The Boy Who Burned the Heavens

"Prophecy is a prison. Especially when you're right."

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🕰 [Scene: The Dead Clock – Subterranean Vault beneath the Broken Calendar City]

Beneath the ruins of Chronesmaar, where time once flowed like a river through towers of obsidian glass, there lies a crypt.

Sealed in it: the Cursed Prophet of Time.

A man once loved by fate.

Now caged by it.

To reach him, Aedric must pass through the Dead Clock — a mechanical nightmare of shattered futures and bleeding seconds.

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🧭 Journey Begins

Lyara and Mirael remain behind with Riven, whose form flickers — sometimes age five, sometimes ten, sometimes not there at all.

> "If he drifts any longer," Mirael warns, "he'll burn out like a flame with no wick."

Aedric doesn't respond.

He steps into Chronesmaar's ruins alone — his cloak of flame billowing in a city where even sunlight forgets to rise.

The walls tick.

The streets creak like old pendulums.

And above it all: the skeletal remains of the Dead Clock.

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⚙ Inside the Clock

The inner chambers are shifting gears of collapsed timelines — frozen in mid-tick.

Fragments of prophecy float in the air:

"The boy will burn the gods."

"The father is the storm."

"The flame was never meant to remember."

Aedric moves through ghost-memories of himself.

Each version bears a scar he doesn't yet have.

Each version says the same thing:

> "Turn back."

But he doesn't.

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🧑‍🦲 The Cursed Prophet Appears

In the heart of the Dead Clock, bound in chains of melted hourglass glass, floats a man — white-haired, skin cracked like parchment.

His left eye is a sundial. His right: a swirling void of stars.

He smiles.

> "You're late, Aedric Valtoris."

> "You know me?"

> "I know all your versions. The one who died. The one who gave up. The one who killed the boy."

Silence.

> "But none… quite like you."

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🧠 The Conversation

> "Can you save him?" Aedric asks.

> "Riven?" the prophet laughs bitterly.

"You didn't save him. You rewrote him."

> "Then help me stabilize him."

> "And unleash what he is?" the prophet whispers.

"He is a flame born not just of you — but of divine contradiction. He will burn time. Rewrite prophecy. Undo the heavens."

Aedric clenches his fists.

> "Then let him decide that."

> "Fine," the prophet says.

> "But everything has a cost."

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🌀 Time Unshackled

The prophet releases a temporal sigil — a spiral of reversed fire.

> "Hold his soul at midnight.

In the place he was born.

Let the bell toll.

Let him choose."

> "And what happens if I fail?" Aedric asks.

> "Then he becomes me."

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🧩 New Quest Unlocked

> ✅ Quest: Temporal Rite of the Flameborn

Return to the ruins of the Nineflame Cathedral at the stroke of midnight. Begin the Rite. Do not break the flame or the bond.

> 🕐 Countdown Begins: 3 Chapters until Midnight.

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🛡 New Title Acquired

> ✅ Flamefather of Time

Your flame resists time-based magic. Immune to memory erasure from timeline distortion.

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🌓 Final Scene – Caelen's Divine Council

In the high halls of the Pantheon, Caelen stands before the throne of the God of Edits — a being whose every word rewrites truth.

> "He dares to rewrite fate," Caelen says.

"He dares to challenge narrative law."

> "Then bring forth the Editor's Blade," the god whispers.

"And send the Red Revisionist."

From behind the throne steps a woman with eyes made of ink and a sword shaped like a quill.

> "I will rewrite the boy," she says.

> "Permanently."

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