I leave the wyrm's scattered bones behind. Those pieces not absorbed into this frame lie clean in morning light, free of demon-script. The road continues, curving between hills grown thick with dead grass.

The monastery rises ahead. Gray stone walls square against gray sky. Dead ivy clings to its face, leaves turned to paper-thin ash. The shield pulses recognition at the sight of ancient wards carved above the gate.

The entrance arch stands broken. Stone blocks litter the ground where something forced its way inside. Boot prints in ancient dust suggest the scholars tried to flee. Their bones do not lie among the rubble.

I pass beneath carved warnings these fragments recognize but cannot read. The courtyard beyond holds empty practice rings where monks once trained mind and body. Weapon racks stand bare. Training dummies rot on their posts.

Movement flickers behind windows. Shapes drift through shadowed halls. The shield settles against my back as borrowed hands grip sword hilt. The new bone-plate armor creaks as I advance.

Inside, paper carpets stone floors. Books lie scattered, their spines cracked from violent handling. Shelves stand toppled, their contents spilled across flagstones. These fragments sense old violence here, but not battle. Something else happened in these halls.

Doors hang open on broken hinges.

The dead walk these halls, but they are not like the tower's warriors. Robed figures drift between shelves, heads bowed over books they no longer comprehend. They turn at my approach, hollow sockets fixed on yellowed pages.

Different scholars. Different deaths. These dead remember fragments of purpose. Their hands trace words they cannot understand, seeking meaning death stole from them.

A tome falls from skeletal fingers. The sound echoes through empty halls. The undead reaches down, picks it up, opens to a random page. Begins again. It does not remember why it moves its fingers.

More of them shuffle through the stacks. Robed skeletons trapped in endless routines. One sorts books that crumble at its touch. Another walks the same ten paces between shelves, turns, walks back. A third writes with a long-dry quill on dust.

They do not attack. They simply continue their tasks, unaware that purpose fled their bones centuries ago. My sword stays sheathed. The shield remains silent against my back. These are not enemies to fight, merely echoes to pass.

Deeper in the monastery, the air grows thick with age. Lecture halls still hold rows of skeletal students, their hollow sockets fixed on empty podiums. Dead teachers gesture at blank walls, miming lessons long forgotten.

More tomes fall from more hands. Each time, skeletal fingers retrieve them, open to random pages, begin again. The motions never vary. The purpose never returns.

Stairs lead down into darkness. The new bone plates across my shoulders scrape stone walls as I descend. Archive rooms branch off the main corridor, each filled with more of the scholarly dead. They part around my passage like water around stone, never breaking their routines.

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The true library waits ahead. Double doors bound in silver stand sealed, their surfaces etched with wards these fragments half-remember. Beyond them lies the knowledge these bones seek.

A final scholar blocks the path. Taller than the others, wearing robes that mark authority now meaningless. A crown of silver sits askew on its skull. The Head Librarian, still guarding restricted knowledge.

It does not attack. Does not speak. Simply holds out a hand, waiting for papers that turned to dust centuries ago.

I step past. It continues its gesture, unaware of failure or passage of time.

These dead know nothing of the present. Their bones hold no answers about corruption or fallen wards.

I leave them to their endless tasks. The true path lies elsewhere in these halls.

The doors recognize something in these borrowed bones. Wards flare and fade. Silver hinges turn without sound.

True knowledge waits beyond. Clean archives untouched by decay. Maps that show the realm's fall. Records of what was lost.

The dead continue their endless tasks in the halls behind, but here, memory lives in paper and ink. Here, these fragments will learn what must be done.

The shield pulses against wyrm-bone armor. The sword hangs quiet at my side. Time to read what the living forgot and the dead cannot remember.

Inside the sealed archives, shelves rise to vaulted ceilings. No dust mars these tomes. No decay touches these pages. Ancient wards still pulse with purpose stronger than death.

A map catches these empty sockets, the realms as they once stood. Elfheim's spires still proud. The great ports still above water. The forges still burning clean fire.

Before pride broke the world.

Another text speaks truth of the World Tree's corruption.

The tree's roots grew dark first, feeding on ambition instead of soil. By the time they saw their error, the Rot had already spread.

The Briar Queen led them down that path. Her name appears in fading ink, recording her first experiments with the tree. She believed she could merge with it, guide its growth through will alone.

The Briar Queen's name appears often. She who led them down that path. Records show her first experiments with the tree's power. She believed she could merge with it, guide its growth through will alone. Notes in her own hand grow increasingly erratic, speaking of necessary sacrifices and glorious transformation.

The corruption spread from the roots up. Trees grew wrong. Animals changed. The elves themselves began to twist, becoming neither plant nor flesh. Still she continued, believing transformation meant ascension.

The texts end there. The final pages torn away, perhaps by those who saw too late what their pride had wrought.

The texts say nothing of what she became.

Beyond the World Tree records, these fragments find little of use. Maps show only questions. Paths that may not exist. Routes that living could not walk, yet these bones may find away.

They show enough. The Ward's location pulses deep in corruption's heart, where the World Tree's roots first turned dark. Where the Briar Queen began her work.

The shield absorbs what knowledge it can. The sword hangs ready. These borrowed bones have seen enough.

Outside the silver doors, the dead continue their endless tasks, unaware that purpose died in their bones centuries ago.

Time to leave this place of hollow learning. The road north calls, toward darker knowledge these fragments must face.

I return the maps to their shelves. The knowledge here stays protected behind silver doors and ancient wards. Let the scholarly dead continue their endless tasks, guarding wisdom they can no longer comprehend.

They do not notice as I pass, trapped in routines that lost meaning centuries ago.

The courtyard lies empty when I emerge. Dead ivy still clings to stone walls, but now these fragments understand why it withered. The corruption spreads from its source, tainting all it touches. The World Tree's roots reach far, carrying darkness instead of life.

The road north vanishes into twilight haze. Somewhere beyond lies a grove, where pride turned nature against itself. Where a queen's ambition poisoned the very earth. Where these bones must go, if purpose drives true.