"Ah... Skye," *I mused, the name rolling through the void like a forgotten melody.* "So you've returned—no, not returned. You've never been here at all. But let me tell you a story… one written in echoes and embers, buried beneath centuries of silence."
---
The labyrinth breathed.
Not in any way a living thing breathes—no rise and fall of chest, no whisper of wind through lungs—but it exhaled ancient dust from its stone pores, stirred by footsteps that hadn't echoed within its halls for nearly a thousand years.
Four figures moved like shadows along the obsidian corridor.
At the front strode Jasmine, her midnight-blue robes hugging her frame like liquid night. Her fingers danced over spell components tucked into satchels at her belt—crushed moonpetal root, vials of starlight resin—and she murmured runes under her breath as if tasting syllables for their power.
Behind her lumbered Simel—the orc swordsman—with shoulders broad enough to block out sunbeams. His greatsword rested across his back in silence now but had sung through bone and steel more times than he cared to count. He scanned every archway with narrowed amber eyes: predator's eyes.
To his right stepped Aribel light-footed as snowfall on moss—a high elf whose silver hair shimmered even without light to catch it. Her bow remained unstrung across one shoulder; instead she held aloft an everburn torch that cast no smoke but bathed them all in soft gold fireflies dancing around their heads.
And bringing up the rear was Mirabel—stout dwarf woman with braids coiled tight like iron springs atop her scalp. She hummed old healing