Submission (#527) Approved

The forest beyond Aurelion was a tangle of green and gold, where sunlight filtered through broad-leafed canopies and painted the winding forest floor in mosaic light. Summer cicadas chirped lazily overhead, and the scent of pine, moss, and faint lavender followed the breeze. It should have been peaceful.
“Left... or left-er?” Discord muttered aloud, spinning a twig like a compass and watching it point in a direction with absolutely no logic. He followed it anyway. Of course. His striped and spotted arms swung loosely at his sides, claws tapping rhythmically against the leather strap of his satchel. A half-eaten fruit rolled somewhere inside. So did three shiny stones, a small toad he’d forgotten about (probably still asleep), and an old map that didn’t show this forest at all.
“Smells like old stone and buried trouble,” he mused with a fangy grin. His eyes glinted, golden and bright. “Perfect.”
He’d wandered beyond the recommended trade paths—those nice, predictable roads that led to cities like Blackpool or Aurelion—and deeper into the woodlands where birds fell silent and vines hung low like whispers. There had been rumors, of course. In taverns and behind stacks of scrolls. Something ancient buried just outside the college city. A ruin half-swallowed by forest and time. Most said it didn’t exist, Discord took that as a personal challenge. He shoved aside a curtain of ferns—and there it was. A yawning pit beneath a slope of sun-dappled moss. Ringed in roots and cracked stone, it looked like the earth had yawned open to exhale the past. At its center stood a doorway, arched and flanked with crumbled pillars etched in runes too weathered to read. Water glistened faintly around the edges, trickling down from the rocks above to feed a shimmering pool at the threshold.
Discord whistled, long and low. “Oooh, spooky and shiny. What a day.” He padded closer, claws clicking on exposed slate as he peered inside. The air that drifted out was cool, stale, and faintly electric. Magic. Old magic. The kind that tingled in your fur and made the hairs along your spine twitch without reason.
Still grinning, he pulled a small, enchanted glowfly jar from his bag and tapped it against his palm. It blinked to life in a soft pulse of amber light. “Alright, little bug. Let’s go wake some ghosts.” Without hesitation, Discord slipped into the ruin. The forest swallowed the sound of his footsteps. The wind hushed. The passage spiraled downward like a forgotten vine, swallowing Discord in cool shadows and the damp scent of ancient stone. Gone was the lush forest canopy—replaced by a stillness that felt almost sacred. Moss-furred steps curved past cracked mosaics, and the walls shimmered faintly with embedded runes, dulled with time but still alive with whispers.
Discord padded carefully, ears perked and tail swishing. “If something jumps out at me, I will scream just to be dramatic,” he muttered, tapping a claw on the wall. “You’ve been warned.”
As he continued, the corridor opened into a wide, domed chamber partially collapsed by age. Roots dangled like skeletal chandeliers from above, and a low stone basin sat at the center, ringed by crumbling statues—some feline, others serpentine, and one that looked suspiciously like a winged toaster. The floor was inlaid with star-shaped tiles, dust-soft but still shimmering beneath his glowfly jar.
He approached the basin. Its water was still and black as obsidian, but beneath it… shapes moved. Slowly. As if caught in another world. A script surrounded the edge of the bowl—looping, curling, alive. Discord reached out, let his claw dip into the water. The chamber awoke. The runes lit gold and violet. A deep hum filled the air. The statues’ eyes glowed faintly, and somewhere beneath the floor, a distant mechanism clunked into motion.
Across the room, a panel in the wall slid open with a hiss. Discord’s grin grew wide. “Oh, I like this ruin.” He made to leave—but the basin pulsed once, softly. A ripple crossed the surface, and something rose from it: a small, sealed vessel. It looked like a capsule, made of clear crystal and etched metal, glowing faintly with the same gold as the runes. Inside it shimmered a swirling mote of light—like a captive star. Discord reached out and gently plucked it from the water. It was warm in his paw. Familiar somehow. He turned it over, and a symbol flared across its base—the same sigil from the tree outside.
“Treasure, huh?” he whispered. “But not gold. Not something to sell.” He tucked it gently into his satchel.
“A gift.”
And with that, he padded into the next passage, the glowfly jar bobbing just ahead. The stairs narrowed, then widened again into something impossible. A chamber opened before him, vast and luminous, its walls curved like the inside of a celestial shell. Shelves grew like trees—glass, gold, and woven vine—filled not with books, but scrolls, crystal spheres, and musical threads that pulsed with soundless notes. Light came from nowhere and everywhere, soft and warm, like the memory of sunlight on old parchment. Discord stepped carefully across a mosaic floor depicting layered stars. He found the central dais: a pedestal bearing a tome, suspended in a field of gentle energy. As he approached, the shield blinked away with a whisper, welcoming him.
He didn’t understand the language, but the story was clear. Drawings—elegant and emotional—showed a civilization that once lived in balance with the Falls. They mapped the stars, recorded light like song, and created magical vessels that carried memory itself. But when the world changed, they chose to vanish—not out of fear, but out of reverence. They sealed their knowledge, hoping only the worthy would find it. And one of their memory vessels now sat in his bag.
Discord closed the tome with reverent fingers. He looked around the room—at the soft glow of forgotten voices, the careful quiet of centuries. He didn’t take anything else. He didn’t need to. At the chamber’s exit, carved delicately into the archway, were five words in the language of the Falls:
“Take only what remembers us.” He stepped through, tail curling behind him. By the time Discord emerged from the ruins, the sunlight had dipped lower, casting golden fingers through the canopy. He sat at the base of the ancient tree again, his claws brushing over the capsule he’d taken. He still didn’t know what it contained. But he knew what it meant. He tucked it away with a grin and stood.
“All right, mystery star bean. Let’s go cause some trouble. Respectfully.”
He vanished into the forest with a flick of his tail—just a little wiser than he’d been that morning.

Reward	Amount
Mystery Chest	2
Gold	3