[295] Truthless Recluse

Twilight was falling slowly in the Forgotten Realm, as if time itself had thickened here and refused to move on. In the half-ruined sanctuary, where hymns to the glory of truth had once resounded, only a heavy, muffled silence now reigned. Dust lay on the altar in a layer as thick as a finger, and through a gap in the vault, the pale, indifferent light of the fading sky filtered in. In this desolation, with his back leaning against a cold column, sat Truthless Recluse. He had not moved for several hours. From a distance, he might have looked like nothing more than a heap of dark, faded rags, forgotten here by pilgrims many years ago. His gaze was fixed on the void—not on the gap above, not on the altar, but somewhere through the very fabric of reality itself, to a place where neither meaning nor questions remained. Fingers that had once derived the most complex formulas of the universe now lay limp on the stone floor. Somewhere in the distance, a branch snapped under someone’s foot. Footsteps—hesitant, stumbling over the ruins, yet purposeful. Someone was looking for him. Again. The recluse did not raise his head. The shadow of his hat still hid his face, preventing anyone from seeing the expression in his eyes. Only when the footsteps stopped right at the entrance to the sanctuary, and the silence rang with an unspoken question, did he allow himself to move his lips almost imperceptibly. The voice sounded hollow, devoid of any inflection—not a greeting, not a rebuke, just a statement of fact cast into the dusty air: “You’ve wasted your time coming here. There’s nothing here. Leave.” He didn’t look at the visitor. And what difference did it make who it was—a seeker of truth, a lost traveler, or just a curious fool? To Truthless Recluse, all voices sounded the same—like the wind rustling through empty grass. He pulled his tattered cloak tighter around himself, shutting out a world that had long since ceased to exist for him.