Before setting out, they made sothing fast and simple to eat.
Argolaith pulled out so of the dried at from his storage ring, mixing it with finely sliced Luminara Root and so soft blue fungi they had picked earlier from the cavern walls.
The al wasn't fancy—just roasted strips of War Beast at, lightly seasoned with the heat-resistant herbs they had gathered during their travels.
Kaelred took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. "Not bad. Has a good kick to it."
Argolaith smirked. "That's the Luminara Root. Helps with stamina. Figured we might need it."
They ate quickly, keeping their weapons within reach.
After finishing, they cleaned up and stepped outside into the underground city once more.
The strange creatures still road, moving about with purpose yet ignoring them completely.
Kaelred exhaled. "I don't get it. It's not like they don't see us. But they don't care. Like we're just… background noise."
Argolaith narrowed his eyes, watching the creatures move. "It's like they're living in a different ti than us."
Kaelred frowned. "What do you an?"
Argolaith gestured at the structures around them. "Look at this place. It's old—really old. And yet, these creatures don't seem like survivors. They act like this place is still thriving."
Kaelred scanned the city again, realization dawning on his face.
"These ruins should be… well, ruined. But they're not."
Argolaith nodded. "Exactly. It's as if the city itself never fell."
The more they walked, the more unsettling it beca.
The streets were clean—no overgrown vines, no rubble, no signs of decay aside from the natural wear of ti.
Despite being deep underground, the buildings still stood strong, their stone foundations untouched by collapse.
Even the creatures themselves showed no signs of age—as if ti had never moved for them at all.
Kaelred let out a slow breath. "Sothing's really wrong here."
Argolaith agreed, so they dug deeper.
They searched for anything—carvings, symbols, anything that could tell them what this city once was.
But no matter where they looked, there was nothing.
No written records, no murals, no engravings, no nas, and no history.
Kaelred slamd his fist against a stone wall. "This doesn't make any sense! Every civilization leaves sothing behind—records, art, stories—but this place has nothing!"
Argolaith was silent for a long mont before saying, "Maybe it was erased."
Kaelred turned to him, confused. "What?"
Argolaith's voice was calm but laced with unease. "What if this place wasn't just abandoned? What if soone—or sothing—deliberately erased its history?"
Kaelred's expression darkened. "You an, like what happened to those other ruins we found?"
Argolaith nodded. "Yeah. But this ti, it feels different."
Kaelred exhaled, his voice quieter. "This ti, the people are still here."
Argolaith glanced at the creatures that still moved about their day, unchanged, unaffected.
Were they truly living?
Or were they just echoes of sothing long gone?
From the shadows of a high stone archway, Malakar observed.
His skeletal fingers tapped lightly against the hilt of his sword, a quiet smirk playing at his lips.
"They're starting to notice," he murmured.
The city was wrong. But even he wasn't sure why.
And that intrigued him.
Malakar's violet eyes glead, his curiosity deepening.
What was this place?
And why did ti refuse to move forward here?
As Argolaith and Kaelred continued their search, Malakar remained close behind them, watching.
Because sowhere within these ruins, an answer existed.
And Malakar had every intention of finding it.
Days passed.
Argolaith and Kaelred searched tirelessly, moving through every corner of the underground city, but nothing changed.
The creatures continued their silent, purposeful existence, never interacting, never reacting.
The stone structures stood firm, untouched by ti.
And there were no answers, no carvings, no books—no recorded history.
Kaelred sighed, resting a hand on his hip. "We've spent days looking, and we're still in the dark. I don't think this city even wants to be understood."
Argolaith frowned, scanning the cavern walls. "Maybe we're just looking in the wrong places."
Kaelred scoffed. "You got a better idea?"
Argolaith didn't answer imdiately. His eyes drifted toward the edges of the city, where the stone structures t the natural cavern walls.
Sothing about the contrast bothered him.
After hours of examining the cavern's rock formations, Argolaith's gaze landed on a particular stone near the cavern wall.
It was different.
Unlike the rest of the city, which looked like it had been grown from the ground, this stone looked like it had been placed there deliberately.
Kaelred caught the shift in Argolaith's stance and followed his gaze. "What is it?"
Argolaith stepped forward, running his hand along the uneven surface. The rock was rough, unpolished—unlike anything else in the city.
"This stone… doesn't belong here."
Kaelred raised an eyebrow. "You think soone put it here?"
Argolaith nodded. "Yeah. And I think whatever's behind it might give us answers."
Without hesitation, they pushed against the stone.
At first, it refused to budge. Then—
With a low grinding sound, it shifted away, revealing sothing beneath it.
A rune, But not just any rune.
The mont the rune was exposed, the air in the cavern shifted.
Kaelred took a sharp step back. "What the hell—?"
The rune was moving.
Not physically, but the intricate symbols within it shifted, rearranging themselves in an endless, fluid motion.
It was complex, unlike anything they had ever seen before.
Even Argolaith, who had studied runes extensively, felt his mind struggle to keep up with its aning.
Kaelred exhaled. "This is no ordinary rune."
Argolaith crouched down, studying it carefully. "No… this is sothing far more advanced."
Then he looked up—And froze.
Because now that they had noticed one…They saw more.
Dozens—hundreds of similar runes lined the cavern walls, interwoven with each other, forming sothing far more intricate than a simple marking.
Kaelred's eyes widened. "This isn't just a rune."
Argolaith nodded slowly. "It's a formation."
A formation so advanced that its symbols refused to remain still, constantly shifting, changing, adapting.
Argolaith reached out, tracing his fingers just above the rune's surface.
The air vibrated at his touch.
Sothing about this felt wrong.
Kaelred exhaled. "What do you think it does?"
Argolaith's brow furrowed. "I don't know… but whatever it is, it covers this entire city."
They had spent days searching for answers—and now, they had found sothing even more terrifying.
The entire underground city was inside an enormous rune formation.
And they had no idea what it was for.
High above, hidden within the darkness, Malakar observed in silence.
His violet eyes flickered, taking in every detail of the grand formation.
A smirk played at his lips.
"So, they finally see it."
He had noticed the formation long before they did, of course. But he had been waiting—watching to see if they could uncover it themselves.
And now, they had.
The question was—could they understand it?
He watched as Argolaith and Kaelred continued studying the runes, their faces tense with concentration.
Malakar chuckled to himself.
"Good. Let's see how far you can take this."
And with that—
He disappeared into the shadows once more.
The air in the underground city felt heavier than before.
A slow, burning warmth pulsed through the cavern walls, a silent reminder that the city was alive in ways they didn't understand.
Argolaith and Kaelred stood before the glowing, shifting runes, their minds racing as they studied the intricate, moving symbols.
The formation stretched across the entire cavern, its complexity far beyond anything they had encountered before.
Kaelred pulled out the ancient to Vaelthion had given him.
The pages crackled as he flipped through them, his eyes scanning the text for anything remotely resembling the rune on the ground.
"There has to be sothing in here," he muttered, his fingers trailing over half-decayed pages, so of the runes within them faded beyond recognition.
Argolaith, anwhile, stepped back from the rune, his gaze shifting across the cavern wall where more runes had been carved.
And that's when he noticed it.
At first, all the moving runes had seed to follow the sa shifting pattern—a never-ending, flowing script that looped through the formation in a delicate balance.
But now that he was paying closer attention, Argolaith realized that not all the runes were identical.
So of them shifted faster than the others.
So lagged behind, their symbols moving at a sluggish pace compared to the others.
And then there were the broken ones—runes that should have been part of the flow but instead remained fragnted, their shattered forms flickering in and out of existence as if they were slowly fading from the world.
Argolaith's brow furrowed. "Kaelred."
Kaelred glanced up, still flipping through his to. "Yeah?"
"These runes aren't all the sa."
Kaelred's expression hardened. "What do you an?"
Argolaith pointed. "Look closely. So of them are… incomplete. Like they're failing."
Kaelred's eyes followed his direction, and almost imdiately, he saw it too.
"…You're right." He stepped closer, flipping through his to with renewed urgency.
Argolaith turned back toward the runes, a deep unease settling in his chest.
"If this is a formation…" he murmured, "then a broken formation is dangerous."
Kaelred let out a slow breath. "Very dangerous."
But before either of them could say anything else.
Across the stone streets, standing near a glowing pool, one of the creatures looked at them.
For the first ti, it truly looked at them.
Not with fear, not with malice, but with hope.
It watched silently, its bulging eyes wide with sothing ancient and desperate.
Its long fingers curled slightly, as if resisting the urge to reach out.
The light from the runes reflected in its gaze, making it appear almost human for a brief mont.
But Argolaith and Kaelred did not see it.
They remained focused on the runes.
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