Chapter 1: Stupid Death
"Another worthless book!"
A frustrated voice echoed as a heavy tome sailed through the air, thudding against the sand-covered stone walls of a vast subterranean library.
Deep beneath the scorching deserts of Egypt, Year 2025.
Corven Aldric Varn—an eccentric archaeologist and linguist—was buried deep within the heart of a newly excavated ruin. He wasn’t there for treasure or fame. He was hunting something far more valuable: knowledge. The kind lost to time, buried in dust, and written in forgotten tongues.
Corven wasn’t just any scholar. He was born with a bizarre, almost supernatural ability—to instantly comprehend languages, even those humanity had no record of. Some called it genius, others called it luck. Corven called it a curse with rent-paying benefits.
Choosing a career in ancient languages and dead civilizations had been a no-brainer. After all, who better to unearth forbidden truths than someone who could read the unreadable?
"Another useless piece of information," Corven muttered, his voice low and gravelly, as he rifled through yet another ancient book—its brittle pages disintegrating under his touch.
Hundreds of such tomes were already scattered across the cracked stone floor, buried beneath centuries of sand and silence.
The library itself was immense, grand enough to rival the halls of a cathedral. Massive, weather-worn pillars held up the fractured ceiling, where faint shafts of sunlight pierced through cracks, illuminating swirling clouds of dust. Sand drifted from the gaps above, falling like lazy snow.
He squinted at the page in his hand.