Oswald walked slowly beside Marek, hands clasped behind his back, voice calm. “Knowledge is the basic path. Many begin there. Fewer continue.”

Marek nodded vaguely, watching a beetle cross the path.

Oswald continued, undisturbed. “I follow it not just for facts, but because I believe it might be something more. Deeper. Maybe even the key to understanding the other paths. Who knows.”

Marek said nothing. His eyes tracked the beetle. Then the sky. Then something else.

“You’re scattered,” Oswald said. “I don’t mean that as an insult.”

Marek blinked. “What?”

“You keep losing focus. You drift mid-sentence. You’re carrying too much. Not in your pockets—in your head.”

Marek shrugged. “Old age habits?”

“No. You’re shattered. Broken in pieces. I can feel it. Others in the Path would feel it too. It’s like someone cleaned up a shattered cup, but only picked up the biggest bits. The rest are still lying around.”

Marek frowned. “Thanks. That’s comforting.”

Oswald smiled gently. “I have a way that could help both of us. A binding. A device of identification—normally fueled by conscious thought and knowledge.”

He held out his hand. Light gathered, forming a small disc. Thin as paper, glowing softly with shifting symbols.

“Usually, the user charges it,” Oswald said. “But you—you're different. You don’t give knowledge. You leak it. You're overflowing.”

Marek squinted at the disc. “So what does it show?”

“You’ll see. Only you. But it will share a sliver of your essence with me. Enough to push my path forward. Enough, maybe, to stabilize you a little.”

Marek took the disc. It buzzed faintly in his hand—like a moth trapped inside glass—and the glow spread, wrapping around his wrist before flickering back into the disc's face. Then, without any flare or dramatic music, lines of text formed in the air above it.

It looked... game-like, almost. But it felt personal. Like someone had printed his soul and run it through a translator with a few corrupted files.

Name: Marek ???? 

Path: ???
Status: ???
Body: Healthy
Mind: ???

Talents: ???, Small Mind Resistance, Change Through Pain, ???, ???, ???

Skills: ???, ???

Stats:
Strength: 4
Stamina: 3
Agility: 2
Physical Resistance: 2
Mind Resistance: 87
Magic Power: 1
???: ???

Note: Broken

Marek squinted. “Mind resistance... and Broken....”

Oswald nodded slowly. “You’ve endured. Not cleanly, but thoroughly. That leaves a mark.”

Marek tilted the disc. The glowing text shifted slightly, but didn’t vanish. “And this—this knows all that?”

“No,” Oswald said, “but it listens. It reflects what your path remembers, even if you don’t.”

Marek tapped on the stone in his pocket and said. “Feels naked.”

Oswald smiled gently. “Knowledge is the first step. When you name a wound, you begin to heal it.”

Marek nodded, silent.

He tucked the disc into his coat, and for once, didn’t get lost in his thoughts.

Not yet atleast.