Finally, with a last shuddering groan, the door opened fully, revealing what lay beyond. I'd half-expected another empty chamber or perhaps an ancient vault filled with treasures long forgotten. But no, this was far more unsettling than that. Before me stretched a city—no, not just a city, a ruin carved into the very bones of the earth. Black stone buildings loomed like jagged teeth, their edges cutting sharply against the eerie greenish light that bathed the place.
It felt wrong. Like stepping into a graveyard not just of bodies, but of time itself. The city sprawled out endlessly, a vast expanse of twisted monuments and crumbling structures etched with symbols that twisted and writhed in the flickering glow. As I looked closer, the scale of it all hit me—the massive stone steps, the towering walls, the sheer enormity of the ruin. There was no telling how deep it went, or how long it had been buried here, beneath the earth's cold, unyielding surface.
My breath caught in my chest, and I could feel the weight of the air pressing down on me, thick with something I couldn't quite place. Something alive, even though the city seemed dead. As though it had been forgotten, but never quite abandoned.
I glanced at my mother. Her gaze lingered on the city, her expression unreadable, but her eyes flickered with a glint of something I couldn't identify—curiosity, caution, maybe something darker. She had wanted to explore this place when I unlocked my class, and now I was beginning to understand why.
"This is…" I hesitated, trying to find the right words, but none of them felt adequate. "What is this place?"
"Ancient magic," she muttered, more to herself than to me, her voice low, almost reverent. "Some curses never fade."
I frowned, not understanding. "Curse?" I asked, but even as I spoke the word, I felt the air around me shift, as though the very stones were listening.
She nodded, her eyes dark with an unspoken weight. "Those are soul fires," she said, her voice distant, as though speaking from some far-off place.
"Soul fires?" I repeated, the term unfamiliar, yet it stirred something cold within me. "Does that mean those are...?"
"Those are the souls of the dwarves," she finished for me, her gaze now fixed on the distant flames that burned in the alcoves and scattered along the winding streets. "Still burning, still trapped. Even after all this time."
I couldn't help but ask, despite how disturbing it was. "But how? It's been… it's been a thousand years."
She didn't look at me when she answered, her voice flat and heavy with the weight of a thousand secrets. "This is why necromancers are killed the moment they're discovered."
The chill in my chest deepened, and my gaze shifted to the flickering flames. I could feel the pull of the necrotic energy that lingered in the air, thick and choking, seeping into my lungs. The city felt alive in a way that was wrong—alive with death, with suffering.
"Are we going to stay here?" I asked, but even I knew the answer.
She turned away, her face set in its usual unreadable mask. "We're staying on the first level," she said firmly. "The lower levels are worse. Your body won't survive the necrotic essence down there."
I wanted to argue, to say that I could handle it. But the chill already settling in my bones made me pause. She was right. There was no way I could survive down there—not yet. Not until I unlocked my class
We moved down the jagged stone steps, each one creaking under our weight, until we finally reached the ground. The air grew colder with every step. A thick fog of necrotic essence curled around our legs, a restless shroud that seemed to whisper in the dead silence. My chest tightened with every breath, the essence thickening in the air, making it feel like I was drowning in it.
"This place…" I started, but my voice trailed off as I looked around. The city was magnificent, in its own way. Majestic stone structures rose up around us, their sharp, imposing edges casting long shadows across the cobbled streets. Time had worn the stones smooth, but there was still a certain elegance in the design—if one could call it that. It was beautiful, but in the way a tomb is beautiful—silent, cold, and unwelcoming.
I felt my mother's eyes on me. Her expression was unreadable, but I could sense the tension in her shoulders. She was on edge, just as I was, but for different reasons. She knew more about this place than she was letting on, things about this place that I couldn't yet grasp. And she wasn't ready to tell me. Not yet.
The quiet was almost suffocating. I could hear the faint, unnatural click of something in the distance, a sound that shouldn't have existed here, in a place so forsaken. Something… moving.
And then I saw it. The first of the automations. It was nothing more than a twisted, broken husk of a creature—once sleek and functional, now a decaying imitation of life. It was shaped like one of the insects I had seen carved into the walls of the hall before we opened the door. It was dragging itself along the ground, its legs jerking with the last remnants of energy as it tried to perform its ancient task. Clean. It was cleaning, or at least attempting to. The thing was falling apart, its limbs barely functioning, yet it kept trying.
I shuddered. "What are they?" I whispered, though I didn't need to ask. I already knew.
"Automations," my mother replied, her voice low, filled with something I couldn't place. "Dwarven technology. Soul-bound. They'll keep trying to fulfill their masters' commands, even long after their masters are gone."
"And when they run out of power?" I asked.
"They don't" she said flatly.
I watched the broken automation struggle, its movements erratic, futile. It seemed… tragic. But in a way, it was fitting. These souls had been bound to a purpose, and now they were trapped, forever trying to fulfill it. Even in death, they were slaves to their masters' will.
We continued deeper into the city, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched. Or perhaps, being followed. Something was wrong with this place, and the more I saw, the more I understood. This ruin wasn't just a place of the past. It was a warning.