Chapter 146
Sylveth Melriel paced at the base of the Crimson Tower, her staff balanced lightly in her hand. She had told herself she held control, that the void training hall was her creation, her domain, woven with threads of the ancient tongue she had stolen fragment by fragment in her youth. For decades, she had believed it unshakable, a space that even archmages feared to tamper with.
But now the tower itself trembled.
The faint crimson glow along the walls had begun to flicker, pulsing like a failing heartbeat. The air grew heavy with pressure, not from her spellwork, but from something inside. She froze, the staff biting into her palm as she realized: the void was no longer resonating with her language. Its cadence had changed.
Her breath quickened. She knew this sensation, it was not collapse, but rewriting. Someone was dismantling her foundation and replacing it with a new one.
Her thoughts clawed for an explanation, and one name surfaced with a cold certainty.
The rumors had reached her long before this day that he was a disciple of the Netherborn, one of those shadows whispered about in half-buried scriptures. She had dismissed them, of course. She had stood before the Netherborn twice in her lifetime. She remembered his eyes like an endless abyss, his presence warping the very concept of spell structure. Every incantation she had hurled, wards, binds, annihilation rites had shattered like glass before him. He was beyond measurement, beyond the scales by which mortals and archmages alike weighed power.
And Daniel? No. The boy she faced in the Evolve Drake mission had not been that. He was dangerous, yes, but not that. She had convinced herself of it.
Until now.
The tower quaked again. Crimson light seeped from the seams of its walls, bending toward the sealed gate as though the entire structure were being drawn into the space beyond. Her grip tightened, and she whispered words she had sworn never to use. Threads of the ancient tongue crawled across her staff, trying to pry open the gate for a glimpse.
But the gate resisted her.
Her own creation, woven from her own spellcraft was shutting her out.
For the first time in years, her composure fractured. She staggered back a step, breath catching in her throat. "Impossible…" she whispered. "No one rewrites the void but its author."
And yet, from within, she felt the unmistakable rhythm of Daniel's presence, reshaping the hall with a language that was not hers, not even wholly ancient. It was something hybrid, something new.
A faint ripple of terror spread down her spine, the same fear she had felt long ago before the Netherborn himself.
"No," she muttered, shaking her head as if to banish the thought. "He is not that. He cannot be."
But the trembling of the Crimson Tower told her otherwise.
The man she had dismissed as reckless was not fighting the void. He was claiming it.
And as the crimson glow faltered into a strange golden shimmer, Sylveth Melriel realized that whatever happened inside, she was no longer the master of her own spell.
Sylveth pressed the butt of her staff against the marble floor, whispering a string of forbidden syllables. The tower's walls pulsed in answer, and from deep within, a second lattice of wards stirred, the failsafe she had hidden when she first shaped the void.
It was not meant for students, nor for peers. It was a lock only she could open, a tether that ensured no one who entered her dimensional hall could ever escape her notice. Even if they defied gravity, shattered spell work, or tore at the ancient tongue itself, the tether would always lead back to her hand.
Always.
The staff vibrated in her grip as the sigils flared crimson, stretching toward the sealed gate like veins of living fire. Her lips curved into a cold line.
"Yes… there you are," she whispered, feeling the faint pulse of the void respond. "You cannot outrun my design."
She exhaled and pulled. The gate groaned, crimson light boiling outward as the failsafe clawed at the dimensional weave. She expected resistance, yes—but tether always found the mark. Always.
Only this time… it didn't.
The spell bent back on itself, folding like wet parchment. The tether unraveled into static, its resonance breaking into alien chords that made her ears ache. Her eyes widened, horror dawning as the connection failed to lock on.
"No…" Her voice was a thin thread. She forced more mana into the staff, ancient symbols igniting along the marble in a desperate chain reaction. "That's not possible. The tether can't miss. It can't"
The tower itself screamed as her spell ripped the gate open.
A cascade of light tore through the chamber, dazzling, crimson at first—but then bleeding into a color she had no name for, something deeper than black, brighter than white, a shimmering contradiction that made her knees buckle.
And beyond it… nothing.
Her void hall was gone.
The four presences she expected to feel, Daniel, Lashrael, Melgil, Caerthynna were nowhere inside. Not suppressed, not cloaked. Simply… absent.
The space she had built, her proud creation, had been overwritten.
Her hand trembled so violently the staff nearly slipped from her grasp. The wands along the tower shivered, their pattern broken. She could still feel a presence, but it was not hers, not even something she recognized. A foreign rhythm had replaced her void, a pulse that was not written in the ancient tongue at all.
Her lips parted in disbelief.
"He… moved them," she whispered. Her voice cracked. "Not within my void. Not through it. He moved them out of it."
The gate sealed shut again, but this time not at her command. Her staff dimmed, its runes dead as though stripped of fuel.
Sylveth staggered back against the cold wall of her tower, the memory of the Netherborn crashing against her mind like a tide. When she had faced him, she could not measure him. She could not even scratch him. And now, staring at the silent gate, she felt the same helpless weight the same truth.
Sylveth lingered in silence, fingers brushing the air where the weave of her void should have been. It unsettled her no, it unnerved her, that the space she had painstakingly mastered, the safeguards hidden in her bloodline and glyphs, no longer obeyed her hand. She could summon the familiar threads, yes, but when she pulled, the four of them were already beyond her reach, displaced into another domain. Daniel's domain.
Her first thought was to alert the King and Queen. Yet she hesitated. The memory of the tournament its chaos, the rift clawing open to the demon realm, and the sheer terror that spilled into their world burned fresh in her mind. She had been there. She had seen it. And she had failed to contribute anything meaningful to halt that tide. Daniel and Melgil, two young men who had never sought the burden of heroism, had stepped into that abyss where she had faltered.
The queen had seen their worth, had crowned them with the title of reluctant champions, and Sylveth could not, in good conscience, shatter that fragile trust by rushing to the monarchs with half-formed fears.
Instead, she chose restraint. A little faith, she told herself. Faith in the young Rothchester lord whose lineage she scarcely knew, yet whose bearing she had quietly assessed. There was nobility in him, not of station alone, but of spirit. His affinity to fire and lightning, raw and tempestuous, spoke of a soul that refused to be caged. Perhaps, just perhaps, that was enough.
And then the shift came.
The world around them breathed anew, reality folding in on itself like parchment written over with a firmer hand. Daniel's subconscious will was no longer clawing for shape—it was shaping. Their footing steadied upon granite, seamless and ancient, rising three steps into a circular dais that stood like an arena carved for trial and triumph. Twelve stone pillars encircled the floor, etched with glyphs that pulsed faintly like slumbering stars.
Beyond the ring stretched not void, but life. Grasslands rippled with the dance of wind, dotted with wildflowers of colors unseen in mortal fields. Strange birds wheeled in the sky, and the air itself hummed with an alien, resonant magic.
The crowned prince Lashrael drew in a sharp breath, hand brushing the column nearest him. The granite was warm to the touch, weathered as though it had stood for centuries. He lifted his face to the sun above, a sun that burned with a golden heat real enough to warm his skin. Caerthynna's eyes widened, her lips parting as the wind tossed her hair; she could not hide the awe in her expression.
"This is…" Lashrael's voice caught, a tremor of disbelief. "This is a high-tier conjuration. Not an illusion. Not a trick. He has… reshaped reality."
The siblings could scarcely believe it. What they stood in was not simply a spell, but a world. Daniel Rothchester's world.
Daniel blinked, his eyes sweeping the shifting walls of the void. A shiver ran through him—not from cold, but from the strangeness of what he was seeing. Living things. A flicker of movement, the faint rustle of wings, the distant sound of running water. This was not the lifeless echo of arcane emptiness that Sylveth Melriel had once shown, nor the sterile glasslike constructs of the Crescent Magus. Their voids were spaces of storage, silence, and perfect stillness. But his… his had creatures breathing inside.
He flexed his fingers, glyphs still faintly pulsing under his skin like veins of molten gold. The realization clawed at him. "Why does mine live?" he whispered, almost to himself.
Sylveth had mentioned that her void craft came from a tome, a grimoire older than memory itself.
A book that vanished after granting its knowledge, as if it had will. A sentient script. And Daniel, staring into the way his void seemed to breathe on its own, wondered if he too had brushed against that same presence. His thoughts snagged on an old rumor:
the Codex that Nukra had unearthed, bound in rusted chains and locked with sigils no one dared to break at first glance. If this codex was no mere artifact but a designed will, a wandering fragment of creation itself, then perhaps his void was not his alone to shape.
But why had it been sealed? Why would Miranda Saunders—his old scenario programmer—encode such a relic into his story, yet only leave him with medium-grade spell skills? Had she anticipated this? Or was this one more thread he had stumbled into, tugging at knots far older than himself?
Questions piled, pressing against his chest like weight. He lifted his gaze again, scanning the place with careful curiosity. The air had a warmth to it, almost like dawn filtering through unseen branches. A soft flutter broke his thoughts.
A bird, small, dark-feathered, with eyes that gleamed as if holding fragments of starlight—swooped from above. It circled once, twice, then settled lightly upon his outstretched hand as if it had always belonged there. Daniel froze, staring at the living warmth on his palm. A creature of his void, his creation or perhaps a messenger of the Codex itself.
The bird tilted its head, unafraid, its tiny claws pressing against his skin. For the first time since the void had bent to him, Daniel felt less like the master of a spell and more like a guest inside a living, waiting world.
Daniel stood still, his breath caught somewhere between wonder and unease. The void space should have been empty, a neutral canvas of endless dark, like the sterile castle training chambers of Sylveth Melriel or the Crescent Magus. Yet his own void was alive.
Shapes moved, shadows with purpose, and creatures were born of no incantation he remembered casting. At first, he thought them hallucinations, until the bird alighted softly on his hand, feathers gleaming with faint glyphs as though each strand of down was etched with code.
It was then he realized: this was no accident. The Codex. The elusive book Nukra had unearthed, bound in chains as though even ancient sorcerers feared it, must have been the key. The Codex didn't simply grant spells; it gifted worlds. And here, inside his void, Daniel suspected he was staring at Miranda Saunders' hidden design, a secret tether meant only for him.
A gift from his old teammate, placed like a buried seed in case he ever stepped into the game he himself had built.
The realization left his chest tight. Was this creation his or hers? Was he the master, or merely the inheritor of a destiny prepared long before?
While he wrestled with the question, Melgil was nearly giddy. Her sparring stance dropped at once as her eyes widened to the library taking shape in tangible stone and wood, the great shelves rooted in soil that smelled of rain and ink. And beyond the shelves, the figures—humanoid silhouettes dressed in crisp tuxedos, their faces blank but patterned in shifting lines of light, like equations trying to resolve themselves.
They worked silently, tending to gardens, carrying books, and adjusting lanterns, all with the grace of servants born to their tasks.
"They look like… attendants," Melgil whispered, both cautious and enchanted.
"But their faces, Daniel, they're numbers."
Daniel said nothing. His mind turned the scene over and over, wondering if the Codex had chosen symbols meant only for him. Digital faces, a garden of books, creatures that blurred the line between the natural and the constructed, every detail felt like Miranda's hand, like the careful thought of someone who had wanted him to never feel alone inside his own creation.
The sparring was forgotten. Together they walked deeper into the void, not as combatants but as explorers, drawn by the strangeness of what lay ahead. For Daniel, the deeper he went, the stronger the sense grew that this was not a battlefield at all, but a message, an inheritance whispered across worlds.
Daniel raised his hand slowly, the tiny bird perching on his fingers as though it had always belonged there. Its feathers shimmered in subtle shades that refused to stay still, sometimes soft gray, sometimes an iridescent blue, sometimes nothing more than light itself bending into shape. When its glassy eyes fixed on him, Daniel felt something snap open inside his mind.
A torrent of information surged through him, not words exactly, but impressions, equations, and laws of being that translated themselves into meaning the longer he held the bird's gaze. His earlier guess had been right. This place, this impossible garden of order within a void, was not merely conjured from his imagination. It had gained physical form, anchored into existence by the chaotic energy swirling endlessly in his body.
Chaos was not wild formlessness, as most mages feared. It was possibly every kind of energy, every kind of life, folded into one restless storm. When it leaked, it sought patterns to settle into, obeying its own hidden laws. Here, in Daniel's subconscious void-space, those laws had condensed the fragments of living impressions, birds, gardeners, trees, even the tuxedoed beings Melgil now admired, and given them shape.
They were not summoned creatures in the normal sense, but imprints, echoes of life gathered by the chaos he had carried with him, of wandering through the east region, ruins, and forgotten cities and settlements. Each presence was stitched from accumulated memory, fragments of all he had witnessed.
The bird trilled once, as though confirming this truth, then hopped closer along his palm. Daniel could almost hear Miranda Saunders' voice echoing faintly behind the realization. She had known, long ago, that if he ever allowed himself to step inside the "game" he created, the layered codex-world he built and abandoned, something would awaken to guide him. This was the gift she had left behind: a secret key woven into the Codex itself, only unlocked now because the chaos in him had ripened it into being.
He exhaled slowly, the weight of revelation pressing on him even as it grounded him. This was not just random creation. It was a connection, a tether that tied him to his own past and to those who had believed in him. Around him, the tuxedoed beings continued their strange work, their faceless digital visages flickering like screens caught between static and clarity.
Melgil wandered near them with wide-eyed wonder, laughing softly at the absurd elegance of the sight. But Daniel stood very still, watching the bird, letting its imprint pour through him.
For the first time, he understood that his void was not empty. It was alive.
The moment Lashrael, Caerthynna, and Melgil stepped through the arching corridor that led beyond the shifting library, they found themselves in a place that seemed drawn from the dreams of poets. What had first appeared to be only a library's annex unfurled into a vast and living domain, a garden that stretched beyond the eye, veiled in gentle mist and gilded by a perpetual golden light. The air itself seemed softer here, carrying with it the fragrance of blooming flowers, damp earth, and the faint sweetness of fruit trees in season. Every breath they took washed a kind of serenity over their minds, as though the garden had been crafted not only for beauty but also for healing and peace.
The three slowed their steps, unable to rush, as their senses were captivated. Caerthynna's fingers lingered on the petals of a blue-and-silver lily that shimmered faintly like moonlight on water, and she felt the coolness cling to her skin. Lashrael tilted his head, his normally stern demeanor eased by the sound of a nearby stream, the rushing waters harmonizing with birdsong and the hum of unseen insects. Even Melgil, ever suspicious and cautious, found himself smiling faintly as if the place stripped away a layer of weariness he didn't know he carried.
The library itself stood as the anchor of this realm, not merely a building but a sprawling citadel of knowledge. Its walls were carved from pale stone that pulsed with faint veins of light, as though knowledge itself breathed through its foundation. Tall windows of stained crystal reflected fragments of the garden's color into radiant patterns across the ground. Every arch, every tower of the library gave the impression of an ancient mind reimagined in physical form—beautiful yet intimidating, like a cathedral of thought.
Encircling the great structure were paths of polished stone that branched outward into carefully tended gardens. Some led to secluded alcoves shaded by flowering trees where benches invited readers to linger; others stretched toward training fields where marble tiles gave way to wide, open platforms. These platforms shimmered faintly with enchantments designed to absorb impact and disperse energy, a place where duels of spell or sword could be conducted without endangering the wider domain. Beyond those, hills rolled gently into forests that seemed untouched yet cultivated, their paths winding in quiet invitation.
Rivers branched out from a central spring that bubbled at the foot of the library, flowing into narrow streams that wrapped the gardens like veins of silver. They cascaded down into crystalline waterfalls that tumbled into tranquil pools, their surfaces reflecting the sky above—an endless sky that carried no sun, no moon, only the soft radiance of light without source. Bridges of stone and wood arched over the waters, each one etched with inscriptions that whispered lessons when touched.
It was more than a library. It was a sanctuary, a fortress, and a world. Here, the pursuit of knowledge was not confined to dusty tomes but was interwoven with the rhythm of nature, the flow of magic, and the shaping of the spirit. And as Lashrael, Caerthynna, and Melgil wandered deeper into its embrace, the realization struck each of them in silence: this was no ordinary domain. This was Daniel's creation, born of his chaos-marked body, reshaped by laws he himself did not yet fully comprehend.
Daniel blinked slowly as the stream of knowledge faded, leaving his thoughts clearer, sharper, and heavier all at once. He exhaled, steadying his breathing, then finally spoke what had been weighing on his mind.
"So…" he muttered, glancing at the others, "are we still within the Crescent Magus Tower—or not?"
The silence that followed was not born of confusion but of realization. The walls around them no longer matched the stone, wards, or sigils of the tower. They were inside a place that answered to his mind rather than to the rigid order of constructed architecture. The library, the garden, the flowing rivers and soft hills, it all belonged to something else entirely: the Void Space that had reshaped itself under his hand.
A thought came unbidden, bold and reckless. Daniel extended his hand, weaving a new glyph that shimmered in the air like molten silver. The air rippled, folding in on itself as though a sheet of glass had been bent. A gate began to form, no ordinary portal but a transfer gate tied not to coordinates or a prescribed ritual but to memory itself.
He tested it carefully. His mind reached outward, probing not stone or leyline but recollection. The glyphs pulsed brighter, locking onto what he summoned in thought. If the void responds to memory, then where I think is where I will go.
Daniel allowed his focus to settle on a single image: Lúthien, the place etched deeply into his mind, he castle that Siglorr Bouldergrove had, after long toil, finally completed. He remembered the towers, their foundations rooted against the cliffs, and the banners newly raised to mark its rebirth. He remembered the scent of mountain pines and the sound of iron hammers striking stone as construction neared its end.
The gate shimmered in answer. For an instant, the void peeled back, revealing a view not of illusion but of reality. Through the swirling light, Daniel could see the silhouette of the castle, Siglorr's masterpiece, standing proud beneath the sky.
His companions drew sharp breaths. Lashrael instinctively placed a hand on his blade, not from fear but from awe. Caerthynna's eyes widened, the strange violet gleam of her heritage catching the gate's glow, while Melgil murmured a prayer under his breath.
Daniel let the gate stabilize for a moment, testing its edges. The void space wasn't a prison nor a mere chamber within the Crescent Magus Tower. It was something else entirely: a pocket of reality bound to his will, tethered to the energy of chaos within him. And now, he had proven it could anchor itself anywhere, so long as his memory could guide it.
"Not a prison," Daniel finally said, lowering his hand and letting the gate pulse with quiet authority. "A bridge. This space… can connect to anywhere I remember."
Daniel lingered at the shimmering threshold of the transfer gate, his mind awhirl with possibilities. The test had already proven that he could tether the void space to a memory, drawing its entry point into any place he envisioned. That alone was astonishing, an ability that rewrote the limitations of distance and stone. But he wanted to push it further.
Lúthien was breathtaking, yes, but hemmed in by the immovable teeth of the Web Mountain Range. Its valleys and plains amounted to a mere ten thousand acres, a jewel of land but confined on all sides. Expansion had always been the silent problem, one Daniel thought he might solve with clever tunneling or cavern cities beneath the soil. Yet the deeper he studied the needs of his people, the elves, the dwarves, the elf, and other sentient beings drawn under his banner, the more he understood the flaw.
Not all of them could thrive in darkness. The sun's warmth, the touch of wind, and the expanse of open fields were as vital as bread and water.
And the void space, with its boundless gardens, its rivers and hills, and its forests shaped by his will, was the answer waiting to be claimed.
What if he no longer treated the void as a secret refuge, accessible only through shifting thought and summoned passage? What if he carved a fixed gate, a permanent archway, embedded in the roots of Lúthien itself, that would serve as a doorway into an entire new world? No need to hollow out the earth beneath their feet, no need to quarrel with stone and soil. A gate could stand discreetly underground, concealed and defended, yet open to all who bore his trust.
Daniel's mind raced with the details. The frame of the gate could be etched with stabilizing runes, a lattice that locked the void's currents to one unchanging point in reality. The entry would be seamless: one step beneath Lúthien's mountains, the next into a sunlit valley of the void space. Fields for farming, rivers for water, forests for lumber, and open skies for those who loved freedom.
The land inside was not just refuge; it was expansion without conquest, sanctuary without limits.
He could see it clearly: his people walking through the gate as though passing into another district of the kingdom, unaware that they had crossed the boundary between worlds. A city could bloom there, perhaps more than one, woven between the void's natural wonders. Temples, workshops, training grounds, all of it could be built without carving so much as a handful of earth in Lúthien.
The realization set his heart thrumming. This was not just survival. This was growth.
Daniel exhaled slowly, his hand brushing the surface of the gate's light. The void space was no longer only his domain of solitude. It could be the foundation of an empire, a realm within a realm, hidden, eternal, and inexhaustible.
Daniel set himself at the edge of the cavern chamber beneath Lúthien, the rough stone hollow prepared by Siglorr's masons as if fate had guided their chisels for this exact moment. Before him shimmered a thin seam of nothingness, a crack in the fabric of air where the void space tugged like a restless breath.
He raised his hand, glyphs crawling across his skin in glowing latticework, each one a different key in the lock he was trying to forge. It was not merely a portal spell—those were fleeting doors, held open by brute force or fleeting mana. This was an anchor, a fixed hinge between realities, a root dug into both soil and void.
The runes began to stack upon one another, weaving themselves into circles and spirals. Each sequence tested his will, threatening to collapse back into a formless blur if he faltered. He steadied his breathing.
"Not a tear… not a wound," Daniel murmured to himself, his voice low but steady. "A bridge."
He reached into the void itself with his mind. He thought of the endless halls, the open skies that did not belong to the mortal world, the freedom of infinite land beneath a ceiling of stars that were not stars. He had shaped it already, not consciously, but through memory and desire. Now he called it forward, folding it closer.
The seam widened. A hum filled the chamber, low at first, then rising to a steady vibration that shook loose dust from the cavern ceiling. The smell of ozone spread as if a storm had been trapped underground. The rune-work began to solidify into a gate: two upright pillars of light stretching into an arch, edges outlined in a metallic shimmer that wasn't stone, wasn't metal, wasn't anything of the mortal realm.
Daniel felt resistance. The void pushed back, its nature fluid, unwilling to be nailed down. He bled a thread of his own mana into the binding circles, whispering commands in the ancient spell language Sylveth had once tampered with. The glyphs writhed but obeyed.
Then, suddenly, clarity.
The arch rippled like glass touched by a drop of water. Beyond it, not the cavern, not the stone, but a sunlit expanse unfolded. Green fields stretched under a sky wider than any the mountains would allow, wind rippling through grasses of impossible hue. The void's inner world had aligned, stabilizing itself into a landscape both real and unreal.
Daniel stepped back, sweat clinging to his brow, his chest heaving with both effort and wonder. He had done it. The fixed gate toward his own personal area that he has control over
Behind him, Siglorr Bouldergrove, who had insisted on witnessing, let out a stunned rumble. "By the stones… You've carved a land out of air itself."
Word spread quickly through the stronghold. Within hours, cautious groups of elves, dwarves, and beastkin gathered before the shining threshold. Murmurs filled the cavern—fear, disbelief, awe. Many hesitated to cross, clutching charms or whispering prayers. Others, bolder or more curious, pressed forward.
The first to step through were children, darting past the legs of their elders. They emerged into the void's fields, laughing as the grass parted and light washed over their faces. Their voices echoed strangely, as if carried both near and far. Parents followed in worry, then froze in astonishment as they realized the children were safe, no curse, no disintegration, only life more vibrant than their cramped mountains could ever offer.
One by one, the crowd entered. Some wept openly, dropping to their knees at the sheer vastness of it, for here was a horizon Lúthien had never known. A people penned within a mountain range suddenly saw infinite room to grow.
Daniel, watching them step into what he had made possible, felt a tug of both pride and unease. Pride that he had given them a new world. Unease because he alone understood the truth: the void space was not merely a land, but a living thing, pliable, shifting, listening. And now, for the first time, others would walk its soil.
Daniel stood at the center of the council , he didn't actually need to do this, as they will follow him without question, but its something he like doing to gain insight on the things he wasn't familiar in, or lack knowledge of. As he looked around at the faces of the council members, he knew that their trust in him was unwavering, but he couldn't shake the feeling of responsibility weighing heavily on his shoulders.
his hand still faintly glowing from the ritual runes that had not yet faded from his skin. The murmurs of the gathered elders and leaders quieted as he raised his hand for silence. His voice, calm but steady with conviction, carried across the chamber.
"What you have seen," he began, "is no mere trick of sorcery, nor a temporary illusion. What I have opened is a world tethered to ours, a space hidden between layers of reality itself. It is a place no enemy can stumble into, no invader can march upon, and no army can siege. This is not simply a spell, but a sanctuary, a foundation for our future."
The elders exchanged uncertain glances. They had walked through the gate only hours earlier, stepping into an endless horizon of fertile ground, rivers flowing like silver veins, skies vast and unmarred by storms. Some whispered of it as a dream, others as a temptation too dangerous to trust. Daniel read the doubt in their eyes and pressed on.
"You know as well as I do," he continued, his tone heavier now, "that Lúthien is bounded. Ten thousand acres of land surrounded by the Web Mountains, our homes hemmed in by stone walls, our farms shrinking, our people multiplying. I have heard your concerns: the fear of hollowing out the soil beneath us to dig endless caverns, the worry that our children would never see sunlight if we forced them below ground. I share those fears. And so I sought another path."
He gestured toward the shimmering archway that still pulsed faintly in the corner of the hall, the fixed gate he had anchored earlier that day. "This gate is that path. Within, we will not be confined. The void-space is vast, fertile, and malleable to our will. We can shape it to house our people, our markets, our fields, even our sacred places. We can grow there without fear of war or hunger. No blade can reach it unless I, or one of my chosen successors, allows it. This is safety. This is expansion. This is our future."
A silence fell, broken only by the rasp of the elder Melthar clearing his throat. "You speak of it as if it were a promised land," the old man said, suspicion sharpening his tone. "But what if it turns against us? What if the void collapses, swallowing our people whole?"
Daniel did not flinch. Instead, he stepped forward, meeting the elder's weary gaze. "I have anchored it with stabilizing runes. I have tested its boundaries. The space is not unstable—it is self-sustaining, a world woven into the fabric of creation itself. It will not collapse. The only true danger," he said, his eyes narrowing slightly, "is if we refuse to use it and remain trapped here, waiting for hunger or enemies to tighten the noose around our necks."
A murmur of agreement rippled among the younger councilors, those who had seen the wide, empty plains with their own eyes. They remembered the freshness of the air and the richness of the soil. Some had even wept, realizing they were no longer caged by the mountains.
Daniel softened his voice now, letting a note of hope shine through. "This is not about abandoning Lúthien. This city, this land, it will always be our heart. But the void-space… it will be our shield and our horizon. It will allow us to live without fear, to raise our children under a sun that cannot be blotted out by war banners, to expand without carving through stone or stealing from our neighbors. It is ours. A gift we must learn to wield wisely."
He let the words settle, then concluded, "You asked for safety. You asked for room to grow. I have given you both. This space is not just mine, it belongs to all of us. To our people. To our future."
Daniel could not help but notice the pattern among those who now sought refuge in Lúthien. Many were not native to the valley itself, but wanderers who had endured long, brutal journeys. The greatest number came from the shadowed edges of Rithakwood, their bodies marked by weeks of starvation and desperate travel. Others hailed from the north, from the once-great Divine Kingdom of Tyriarn Isssëa,
their regal manner reduced to ragged survival. And then there were those who staggered from the southern frontiers half-dead, weak, their lungs scorched and their skin tinted by the lingering poison of the miasma wall. These people were not warriors nor scholars, but the remnants of families and tribes who had gambled everything against impossible odds, choosing to cross death itself for a chance at ordinary life.
The southern lands had long been a whispered terror in northern halls and taverns. Among the five great regions of the world, none bore a reputation so bleak. Since the first days of sentient life, the South was painted as a birthplace of darkness, where the first dark elves and dark dwarves were molded to serve the will of the god of shadows. To the rest of the world,
it was a cursed land, sealed away behind the terrible Miasma Dome, a wall of blackened mist that stretched for hundreds of miles, climbing into the very heavens until it vanished into the cloud layer. From horizon to horizon, it stood unbroken, a barrier of choking fumes and malevolent whispers. Many claimed it was not merely mist, but the breath of the god of darkness himself, still exhaling despair into the world.
Generations of adventurers and settlers had tried to breach it, to explore the forbidden South. None returned. Some were driven mad before even reaching the dome's edges, claiming the mists bled voices into their minds. Others vanished entirely. With time, the lands beyond became nothing more than a cautionary tale. Children grew up believing the South was an endless wasteland of ash and broken stone, a place where no sun shone and no rivers flowed. Priests declared it evil, a scar upon creation itself. Entire kingdoms dismissed it as unworthy of curiosity, preferring ignorance over risk.
But the truth, as Daniel quietly realized, was far more complicated.
The miasma was not a natural storm, nor even a divine punishment it was a veil, a colossal dome designed to separate, to contain. Beyond that wall of choking shadow lay not a wasteland, but a hidden continent of startling beauty and peril.
Where outsiders imagined ash, there were vast jungles thick with bioluminescent flora that glowed like constellations under the mist-darkened skies. Where they expected barren deserts, there stretched obsidian mountain chains, their peaks crowned in perpetual lightning storms. Great rivers carved through canyons lit by veins of molten crystal, their waters both life-giving and deadly to those unadapted to its strange properties. Entire civilizations, long cut off from the outside world, thrived in secrecy.
The so-called "dark races" had not merely survived there, they had built empires of stone, metal, and shadowed magic, their cultures evolving under the oppressive shroud. The miasma was their sky, their shield, their prison. They lived and died believing themselves abandoned by the gods beyond, never knowing that the outside world saw them only as monsters.
And though their bodies bore the mark of the poison that birthed them, they were not soulless nor desolate. They dreamed, they fought, they loved no less real than those who now built homes in Lúthien.
To Daniel, the revelation was chilling. The South was not desolate it was isolated. And isolation had bred both marvel and terror in equal measure. If the veil ever fell, the world would discover a land far richer and perhaps far more dangerous than any of their legends dared to suggest.
Siglorr Bouldergrove rose from his seat, his heavy frame casting a long shadow against the council chamber's lantern light. The dwarven chieftain's deep voice rumbled like stone grinding on stone as he addressed the gathering.
"Whatever Lord Dane wishes to shape, we are bound to his will," Siglorr declared, bowing his head with solemn respect. "And I thank our leader for even considering our voice in such matters, though he need not. His word alone could be law to us. Yet he shows regard, and for that we are grateful."
He let the silence linger, the weight of his words pressing into the chamber. Then his gaze hardened, his brows furrowing as he shifted to the matter that gnawed at every clan.
"The real problem before us," Siglorr continued, "is the increasing tide of refugees flowing into our lands. They come not in handfuls, but in droves. Broken clans, scattered tribes, wandering nomads, each carrying their little ones, their aged, their wounded. They hear of how our people are treated here, how the Warforge shelters even the weakest, and they rush as if this were their last sanctuary."
A murmur rippled through the gathered councilors, for they all knew it was true.
"These vagabond families," the dwarf pressed, his fist clenched against the carved oak table, "were driven from their homesteads by their own lords. Nobles and aristocrats who care for coin and power more than the blood of their people. And what can kings do? Their hands are bound, for those lands are ruled directly by the nobles themselves. As long as their taxes flow clean and timely into the royal coffers, their cruelty remains unchecked. So these poor souls flee… and find their way here."
The council chamber grew heavy with the unspoken truth: their sanctuary was becoming a beacon, drawing more than they were prepared to sustain.
Daniel sat quietly, listening to the words echo in the stone hall. His thoughts were not bound to this world's politics but to something greater, something he had carved out with his own power. When the murmurs finally dimmed, he closed his eyes and let the council's voices fade like distant thunder.
His mind reached inward, past the veil, back into the ever-shifting folds of the void. And as he stepped once more into that realm, the sound of the council chamber vanished like smoke in wind.
Inside, he found himself not in solitude, but before familiar faces. The Crowed Prince Lashrael stood with his usual unreadable poise, his golden eyes sharp with silent inquiry. Beside him lingered Princess Caerthynna Cererindu, her noble bearing wrapped in quiet curiosity, her gaze flicking over the space as if she were measuring its depth.
And then there was Melgil. She sat comfortably, laughter spilling lightly from her lips as the library's attendants busied themselves around her. They moved with the same reverence they gave their true master, sensing Daniel's essence coursing faintly through her body as if she were an extension of him. Books floated to her side at a mere gesture; glowing tomes opened without a word, their pages whispering secrets long lost. Melgil basked in their service, and for once, her sharp tongue was softened with delight.
Daniel paused at the threshold of his own creation, studying the sight before him. This was not merely a haven, it was becoming something else. A court of its own, a stage where new alliances, ambitions, and rivalries would inevitably take root.