At the farthest edges of the world, where time halts and the breath of dawn fades, the Dark Continent stretches like a shadow relentlessly devouring light. A dull land, cloaked in a carpet of black stones—smooth and cold like an ancient corpse, refusing to pulse with life. There, the winds know only wandering whispers, drifting among bare trees that shed their cover long ago. They were once the flame of life before it was stripped from them.
In those barren forests, where tangled branches form webs of shadow, valleys are wrapped in echoes of a long silence—a silence so heavy it breathes from the heart of the earth.
The mountains that surround the continent rise like coiled whips—deaf, black giants lashed by dark clouds that know no mercy of sky. From their peaks pour down black waters, like the blood of the heavens, dissolving among rocks consumed by the wind, hiding their secrets beneath a cloak of dense mist that slithers like a slow serpent into every valley and path.
No sunlight dares approach this land. Sometimes it is restrained by grim clouds, sometimes swallowed by thick fog that suffocates sight, erasing colors and leaving everything in an endless gray—like a painting drawn by an unknown being who never wished for its details to be seen.
This fog is not mere vapor, but a breath from another world—as though it were the soul of the continent itself—crawling slowly, vanishing then returning, wrapping everything in a veil of dread and mystery.
In this world where lost spirits hover unrested, unseen footsteps echo, and voices from an ancient time embrace eternal silence. The trees that remain—standing but dead—bear deep scars on their trunks, as if they were ink wells that once wrote tales forgotten by mankind. Their leaves, long since fallen, make no sound but the gentle thud of descent—like teardrops on ancient stone.
Throughout the continent flow streams of black water, stagnant, reflecting the darkened sky like shattered mirrors. As one draws near, it feels as though the mirrors wish to whisper secrets, only to pull you into their depths—from which none can return.
Where voices fall silent and time stands still, eyes avert from what hides at the bottom of those black waters. There lurk horrors no sun or light has ever seen—creatures slithering between shadows, unlike anything known to the human mind. Spirits soaked in terror, beings that breathe from their own darkness, preying on the lost who wander into their valleys. From their depths rises the stench of decay and corruption, wafting between damp stones where feet freeze in black mud—like ancient blood spilled from wars long forgotten.
Choking black vines climb over rocks and plains, clinging like dead hands, wrapping around all things, halting movement and trapping life. In the corners of the continent, the earth is coated in layers of ash indistinguishable from the dust of the dead—ashes of ancient fires that burned every hope, every memory. Beneath those layers lie the stories of the dead who once revered this land and fought in battles that ended in ruin.
The sky above the continent is always shrouded by a thick cloud of black storms coiling atop one another, groaning beneath their own weight as if writhing in eternal pain. Thunder is rare, but when it comes, it's like the scream of a great beast from the depths of hell—shaking the mountains and cracking the bare trees. And lightning, slicing through the dark, reveals only fleeting silhouettes of predators that dwell in the forests—striking down any who dare draw near.
At times, hot winds rise from dormant volcanic vents, bearing whispering warnings only the few can understand. It is said these winds carry the voices of the dead—their moans and complaints—and that they write in a tongue comprehensible only to those who once lost their way.
The Dark Continent is not a place to be traversed without cost. Many have tried to explore it—humans and other beings alike—and few returned, if any. Those who did were but shadows without memory, lost within themselves, seeing visions they could not explain, hearing whispers that killed hope and seeded madness.
In the deep valleys, where trees intertwine like fangs, small tribes dwell in shadow, surviving by hunting beasts and poisonous flora. They speak ancient tongues no longer heard beyond this forsaken land. They know the continent is a living entity, not just soil but an angry soul, a sleepless eye guarding secrets too terrible to emerge into the light.
On moonless nights, faint lights appear between the trees—like candle flames stirred by the wind—but they are nothing but the eyes of creatures lurking between the branches, watching every move, guarding their world's boundaries with relentless resolve. These are not humans, but spectral beings that follow the laws of darkness, dwelling between reality and nightmare.
And when the fog retreats and the wind falls silent, a faint sound seeps from the heart of the continent—melodies resembling a great groan, perhaps a cry for help or an ancient warning. No one knows its source, but the surrounding villagers never speak of it, never approach, for those melodies carry a curse of eternity—clinging to souls and dragging them toward an unending abyss.
In this desolate expanse, every stone, every tree, every grain of soil bears the mark of pain and a buried tale—whispered by the wind only to those who can listen deeply. The Dark Continent is not merely a realm of shadows and mist—it is a mirror to all things broken and hidden, to every wound unhealed, to every fear unchallenged.
There, where darkness meets sorrow, a stagnant life flows—frozen in a time that does not pass, surrounded by blind eyes, unheard voices, and a restless soul. Whoever enters this continent, no matter how hard they try, remains captive to it—writhing in a web of secrets unbroken, shadows unending—where no one ever returns the same.
Where no one ever returns the same, souls shatter and memories fracture, names and faces fade, becoming whispers murmured in the corners of endless night. Those who stepped into this land never again saw light with clear eyes—they carried shadows heavier than silence, deeper than night—shadows that lived within them like wounds that never heal. They became wandering beings, drifting through the dark continents in search of a salvation they could not name, screaming in their silence though no one heard them.
Fragments of their stories scatter among the naked trees, whispered by the wind through fog-laced alleys—tales of encounters with beasts bearing eyes of sulfur, black dragons rising from pools of poison, and frozen spirits suspended between worlds. Some tried to build shelters from the stones of darkness, but those shelters soon crumbled under the weight of damp and decay, as if the continent itself refused to be embraced.
The tribes dwelling among the ruins are but specters of the past, stiffened men and women whose eyes gleam with a flicker of despair, and whose tongues chant incantations lost to the ages. They worship mysterious forces, known only by hunger and revenge, and carve marks on the stones to warn against approach, yet these are also secret maps for those who wish to delve deep into the continent.
In the moments when the storm rages fiercest, when the fog envelops everything and blankets the sky, strange sounds are heard—as if a gathering of bodiless demons moans and shivers deep beneath the earth. It is said these voices are echoes of an ancient battle between forgotten gods and rebellious spirits, a battle that tore the veils between worlds and spilled rivers of darkness.
The forests here are not merely trees, but moving corpses, rising with their branches to slap the wind, releasing moans resembling a final call. Among their boughs lurk merciless beasts with claws like knives and eyes shining with eternal hunger. They make no distinction between human or ghost; all that moves is potential prey in this abyssal world.
Scattered across the continent are lakes of viscous liquid, black as tar, said to possess powers that twist the mind, making those who drink see strange visions and sending their souls to other worlds with no return. Around these lakes spread glowing algae that emit frightening blue lights, as if eyes of marine creatures long abandoned.
In some places appear ancient pyramids built of strange stones, their inscriptions holding secrets in a language yet undeciphered. Yet those who approach hear whispers that tear through the silence, whispers promising treasures and powers at an unbearable cost. Guardians dwell there—not human nor beast, but entities of shadow and fire, devouring any body that dares touch the sacred stones.
The land here carries the echo of thousands of years of blood—the blood of tribal leaders and supernatural forces, blood of rebellion and betrayal, and blood of wars never meant for victory. This echo does not fade; it reverberates at night, making the earth groan as if it pulses with life itself—a painful, cold life that bursts in moments of emptiness like a scream from a world unmerciful.
Anyone who walks the continent's paths leaves no clear trace, for footprints vanish beneath a cover of black mud, as if the continent gradually absorbs them, swallowing their existence and turning them into part of its body—shadows wandering aimlessly, with no difference between past and present, and no thought able to anchor to reality.
Even the air here is heavy, charged, clinging to the skin like tireless flies, carrying the stench of decayed forests and the breath of the dead who found no final resting place. Sometimes, a cold blue gas rises from the ground, drowning the lungs and cleansing the brain, extinguishing the inner light and pushing the person toward endless coma, where they dwell in a dark world—a labyrinth with no end.
Only those with hearts of stone or souls frozen hard survive this. The others begin to feel the signs of madness creeping in; they hear whispers that never leave, see shadows chasing them in waking and sleep, and sense the weight of unseen hands clutching their souls and pulling them toward depths from which no soul returns.
In this deadly darkness, there is no place for weakness or mercy. Every moment is a struggle for survival, every whisper of wind carries a threat, and every distant light is but an illusion. The Dark Continent is not just land—it is an eternal battle between life and death, shadow and light, truth and madness.
Thus remains the Dark Continent, like a nightmare that time cannot release, guarding its secrets in deadly silence, waiting for one daring enough to reveal them—though deep inside, he knows he will not return the same, if he returns at all.
---
Deep within the Dark Continent, on the bank of a viscous black river resembling a corrupted artery pulsing through the earth's body, stands a great city unlike anything in the human world. A city not built of mere stone, but seemingly sprung from the core of shadows, grown from the heart of ruin, nourished by nightmares of forgotten ages. The city is called by many dialects, but its people whisper its name: Nar Ghoorom, the capital of no-salvation, and the dome of all evils.
Its streets are not paved with stones but with stacked broken bones, some still moaning faintly when stepped upon by the restless spirits that never sleep. Its buildings rise like claws embedded in the chest of the sky, dark towers crowned with a faint glow the color of frozen blood, emanating an energy like muffled wailing. Soot climbs its walls as corrupt dreams crawl over the faces of sleepers; no line is straight here—everything tilts, warps, as if the city was drawn by a trembling hand of madness.
On the roads, no carts roll but creatures drag them—worn faces, empty eyes; black sorcerers with charred skin and eyes shining like polished coal pass beside the dark jinn who neither laugh nor rage but watch everything as if awaiting some command. Some carry bells that produce unheard sounds, others drag bodies chained tight, unknown if alive or mere remnants.
Markets here are held beneath cracked pillars, from whose ceilings hang things unknown—flesh or withered dreams. In these markets, polluted blood from unknown creatures is sold in burnt glass bottles, and small souls are traded like currency. Laughter is heard—not from mouths, but from the walls, from shadows clinging to shoppers, watching, craving.
No one asks anyone: "Where did you come from?"
Because everyone knows Nar Ghoorom does not ask. It is a city where those who arrive did not come by their own will but were summoned from where they know not.
The gates do not open—they swallow.
In the grand squares, nameless rituals are performed. Black stone platforms with symbols carved in a language found in no book, sacrifices of unknown kinds are brought near—perhaps forgotten beings or fragments of the ancient world. Sorcerers stand cracked, their eyes covered by bleeding leather cloths, muttering words that weigh down the air and thicken the fog. Around them, children with burnt eyes dance slowly as if they were phantoms forced to live.
The atmosphere in the city is not air but hanging poison. Breaths come with difficulty, sounds choke before birth. The clouds here are black and unmoving, inhabited by eyes that open and close, watching. Some swear the city is but the body of a giant sleeping being, and its streets are its veins, and those who live here dwell inside an opening mouth slowly closing.
The people who live here are not called "alive." They simply exist. They do not smile, do not love; they only know agreements, power, rituals, and magic.
The dark jinn, a race expelled from kingdoms of light, inhabit the city's edges in houses of night glass, selling cursed visions and sewing poisoned dreams into the black robes worn by the sorcerer class.
The possessed humans, servants of the shadow ruler, run the markets and transfer corpses from alleys to temples, washing them with salty river water of unknown origin.
There is a kind of creature called the "Sarra," tiny bodies resembling children clinging together, speaking in one voice, working as traders of secrets, rented only for a single day's use.
Faces are carved on the city's walls—not statues but real faces frozen by spells centuries ago as eternal punishment, their faces sometimes speaking to those who know how to listen. One face, according to legends, belonged to a sorcerer from the Land of Light who dared to challenge the shadow ruler; he was turned to stone, his scream carved forever.
Deep inside the city, behind seven shadow doors opened only by a forgotten word, lies the palace of its ruler—a palace unseen but felt. It is said that those who approach feel their bones tremble and their hearts choke, for it is built from the screams of the past. It has no windows, no doors, and no one knows how to enter. Yet everyone knows it is there, its presence looming over every stone, watching through shattered mirrors scattered around the city's edges.
Night never ends in Nar Ghrum. It is one single, endless time, not measured by hours. Daylight here is just a myth mocked by children.
The hour is counted by the number of screams the inhabitants hear.
And time is measured by the change in the tone of pain in songs sung without a voice.
In one of the alleys, a woman drags the corpse of her son who died three times and returned three times, but he was no longer the same. In another square, a giant creature of an unclassified species tends a plant that feeds on the memories of passersby.
And amidst all this, no one is surprised.
For in Nar Ghrum, abnormality is the norm.
And everything is for sale, even time, even yourself, even your shadow.
There is only one law: Do not speak of the Shadow Ruler.
Do not speak of him, do not think of him, do not whisper his name.
For he does not need to be mentioned to know.
He knows, because he is the city.
And because the city is not land... but a living being. Alive, alert, and always hungry.
---
In one of the forgotten corners of Nar Ghrum, far from the squares lit by burning dreams, opens an alley with no name, not shown on maps, not recognized by the guards. A narrow alley that cannot fit two bodies side by side, the buildings twisting around it as if made to choke it, and black water oozing from the cracks of the walls like regret leaking from memory.
Heavy steps touch the ground with stickiness, a torn leather shoe leaving bloody traces, and a head covered by a tattered hood that turns every moment, as if the shadows behind whisper unbearable things.
"Don't look, don't stop, don't listen."
He repeated to himself, the young sorcerer, who was no longer quite young.
His name was "Yaro," from a lineage of which no one remained. A former apprentice in the Temple of Light, and now... nothing. Neither his name is written, nor his image drawn.
Between breaths, the smell of roasted flesh crosses him, but it does not come from a restaurant. He knows. In Nar Ghrum, every delicious smell means a recent death.
The alley slides downward as if the earth itself absorbs him toward something deeper than hell. On its walls, faces painted in blood change when out of sight. And the sound of crying, continuous, comes not from a person but from the alley itself, as if the stone weeps for something unspeakable.
He stopped at a door unseen. He raised his hand, drew a sign in the air with his finger, the void burned and tore itself to reveal behind him a wooden door made of dried bones. He knocked three times. Silence. Knocked twice. Silence. Then whispered:
"I who ate his name... return to collect the price of silence."
The door breathed, then slowly opened, releasing purple smoke as if the place was breathing for the first time.
Then he entered.
Inside was not a room, but a space larger than reason. Slanted walls covered with broken mirrors, and an inverted ceiling reflecting the floor, as if inside was reversed. There, at the end of the room, sat a woman with eyes covered by cloth, surrounded by two dark genies who moved the air slowly.
"The Silent Guild," they call it, with no sign, no announcement. A place where nothing is sold, but everything can be taken.
The woman spoke without moving her lips:
"Did you bring the voice?"
Yaro took out a small bottle, compressed as if made of a nightmare. Inside was the cry of a forgotten child, stolen in an ancient ritual. He handed it to her.
"I want to know who survived the fire. Who escaped that tower."
Silence. The genies moved their black eyes toward him.
"The price is forgetting your mother's face. Forever."
He closed his eyes slowly, then shook his head. He did not say goodbye. He said nothing.
The woman moved a finger and sank the bottle into a basin of liquid glass, and images rose on the walls as if the alley itself bled the truth. He saw a boy sneaking, saw a hand opening a door that should not be opened. Saw impossible survival.
When he left, he no longer knew whose face it was. He knew someone survived, but no longer knew who.
---
In another alley, a small girl walked in a gray dress carried by the wind like a child's ghost. Her eyes did not blink. On her shoulder perched a featherless crow, beating with a heart of fire.
Her name was "Nilsa," half genie, half shadow. Young in age, but said to have lived through four ends of different worlds. She was on her way to the guild, but for another purpose. Don't ask, don't justify. She was sent to watch.
In the shadows, eyes followed her. From the ceilings, tongues dangled, searching for a word to tempt her. But she did not look back. She walked as if she knew the earth before it was built.
When she entered the guild, the door did not open for her. She did not need it. She passed through the wall. Because she carried something older than matter: an unseen seal, black light, a name without pronunciation.
Inside, the woman with covered eyes lifted her head, the genies disappeared.
Nilsa smiled for the first time in centuries, and said:
— "The past is dead. The time has come. Burn the voice."
Glass shattered, and the entire guild screamed as one being, while the alley behind her closed and erased itself from the city's memory.
Now, in the alley, only a faint sound remained, like the rustle of a turning page, an echo heard only by those who lost something unknown.
And the city, as always, did not notice. Because those who see... never return the same.
---
In the heart of the old Zoom district, where scents mingle between burning incense and the stale scent of dry blood, rises a tavern called "Snake's Fang." No one hangs a sign with its name, but everyone knows it and fears to speak it aloud by daylight.
Its slanted door, as if unwilling to stay upright, opens with an iron creak like a sigh of a living thing groaning behind the walls. Its walls are burnt wood soaked in shadow tar, and from its ceiling hangs an old noose rope no one dares touch, rumored to move sometimes without wind.
Inside, smoke fills the air, light green smoke seeping from beneath the floorboards, no one knows its source, but those who breathe it feel a weight as if they just lost a cherished memory.
The air is thick with whispers, no one speaks loudly. Stories here are told through glances, through marks on the skin, or scars whose meaning is known only to those who have lived a hundred years in the shadows.
In the tavern's right corner, a table where four black sorcerers sit, wearing cloaks of unknown leather, their faces covered by masks half dead, half laughing. Before them a bottle of Regret Wine, a drink extracted from the blood of the sorrowful and fermented under moons that only appear on cursed nights.
One of them flips a small necklace between his fingers, a necklace emitting a faint moan. Perhaps it holds a soul.
Opposite them, a dark genie named Narzakh, his breath forming moss on the wood, betting on the slavery of a human girl just brought from a distant continent.
Silence between them broken only by the clinking of glasses and the tapping of a copper ring on the table — a ritual of submission before the sale.
Behind the bar, the old Sacr, a genderless creature with no eyes, is said to have once been human before swallowing the Shadow Stone heart.
He mixes drinks with his claws, whispering to the cups so they don't poison the unworthy, pouring fermented blood into cups of petrified bones. No one asks about the ingredients.
The door opens again.
A man enters in a black cloak, leaning on a cane made of shining bone. His steps echo oddly, as if bouncing back from beneath the ground.
All eyes look without turning, because they know him.
"Zaher the Crow."
Killer of ancient families, the free hunter, and the one who buys names before they are spoken.
He searches for something, or someone.
Shadow contracts.
Perhaps a blood contract.
He approached the sorcerers' table, exchanged glances with them, then pulled from his pocket a human tongue wrapped in a paper sealed with black wax.
He placed the paper on the table.
The four exchanged looks, and one reached out his hand… then stopped.
From the upper floor, soft footsteps… then a faint sigh, causing the lamp flame to flicker.
"He has arrived."
A voice neither man nor woman's, the voice of a creature born only from curses.
A creature descended the stairs with half a mask face, and half a shining skull. His eyes burned the color of dead mercury, and his mouth had no lips.
The Guild Leader.
The organizer of the gray market, keeper of mysterious oaths, the sixth shadow master.
He looked at everyone; no one met his gaze.
He approached Zaher and pointed to the table behind the black curtain.
The deal began.
Everything that happened before was merely the prelude to a long night, in "Snake's Fang" tavern, where evil is poured into cups, secrets are written in blood, and where no one enters — except having sold a part of themselves… or prepared to sell it all.
Where darker eyes wait, neither sitting nor drinking, only watching. In corners blurred by ink and shadow, behind charred pillars that no longer cast shadows because they are the shadows, lie creatures whose faces are unknown and whose names are not given. Their eyes burn with a blue flash, unblinking, staring steadily from worlds deeper than darkness itself, as if penetrating the very skin of reality.
From behind the smoke emerged a female with protruding fangs and a living shawl—the shawl moved as if crawling on her shoulder, descending when she was angry and rising when she smiled. Her hair was like a rope of night, hanging like breathing snakes, and her eyes were two glazed, frozen ponds.
She approached the bar, whispering to the drunkard in a language unheard, and he nodded as if he had heard more than she said.
A bottle of madness water was poured for her—a drink not sipped but inhaled, and at the first breath, one sees what must not be seen.
She smiled… and a glass behind her shattered on its own.
She knows the one upstairs hears.
In the opposite corner, a gaunt-faced dwarf with a sword-like nose shuffled leathery sheets inscribed with talismans that changed every time he blinked.
He was gambling with a small wingless dragon wearing a meteorite leather coat, laughing with a voice like breaking bones.
Between them was a small box, opened to reveal a severed finger still moving, pointing westward, then stopping.
They laughed, whispered, then fell silent.
The deal was made, and the finger returned to the box.
Then… suddenly…
The door opened again.
But this time, no one entered.
Only air entered.
Cold air, not like ordinary wind, but as if a grave had exploded inside.
All sounds stopped.
The old drunkard stared into nothingness, and for the first time in a century, he poured the drink incorrectly, a drop of blood falling to the floor.
In the corner, the shawled female gasped, her face turning gray.
The blue eye in the corner burned then vanished.
The nameless voice approached.
No one appeared at the threshold. Yet it was heard.
One step, as if treading on a nerve in the heart of the place.
Then another.
The walls rippled as if breathing.
The light went out… then returned a pale red, as if blood itself became the illumination.
From the middle of it all, a shadow appeared.
Not human, yet taking a human shape.
Its limbs longer than they should be, its face like a shattered shadow in a broken mirror.
Standing at the entrance of the tavern.
"Who sold his name?"
A voice behind the voice, as if hundreds of souls spoke from its mouth at once.
The back table's curtain was drawn aside, revealing the strange leader with half a skull.
He turned but did not answer, only bowed his head.
Everyone in the tavern did the same.
Even Zahir the Crow… gripped his coat collar and lowered his head.
The shadow passed. It did not walk, but slid, as if the tavern leaned toward it.
It stopped at the table, where the broken glass lay, where the spilled blood was.
It placed a finger on the ground… then wiped.
Then raised the finger to its mouth, as if tasting.
"Not him… but he is coming."
No one asked who "he" was.
No one dared.
Then, as it entered, it withdrew.
But it was not a withdrawal, rather as if the tavern regained its balance after an earthquake.
The old drunkard bent down and licked the blood dripping from the bar, as if trying to reclaim a part of himself.
Zahir stared at the black curtain, then whispered:
"We are not safe… anymore."
The leader nodded slowly, then raised his hand and wiped the black ring on his finger. And began to return to his place.
---
Where those who do not wait are waiting, the air in the tavern was heavier than the chest of a dying man.
In the dark corner, between two overturned barrels and a forgotten chair with broken legs, sat a man with half his face burned, one eye drinking fiercely while the other hand hid something within the folds of his cloak.
No one looked at him, or perhaps he seemed part of the wall.
But he looked. At everything. And at everyone.
At that moment, the back curtain of the tavern, a mere black rag hanging at the entrance of the inner alley, opened.
A man with colorless features entered, dragging behind him a shadow that did not touch the ground.
His footsteps made no sound, but he left behind a trail of steam as if his body was warmer than the place or colder than everything.
The barkeep glanced at him, just for a moment, then returned to wiping the glass no one intended to drink from.
The laughing faces withdrew.
The dice game in the opposite corner quieted.
Even the old witch who was singing a song in the language of the elves stopped mid-word, as if the last word was meant to lock something forbidden to speak.
The same man exited to the back alley after a minute, as if he had never entered.
The air was different outside the tavern.
The scent of blood not yet spilled.
Someone's shadow lay on the wall, sitting, as if waiting for a death meant only for him.
In front of him, on the ground, another man muttered, once a member of the Shadows Guild, or so said the tattoo on his neck.
He spoke in an inaudible voice, but whoever listened in this alley needed no ears.
Everything howled—the ground, the stones, the crumbling mud walls—repeating a groan coming from his throat.
His last breaths were not exhaled but drawn inward, dragged as if his soul refused to leave.
The colorless man stood over him, silent.
Then bent slowly, placing his hand on the dead man's chest.
Something left the corpse.
It was not light.
It was not darkness.
It was a pulse.
Then it vanished.
The corpse was now a true corpse.
---
The next day, the boy cleaning found the corpse.
It was not there.
But a tongue was carefully placed atop a stone slab, still moving.
As if muttering.
The child ran, screamed, vomited, then disappeared.
That same night, the dark passage beneath the tavern moved.
Someone sold information:
"The murdered knew the location of the market."
The doors were closed.
Silence grew.
Then a small hole opened in the wooden floor behind the third barrel.
They descended.
No one spoke on the way to the market.
No one lit a light.
Only the echo guided them.
Sounds came from ahead, though no one saw them.
Many candles, without flame.
Illuminated by blood.
The underground streets whispered.
Vendors did not smile.
Some sold breaths in bottles.
Another sold the cry of a forgotten child in a cave a century old.
People bought sounds that once belonged to suicides.
A woman with three eyes claimed to have a memory she never lived, searching for its true owner.
A man in the middle of the market, tall, bald, half his face glass, spoke not from his mouth but from beneath his feet.
He said time here was broken, and someone asked about a memory a thousand years old.
But he did not pay the price.
And the memory took revenge.
And awoke.
Some said the "shadow" killed the victim because he wanted to sell something forbidden.
Something not yet created.
---
A one-eyed man, the same sitting in the tavern corner, was following them.
But he did not speak.
He only drew on the table with an inverted dagger.
He drew a door.
Then a woman.
Then a sentence: "The seal is not what you think."
---
The night after the market, a wall cracked in an abandoned alley.
No one saw it crack.
But it was there.
And someone heard a voice whispering from behind it.
The voice said: "The blood key is lost, and the door will not close."
---
Upstairs in the tavern, a girl who does not sleep dreams of stairs.
She wakes every night to find her feet muddy.
No one dares ask where she walks.
No one dares wake her.
Because they tried.
Only once.
Three weeks ago.
A new tavern worker, a boy who knew nothing of the lower city nor the stair dreams.
He thought she was sleeping too deeply, and the barkeep told him to leave her be.
But he joked:
"What use is a girl who occupies a bed and steals the air?"
He went up, knocked on the door, then entered.
And never came out.
And no one opened the door afterward. But on the following night, the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs was heard, then others descending. Not with the lightness of a girl, but with a strange heaviness, as if carrying more than one body. No one dared to ascend, neither at night nor during the day.
But the girl, every morning, would sit near the window, her face pale, her eyes wide open, not blinking. She would look at nothing, and every hour she would move only to change the angle of sitting, as if tracking a sun that never visits this land.
The girl does not eat. She does not drink. But someone would come up every dawn to find a small table in front of her door, with a clean plate and an empty cup. No one saw them placed. No one saw her leave to take them. But they were always there, and always empty.
On a waning moon night, a stranger came to the tavern, his skin closer to ash, and a split chin as if an axe had passed through it one day and then forgotten. He asked for a drink no one sold, and did not mention its name, only said to the barkeeper:
"Pour me what she drinks."
The sentence fell heavy, even the dice stopped rolling in the corner, and the laughter trembled. The barkeeper did not answer, only looked upward, exactly to the ceiling above him, where her room was.
The stranger did not wait, but headed to the stairs, and began ascending without being stopped.
The steps were silent, but the floor itself groaned at each step.
At the last step, he stopped, did not knock on the door, did not touch it.
He said in a voice that did not come from his mouth:
"I am... not the one looking for you, but the one who expelled you."
Then he fell silent.
The door opened by itself. The darkness that came out of it was not like usual shadows, it was not absence of light, but the presence of something else.
From the door's opening, cold breaths came out that melted the candles downstairs all at once. The walls shivered, and the floor trembled as if the entire tavern had vomited a memory.
Then... a sound. Not a scream. Just a whisper. But it stabbed the hearing, directly into memory.
The stranger fell. His eyes burned silently, his mouth vomited blue smoke. And when he tried to flee, the door had closed.
After an hour, the window opened from the inside. The stranger's body was thrown out, as wet firewood is thrown. He was not dead. But he no longer breathed. He neither died, nor lived.
And from that night, the upper floor began making sounds. Light footsteps, incomprehensible words, faint crying. Then laughter. A child's laughter. Then the sound of scratching on wood.
One night, someone wrote on the tavern's outer wall, in blood:
"She is not asleep... she is ascending."
But no one knows where to. And no one dares ask her when she descends.
Because she... began to descend.
At every dawn, she descends one step.
Just one step.
But the whole ground knows...
When she reaches its end, nothing will remain in this tavern except the echo.
And the eyes... waiting for the unawaited, began to turn without moving. In those dark corners of the tavern, where candles light only to hide more than they show, there are those who hear, record, smile smiles unknown to humans. The guilds of secrecy neither sleep, nor drink, nor trust. But they always attend, behind a mask or at the heart of a wine glass, or even in the whisper of a half-drunk man who utters a word no one understands, except those whose names are sealed in the Book of Deferred Death.
---
In the last week, the number of strangers increased. Not only strangers in appearance, but spectrum strangers, who have no door knocked for them, nor permission asked to speak. They entered the city like smoke, settled in the lower alleys, paying cold gold that does not shine, in exchange for old maps or forgotten legends.
And nothing is more dangerous in this continent than a legend that begins to repeat.
It was said that a land at the western edge of the Belt of Bones — the land from which compasses do not return — began showing cracks. Smoke emerged from the soil, threads of blue fire appeared at night, and the echo of bells was heard at dawn, with no temple in sight.
The first to pick up the signals were the "Watchers" guild, faceless spies who read shadows more than books. They sent their boys to the taverns, eavesdropping on drunks, buying silence for the lowest coins.
But silence is not bought, it is stolen.
After them came the "House of Tongues," traders of black magic and information, spreading small rumors in the markets, mere whispers about "the treasure that awakens what is beneath the bone," turning their backs waiting for the fire to ignite on its own.
And on a dark dawn, five guilds met, without agreement, in the same alley. Each sent an envoy, and every envoy thought he was the only one. They did not speak, did not fight, did not draw swords, but the air between them grew heavier, as if blood had been spilled beforehand. They all knew the truth:
Something is there.
No one knows what it is. No treasure, no weapon, no temple. All information is contradictory, and all symbols point to different things.
Some say it is the heart of an ancient creature buried alive since eternity, not because it was dangerous… but because it knew.
Others believe it is a temple without a door, whose doors do not open from outside but only from inside, and it is said that whoever awakens in it is never himself again, but comes back inhabited by something else.
And there are those who believe it is the land where the "First Message" fell, written in a language unknown to humans or jinn, born before time.
But the eyes… the darkest eyes… know that all that was said is lies, or half lies, and that is worse.
The guilds began the war, not with swords nor poisons, but with disappearance. Suddenly, names began vanishing from the market, voices disappeared from alleys, warehouses burned silently, and encrypted messages were stolen in broad daylight from invisible pockets.
Someone drowned in a bottomless well. Another was crucified in the air, not on wood, but on the void, leaving his body hanging, read by those who understand the language of corpses.
The city now does not sleep.
Everyone waits for the first to speak the truth, or the first to die near it.
And the eyes… still watching.
Some from above the tavern.
Some from beneath the earth.
And some… unnamable.
A thing without shape, casting no shadow, slipping between walls, listening without ears, smiling without lips. No one knows who sent it, or if anyone sent it at all. But since the whispers began about the land breathing beneath the ash, it appeared… or rather, it was felt. A sudden silence in the cellars, a deadly quiet in sunless corners, a slight shiver at the edges of the black sorcerers, though they do not tremble.
---
In the upper floor of the guild, "Silaz the Ruler," master of the Ash Guild, sat on a wide leather chair. Around him four messengers, one a one-eyed boy, another a body without a mouth, the third a female jinn holding a sword of air, and the fourth a shadow that does not stay in place.
Silaz said, in a calm voice as if telling a bedtime story:
"Gather tonight in the Bones' Den. All of them. The land has brought us a curse, and this does not differentiate between shadows."
The one-eyed boy nodded, saying:
"I saw them. One from the Pulse Guild took a witch's heart and hid it in a glass jar, said it beats when we approach the truth."
Silaz laughed. Not because it was funny, but because he had grown used to the unbearable.
---
On the opposite side of the city, in a basement under the market where human flesh is sold as medicine, a man trembled while his name was registered in a ledger. His hand did not obey him. The pen bled black ink like pus.
The woman who writes said:
"The Roots Guild does not accept the trembling."
The man said:
"I am not trembling. This… this is not fear."
She said, without looking up:
"I know. This is its fear."
He pointed with his trembling finger to his chest.
---
In an abandoned tower inhabited by the black sorcerer "Kravell," a map drawn with another sorcerer's blood was placed on the table. Kravell had been reading it for days, not closing his eyes, not tiring. The smell of burning flesh filled the room. Not from a stove, but from a soul cooking in the air.
He said to his dead friend, who had rotted and did not stay silent:
"They all seek a door. But the door is not in the ground."
The severed head laughed, saying:
"I know. The door… is among them."
---
In a narrow alley, guild messenger boys exchanged small bags. Inside were ash, dust, and something moving on its own.
One spat blood, saying:
"My sister heard the call."
The other, hiding a knife between his ribs, said:
"From which direction?"
"From its interior. She woke writing symbols she does not know."
The second boy looked at the sky, which had no stars, and said:
"Tell no one. That means she has begun."
---
Inside a burned place of an old guild, nameless leaders gathered wearing bone masks. They were silent for a long time until the eldest spoke:
"All we know are lies."
One said:
"And the lies we believed?"
"They were a prelude. None of us sent the signal."
A third, who had four tongues but spoke one language, said:
"But we saw the sign. The bells that ring underground."
"Yes. But we did not plant them."
---
In cell number seven, in the Silence Guild's prison, a man who hadn't spoken for a hundred years suddenly began whispering. All the locks broke, the guard approached, and found the man had written one sentence on the wall:
"They are not the ones who dig… but the earth is the one that swallows."
---
In the tavern, where all these threads cross without meeting, a stranger was placed a map carved on the back of a living creature. The skin still pulsed. The man said, without looking around:
"What lies beneath the west is not treasure, nor weapon, but memory. And whoever seeks will lose his memory first."
A waitress from the Wind Guild said to him:
"And have you lost your memory?"
He said: "No… but I started to remember what I never lived."
---
In one of the alleys, a battle broke out between two guilds. No screams were heard, no weapons raised. They just stood staring at each other, until one's nose started bleeding black blood, then another spat out an eye that was not his.
A passerby shouted:
"Stop! This is madness!"
One of the fighters, whose eyes looked in different directions, replied:
"No. This is negotiation."
---
In a distant cave, south of the city, a witch whispered into the ear of a rat. She said:
"Tell them the earth breathes. And breathing comes only before the scream."
The rat shook its tail and ran.
---
Among all these scenes, in an alley not drawn on any map, there was a blind old man chanting:
"Under the ashes… an ancient heart
Forgotten in hell,
No one searches for it…
But the earth searches for it."
He laughed, then cried, then melted. As if the earth swallowed him just as memory swallows what it does not want to remember.
No one stopped, no passerby raised his head. The alley where he disappeared no longer existed when the city was redrawn in magical maps. And the poem the old man chanted was not recorded, but hung in the air like a faint bell heard only by those who lost something dear and did not know its name.
In the tavern, a scent arose that was not the scent of wine or blood, but the scent of ancient knowledge coming from a crack in the wall of time. Whispers stopped, for a moment, as if something passed over the place unseen. Glasses trembled. Drunkards who did not know they were spies looked at each other.
One said:
"It passed."
Another, his eyes white, said:
"But it will return."
Beneath the city, in a tunnel forgotten by all the guilds, a door that had not been opened for a thousand years awakened. No one knocked, but it began to open. Slowly. With a sound unlike anything. A sound like the void breathing.
And in a cemetery where no one was buried, the next night a black rose was found. No stem. No roots. Only a beating heart in the soil.
On that same night, four sorcerers from four guilds disappeared, without a trace, without resistance. They vanished as if no one had ever written their names at all.
And since that night…
The city began to dream.
And the earth – for the first time – began to look upward.