Legend CXXVI – The Dark Tower

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No one knew who had built the Dark Tower, and no one remembered when it had first risen from the empty plains. Some said it was older than the world itself, a thorn in the side of time; others whispered that it had only stood there since the day the sky first split open. Only one thing was certain: the tower was there, and it called out. Its black stone jutted into the seething clouds like a broken finger, covered in glowing runes that pulsed with red light as if they were breathing. Lightning flashed incessantly around its summit, striking the flat plains and making the ground tremble, as if the world itself were fleeing from this structure. Four figures approached the tower from different directions, guided by dreams that had burrowed into their consciousness like thorns. None of them knew the others, yet each carried the same burning thought within them: the tower had to be entered, no matter the cost. The path there was crisscrossed by deep fissures from which cold mist rose, and in the distance, silent shadows seemed to wander, as if following unseen commands. Every step felt like a betrayal of their own reason, and yet an alien power drove them onward. As they reached the base of the tower, the red glow of the runes began to pulse faster. Words formed from light and shadow, flickering fragments of ancient languages none of them understood, yet they instinctively grasped that the chronicles of all worlds were stored here. Behind the cold stone lay the memories of countless existences, the stories of rise and fall, of love and betrayal, of hope and ultimate oblivion. The tower was not a structure—it was an archive of being, a pillar holding together the shattered currents of time. Inside, a spiral staircase wound endlessly upwards, lined with black doors behind which flickering scenes unfolded: battles never fought, cities that had never existed, children weeping without ever having been born. With each step, the air grew heavier, and a barely audible whisper settled like frost over their thoughts. It promised answers, offered salvation, beckoned with the power to alter the past and shape the future. But the higher they climbed, the more clearly they sensed that every truth here demanded its price. At the very top, beneath the open spire of the tower, where storm and light were locked in an eternal dance, they found a circular chamber of black glass. At its center floated a pulsating core, where images of countless worlds overlapped. They understood now: The tower was the heart of all transitions, the nexus of the rivers of space and time. Whoever controlled it could steer the current—but every intervention would create new fissures, give birth to new catastrophes.