Entering The Ruins

Tamara spoke the words – alien, sharp-edged sounds that seemed to vibrate in the cold air – and a light bloomed in front of her, a pale, sickly yellow that pushed back the dark like a hand shoving away a shroud. Azim and Varakh followed suit, their own spells spitting out similar blobs of light, and suddenly, the room wasn't just dark anymore. It was lit, but lit wrong, like a nightmare caught in amber.

Sorken's skin prickled. He was nervous, yeah, but it wasn't just nerves. It was something deeper, colder, like the air itself had teeth. If all the rooms were like this… well, 'like this' was a stone coffin the size of a barn, shadows dancing like bad dreams in the corners. Maybe it wouldn't be scary in the jump-out-and-bite-you way he'd imagined. Maybe it was worse. Maybe it was the kind of scary that crawled under your skin and stayed. He just needed to get out. Alive. That was the only thought that mattered now. Just alive.

He glanced at Jorah and Kesta. They looked like they'd swallowed something bad, faces tight, eyes darting around the room. They'd talked it over, hadn't they? Whispered in the dark of their cell, voices low and scratchy, like secrets you didn't want to hear too loud. They were just meat, that's what they'd figured out. Bait. And if these inheritors decided they were done with the bait… well, that was that. End of story. No happy ending. Just the end. But they were still alive. For now. And maybe, just maybe, that meant something.

A crazy idea had flickered in Sorken's head, a spark in the darkness. The chest. The thing they were after. If it was worth all this risk, all this… wrongness… maybe it was worth something to them too. Maybe it could be their ticket out. But the thought felt flimsy, like trying to build a ladder out of smoke. They couldn't even get the gate open without magic. A chest? Sealed by gods knew what? Forget it. Stupid idea. Just desperation talking.

Despair was a cold hand squeezing his chest. He felt like he was drowning in it, a slow, silent suffocation. Survival? A joke. Freedom? A mean lie whispered in the dark. But still… something in him, some stubborn little flicker, refused to go out. Not like this, he thought, his jaw clenching. Not by their rules. A darker idea, a whisper in the back of his mind, started to take shape. The abyss. That crack in the floor with the blue light leaking out. Maybe… maybe that's a way out too. A different kind of out. He didn't want to think about it too hard. Some kinds of dark were darker than others.

He looked at Tamara. Just the thought of her name was like a punch to the gut. It hurt. It really hurt. He could feel his heart twisting, like something inside him was breaking apart, piece by piece. Tears wanted to come, hot and angry, but they wouldn't. Not yet. He was too numb for tears. Too cold. If what he suspected was true… if Tamara was really playing him… then it was like something essential, something vital, had been ripped away, leaving a raw, bleeding hole inside him. He'd almost rather be dead than face that truth.

Heartbreak, he thought, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. This is what it feels like when your heart just… breaks. He felt detached, distant, like he was watching this happen to someone else. His body was tight, wired, ready to jump or run or fight, but his mind… his mind was just… tired. So tired. He tried to take a deep breath, to calm down, but it was like trying to stop a runaway train with your bare hands. Useless.

"Move it!" Varakh's voice cracked through the silence, sharp and mean, like a whip. Sorken jumped, startled, dragged back to the cold stone room, the flickering yellow light, the faces of the people who held his life in their hands. He blinked, trying to focus, to remember where he was, what he was supposed to be doing. Just move, he told himself. Just keep moving.

They formed up, a grim little parade heading deeper into the ruin. Varakh and Azim in front, halos of yellow light around them, casting long, creepy shadows that danced and twisted on the walls. Sorken walked behind Varakh, feeling the junior priest's gaze like a weight on his back. Then Tamara and Ted, her light a little brighter than the others, but just as cold. Jorah and Kesta brought up the rear, looking like they were walking to their own funerals.

The first room was huge, like a giant's hall, and empty. Just stone and shadows and dust. Pillars, big around as trees, reached up into the dark, disappearing into the gloom high above. Pieces of broken stone lay scattered everywhere, like bones in a graveyard. It smelled old in there, like dust and rot and something else… something ancient and wrong, like the stones themselves were breathing out decay. It was quiet, too quiet, like the silence was listening, waiting. It made your skin crawl.

They went through the first room, their footsteps muffled by the dust, and into the next, and the next, and the next. Each one the same: big, empty, silent, wrong. It was like the ruins were playing a trick on them, repeating the same empty space over and over, trying to wear them down, to break them. Then they got to the courtyard. Room number seven.

Even broken and ruined, the courtyard was different. Bigger. The pillars here were monsters, reaching up, up, up, like they were trying to touch the sky, even though there was no sky to touch, just more stone above. Dark doorways and archways opened up all around, like mouths in the shadows, leading deeper into the dark heart of the place. The shape of the courtyard was weird, messed up, walls at angles that didn't make sense, like the whole place was bent and twisted out of shape. It wasn't right. It felt… haunted.

Sorken's eyes kept going to the corner, to the abyss. He found it easy enough. A crack in the floor, almost hidden in the shadows, but the blue light… that blue light pulled your gaze, like a bad dream you couldn't look away from. It was just a crack, yeah, but the light coming out of it… it felt like looking into something endless, something cold and empty and ancient, something that wasn't meant to be seen. It made your stomach clench. Death by wraith? That was bad enough. But that… that blue light… that felt like something worse than death. That felt like… nothing.

"No wraiths," Varakh said, his voice echoing a little in the big space. "No ghosts. Clean." He sounded relieved, but not happy. More like… careful. "Means the bait's working." He nodded towards Sorken and the others again, like they were just part of the plan, not people at all. "Basement's north. Gates are that way." He pointed, and everyone turned to look north, at the two dark doorways side by side.

"Okay," Varakh said, making decisions now, taking charge. "Split up. Azim, you take the bait. You three, and… the toy," he nodded at the metal ball Ted was carrying, "go through that door." He pointed to the left, the door closest to the blue-lit crack. "Tamara, Ted, me – we take the other one. North gates. Basement's gotta be down one of them."

Azim frowned, his face tight with worry. "Hold on," he said. "One golem? And slaves? Against wraiths? Alone? Varakh, come on. Give me Tamara. At least one diviner. I can't fight ghosts and babysit these… useless sacks of meat." He looked at Sorken, Jorah, and Kesta with open disgust. He was scared, and he was angry about being scared.

Varakh rolled his eyes, like Azim was being stupid. "Tamara's healing is for us, Azim," he said, his voice sharp and impatient. "Not for holding your hand. And that golem? That thing's worth more than they'll ever be. It's got my best spells loaded in. Use it. Don't be an idiot." He reached into Ted's bag again, pulled out another metal ball, and tossed it to Azim like it was a rock. "Last one we got. Cost me a fortune. Loans, everything. Try not to break it, okay, Azim?"

Azim caught the golem, staring down at the smooth, cold metal in his palm. It looked like nothing, just a ball of metal, but Varakh was serious. This was supposed to protect him. This was supposed to be enough. He nodded slowly, but he didn't look convinced. He looked like a kid being sent into the dark with a toy sword, told to fight monsters.

Sorken watched it all, the golem, Azim's fear, Varakh's cold orders, and a cold certainty settled in his gut. They were sending them to die. That was the plan. Bait and switch. Slaves first, inheritors safe. It was simple, brutal, and he was trapped right in the middle of it. He was just… bait. And in this dark, haunted place, bait didn't last long.