he stars were off tonight.
Kai stood on the broken ramparts of Vel'shara, a small Academy outpost that had sat atop a sleeping cosmic stone. Now, it was a deep crater shrouded in rolling black mist—one of the first Dungeons to tear its way into Academy territory. The air burned with a metallic bite, each breath filled with whispers that curled like smoke: Kai… little flame… come see…
Master Venri flexed her grip on her stave, the crystal tip sparking. "It is worse than the scouts warned," she spoke softly, tracing the moving land. "The rock below has become unstable, its roots weaving into the Depths' void. Be cautious, Kai. It hungers."
Kai's jaw clenched. The dragons within him—Flame, Ice, Storm, Earth, Void—stirred restlessly, their elemental pulses thrumming through the runes etched across his bare arms and chest. Even Void, usually a silent abyss, hummed with unease. This Dungeon wasn't just unstable. It was alive, its corruption a reflection of the Depths sealed by the First Wyrm-Bonded.
He approached the roughed-out tear in the ground, where rock staircases curved inward, folding like a nightmare's geometry. Echoes drifted up from the depths—metal against bone, glass breaking underwater, a heartbeat off from reality. The Wyrm-Sigil on his forearm throbbed, anchoring him against the pressure building in his skull.
"Stay above," Kai told Venri, his voice steady despite the knot in his chest. "If I'm not out in an hour, seal it. No hesitation."
Her eyes, sharp with defiance, softened briefly. "You know I'd rather die than trap you."
"Then others will die," he countered. "Promise me."
She looked away, nodding once, her stave glowing faintly as if in protest.
Kai descended.
Every step distorted the world. Light faded, then circled—Kai walked around the same shattered pillar three times, its etchings muttering sin on the third. On the fourth, it was gone. The rock became damp, oily with something other than water. The mutterings intensified, constructing his name, teasing: Kai… you can't escape… Time thumped unevenly, seconds unfolding into minutes, then condensing back.
He pressed his hand to the rune above his heart, its pale radiance driving back the haze of his mind. The dragons blazed into ethereal sight—shimmering curves of Flame, Ice, Storm, Earth, and Void unwinding behind him like guardians. Their power kept him grounded, but the deeper he descended, the more the Dungeon distorted. Shadows shifted against his illumination, their very boundaries curling up like lips.
The tunnel broadened suddenly.
A cavern yawned before him, its ceiling veined with crimson light that pulsed like a dying star. At its center floated a twisted mirror, taller than any man, its surface rippling like oil on water. Kai's reflection stared back—but wrong. This mirrored Kai wore black armor threaded with red, his eyes glowing with a corrupted echo of Void's power. Behind him a monster Kai hadn't called lay coiled—a serpentine one wreathed in gold fire, its starlight wings and spear-shaped body emitting danger.
"You've touched the realm," the reflected Kai replied, his voice a twisted echo of Kai's own. "But you are afraid of the final binding. You have not called her—the one that makes you whole."
Kai's throat closed. "What are you? An illusion of the Dungeon?"
The mirror trembled. The creature moved closer, its starlight eyes focusing on Kai's.
"You're not complete," the mirrored Kai spat. "I am who you might have been—unafraid, unbound."
The real world shattered.
The earth burst, a scream tearing the air—primeval, ancient, a sound pre-temporal. The walls of the cavern stripped away like the bark of a withering tree. Kai stood firm, his dragons growling, but the power didn't emanate from the mirror.
It was from within him.
A sixth presence, unwanted, unnamed, burst through his soul-mark. Where the dragons represented elements, this was abstract—will given form, born of the same cosmic spark that created his realm. A figure coalesced, wearing fire-forged armor, its blinding white wings leaving embers in their wake. Its eyes were without iris, only starlight. In its hand, a glaive glowed between shadow and light.
Kai dropped to one knee, gasping, his runes aflame. "What. are you?"
The creature spun about, its presence a tranquility in the midst of the Dungeon's turmoil. "I am the First Flame Sentinel," it declared, its voice echoing everywhere. "You called me forth because you were prepared, even though your heart wavered."
The Dungeon let out a scream. The mirror shattered, its shards disappearing in mist.
Something else moved through—not the reflected Kai, not a monster, but a form. An idea put flesh. It was clad in a shroud of twisting mouths, each spilling pieces of abandoned transgressions. Its stone crown, laced with dark light, its voice warping reality: "You called up your Sentinel… but I am the First Sin, loosed from the Depths."
The Sentinel stepped before Kai, glaive raised, its starlight eyes unyielding. The First Sin lifted a finger, and the cavern trembled, reality screaming as crimson veins cracked overhead.
Far above, in the real world, Master Venri's eyes widened as the sky above the crater tore open. A second sun began to rise, its light not warm but cold, casting Vel'shara in a glow that burned the mist away.
The battle below was only just underway.