Percival van der Berg/The Missing Piece

The Missing Piece

In-universe date	Era Nova, February–March, Year 5
Real-world date	2026-09-24
Author	Percival van der Berg
Category Type	Character News

Our return to the ruins had given us little in the way of answers, but it had confirmed one thing: the obsidian was not placed there without purpose.

After returning to Clockhaven, I spent several days reviewing everything we had recorded. The dimensions of the ruined frame, the number of blocks that remained, their placement, and even the surrounding terrain were carefully documented.

Something was missing.

I could not say what, but I was certain of it.

I gathered my helpers once more and began reconstructing the frame in the workshop. We followed the measurements as closely as possible, placing each piece of obsidian exactly where we believed it had once stood.

Once completed, we stepped back and examined our work.

Nothing.

We tried altering the shape slightly, replacing damaged pieces with intact ones and testing different arrangements. We even attempted to place stone and metal objects around the frame, wondering whether something else might have been used alongside the obsidian.

Still, nothing happened.

I began to wonder if the ruined structure had ever functioned at all.

“Surely this cannot be the whole of it.”

I returned to my notes and examined the sketches once more. There had to be a missing component, some method of activating the structure that we had simply failed to recognize.

My associates suggested that perhaps the frame itself was incomplete, while others believed that whatever had once activated it had long since been lost.

Both seemed possible.

For now, we dismantled the reconstruction and began cataloguing every part of it again.

We had learned almost nothing about how the structure worked.

But at least we now knew what we were looking for.

Something was missing.