Deep into the night, where the silver moon barely pierced through the shadowy veil cloaking the academy's darker corners, a lone student walked with deliberate, hushed steps.
Her presence barely made a sound.
Wrapped in the stillness, her trembling hand clutched the pendant around her neck—a dark crystal encased in ancient silver.
It pulsed softly in alternating hues of sickly green and blood red, its glow casting eerie reflections on her pale face.
Her eyes mirrored the pendant's glow—one green, the other red—shimmering with fear and devotion in equal measure.
She passed through a series of illusionary barriers, each one flickering as if the very air warped around her.
No ordinary person could see them, much less cross.
These wards bent the world around them, hiding what should never be seen by those uninitiated.
Finally, she arrived.
A circular, decrepit space hidden beneath the crumbling alcoves of the eastern wing—once a storage yard, now a forsaken altar.
