The first clue led them to an entrance hidden in plain sight.
The Hollow was quieter than it should've been.
No birds. No wind. Just the slow drip of water somewhere distant and the strained breath of the land itself, like the forest had inhaled long ago and forgotten how to exhale.
At the edge of the clearing, half-swallowed by brambles and crooked ivy, stood the remnants of Westwood's herbalist hut…its sagging walls caved inward, roof bones poking through like ribs beneath rotting cloth. And at its center, as if the ruin had grown around it like scar tissue, waited an ancient stone well.
It should have been dry. Instead, it sighed mist.
"Because of course it's a well," Elara mutters, arms crossed, boots damp with dew. Her platinum hair, frizzed by the rising humidity, glowing like liquid moonlight in the gathering dusk. "Classic fairy tale nonsense. Any bets on whether there's a demon snake, a cursed ladder, or just endless existential despair?"
Moony, perched on her shoulder like a judgmental ornament, gives a disdainful flick of his tail. "You forgot haunted water ghost. Always a crowd-pleaser. They drown you in memories and morose verse."
Valen Graye examines the well without comment, his gloved fingers resting lightly on its moss-covered edge. The violet glow of his own compass pulsing, faint but insistent, refusing to point anywhere but inward. He looks like he belonged…dark cloak whispering in the wind, posture as still as the ancient stone, a man halfway between myth and cautionary tale.
"This isn't just a well," he says at last, voice low, thoughtful. "It's a fracture. A bleed in the leyline. Magic pools here…but it doesn't rest. It stirs. It remembers."
Rowan stands nearby, arms folded across his chest, (which believe it or not, is not his usual modus operandi), his posture radiating tension like a coiled spring. The wind tugged at his coat, dramatizing his scowl.
"Sounds like a trap," he says flatly. "And you're far too calm about it."
Valen arches a brow, not looking away from the mist. "I find calmness helpful when facing death. You should try it."
"I prefer survival," Rowan snaps. "And this place reeks like a grave that wants new company."
"Is it weird I'm agreeing with Rowan?" Elara asks, staring into the swirling fog. "Because I'm usually morally opposed to siding with law enforcement. Even the tall, dark, handsome type, that is sculpted to perfection."
Rowan doesn't respond, though his ears turn slightly pink.
Above them, a gnarled ash tree leans protectively over the well. A thick rope had been looped around its heaviest limb, tied with a knot too old to be recent. Valen tests it, giving it a tug, and a nod in approval.
"It'll hold. Barely."
He turns, handing the line to Elara.
"After you."
"Do you always ask people to descend into their final moments or magical nightmares first?" she asks, eyeing the rope.
"Only the ones I like," he replies, deadpan…though his eyes glitter with amusement.
Rowan makes a sound like a dying volcano.
Elara grips the rope and steps onto the crumbling lip. Immediately, the air thickens. Magic curls around her ankles like steam, brushing against her skin with the intimacy of a lover. She can taste it…earth and salt and ash, but also something else. Something ancient and wounded.
She descends slowly. The rope creaked. Moss-damp stone pressed closer, slick beneath her boots. The shaft narrows, light vanishing above. By the time her feet touch the ground, she is swallowing her heartbeat.
A chamber awaits.
The walls shimmer with faintly glowing runes…etched in spiralling patterns, some familiar, most not. Sigils twined like vines, folding over each other in threes: protection, concealment, memory.
Time feels strange here. Like the moment she touched down, the world paused to judge her.
Rowan lands beside her in a crouch. His boots barely make a sound. He scans the runes with a soldier's suspicion.
"Does anyone smell lavender?" he asks after a moment.
Moony drops down beside them from his perch on Elara's shoulder. "That's ghost rot, you uncultured cabbage. Lavender doesn't make your whiskers twitch in Morse code."
Valen follows last, as silent as the mist above. He says nothing at first, crouching to study the runes. One gloved hand reaching out, tracing the lines.
"These spells were built in layers. Constructed magic. Binding, misdirection, suppression...all held in place by intent older than this town."
Elara kneels down beside him, examining a symbol that looked like a crescent caught mid-scream.
"Isadora's usual spell recipe," she murmurs. "Only three ingredients: paranoia, regret, and flair."
The tunnel stretches out from the far side of the chamber, descending deeper into the earth. The stone floor is solid, but it pulses faintly beneath their boots, like it remembers motion.
They walk forward.
The tunnel twists, curving inward, then downward, its shape unnatural…like it had been melted through the rock, not carved. The deeper they went, the louder the silence grew.
Until...
"Do you hear that?" Rowan asks, stopping short.
They pause.
At first, there was only the sound of their own breathing.
Then...
Whispers.
Not words. Not yet. A rhythm. A cadence. The shape of a name too soft to catch.
Valen turns to Elara.
"It knows you."
"Of course it does," she mutters. "Everything is creepy and sentient lately."
They step forward into a chamber unlike any they had seen.
It spiralled outward like a nautilus shell, carved with maddening symmetry. Sconces glowed with ghost light…flickering softly despite the lack of flame. Magic crackled faintly in the air, held taut like the moment before lightning strikes.
At the chamber's centre, stands a stone door, twice their height.
Its surface bears an elaborate spiral…lines carved so precisely they looked etched by thought rather than tool. The air around it vibrates softly.
Elara steps closer.
The whispers intensify.
A word. Her name. Not shouted, not spoken…but remembered.
Then a voice, deep and with many-layers, speaks:
"Speak the name. The Night Name. The broken truth."
The key in her pocket flares with sudden heat. It vibrates, violently, like a tuning fork struck against reality.
She reaches out. Fingers brushing the stone door.
The runes ignite.
And the world unravels.
A Vision
Flames. Screams. A library…not burning, but alive. Books cracking open as golden moths burst from their pages like frantic memories. Shelves collapsing in slow motion, not from destruction but from release.
At the centre: Isadora Finch.
Older. Worn. Her hands slick with ink and blood as she traces circles around a dais. Her eyes…sharp. Her voice…wrapped in steel.
"They want the Name. Its power. So I shattered it. Let only the true keeper find the pieces, never the council. Six Shards in total, spread throughout."
A shadow coils behind her. Faceless. Humanoid. Threaded with starlight and stitched with night.
Isadora raises a blade…gleaming silver, singing with forbidden light. She says a name that Elara couldn't decipher.
Chains snap.
The shadow screams, but without sound.
The floor cracks, spilling not blood but memory. Thousands of them. Children's voices. Council debates. A creature begging not to be forgotten.
A scream…her scream?
The memory ruptures.
And then...
She stands on a frozen lake beneath a purple sky. Her reflection rises to meet her…identical save for the eyes, which are bottomless voids speckled with stars.
"Elara Finch," it says. "Save me or what remains of me, before I am no more. I am the only thing that will prevent the extinction of the human race."
The ice cracks.
The world tears away.
She staggers backwards, gasping. Her legs buckled. Arms catching her…Rowan's.
"Elara! Look at me."
She blinks rapidly. Her mouth working without sound, then finally:
"It's not an object. The Name. It's not a thing…it's everything the council fears the most. Someone...powerful. Someone the council wants silent and dead. Six shards need to be found, to set it free."
The spiral door groans.
A seam splits down its middle.
From the opening, something floats out…a shard of obsidian, laced with veins of golden light. It hums, like a lullaby sung in reverse.
Elara reaches out for it.
It slides into her palm like it had always belonged there.
A voice…soft, barely audible…whispers:
"One of six. Find the rest. Free the Name. But beware...Some pieces will test your will. You are the portal."
Images flicker behind her eyes…Trial stones. Masked figures. Betrayals. Love. Suffering. A lock turning. A scream.
Moony leaps on to her shoulder, freaking her out of her trance. "Oh joy. We're in a necro-loop. I'm updating my will. And demanding snacks in the afterlife."
Elara tucks the shard beside the key. It pulses once, warm and steady.
Rowan stands up, every muscle tight.
"Whatever this is," he says, "it's older than anything I've seen. And dangerous."
Valen's gaze lingers on Elara.
"So is she."