The path tightens, walls closing in with roots that coil like sleeping serpents across cracked stone. Not just quiet now—a hush with weight. Hollow. Listening. Watching. Every step lands like an apology, too loud.
Selene slows first. One hand brushes the edge of her grimoire, her fingers hovering there like the leather might murmur back. The magic here isn’t subtle. It presses. Thick. Heavy. Like a heartbeat muffled by water. She breathes it in and it settles—low in her lungs, deep in her spine, under her thoughts.
She doesn’t speak at first. Doesn’t need to. The silence is already saying too much.
Then, just above a whisper—almost like she’s scared the ruins might answer—
"What’s that?"
Her thumb grazes a rune in the margins of her journal. The ink glows, faint warmth trailing her skin like breath on glass. Beneath her boots, the ground hums—not life. Not quite. But not dead, either. Something in-between. Waiting. Tense. Ancient.
Gorik stops a few paces behind her, silent but taut. His hammer hangs loose at his side, fingers flexing around the grip. His eyes track the tree line, the moss-eaten stone, the absolute stillness that wraps the ruin like a veil. Not fear. Just instinct. Soldier-scarred and bone-deep.
He doesn’t like stillness.
Stillness is a lie.
Not a scowl. Not a prayer. Just a mutter like gravel breaking inside his throat:
"Too quiet. Like the whole forest's holdin' its breath."
And Tibbins?
Tibbins doesn’t hear it—or maybe he does and just calls it wonder.
He’s already ahead, practically skipping, gloved fingers brushing moss-covered stone like it’s sacred. “What if it still works?” he murmurs, not really to anyone. Or maybe to the ruin itself. “What if we’re the ones who wake it up?”
Ideas flood him. Golems in waiting. Arcane locks. Forgotten caches. A throne room buried right under their feet. His heart pounds in sync with the quiet thrum underfoot.
Selene watches, one brow arched, something in her gut twisting itself tighter.
She could stop him.
Should.
But he looks so damn sure.
So certain this is the moment he was born for.
She exhales a curse that barely clears her lips.
"You're going to get us killed."
But the words are quiet. Too quiet. Not a warning. More like a wish left unsent.
Tibbins doesn’t hear. Or maybe he does but chooses not to.
"I'll document everything," he says, voice breathless, reverent. "This changes everything. No one’s gonna believe—"
The ruins interrupt him.
A new hum rises. Not just sound—vibration. It snakes up his arms like cold wires, threads of memory stitched into metal. Not just magic. Not just power. Purpose. Something buried groans awake—metal stretching after a thousand years of sleep.
Gorik stiffens like a bear catching wind of fire. His gaze snaps to Tibbins. Two words:
"Back. Now."
Not shouted. Not urgent. Just final. Like the stone itself told him something was wrong.
Selene’s already moving. Grimoire open. Fingers sweep across pages. Runes flicker like stars behind clouds—soft blue, trembling with promises of protection she’s not sure she still believes in.
Tibbins... doesn’t move.
He’s staring at a circle half-sunk in moss, carved into the floor. Something ancient. Something forgotten. His eyes shine with something between hope and hubris—too thin a line to draw between.
"Imagine it," he whispers. Not to them. Not even to himself. To the ruin.
“Doors that haven’t opened in ages. Lights that haven’t glowed. Machines just waiting to be remembered…”
The silence deepens again, so thick it starts to feel like gravity.
And then—
The trees shift. Just slightly. Just enough.
A clearing unfolds like a curtain drawn. Edged with shattered pillars, half-consumed by vine and root. At its center: a cracked disc of stone. Symbols pulse along its face. Faint. Rhythmic. Below, something breathes.
Selene steps forward, heart in her throat.
Gorik follows, hammer drawn halfway up.
None of them—not even Selene—realize they’re already too late.
Tibbins was right.
The ruins work.
Worse? None of them know why.
The moment slips between blinks—missed. Gone. A dormant circuit reignited, fed by hope, arrogance, and a drop too much mana.
A flash.
A sound.
Thwuump.
That’s it.
And then they’re no longer outside.
The air changes. Heavier. Thicker. It sinks into their lungs like smoke from a long-dead fire—not choking, just there. As if they’ve stepped not into a place, but into a memory solidified by time and grief.
They’re inside.
The ruin doesn't open its doors so much as consume them.
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The castle yawns wide. Vaulted ceilings stretch into shadow. Vines droop like rotten curtains. Every statue that still stands seems caught mid-accusation, chipped fingers aimed at nothing and everything.
Windows gape like broken mouths. Paintings hang crooked, blistered by time, faces melted by centuries into surreal expressions—eyes too wild, mouths too knowing.
Tibbins sucks in a breath. “It—it’s real,” he says, spinning, arms wide, pointing at ghosts. “Gorik, you were—”
Wrong? Right? He doesn’t finish. The castle doesn’t let him.
The air shifts again. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just the feeling of stone remembering where it used to be.
The floor beneath their boots shifts. Subtle. Mechanical. Intentional. Arches groan and straighten. Walls breathe in. Rooms slide into new shapes without a sound.
The castle is not decaying. It’s reconstructing.
Like a machine.
Like it never stopped waiting.
Gorik doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t breathe, either. One hand curls tighter around the haft of his war hammer. “We found it,” he mutters. Flat. Like saying it out loud might make it less real. “But the real question is… what the hell did we wake up?”
Selene stops cold. Her inhale freezes halfway through. Not from fear—something worse. Recognition.
“This isn’t right,” she murmurs, eyes tracing the edges of the room like they might slice back.
The castle should be ruins. Rubble. A corpse eaten hollow by root and rain. It should creak under its own memories. Instead…
It’s pristine.
Not new—restored.
Every stone in its proper place. Dust suspended midair, untouched by motion. Runes carved deep into the walls like veins, glowing faintly.
And those shadows?
They don’t match.
They twitch. Move.
Watch.
Gorik takes a slow step forward, boots crunching against a carpet of powdered stone and time-eaten bones. He runs his hand across the runes. They’re warm. Not “sunlight” warm. Not “recent.”
Alive.
“This isn’t ancient magic,” he mutters, reverent and unnerved. “This is active.”
Selene joins him, steps near silent, magic humming faintly from the leather binding of her grimoire. Her fingers hover near the spine, close but not touching. It knows.
She knows.
“This place…” she whispers to the page. “It’s a delve.”
A dungeon that’s aware. Watching. Studying them in return.
Tibbins crouches by a wall that didn’t exist five seconds ago, not that he seems bothered. Gadget already in hand—a palm-sized thing with half-working lights and a nervous little spin.
“Five meters from the arch. Wait—six. No, seven? That’s—” he frowns, adjusts a dial, mutters something about axis drift. “Unless the entry shifted. Or this whole section's rotating. That’d explain the compression.”
Then the floor moves.
Not a quake. No crashing or grinding. Just a subtle breath.
Inhale.
Hold.
Tibbins freezes.
“...It’s moving under us, isn’t it?”
Gorik doesn’t answer.
Selene doesn’t blink.
The castle does.
Something shifts again.
Not the walls. Not the floors.
The rules.
And the delve begins.
A low groan vibrates through the stone beneath their boots—deep, ancient, and full of warning. It’s not just a sound. It’s a feeling. Pressure climbs the arches and spiderwalks up their spines like something buried too long stretching awake.
Dust stirs. Pebbles skip.
The ruin holds its breath.
Then the whole damn place exhales.
Gorik reacts first. Years of dodging cave-ins and ducking curses have sharpened him into muscle memory. He drops low, hammer out, boots wide. His gaze sweeps up—cracks, cobwebs, maybe a twitch of something skittering along a beam.
Spiders? Sure.
Traps? Probably.
Magic traps? Definitely.
Mechanics? That’s Tibbins’ job.
But the groan doesn’t stop. It grows. Deepens. Coils.
Then:
CRACK.
A sharp snap, like steel warping in fire.
The air hums—hot, metallic, wrong. The ruin shudders.
And then they hear it.
A yawn.
Wide. Wet. Too many teeth.
Not human. Not beast. The kind of sound that means the building itself has lungs—and it's just remembered how to breathe.
Selene’s heart lurches. Not fear. Instinct. Her lungs catch mid-inhale.
She sees it.
Not visually—viscerally. Her Sight pulses. Magic blisters the air around them, thick and shimmering, like heat mirages off summer asphalt. But it’s not formed. Not focused. Just... raw.
Uncontrolled.
It reaches. Not for them. Not yet.
She doesn’t wait to find out what happens when it does.
The ground jolts—hard. Sharp enough to knock Tibbins’ gear against his spine in a chorus of metallic clinks.
Something hums up their bones. A low vibration—no voice, no language, but full of intent. Pressing behind their ribs. Gnawing at their teeth.
Selene tightens her grip on her grimoire. That’s not just a shifting foundation.
No.
That’s magic.
Living.
Loose.
“Wild magic?” Gorik says it low. Flat. Like if he gives the word shape, it might grow teeth.
Selene doesn’t answer. No time.
“Move,” she barks.
One word. Sharp. Final.
She snatches Tibbins by the collar and yanks him into a narrow alcove that wasn't there a minute ago.
“Wait—what the—?” he squeaks, still thinking mid-sentence, one hand on a dial, the other windmilling like a kicked chicken.
Gorik follows without question. He’s learned better than to second-guess the fox-kin. When she tells you to move, you move.
He dives in beside them just as something above shifts—massive and grinding.
“Oi! I was calibrating—” Tibbins starts.
Gorik slaps a hand over his mouth before the sentence can finish dying.
“Quiet,” he mutters. “Unless you want the ceiling to calibrate us.”
Selene’s eyes flicker with low, quiet light. Fingers trace a camouflage glyph in the air, each movement rehearsed, fast, sharp. Simple spell. Weak spell. But reliable.
The magic drapes over them like wet silk. Bends light. Blurs sound. Makes presence fold in on itself.
But it only works if they stay still.
So, they do.
No words. No motion. Just breath.
In.
Out.
Then—
Light.
Fast. Blinding.
A flash that doesn’t blink or fade. No time to react. No time to scream.
They’re not in the alcove anymore.
They’re somewhere else.
And the ruin?
It knows they moved.