Story 1044: Ashes of the Eldritch

The town of Velmoor had long been reduced to smoldering ruins. Blackened stones and shattered spires stood like jagged teeth across the dead earth. Survivors called it cursed. Others, wiser or perhaps more afraid, never spoke its name at all.

Velmoor wasn’t lost to the zombies.

It was consumed by something older.

The Cult of the Ash-Blooded came first—whispers in cloaks, bleeding eyes under moons that weren’t supposed to exist. They spoke of an entity buried beneath Velmoor’s cathedral. A being not born of time, but of silence between stars.

They called it Khar’yxeth.

The Eldritch Ash.

It dreamed in fire.

In their desperation, the cult performed the Ash Rite, an ancient invocation fueled by the bones of children and the tongues of the willing. They sought transcendence, but what they received was annihilation.

Velmoor ignited.

Not in flame—but in reality collapse.

Stone melted. Flesh rewrote itself. Time reversed and screamed.