The battle erupts.

Varek moves like a nightmare, shadow streaming from his form to block arrows, deflect blades, and reach for throats. The founders counter with their own power—Seraphine’s light of truth, Aldric’s scales of justice, Thornwen’s vines of life.

Your allies fight alongside them. Mira’s arrows find gaps in the shadow armor. Theron’s blade cuts through reaching tendrils. Wren calls on the forest’s power, anchoring the founders’ spirits to the physical world.

And you—you are the focus.

The relics blaze in your hands, three pieces of a whole, ready to break the Binding. But Varek won’t let you close. Every time you advance, he’s there, shadow and malice given form.

“Did you think this would be easy?” he hisses, batting aside Seraphine’s attack. “Did you think three centuries of power would fall to children and ghosts?”

“We think you’ve lost,” you reply. “You just haven’t realized it yet.”

Aldric’s scales glow, and suddenly you can see it—the threads of the Binding, stretching from Varek to the gem, from the gem to the founders’ souls. They’re weakening. The founders’ freedom has already begun to unravel his power.

“Now!” Seraphine shouts. “While the threads are thin!”

You surge forward. The relics combine, their light merging into a single beam aimed at the Binding’s heart.

Varek screams—not in defeat, but in fury.

The shadow around him explodes outward, knocking everyone back. When your vision clears, he’s standing at the gem’s core, his hands pressed against the crystal.

“If you break the Binding,” he snarls, “you break everything. The energy release will kill everyone in this room. Everyone in the city. Is that what you want?”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Am I?” His smile is broken, desperate. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But are you willing to risk it? Are you willing to gamble the lives of everyone you love on the hope that I’m lying?”

The founders exchange glances. The allies look to you.

“The choice was always yours,” Seraphine says quietly. “We can tell you what we know. We can give you our power. But the final act must be your own.”

Four paths unfold before you.