The iron doors slammed shut behind him like a judge’s final decree, sealing Zarek inside a chamber of nightmares. The sudden darkness pressed against his skin like a second, colder flesh, an invasive presence that seeped into his bones. His boots dragged across the tiles, slick with old blood, blackened chemicals, and something far fouler, a viscous slime that spoke of unspeakable experiments. Each step left red trails that vanished into the oppressive gloom of the maze of horrors around him. The silence was not empty. It breathed with the low hum of dormant machinery. It watched with the palpable weight of a thousand unseen eyes. It judged him for the sin of being alive within its profane grasp.Malrik’s private lab was no place for mortals. It was a cathedral of twisted science and desecrated magic, a perverse sanctuary where the boundaries of life were not just crossed but obliterated. Towering vats filled with churning blue ichor lined the walls, each one a prison for atrocities i

The Ulmfang Mountains rose out of the void like the jagged ribs of some ancient titan, their peaks black and sharp, lost in storm clouds that never parted. No sun ever touched this place. The world here was stone, storm, and silence. Lightning arced across the cliffs in eerie silence, and the growl of thunder rumbled low in the mist, like the beastly breath of the mountain itself. The air was heavy with heat, as though the bones of the world burned beneath the rock. Each gust of wind carried with it the scent of scorched earth and ozone, mingling with the faint, metallic tang of distant ash. The sky above was a churning, bruised canvas of slate and smoke, crackling with energy that never released its fury fully—only hints like whispers. The mountains did not merely loom—they loathed. There was something in the silence that smothered sound, a weight that pressed into the chest and curled cold fingers around the heart. Every stone seemed placed with purpose, like pieces of a vast monume

The world had become fire.Stone melted into rivers of magma around him; the air itself seemed to burn, each breath like swallowing coals. The sky had turned the color of blood and brass, ash swirling like dark snow in the poisoned wind. Trees were no more than blackened skeletons of their former selves, their charred branches clawing at the smoke-thick sky. The Ulmfang Mountains, once majestic with their snowy peaks and proud ridges, now split open like wounded beasts, their innards spilling fire and stone into the dying earth below. The screams of the land echoed through the chasms, a chorus of elemental agony.Zarek stood trembling at the edge of a shattered cliff, the crumbling stone beneath his feet radiating with unbearable heat. His body ached from the toll of channeling forces no mortal was meant to wield; his chest heaved with each ragged breath, sweat and soot streaking down his face in grimy rivers. His hands, raw and blistered, trembled violently, still glowing with the

Consciousness returned to Zarek not as a gentle dawn, but as a rude shove into a world of dull, persistent ache. The memory of fire was a brand on his soul, but the reality was the coarse, scratchy wool of a blanket against his raw skin. He lay on a low, hard pallet, the thin mattress stuffed with what felt like straw and dried herbs that released a faint, bitter scent with his every movement.He was in a single room, a hut so small and sparse it felt more like a prison cell carved from wood and stubbornness. The walls were woven from dark, aged wattle and daub, cracked in places, allowing thin blades of searing morning light to cut through the dimness. The air was thick with the smell of dust, dried sage, and the faint, ever-present tang of ozone and ash that seemed to follow Aeltharion. The floor was packed earth, worn smooth and hard by generations of feet. A single, small, shuttered window was the only other feature, aside from a rough-hewn wooden door. There was no decoration, no

He lifted his eyes, half in search of distraction, half in rebellion against the encroaching dread, and stared upward into the dome above him.And what he saw made his breath catch.The patterns etched into the ceiling were far more elaborate than he had realized. Now, with his vision accustomed to the strange phosphorescent glow, he could see how they danced and twisted—not randomly, but with terrifying precision. Spirals of sigils, concentric rings of symbols older than language, drew the eye inward. They converged, all of them, toward a single point at the dome’s highest curve—directly above where he now sat.The feeling was unmistakable. It was like sitting at the bottom of a great, stone eye.Zarek swallowed hard, the dryness in his throat almost painful. He didn’t know whether to feel watched or judged or both. Something about the design pulled at the mind, bent thought into unnatural spirals. Were these the glyphs of an ancient priesthood? A forgotten sect? Aeltharion’s own cre