Eryndorath-Dolmurath - The Eternal Tomb-City
In the beginning, the architects called it Eryndorath—The Eternal Halls—a monument carved from the mountain itself. Its name was spoken with reverence, a symbol of wisdom, grandeur, and timeless pride.
But in ruin, when its sanctuaries crumbled and its halls became a den of monsters, the survivors and wanderers renamed it Dolmurath—The Tomb-City. A place of death, shadow, and merciless silence.
Over the centuries, the two names fused in fearful tongues, becoming Eryndorath-Dolmurath—a single name that embodied both its birth in glory and its decay into malice. To some, it was still Eryndorath in wistful memory. To most, it was only Dolmurath, a warning never to enter.
"They call it Eryndorath-Dolmurath now—the Eternal Tomb-City. Once a crown of light, now a maw of shadow. The mountain remembers both, though mortals do not."
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It was a place as endless as time itself, carved deep into the mountain's heart. Its grandeur evoked both majesty and fear. The halls that beings would pass through were enormous and overwhelming. A few rows of carefully placed lights guided visitors through its depths. The deeper the floors went, the larger the spaces became.
The architects of this place were old and ancient, with time and wisdom at their disposal. It was a place, a city, a fortress of solitude—a timeless monument that screamed: "I was here, mortal but everlasting."
What remained of this city now was nothing but a dark place that had waited for eons to be opened again, like an old book left forgotten on dusty shelves. Beautiful, but abandoned. It was now dark, damp, and filled with malice—no longer the beauty it once was.
What replaced its former inhabitants were monsters that showed no mercy, with no thought or feeling for those who dared to open the city again.
It had been a space carved into existence with purpose, screaming with pride. But what had become of it now—only the fragmented records left behind could tell that story.
A story of its majesty and the story of its eventual fall. Not one soul remained who remembered this city. But as if the gods had willed it, it was found once again. This hole carved into the mountain must have pleaded with the gods in its silent protest to be discovered, to be seen once more.
And it was discovered, but it wasn't as majestic and beautiful as it once was. It was now rotting, dark, and dreary. Death was its master, and darkness was its silent companion.
This was the place Benny had unknowingly stumbled into, as if fate had brought him here—whether he willed it himself or not. He and those who came with him, the unfortunate few who weren't chosen like him, had no idea they were walking through the ruins of something that had once been magnificent. Every corridor he mapped, every sanctuary he would eventually find, every monster he fought—all of it was part of something far grander than a simple "labyrinth."
He was exploring the corpse of a civilization, and he didn't even fucking know it.
The light crystals that had saved his ass weren't just convenient magical tools—they were the dying remnants of an ancient lighting system, slowly flickering out after centuries of neglect. The sanctuaries that protected him weren't just random safe zones—they were the last functioning rooms of what had once been a living, breathing city.
The monsters weren't just random creatures thrown together to fuck with explorers—they were the final inheritors of halls that had once echoed with voices, laughter, and the sounds of daily life.
And Benny, that weak-willed coward who thought he was just trying to survive another day, was actually one of the first people in generations to walk these halls as they were meant to be walked. Not as some glory-seeking conqueror or treasure-hunting explorer, but as someone who might actually understand what this place had been.
Someone who might be able to tell its story, assuming he lived long enough to get the hell out of here.
Every rat he'd killed, every bug that had tried to eat him, every terrifying moment he'd spent cowering in the dark—all of it was happening in the remains of someone else's home. Someone else's life, a story of forgotten tales.
The irony wasn't lost on the mountain itself. After all these years of waiting, the first people to truly explore its depths weren't some legendary hero or powerful mage. They were among those many who came to prove themselves as pioneers of an unexplored world, a kingdom that had been forgotten by time.
Benny was just a scared guardsman who talked to himself and jumped at shadows—but he wasn't alone in this discovery.
But maybe that was exactly what the place needed—someone too weak-willed to pillage and too cowardly to destroy. Someone who would take the time to really see what was there instead of just grabbing whatever looked valuable and running.
What remained of Eryndorath-Dolmurath now depended entirely on whether Benny could survive long enough to climb back into the sunlight. And if he did, only he would be able to tell the tale of the Eternal Tomb-City—or maybe those few survivors too, assuming he and the remaining twenty other survivors would ever manage to conquer it and make it back to the surface.
The mountain was patient. It had waited this long for someone to truly understand what lay within its depths.
It could wait a little longer.