Altair’s hooves crunched against the dead, dry grass as he made his way across the silent battlefield. The air was still, almost too still, as if the very wind had been choked out by the lingering echoes of a long-forgotten war. His nostrils flared as the faint scent of charred wood and iron met his senses, though no fires burned now. The place was lifeless, desolate, with the remnants of what once must have been a grand conflict. Fallen pillars, broken weaponry, and the skeletal remains of ancient structures littered the ground. Nothing moved. Just himself and the other Courser, Fetch who's breathing could be heard beside him.

And yet, as Altair walked, he could feel the weight of something watching him. Not in the physical sense, but the oppressive weight of a past that had not yet released its grip on the land. It was as though the battlefield itself had been frozen in time, suspended in the aftermath of violence and glory, waiting for someone to acknowledge its forgotten history.

Ahead, through the fog of decay and dust, a shallow pond appeared, lying eerily still in the middle of the destruction. Its surface shimmered like glass, a stark contrast to the wasteland that surrounded it. There was something unnervingly pristine about the water—untouched, unscathed by the chaos that had ravaged the world around it.

Altair paused as he approached, his breath steady but his muscles tense, ready for anything. The dungeon was never this simple. It was a law of the place: beauty hid danger. Something about this pond was wrong, even if he couldn’t place it.

He edged closer, eyes scanning for any signs of a trap. But no movement, no shifting stones or concealed mechanisms—just silence. The pond reflected the gray, dead world around it, a perfect mirror of the battlefield, as though it, too, was trapped in the memory of violence.

The air seemed heavier near the water, thicker with the weight of history. Altair could sense it pressing against his skin, the whispers of the dead warriors long gone. The pond wasn’t ordinary; it couldn’t be. Its existence here, in the heart of such ruin, had to mean something.

Curiosity tugged at him. He stepped forward until his hooves were mere inches from the water’s edge. His reflection, for now, was absent, but as his gaze settled on the surface, it began to change.

Banners appeared first—tattered flags that rose from the pond’s reflection, flapping in a wind that didn’t exist. They were old, their symbols long forgotten, but the colors were vivid as they snapped sharply against the backdrop of a sunlit sky. Altair blinked in surprise. The scene unfolding before him was not of this dead field but a battlefield alive with the energy of war.

Polearms thrust upward from the ground, carried by soldiers he couldn’t see, but their presence was felt in the shifting shadows cast upon the pond’s reflective surface. He could hear the distant clamor of armor, the stomp of boots against the earth, and the rhythmic thud of drums beating out commands. The tents of a great war camp stood tall, stretching far beyond what the battlefield had shown him moments before, alive with movement and activity.

Altair inhaled sharply, his pulse quickening. This was no ordinary reflection. He was witnessing the past—perhaps the very war that had brought ruin to this place. The banners flew with pride and urgency, the polearms gleaming as if freshly forged, while warriors unseen seemed to prepare for a battle that had long since ended.

The scene should have filled him with awe or fear, but instead, it stirred something more profound in his chest: a sense of foreboding. He wasn’t just an observer here. The dungeon never allowed him to simply watch. Whatever this reflection was showing him, it wanted something more.

Altair’s gaze lingered on the shifting banners and the clashing of unseen armies, and a dark thought tugged at the back of his mind. The reflection… was it asking him to join them? To become part of this endless war that time had forgotten?

He stepped closer to the water, until his breath rippled its surface. And then, against his better judgment, he did something he rarely allowed himself to do: he looked at his own reflection.

At first, there was nothing unusual—just the outline of his own face, sharp and familiar. His dark mane clung to his neck, the cool light of the dungeon casting hard shadows along his frame. But as he stared, the reflection began to change, warping and shifting as if something deep within the pond was pulling at the image.

His reflection no longer stood alone. He saw himself, but not as the lone adventurer who stood on this silent battlefield. No, this was a different version of himself—a reflection from a world where Altair had been part of the war.

The Altair in the reflection was armored in dark, jagged plates of steel, a helm resting on his head with a plume of crimson feathers. His eyes, normally intense and focused, now burned with the same red-hot glow as the banners that surrounded him. He was a warrior, a commander, standing at the head of an army, leading them into battle. He carried a massive spear, its tip slick with the blood of foes, while the air around him was thick with the scent of death and burning fields.

His reflection wasn’t just a glimpse of a possible future. It was the manifestation of a truth he had always feared deep down—that, beneath his hunger for adventure and danger, beneath the constant drive that pushed him forward into the darkest depths of the dungeon, lay something far more destructive. Altair was not just an adventurer. He was a weapon, sharpened by his experiences, honed by the brutal world around him.

And the dungeon knew it. It had always known.

The realization sent a chill down his spine, even as the air around him grew hotter with the rising tension in the pond’s reflection. Was this what he truly desired? Was this who he could become, if given the chance?

He grit his teeth, his gaze unwavering as the reflection stared back at him with cold, determined eyes. This was what the dungeon wanted him to see—a version of himself that embraced the chaos, that reveled in the destruction of others. It was a temptation, an invitation to accept his darker nature and give in to the violence that lurked within him.

But Altair wasn’t like the others who had been lost to the dungeon’s pull. He had survived this long because he knew when to fight and when to walk away. He had fought hard to control the darker impulses that the dungeon awakened in him, and he wouldn’t allow it to take him now.

His jaw clenched as he forced himself to look away from the pond, breaking the spell of the reflection. The sound of marching armies faded, the banners vanished, and once again, the battlefield around him was silent, lifeless.

Altair exhaled, steadying himself. The pond still lay there, as placid and untouched as before, as if nothing had changed. But something had. The dungeon had shown him a glimpse of his possible future—a future that terrified him.

But he wouldn’t fall to it. Not today.

With one last look at the still water, Altair turned his back on the reflection and began walking away from the pond. The dungeon would have to try harder than that to break him.

He still had his own path to carve, and he wasn’t ready to become the monster the dungeon wanted him to be. Not yet.