Exhausted and trailed by the faltering raven, Livira is guided to a towering, pebbly-skinned tome whose title matches the script of her Crunian scrap. The book is locked, and the raven refuses to let her leave without resolving the scrap. Frustrated, Livira carries both the heavy volume and the fragment as the raven diverts her from the return path.

Torn between irritation and desperation, Livira even considers crushing the ancient guide under the tome before rejecting the thought. When she drops the book to rest, she notices a figure ahead: a grey stone woman lying face-down, arm outstretched toward a tall circle of shimmering light set flush with the shelves, a cratered wound denting her exposed temple. The raven circles and caws mournfully at the unmoving figure.

Intrigued and wary, Livira suspects a concealed passage or secret beyond the liquid-like sheen. Determined to use her advantages, she produces the small black book; opening it plunges the aisle into darkness. She tells the raven to stay hidden, then gropes forward, aligning her arm with the stone woman’s outstretched hand to find the light’s surface.

Livira’s fingertips meet a resistant, yielding barrier. As she presses and searches for a gap, an unseen stranger’s hand suddenly clamps around hers and yanks her forward, dragging her through the shimmering threshold into the unknown.