From Corpse to Crown: Reborn as a Mortician in Another World-Chapter 85: The Braided Glyphs

The thread shimmered in the stranger’s hand. Two glyphs were etched into the fibers—one shaped like a looped tear, the other like a fractured mirror. They pulsed faintly with the kind of energy Lucian had only felt at two points in his life: when a rite was just beginning... or when one had already gone dangerously wrong.

He stepped forward slowly.

"You followed the erased mortician?" Lucian asked.

The stranger nodded. "He called himself the Archivist of Threads. But the Queen... she had another name for him. One she later burned from the Grimoire Index."

+

Before Lucian opened the Echoheart System, Merry opened her Grimoire and conjured a large white tent. "No reason to do this under the hot sun."

The Echoheart’s pages flipped toward the oldest recorded rites—those that predated even Alaric—and stopped at a warped section, paper faded and stained with something darker than time.

[Partial Memory Archive Unsealed]Code: Twisted ThreadMortician: UnknownReweaving Event: UnfinishedCheck Grief Loom for further details

At the foot of the page, ink bled into the binding.

Lucian unbuckled the Loom and set it on the cobbled sidewalk. It unspooled at once, threads shifting to storm-gray.

He had only woven once before. But as soon as he sat down, he felt her.

The Spinnermaid.

Not beside him, but... in the gesture of his hands. In the tension of the string.

As if the act of weaving was a prayer to her memory.

Thread by thread, Lucian pulled an image into being. No conscious thought behind it—just rhythm, intuition, and need.

A half-started tapestry formed in silence.

Then the stranger offered the braided thread.

Lucian didn’t take it immediately.

Instead, he gestured.

"You add it," he said softly.

The stranger nodded and placed the thread into the Loom.

"What do the glyphs mean?"

"A fork," the stranger said, watching Lucian’s hands. "Of two rites. One unfinished. One forbidden. The Erased One believed grief didn’t have to end in silence. But the Crown didn’t like what came after the long quiet."

For a moment, nobody said a word.

Then Lucian grasped the braid.

A warmth spread from his fingertips to his chest.

Not painful.

But more personal.

Like touching a photo of someone long forgotten—only to hear hours later they had died.

+

Later, at the inn, Merry sat cross-legged on the floor, examining the now-growing tapestry.

She didn’t speak at first. Her fingers hovered just above the glyphs without touching them.

"These aren’t just rites," she whispered. "They’re intentions."

Alice leaned forward. "What do you mean by that?"

"Morticians don’t just guide the dead. We shape the reason a rite happens. Sometimes we embed our hopes, even if we don’t admit it. If someone dies and we’re angry—we can curse without meaning to. If we’re kind, we can soothe."

She pointed to the first glyph.

"This one’s an emotional tether. You can pin a rite across places. Or... maybe even across versions of a person. This one is linked to a name."

Lucian stared. "Whose?"

"I don’t know yet," she murmured. "But the thread wants to show you."

He let the Loom continue weaving, fingers still tingling. The Echoheart System opened alongside it, and for the first time, the two tools worked together.

One projected a 3D map.

The other wove it.

The tapestry bled deep black, then ash-gray, as a town slowly came into view: cliffs the color of burned bone, a lake that cast no reflection, and a cathedral whose spires looked tall enough to pierce the clouds.

Dark-green dots formed around it.

Trees. Old ones.

Alice whispered, "What is that place?"

Lucian said nothing.

Neither did Merry.

The Grimoire answered for them.

VEL QUEN

Lucian frowned. The name rang no bells.

Merry, however, tensed.

"I know Vel Quen," she said slowly. "Or... I thought I did. It’s supposed to be a ghost town."

Cadrel looked pale. "When I went, it wasn’t."

Lucian turned. "You’ve been there?"

Cadrel nodded. "Back when I was stationed under Prince Alexander. 3090. Vel Quen was alive then. A real town. Devoted to seances."

Lucian blinked. "But it’s 4130."

"And I went around 3300," Merry added. "By then, it was silent. No Grimoire ever reported out of it again."

Lucian felt the hairs on his neck rise.

"So something happened in those two centuries."

Cadrel exhaled. "It was a spiritual haven. A place where people believed you could speak to your loved ones one last time."

Alice’s hand drifted to her sketchbook. "How?"

"They had... structures. Devices. Like spiritual amplifiers. But they were all tied to something they called the Threading Pool."

Lucian looked down at the tapestry.

A new glyph had appeared.

At the lake’s center.

A whirlpool of silver thread.

[Thread Index: Active Echo Spiral Detected]

Merry’s eyes went wide.

"Lucian. If that’s what I think it is... people there may not have died properly."

Lucian nodded.

"And whatever unfinished rite they were part of... it’s still waiting."

At that moment, the Grimoire flipped on its own.

A single line scrawled across the page.

"Vel Quen remembers you."

Lucian froze.

He hadn’t said his name. He hadn’t spoken his intentions aloud.

And yet.

The Loom pulsed. A new glyph formed over the braid’s starting point.

Shaped like a flame with a mirror inside it.

Merry whispered, "That’s a grief fork. Someone who split between remembering—and letting go."

Alice touched Lucian’s sleeve.

"You’re going to go there, aren’t you?"

He nodded.

"Not because I want to. Because I have to."

The stranger closed their Grimoire with a snap. "It means it’s the next place your path will take you. It was sealed off during the Great Disappearance. No rites have entered or left since the 7th mortician failed to close the boundary."

"The boundary?" Alice asked.

The stranger met her gaze. "Between the living and the remembered."

Loom Update:

Destination Identified: Vel Quen

Thread Entanglement: High

Known Dangers: Memory bleed, false mourning, echo loops

Rite Type Required: Inventive, Emotional, High-Trust Teamwork

Lucian exhaled.

Of course it would be.

Of course the place they had to go next would be where emotion couldn’t be trusted.

Where grief might wear your own face to ask for help.

And the moment he looked at Alice—

He saw that same glyph flicker again, near her hand this time.

The Path of the Saint.

Thread-bound, not just to healing—but to memory itself.

Then Merry whispered:

"Lucian. That first glyph? The looped tear?"

He nodded.

She showed him a sketch she’d made.

"It’s a Saintmark," she said. "An older version. Worn by the original caretakers of Vel Quen."

Lucian sat down hard.

The Loom flickered one last time.

Not all erased morticians were forgotten by accident.

Some erased themselves... to protect what they knew.

+

A crow tapped the window.

When Lucian opened it, a single wax-stamped letter dropped into his palm.

Inside was a single sentence, written in ink that looked like smoke.

Vel Quen remembers you.