Chapter 3: Echoes of the Past
Alex doubled his efforts, but the interference remained. He sought out old tomes, even questioned Professor Flitwick about arcane encryption methods, disguising his inquiries as academic curiosity. His Archive kept detecting traces of ancient magic, a warning that someone had laid wards to keep this knowledge buried.
One night, while scanning the castle's magical infrastructure, he found something alarming. A hidden vault beneath the dungeons—its magical signature eerily similar to the corruption in his Archive.
Determined, he snuck out past curfew, avoiding patrolling ghosts and Filch. Using Archive Magic, he mapped the castle's unseen passages and reached the hidden chamber. The air was thick with a foreboding presence. An old pedestal stood at its center, covered in runes Alex's Archive barely recognized.
As he reached out, the air shimmered.
[Proximity Warning: Entity Detected]
A shadow moved. A whisper brushed against his ear.
"Some secrets should remain buried, Archivist."
The room pulsed with dark energy. Before he could react, Archive Magic flashed an emergency alert, and a wave of magic slammed into him, throwing him back. The last thing he saw before darkness overtook him was the shifting form of something impossibly old.