AshBorne: Forgotten Bones

Dareth walked in silence.

The assistant assigned to guide him didn't speak unless it was necessary. She was lean, clad in grey, with a rank patch stitched in bone-thread above her collar. Her boots clicked along the tiled floor in sharp, rhythmic beats. She didn't wear a weapon. She didn't need one.

The corridor stretched far, ribbed on both sides with ancient bone supports repurposed into architecture. Fossil lines ran along the walls, thin as veins. Every few paces, a small symbol glowed faintly underfoot, pulsing as they passed.

"This is the Hall Without Names," the assistant said, eyes forward. "You'll cross it any time you're summoned for tier assignments or evaluation. All movements are tracked."

Dareth kept pace behind her, silent.

The air was cool, but not dead. There was a subtle hum beneath everything, like the sound of old machines.

To his left, the wall gave way to a wide viewing slit. Through it, Dareth saw part of the academy's inner structure.

What looked like a massive spinal column, upright and hollowed, formed the central tower of Spirehold. Bone grafted with metal, surrounded by levels of training tiers, observation decks, and dormitory wings. Everything was built inside the remains of something that had once lived and died huge.

In the distance, small groups of trainees ran drills. Some practiced with relic weapons, thin-bladed spears and fossil-etched shields. Others sparred hand-to-hand within glowing containment circles. Every movement left a trace. Instructors watched from elevated balconies.

No one acknowledged Dareth as he passed.

No nods, no glances.

Just focus. 

The assistant stopped at a heavy door marked with a sigil he didn't recognize, an open ring split by two vertical lines.

"Your tier," she said. "Cohort 11. You'll sleep here, eat here, and report here."

She stepped aside and added, "You have no House and no sponsor. That means no protection, don't make enemies unless you plan to keep them."

Then she turned and walked away.

The door unlatched with a heavy click.

Dareth stepped inside.

The space beyond was dim and long, lined with low metal bunks and stone lockers carved into the walls. A table stretched down the center, cluttered with gear, plates, and fossil fragments. The air smelled of oil, smoke, and sweat.

A few heads turned as he entered.

But no one said anything.

He didn't expect a welcome.

He didn't get one.

Dareth moved toward the far end of the room, choosing a lower bunk that didn't look recently claimed. He kept his eyes low, his pace calm. A few of the others glanced his way, but none spoke.

Most were his age or older, lean, hardened, each marked somewhere with the faint glow of an active Sigil. He noticed differences immediately. Some wore partial gear: plated sleeves, threaded vests, belts with reinforced hooks. Others sat bare-armed, skin marked by fossil threading or surgical scars.

He didn't know their names and he didn't care too.

He opened the locker beside the bunk. It had just a folded tunic, a utility kit, and a worn strip of bone used for personal glyph etching.

As he sat, a voice cut through the quiet.

"New one's not branded."

Dareth looked up.

A girl stood a few bunks down. Pale-skinned, hair cropped short on one side, the other twisted into a braid lined with wire. Her right arm was sleeved in something that looked more relic than flesh. The Sigil on her neck shimmered red against dark ink.

She stepped forward, boots heavy.

"Where'd they pull you from?" she asked.

He met her gaze. "Checkpoint Ash."

Her mouth pulled into something like a smile. Not amused. More curious.

"Huh, that explains the eyes."

Dareth didn't move.

The girl faced him again. "You got a House name?"

"No."

"Then you're usless. That means you'll burn quick or be forgotten faster."

She stepped in close, looking down slightly.

"You look like the type to die in your first spar."

Dareth stood.

Not fast. Not aggressive. Just enough.

"I'll try not to ruin your floor when I don't," he said.

The air shifted slightly. The quiet behind them deepened.

The girl blinked once. Then nodded.

"Fair."

She stepped back. Walked away.

From above, on the upper balcony, someone leaned over the railing. A tall figure, arms crossed, face mostly hidden in shadow.

They watched Dareth for several more seconds before disappearing.

-------------

Dareth didn't sleep.

After his brief confrontation, the dorm tier had gone quiet again. No one spoke to him. Most ignored him entirely, and that suited him fine. A short tone had signaled orientation would begin in a few hours, which left time, unspoken, unsupervised.

So he wandered.

Spirehold's lower levels were not locked. Certain doors stayed sealed unless summoned, but corridors wound deep and long, and few guards patrolled inside the academic tiers. Dareth followed the fossil lines in the floor until they shifted color, from amber to green, then to pale silver.

Eventually, the walls opened into a vaulted chamber.

The library.

Fossil data-channels hummed softly, echoing between stacked bone shelves and thin stone towers laced with glowing script. A few students moved through the aisles, each wearing a small badge clipped to their collar, authorization markers. No one stopped Dareth. His seal, it seemed, was enough.

He moved past instructional relics, combat ledgers, anatomical diagrams.

He stopped at a shelf labeled:

FOUNDATIONAL SCRIPTURE AND MEMORY-APPROVED HISTORICAL FRAME

The title meant nothing. But the book beneath it did.

"Ash and Epoch: A Common Framework"

He opened it. The cover hummed briefly, then activated.

Lines of clear script formed on the page.

He read.

There is no known name for the world in its current state. Most surviving Houses refer to it as the Shell or the Outer Spine. The planet was not always fractured. Once, long before the fossil memory awoke, the world was unified.

Then came the rupture.

An event, still unexplained, which shattered the fabric of history and left only fragments, what is now called fossil memory.

Fossils do not refer solely to bone. The term includes any remnant that holds memory: stone, blood, tooth, root. All things that have died and persisted.

Sigils are born when a fossil memory touches a living soul and bonds with it.

Most never survive.

The Houses formed around the control of these fossils. The three great ones, Vireth, Seln, and Thorne, discovered, collected, and refined fossil use into systems of war, labor, and recordkeeping.

Spirehold was built to train those whose Sigils could be used.

Not everyone is given a choice.

After closing the first book, he stood there for a long moment, hand still resting on its worn cover. He looked around.

The other students had already moved on. No one paid him any attention.

Curious now, he scanned the nearby titles. Another shelf caught his eye, smaller, marked in faded boneplate:

RELIC THEORY AND APPLIED FUNCTIONALITY

One book in particular had a spine cracked with use. Its title was burned in rather than printed.

"Relicscript and the Structure of Forgotten Artifacts"

He opened it.

The page lit faintly.

A relic is not merely an object.

It is a vessel.

Relics are constructed from materials that have absorbed memory or echo, most often fossil composites. These objects do not simply store energy, they channel it.

Where a Sigil binds directly to a bearer's mind, body, and soul, a relic operates as an external conduit. It links fossil resonance to an action, a design, or a task, allowing someone without direct access to deep memory to wield its effects.

Relics come in three primary forms:

1. Static Relics – Bound to a single function. Example: A blade that remembers how it killed. When used, it repeats the pattern.

2. Reactive Relics – Adjust based on the bearer's intent. Example: A shield that hardens in response to fear or impact.

3. Scripted Relics – Contain embedded instructions called relicscript, which are fossil-bound glyphs burned into the item. These are the rarest and often linked to long-lost events or personalities.

Relics do not obey their wielder. They obey their memory.

Any attempt to override or misuse a relic can result in distortion, feedback loops, mark backlash, or total psychological erosion.

Thus, all relics must be registered.

Dareth exhaled slowly.

He'd seen relics, of course. The guards' weapons. The containment rods. The fossil-sealed doors. But reading it laid out this way made the world feel larger. Stranger. Like even the tools people carried might be older than memory itself.

He flipped the page, then stopped.

A diagram showed a relic chain, a segmented whip bound in fossil links. The caption read:

USED IN THE SECOND THORNE INCURSION — MEMORY LOCKED TO SPECIFIC BLOODLINE

The image shimmered slightly, like it wanted to move.

Dareth didn't leave just yet.

Something in the relic book had stuck with him, not the weapons or bloodlines, but the mention of relicscript. Glyphs. Fossil-bound instructions etched into objects and places, capable of triggering memory, force, or control.

He moved deeper into the library, following the faint green light that pulsed along the ceiling tracks. A section tucked behind a spiral fossil arch caught his attention. The shelf was smaller, carved from a single slab of old ribstone, and labeled:

GLYPH THEORY AND STRUCTURAL SCRIPTURE

He scanned the titles until one stood out:

"Glyphwake: A Practical Lexicon of Fossil-Bound Marks"

The book was thick, its pages bound in thin fossil leather. When he opened it, the text took a moment to settle, then flared softly.

Runes are not language.

They are not letters. They are not words.

They are triggers.

Each rune is a fossil-encoded pattern that resonates with a specific frequency of memory, usually taken from death, trauma, or significant transformation. Alone, a rune does nothing. But when arranged in correct formation and set into a medium capable of housing resonance, it becomes a glyph.

Glyphs are runes given purpose.

There are three primary types:

1. Null Glyphs – Used for containment. These suppress Sigil activity, disrupt fossil resonance, and can mute memory echoes. Often etched into collars, cells, and boundary seals.

2. Directive Glyphs – Used for guidance. They steer energy, focus intent, or relay coded orders. Found on weapons, maps, and the bodies of trained Sigilbearers.

3. Living Glyphs – Extremely rare. These emerge organically within the body of a Sigilbearer during resonance surges. They cannot be replicated. They evolve, shift, and react.

Living Glyphs are considered either sacred or dangerous depending on the House.

Some glyphs have no known origin. These are classified as Old Marks.

Old Marks do not respond to modern tools. They burn through containment. They appear in places they shouldn't.

And they are often tied to things that are not yet understood.

Dareth's breath caught at the last line.

His hand reflexively brushed his chest.

The mark hadn't grown, but something inside it felt more alert now. As if the word Old had stirred something sleeping.

He turned to the back of the book. A series of glyph diagrams were shown in sequence, basic null glyphs, command glyphs, and finally, a section marked "Unverified Forms".

One of the images glowed faintly on the page.

It was a symbol Dareth had seen before.

Burned into his cot.

The one from the dream.

The caption beneath it read:

UNVERIFIED. NOT DRAWN. WITNESSED ONLY. APPEARS DURING EVENTS OF ECHO RECALL. TRACELESS ORIGIN.

He closed the book.

This time, he did not take another.

He returned the volumes to their respective shelves, quietly, and walked toward the exit of the library. The fossil-lined floor lit softly beneath his steps.

But as he passed the final shelf, he felt it again.

The mark beneath his skin pulsed.

And this time, the pulse was not in response to memory.

It was in response to something nearby.

Something watching from within the shelves.

But when he turned, there was no one there.