Aelric's gaze swept the area. "This was a temple."
"No," Veyra said softly. "A throne."
She walked towards the broken statue, her steps hesitating. Her fingers trembled as she knelt and touched the remains of a crown lying in the dust. It is a circle of black stone inlaid with crimson sigils.
"I used to serve them," she said. "The ones who ruled here. I don't remember their names or their face. Only remember their hunger. The hunger to make Abyss into their kingdom."
Aelric watched her. There was something in her voice, regrets, yes. But something darker, resentment, fear.
"I saw the gates open. I saw the first screams, the first tears in the sky. They promised us eternal life, but they gave us chains.
The Voice remained silent, as if processing something.
Aelric stepped forward. "You served tyrants?"
"I served for survival," she said. "Don't pretend your path is clean. No one's path is clean."
They stared at each other in the dim light, the ruined city echoing their silence. Then, slowly, Aelric turned away and surveyed the courtyard again.
[There's more beneath], the Voice finally said. [Sublevels, Crypts. Possibly a treasury or some containment vault.]
"And what are they containing?" Aelric asked.
The ground beneath him rumbled, very softly and distinctly.
Veyra rose. "Whatever it is, it's still here. And maybe it is a Remnant of the past."
As the last light of the Abyss's false twilight dimmed overhead, the city of Draz Kurhaal seemed to breathe again. Faint lights flickered through the broken windows. Wind howled through the towers.
And from beneath the earth, the echo of footsteps began to rise. Not theirs. Aelric drew his chains and turned towards the darkness.
They waited for a few minutes. Waiting for something would show up and attack them. But as the sound of getting closer and closer to it suddenly stopped. Aelric was surprised by the sudden silence.
He looked at Veyra and asked, "Do you have any idea what it could be?"
"I have no idea," she shrugged.
Both of them slowly went outside, expecting a surprise attack. But there were no signs of any creature; it was the same as before.
They relaxed a little. Aelric looked back and said, "Let's go." Veyra followed him. They continue to look through the city.
The ruins of Draz Kurhaal seemed to stretch endlessly. What had once been a vibrant center of power was not a desolate graveyard of towering blackened spires and crumbled walls.
Every step Aelric took in this forsaken city felt like a deliberate descent into a forgotten history. The weight of the last pressing against him from all directions.
Veyra had been silent since their encounter with the shattered throne. Her words hung in the air, heavy and fraught with meaning, but she refused to elaborate any further.
Aelric didn't press her for answers; it's not time yet. He had his own thoughts which he had to clear, his own demons to wrestle with.
They passed through a series of narrow streets, their path lit by the faintest glimmer of the Abyss's eerie light. The air was thick with an unnatural stillness, as though time itself had abandoned this place.
Every structure, every surface, was etched with the markings of a civilization long forgotten, now reduced to little more than a forgotten whisper on the wind.
Then, they came upon it. A courtyard. Not the grand center of the city, but a place hidden behind overgrown vines and stone rubble.
At the center stood a series of statues, talk, imposing figures made of obsidian stone, their features once sharp and regal but now worn and broken by centuries of neglect.
Their forms were twisted, distorted as if captured mid movement, frozen in their last moments before the fall of Draz Kurhaal.
Aelric's steps faltered as he looked upon them. There was something wrong with these statues, something that stirred the memories in his mind.
"Veyra…" His voice trailed off, thick with suspicion. "Do you feel that?"
She was already moving forward, her eyes narrowed in wary recognition. "Yes," she said quietly. "They were part of the city's defenses. Not just any ordinary statues. But Sentinels.
Aelric did not move closer just yet. The statues were lined up in a semicircle, their arms outstretched, eyes wide in eternal sorrow.
But what caught his attention most was not their grotesque postures, but the faint black ichor that seemed to seel from their eyes, dripping down their stone cheeks like the tears of a dying god.
The ichor moved slowly at first, collecting at the base of each statue, forming pools of dark, viscous fluid in the ground.
And then, something began to stir within those pools.
Aelric's hand instinctively went to the hilt of his sword he found before coming here. But before he could even draw it, the ichor began to shift.
It formed into writhing shapes, tendrils of acnemes that slithered through the dirt and stone like liquid shadow.
They spread outwards, twisting in unnatural ways, gathering themselves into shadows that began to take form.
From within the pools, they emerged, wraiths. A black, translucent creature with features distorted beyond recognition. Their bodies were formless, but their eyes, empty and endlessly void, were faintly glowing with an eerie light.
They howled, a sound more felt than heard, reverberating through the stone and air, sending shivers down Aelric's spine.
One of the wraiths leapt towards him, its body a shifting mass of shadows, impossibly fast. Aelric threw his arm, activating Iron Bind just in time.
The ethereal chains lashed out, wrapping around the creature's form, attempting to hold it in place. But it was no use. The wraith passed through the chains with a terrifying ease, its hollow eyes fixed on him with an almost predatory hunger.
The Voice of the Abyss spoke inside Aelric's mind. [These creatures are born of sorrow. They are the remnants of the city's fall, bound to the stone by unfulfilled grief. Conventional methods will not be effective. You must find another way.]