walking through echoes of future wars, unborn children, and possible betrayals.

They found Issachar’s last Elder trapped in a never-ending council meeting where every choice split into more choices.

Rudolph, exhausted by timelines, finally shouted:

“We don’t need to see every future. We need the one worth building!”

That broke the loop.

The Issachar Elder stood, smiled, and stepped into now.

The Circle was complete.

The Circle of Twelve Reunited

They met under a new moon, lit by fireglass lanterns and ancestral breath.

• Twelve thrones
  
• Twelve paths
  
• One Covenant—rewoven
  

Rudolph stood in the center—not a ruler, but a torchbearer.

He spoke the First Word anew.

And from the sky came a falling star.

The path to the Dreamforge had opened.

Enter the Dreamforge

The last Sanctum.
Built not to store memories, but possibilities.

It will show each traveler the future they are most afraid of—and the one they secretly desire.

To be continued…