The Forgotten Map

Unlocking a Lost Path to a World That Shouldn’t Exist

No one had set foot in the East Wing of the Ashgrove Library for over fifty years. Dust blanketed every surface like snow. Lanterns had long since gone cold. The air smelled of ink, mold, and forgotten time. And yet, Eira stood at its threshold, heart pounding, a half-burned letter in one hand and a strange brass key in the other.

She didn’t believe in legends. She believed in facts, inked in books and cataloged on shelves. But the letter had been from her grandfather—missing for twelve years—and it had said just one thing:

“Find the map. The one we were never meant to see. It leads to the Riftlands.”

The Riftlands were a myth. A whispered bedtime story. A place where time broke and magic bent the world sideways. The very idea was laughable—until the key had shown up.

Now here she was, stepping into a forbidden wing sealed by the Archivists decades ago.

The silence swallowed her footsteps as she moved through endless shelves of ancient tomes. Her lantern cast long, twitching shadows. According to her grandfather’s note, the map was hidden behind Volume VII of the Codex of Vanished Realms.

She found it—cracked spine, moth-bitten pages. She pulled it free.

Click.

A panel opened in the wall with a soft hiss, revealing a small wooden drawer. Inside lay a rolled parchment, bound in faded red ribbon.

Eira’s breath caught.

The parchment was a map, but not like any she had ever seen. It shimmered faintly, ink crawling across its surface like veins of light. Islands floated where oceans should be. Cities hung upside down. A place marked “The Riftlands” pulsed softly at the edge, surrounded by symbols no scholar had ever recorded.

As soon as she touched it, the map flared—and the air tore open behind her.

The Riftlands

Eira stumbled through light and wind, landing hard on moss that glowed faintly blue. Above her, the sky shimmered like cracked glass. Trees floated, roots dangling in midair. Creatures blinked in and out of sight like flickering thoughts. A narrow path stretched before her, matching the route drawn on the map.

The map was warm in her hand, pulsing gently, guiding her.

She followed it.

Along the way, she encountered strange markers—stone totems that whispered names, bridges made of humming light, and echoes of forgotten voices calling to her in languages she couldn’t place.

Each step deeper into the Riftlands twisted the rules of reality a little more. Days turned into minutes. Shadows moved with no sun. At one point, Eira walked through a field of flowers that seemed to remember her—petals reaching as if to touch someone they once knew.

Eventually, the path brought her to a massive stone gate, cracked down the center, guarded by a hooded figure. It didn’t speak, but held out its hand.

Eira hesitated.

Then she placed the map into its palm.

The figure nodded and stepped aside. The gate groaned open.

The Cartographer’s Sanctuary

Inside lay a vast chamber filled with suspended maps. They floated mid-air, glowing with soft light, depicting realms that didn’t exist—or hadn’t existed yet. A staircase wound upward into a tower of glass, and atop it sat an old man hunched over a table.

Eira gasped.

“Grandfather?”

He looked up, eyes filled with galaxies.

“I hoped you’d find it,” he said quietly.

“What is this place?” she asked, voice shaking.

“This is where the world is drawn before it’s lived,” he said. “Where the impossible is charted. I was meant to guard it… but I couldn’t let it fade away. So I left the map for you.”

Eira stepped forward slowly. “You vanished. We thought you were dead.”

He smiled. “I was lost… in a place between places. But the Riftlands kept me. And now they’ve called you.”

He reached into his cloak and pulled out a quill made of starlight. “Each Cartographer chooses the next. The map found you. That means you're ready.”

Eira shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“You will,” he said gently. “Here, we don’t just draw maps. We create worlds.”

He pressed the quill into her hand. “Write carefully. Every path you sketch becomes real. Every world you imagine... opens.”

Back in the Library

When Eira returned to Ashgrove Library, days had passed—though only hours seemed to tick by in the Riftlands.

She sealed the map again, placing it in a new hiding place. Some secrets were not meant for the world. Not yet.

But on quiet nights, beneath lamplight, Eira sketched small things: a garden that always bloomed, a mountain where stars whispered, a city where dreams taught people to fly.

And somewhere, out in the Riftlands, those places began to take form.

Because Eira was no longer just a scholar.

She was a Cartographer of the Forgotten Realms.

The End.