Valdros came into view beneath a break in the tree line. Smoke plumed low across its stone chimneys and workshop forges. The town stretched wide across the valley, larger than Tolany but not quite a city. There were no towers or walls but rather rows of labor-worn buildings and sounds of the heavy churn of work.
Carts rattled over the packed roads, trailing behind donkeys or oxen, loaded with crates, ore, and supplies. Mercenary banners flapped above posted camps near the mine, and smelters hissed steam into the afternoon haze. The scent of scorched iron clung to everything.
“Doesn’t look like it’s changed since I was last here,” Mera muttered as we stepped off the main road. “Still feels like someone built a town just to break their back in it.”
“No one comes to Valdros to rest,” Lars said beside her.
“We’ll take rooms at the Iron Tusk,” Todd said. He lead us down a sloped road into the town center. “Best balance between comfort and not getting robbed.”
“Think they’ll have enough rooms?” Mera asked, stretching her arms overhead as if the trip had worn her down. It hadn’t. She just liked to complain.
“They better,” Mira said flatly. “Or we’re voting on who has to make the trip back.”
The Iron Tusk was easy to spot. It had thicker timbers than the surrounding buildings and a blackened boar’s head nailed above the sign. The inn was already half-full by the time we stepped in, but rooms were arranged quickly thanks to Todd and Jane’s taking initiative.
By mid-afternoon, we regrouped outside the mine. It loomed at the far end of the workyards, its mouth held open by reinforced wooden beams and framed with the scarred rock of decades-long excavation. Just ahead, rows of smith-shops and makeshift barracks lined the stretch leading to the main access camp. Jewelers and rune-etchers worked on either side of the camp.
The Mercenary Guild held their presence firmly. Red-banded tents bore their insignia. Soldiers in hardened leathers watched the perimeter.
A tall woman stood outside the command tent as we approached, one rested on her waist. She wore a reinforced gambeson and had dark hair drawn back into a simple knot. A long scar curved across one cheekbone like a half-finished brand.
“You’re the adventuring parties from Tolany. Good,” she said without pause. “I’m Retinue Leader Farren. The ruin’s entrance has been secured. You’re clear to begin whenever you’re ready.”
She stepped aside, motioning us toward the tent behind her.
The interior was simple having a wide table, maps and a few weapon racks. One wall bore a hand-sketched chart, lines branching out from a central point that marked the entrance tunnel. The rest of the map was mostly blank, save for one shaded chamber near the beginning.
Farren pointed at it. “You’ll enter through the collapsed tunnel here. We blasted it out two weeks ago. The first chamber's stable—some of our own went in to confirm. That’s as far as we’ve gone.”
Colt leaned in, eyes narrowing. “Why stop?”
“Mana saturation’s too strange,” Farren said. “It’s a bit… sharp and suggests there’s more surprises ahead. Our group is good at holding lines and we would rather avoid picking through arcane traps. With Kael’s insistence on bringing over the Guild, we agreed it’s better left to our new colleagues.”
I stepped forward and studied the markings. The initial chamber was small. From there, another icon, asking unveiled it to be a descending shaft, angled off the map into open potential. It reminded me of hollow spaces. Typical places left behind on purpose.
“No hostiles reported?” Jane asked.
“None we saw,” Farren confirmed. “But there’s heat coming off the stone deeper in. Something’s active but we haven’t got eyes on it.”
Ozzy spoke up next. “And nothing else since?”
Farren shook her head. “We’ve posted guards and set relay points. No contact with anything... but I’d keep your steel close anyway.”
That settled, we exited the tent. Outside, the sun had begun to dip behind jagged hills, bathing Valdros in dull gold. The forge smoke curled slower now, and voices in the nearby camps drifted quieter. Miners returned from shifts, faces drawn but unbothered.
Bren stood near me as she watched the mine entrance. There was no tension in her posture, just a clear, silent focus.
Todd broke the quiet with a smirk. “Well, nothing like a nice peaceful descent into the unknown.”
“Let’s see what’s waiting for us down there.”
We’d rest for the night, prep early, and move by dawn. The ruin wasn’t going anywhere. And with what Farren had mentioned, we were of the first wave from the Guild.
* * *
The descent began beneath iron sky and miner’s grit, stone giving way to shaped walls and arching halls too precise to be natural. Even unfinished, the ruin gave off the impression of something half-remembered. Old magic clung to the stone like dust. I felt it as a pressure against my skin—dormant, but watching.
The first chamber we passed through was a half-buried antechamber, worn smooth by time. Faded glyphs ran along the walls, inscriptions too fragmented to decipher. A broken statue lay in pieces to one side, its face eroded into a blank slate.
Footsteps echoed in layered cadence. There were twelve of us in total, spread across three parties. Solstice took point with Golden Fang close behind. The Ember Blades fanned out in a loose rearguard while I fell in center of our collective group.
A low growl pulled our attention.
“Left flank!”
A damaged wall broke apart unleashing salamander like beasts, stretched too long in the torso, eyes glowing dull red. Their claws scraped stone as they poured in.
I stepped forward, blade drawn but low. The lead creature lunged and fell apart. My blade had passed through its form. Its body fell around my position in two pieces.
Combat ignited across the formation. Fire bloomed to my left as Bren swept her hand, catching a trio in a shallow arc of flame. Though their hide seemed hardened and resilient, her flames still staved off advances. Verren conjured a wall of mirrored light that sent another creature barreling into its own reflection. Tristan moved like a scythe through wheat, lopping off limbs as they attacked other members.
Despite the numbers, the threat was minimal. Apprentice-tier was the average with one or two Journeyman at best.
Ahead and to my right, Jane engaged another of the salamanders. Her spear surged with light, skewering a creature mid-charge before it reached Elara. The water mage had reacted as well, loosening a spiraling lance of pressurized water that knocked two others into the far wall with a wet crack.
Colt summoned a stone-made wolf, its form rippling into existence with a pulse of conjuration magic. The creature leapt into the fray beside Lars, who brought his warhammer down with enough force to crater the stone beneath the creature.
I shifted left, stepping through a spatial seam. Steel bit into spine and another fell.
Between bursts of magic, steel, and coordination, the wave broke in less than a minute. Only scorched stone and twitching bodies remained.
Todd moved quickly, collecting arrows and checking the angles of the room. “Kind of tame for a first engagement.”
“No attempt at preservation,” Devin added. She pulled her dagger from the base of a salamander’s skull with a practiced twist. “They just charged at us like they had no choice.”
The bodies many of them had wounds that didn’t look to come from our group. Bite marks. Claw gashes. Some injuries had even started to scab. They’d been fighting before we got here.
“They’ve been tearing each other apart,” Ozzy said, arriving at my own conclusion. “Even half-dead and outnumbered, they still charged.”
“They’re running,” I said. “Or could be defending territory.”
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Verren let out a low whistle as he examined the glyphwork on the wall. “This place has multiple layers. Some of the magic here’s woven through the stone. I recognized sections that are intended to suppress.”
“Choosing to hold ground tends to point to a deeper threat,” Mira muttered.
We moved on walking passed the salamander entry point. The halls stretched wide and the air smelled of stale earth and old ash. Each step further into the ruin brought more attacks. There were pockets of monsters hiding in crevices or bursting from fallen structures. They came in respectable numbers but tended to not have any coordination.
“Feels like we’re walking through a nest,” Kell said after the fourth skirmish. He crackled with low arcs of lightning, hands still raised. “Except the nest’s trying to eat itself.”
One of the rooms we passed through had two corpses already there. The attacks, at this point, had introduced varying monsters. The current encounter had large spiders torn apart. The walls were stained with blood and ichor. Whatever had happened, it was fast and brutal.
“They’re aggressive,” Bren said.
I nodded. “Or fleeing.”
“Fleeing what?” Elara asked.
We didn’t have an answer.
The next chamber opened into a dome-like room with an elevated dais and six passageways branching out. Verren called us to one of the walls, where faded markings lined the stone. He brushed dust aside and revealed a design that looked to reflect pathways. They matched with the passageways stood before and suggested multiple levels to each pathway. Only the three levels were detailed for each passageway apart from the far most left one which had four.
“Well,” Tristan said, adjusting the grip on his blade. “We’ve found the welcome mat.”
“We rest here?” Jane asked.
“For a moment,” Ozzy said. “Check supplies and loot the bodies.
The group stepped back into the previous room.
We hadn’t gone far. But even in the first few hours, we had a healthy count of confrontations.
* * *
The ruin narrowed again as we descended into its second level, where stone corridors twisted into sharper corners and vaulted ceilings loomed above us like the ribs of some long-dead beast. We had taken the far most left passageway and determined to go as far as we deemed necessary to have enough to report back.
The walls carried etchings, no longer faded glyphs like those above. I sensed the mana within them signaling activity in their design.
Mira studied one with a frown, her fingers hovering just short of the stone as she murmured. “These are too refined. This was channeling something. It acts as a cage.”
Verren joined Mira is her speculation. A field expanded from his position, wind-aligned, it swept the area, only going as far as 10 meters. He walked a bit further to encapsulate areas he was short of. “The pattern repeats every twenty paces.”
I felt a pulse just beneath the surface, faint and out of sync with the ruin’s natural decay.
I reached out with my senses, skimming across the floor, through the walls and into the passage beyond. I met resistance in the form of a thin veil. My perception pressed against it, reading the distortion like an extension of my own breath. I could’ve torn it open and expanded my reach to chart the ruin fully.
Before I made my decision, scuttling echoed from a corridor on our left, followed by a low growl and a wet cough. Shadows peeled off from the walls. Malformed creatures with spined limbs, scaled hides and eyes glowing faint blue under the torchlight advanced.
“Left hall—multiple,” Todd called out. He had an arrow nocked with the head glowing at his mana empowerment. It added a faint light to the direction to which our attackers appeared.
Dregspawn poured through, seven in total. Loping, cracked things, they were known to be territorial creatures. Their levels numbered 15 to 20.
Ozzy slammed into the first, shield raised, knocking it into the stone. Jane speared a second clean through the neck. Fire roared past my shoulder—Bren’s. Her flames curved around a support beam and ignited a third. It screamed, flesh popping in the heat.
I moved forward into the heart of the press. My blade flashed cutting through one, redirecting mid-spin, and driving my sword into the next. Tristan joined me in my swordplay, beheading the second.
Further back, Elara’s water carved a twisting path down the center, binding limbs and crushing spines. Colt’s summoned wolf pinned the last and eviscerated it.
Before we let our guard down, another group surged from the right. Larger, louder and stronger.
Voidhounds. Their hides shimmered with mineral plating, fractured in some places but still dense enough to shrug off a shallow strike. This group was a mix of other monsters. A shardfang darted behind them. It was of equivalent size yet lacking in speed by comparison. It had jagged fangs and rippling muscle beneath bone-thin skin.
“Right corridor!” Lars called, gripping his warhammer.
Tristan dashed forward to meet the surge, twin blades carving an arc through the air. Devin mirrored him, blade and dagger in fluid rhythm. Todd’s arrow arrived first, punching through the skull of the first hound as it released a concussive wave borne from the mana empowering the shot. Sparks followed and danced across the voidhound’s hide from Kell’s lightning shot, stunning some on the ground and disintegrating those weaker. Mira joined in with a low-sweeping quake, the earth spiking beneath the remaining hounds that were downed. It punctured torsos and ended any forthcoming arousals.
A shardfang charged through the path of its fallen predecessors only to come up against Lars, hammer descending with the weight of stone. It cracked the beast’s skull and sent it sprawling.
I saw Bren move opposite of me, her fire unraveling into thin threads that stitched through another shardfang’s ribs before combusting from the inside.
One moment of stillness. Then came the next chamber.
It was wide with half-collapsed walls framing the chamber like teeth. Metallic shattered rods jutted from stone pedestals. More of the markings, confirmed to be runes by Mera, spiraled into complex lattices across the standing walls. They pulsed faintly in my peripheral senses, though mana no longer flowed through them. Their pathways were not completely eroded suggesting the influx of mana could produce some effects.
Mera stepped towards a side of the wall, getting another observation. “These directed energy-like waypoints. Ritual anchors, maybe.”
Elara traced a finger along one, the surface cool and dry. “Whatever system was here…it died long ago.”
Bren crouched beside her. “It left nothing behind. I can’t feel anything or what would charge it.”
“They’re worth cataloging,” Mira said, already unpacking her scrolls. “The Academy could have a reference for these configurations.”
Todd, Colt, and Mira broke off. Todd climbed a short incline and began sketching the full chamber’s silhouette, noting side paths and battle damage. Colt summoned a scribe-wraith that hovered along the runes, imprinting each with ethereal fingers onto a blank scroll he pulled out. Mira reviewed both their work and added touch points she observed and replicating their combined designs into another scroll for each party.
The rest of us held position.
Ozzy moved through the bodies, checking for second winds. Jane remained near the entrance, eyes sharp. Tristan spun one blade slowly, watching for shifts in pressure.
I turned my senses back deeper into our descent. The barrier still sat beyond the next corridor, offering the same resistance as before.
I could bypass it. Cut through it. Force the ruin to reveal itself.
But I didn’t.
Not yet.
I decided to refrain from alerting anything else to a breach.
Let the ruin show its hand first.
* * *
The next chamber was even wider than anything we’d passed, it spread so far that even our footsteps sounded thinner. The common rubble from collapsed pillars littered the ground.
Veins of pale crystal streaked through the walls, but most were dim now, not holding mana or whatever had charged them. The light they gave off was enough to see by, but just barely.
We passed by a toppled sculpture snapped at the base. Whatever it once represented was unrecognizable now. There was nothing left but a torso carved from polished obsidian and a shattered helm that didn’t fit any known style of war.
Mira crouched near the base of a sloped stone formation and pulled free a small, curved object wrapped in rusted binding. The outer layer was cracked as she turned it, revealing inlaid metal strips and lines of runes scorched into the surface.
The piece was split clean down the middle, whatever enchantments it might’ve held long since bled out.
The group found more of these objects as we explored the area.
“Still valuable,” Todd said as he passed, marking the location on his map. “Once we’re out, the Guild’ll want every piece.”
Each piece we found was built to last and still had the shape of power behind it. My senses picked up on more mana signatures in the chamber.
They announced their presence to the others as spooked growls preceded them. Nails clawing against stone added to the rising sounds. The figures dropped from a narrow ridge lining the chamber’s left wall.
Ravethralls were the system’s answer. Their limbs gangly yet muscular, allowing for a surprising reach made up their form with the bottom half matching closer to a wolf’s. Bipedal as they were, some dragged broken joints exhibiting bends in the wrong direction. Their levels ranged from 18 to 32 with one having a level far above the rest. It was in the low 40s and wounded like the others. The first of their group screeched and burst forth to attack.
Verren launched forward in retaliation, pushed by a gust that curled around his frame. He struck the ground landing in front of the lead assailant, sending out a burst of compressed wind that shattered its ribs and knocked two others into the wall.
Mira followed with a stomp, triggering a jagged upheaval that rose like teeth from the floor. Three of the beasts were caught mid-leap—skewered in the space of a breath.
Bren came through, her hand flaring out as she twisted into a forward step. The flame followed her motion, condensed into one hand and bursting out in a stream. When it cleared, two charred corpses fell apart.
On our left, I met another raventhrall’s lunge with a step forward and a single stroke. The space between us cut. The creature paused, twisted, then collapsed in two. The afterimage burned away a second later.
Another dropped from above. I pivoted, blade catching its descent at the hip. It fell without a sound.
“From the break,” Ozzy called out, shield up. “More coming!”
The rear wall gave way as five more emerged, with only one sporting an injury.
Jane met the first mid-charge, her spear lancing through its open mouth and out the back of its skull. Devin wove around another, her blades flashing quick and low, hamstringing it before finishing it off with a slash across the throat.
Colt’s summon—a wraith-hound bound in flickering light—slammed into another, blasting it to the ground in a mess of thrashing limbs.
Todd picked off stragglers from the far end, arrows flying in a crisp rhythm. A limb pinned to the ground by his piercing projectile and an accompanying shot to finish the job. He stuck to centralized concussive bolts, making sure not to encumber the rest of the group.
When the last one crumpled, silence returned.
Bren blew out a slow breath. “Numbers are climbing.”
Verren gestured toward another archway on the far end of the chamber. “This one’s wider than the others.”
I nodded once, glancing past the boundary again. The resistance I felt earlier still hummed behind that far wall.
Colt knelt by another broken piece embedded in the wall. A half-circle of metal, with runic inscriptions running down the center. Whatever core it once had was shattered.
“These were tampered with.” he said
We regrouped near the central mound. Todd, Colt, and Mira marked more findings. The odd pieces we came upon all had some damage. I stood watch as they worked. No one had to say it yet, but the ruin was growing stranger the deeper we went.
