Chapter 3 – The Lies Beneath

The castle was vast — a maze of shifting shadows, secrets, and stories best left untold. In its lower levels, behind false walls and forgotten doors, two children prepared to defy a kingdom.

Leo and Rily stood in a quiet storeroom, packing what little they could carry: dried bread, flint, rope, a flickering torch enchanted to burn low and long, a rusted dagger once used for kitchen work — now a weapon of last resort. Every piece felt too small, too fragile, but they had no choice.

Before they could descend into the dungeon, they needed to know why.

And so, the investigation began.

They moved like shadows through the castle — quietly, carefully — speaking with old kitchen hands, scullery boys, exhausted guards, and terrified maids. Many refused to talk. Some whispered warnings. But a few… a few spoke the truth when no one else would.

And the truth was rotten.

> The king, once hailed as a bringer of prosperity, now abducted demon children under the false banner of conscription. They were taken — not to train, not to serve — but to disappear.

> The grain stores, once filled to feed the realm, were now collected as cruel taxes, rotting in gilded silos while villagers starved. The food no longer served the people — it fed only the king’s excess and the bloated mouths of his puppet advisors.

> Even the magic stones — rare gems harvested to maintain the northern barrier — had been redirected. Once a shield against the horrors of the Forest of Nightmares, the barrier was now fading. Its pulse weakened. And from across that crumbling wall, unspeakable creatures had begun to slither through the cracks.

Some whispered of abominations — not beasts, not demons, but things twisted beyond recognition. Their howls haunted the outskirts of villages. Whole outposts had vanished in the dark.

The kingdom was rotting from the inside, and the people — like Leo — had been kept in gilded blindness.

The boy’s heart, once tender and naive, now burned with cold clarity.

His world was broken.

But he… was not.

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By twilight, the duo had evaded patrols, slipped past checkpoints, and reached the lowest halls of the keep. The torches dimmed here, and the stone walls grew damp. Faint sounds — distant whispers, clinks of unseen chains — echoed in the cold.

At last, they stood before it.

The Dungeon Gate.

An ancient archway of bone-black stone. Runes long eroded pulsed faintly. The door was sealed with a lock shaped like a serpent’s maw. The air itself vibrated — not with life, but with something worse.

Dread.

Rily gripped Leo’s sleeve, her voice barely a whisper. “It feels… wrong. Everything in me is telling me to turn back.”

Leo nodded.

He felt it too — something old and angry stirring beyond the stone. The very presence of the dungeon seemed to claw at their souls, trying to unravel their courage.

But Leo stepped forward.

“I know,” he said quietly. “But if my sister is in there… I have to go. Even if it kills me.”

Rily took a breath.

And together, with trembling hands and iron hearts, they pulled open the ancient gate.

The hinges groaned like dying beasts. The air that poured out was cold, thick, and unnatural — as if it hadn’t been breathed in centuries.

They stepped into darkness.

Their torch flickered once… then held.

Beneath the castle, where no light dared stay and no map dared mark, began the true descent.

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Stay tuned.

For in the black below, truths awaken — and legends are born not in comfort, but in fear.