The dungeon was a place of darkness. A place of solitude. A place one should generally avoid. This one was no different, but for another reason. 

 In the lowest level of the dungeon, a massive stone sat in the centre of the cave-like room. To call it a stone would be a lie. It was a tomb. Two men clad in dark blue robes and hoods stood at the side of it, facing the entrance. That entrance led to a spiral staircase, a pathway to ground level. 

The dungeon was engineered like that. The magicians raided it, and closed everything inside it except that last room. A tomb for The Sovereign of Night, Idris. 

At the exit awaited another six of them. Those above ground had a single purpose. Blow the entrance to pieces if that monster ever made it free. 

A lone magician in white robes descended down the staircase. He had a single job, to maintain the seal. He, and the two others down there knew the risks. If they messed up, they were getting buried alive. But nothing ever seemed like too much to students of magic. They were always zealous for their causes.

Each step the white robe took echoed with the emptiness of the dungeon. The stairs were crudely made, put together with the help of earth magic. The only ones who ever used the stairs were the guards and the maintainer, there was never a need to refurbish and polish the place. The white robe wished that they were at times. It would have made his job a lot easier. 

Inside the room the two guards were laughing. Nudging each other's shoulders and shaking their heads. The sound of their laughter bounced around the room. 

The taller of the two stopped to wipe his tears. “I doubt it. Even if the queen of Endorica were to come here that fool wouldn’t change a thing about his attitude. He’s too good for that.” 

“I hear that,” the shorter of them joined in. “All because he belongs to a prestigious family he thinks the rest of us are sub-rate magicians. We’ll show him.” 

“We won’t need to, at this rate he’ll end up getting himself killed by those crescents if he keeps bossing them around.”

“Ugh, don’t say that name, those guys give me the creeps.”

“What? Don’t tell me you’re scared of them, are you?” 

“I wouldn’t go that far…” the short one scratched the back of his neck, the fabric of his hood folding in on his hands. “I just don’t want to be near them.”

“Whatever you say buddy.” 

As they cackled amongst each other, the white robed ones' footsteps got closer and closer.

The laughter died the moment he entered the chamber.

The air stiffened around him, like a held breath. His robes were clean to the point of arrogance, unmarred by dust or sweat, and the sigils embroidered along the hem glimmered faintly with restrained power. He did not acknowledge the guards at first. His pale eyes were fixed on the tomb. Unlike them, with their blue cloaks, his white one was a sign of his rank, his ability.

“So,” he said at last, voice soft, “it still sleeps.”

The taller guard straightened immediately, shoving the shorter one with his elbow. “Yes, Magister. Not a sound. Not a twitch.”

“Of course,” the white-robed magician replied absently. He approached the tomb, boots scraping against stone. “If it had, you would not be standing here to report it.”

He raised a hand and traced a slow circle in the air. The runes carved into the tomb’s surface shimmered in response—ancient glyphs etched so deeply they looked like wounds in the stone. A faint hum filled the chamber, low and constant, like a distant storm held at bay.

The magister frowned.

“…Odd.”

The shorter guard swallowed. “Odd how, sir?”

“The resonance is uneven,” the magister muttered. “The seal should respond uniformly. It’s been less than a month since the last maintenance.”

The taller guard scoffed nervously. “Maybe the old thing’s just… settling?”

The magister shot him a glance sharp enough to cut. “Stone does not settle when bound by thirteen converging sigil arrays.”

Silence fell again.

With a sigh, the magister rolled his shoulders and removed his gloves. Pale hands marked with thin, glowing lines pressed against the tomb. He closed his eyes and began mumbling incoherently.

Light flared.

The sigils blazed blue, then silver, then—

They flickered.

The magister’s eyes snapped open. “That’s not right.”

The flicker became a pulse. One rune dimmed, then another. The hum wavered, stuttering like a failing heartbeat.

“Sir?” the shorter guard whispered. “Is it supposed to do that?”

“No,” the magister said sharply. “Be quiet.”

He raised his voice, forcing more mana into the chant. Sweat beaded on his brow as the lines on his hands flared brighter, burning white-hot. The sigils resisted him now, their light wavering like candle flames in a rising wind.

Then came the sound.

Crk.

A thin crack snaked across the tomb’s surface, splitting one of the central runes clean in half.

The chamber froze.

The taller guard staggered back. “That— that wasn’t there before.”

The magister’s breath hitched. “Impossible. The maintenance spell cannot damage the vessel. It’s a stabilizing—”

CRACK.

The tomb shuddered. Dust rained from the ceiling as another fracture tore through the stone, branching outward like lightning. The sigils began to die, one by one, their glow snuffed out as if swallowed by darkness.

Something inside the tomb laughed.

It was faint. Distant. But it was there.

The magister stumbled back, horror finally cracking his composed mask. “No… no, no, no—”

The shorter guard screamed. “It’s waking up!”

“I said be quiet!” the magister roared, panic bleeding into his voice. He thrust both hands forward, attempting to reassert control, but the spell slipped through his grasp like water.

The truth hit him then.

Mana was not just flowing into the seal anymore, it was biting into the stone.

“No… no, that’s it,” he breathed, terror sharpening his thoughts into clarity. His eyes traced the spreading fractures, no longer looking at the runes, but at the rock itself. The pattern was wrong. The break was not following the sigil lattice. It was following a natural weakness.

“A fault line,” he whispered.

The dungeon shuddered again, harder this time. Pebbles skittered across the floor as the tomb groaned under its own weight.

The magister staggered back, horror curdling into despair. “The stone was compromised… not the seal. Some idiot didn’t repair the rock after they drained him! The spell is amplifying the stress, forcing mana through a fracture that should never have existed.”

The taller guard stared at him. “Speak sense!”

“There is no sense,” the magister snapped. “We’ve been reinforcing rot. Every maintenance cycle pushed more power into a broken foundation.”

As if in answer, the crack in the tomb exploded outward.

The stone erupted. The entire structure shattered along the hidden fault, slabs of enchanted rock tearing free as centuries of pressure were released in an instant. Sigils screamed as they unraveled, their light twisting into violent arcs before collapsing into nothing.

The guards were thrown to the ground as a shockwave tore through the chamber.

Black mist surged upward, no longer seeping but pouring, thick as ink and cold enough to frost the air. The floor split open beneath the tomb, revealing raw, jagged stone—wounded earth, glowing faintly with the scars of ancient magic.

From the heart of the ruin, something rose.

A hand emerged first—ashen skin veined with silver light, fingers long and clawed, resting calmly against the broken stone as though steadying itself. Then a broad shoulder. A silhouette.

Idris pulled himself free with unhurried grace.

The Sovereign of Night stood amidst the wreckage, fragments of the tomb falling away from him like shed skin. His eyes burned with a dim magenta glow, ancient and calculating. The mist clung to him like a cloak, whispering as it moved.

No words followed.

The magister opened his mouth anyway. Whether to beg, command, or cast, he never got the chance.

The light in Idris’s eyes vanished.

Not dimmed. Not faded.

Gone.

The chamber plunged into a deeper darkness than stone should allow, shadows thickening until even the torchlight seemed afraid to exist. The black mist collapsed inward, and then Idris was no longer where he had stood.

The taller guard felt it first.

A pressure at his back. Cold. heavy.

He turned.

Idris was already there.

No sound. No motion. A clawed hand phased clean through his torso, bursting from the front of his robes. The guard’s eyes went wide, his scream strangled in his throat as Idris leaned close, his presence swallowing what little light remained.

The hand withdrew.

The body fell.

The shorter guard never even saw that.

He stumbled backward, tripping over his fallen companion, breath hitching as panic finally broke him. He raised his hands, mana flaring wildly as he tried to form a spell.

For a fraction of a second, the guard’s body overlapped with the Sovereign’s form. Frost raced across his skin as he tried to cast something, anything. He turned.

 But the guard collapsed mid-step, his body hitting the stone, eyes frozen in permanent terror.

The magister ran.

His boots slipped on dust and fractured stone as he tore for the staircase, lungs burning, mind stripped of all dignity and rank. Spells were forgotten. Pride was ash. There was only one thought left clawing through his skull.

Warn them. Blow the entrance. Bury it. Bury him.

The spiral staircase loomed ahead, its rough-hewn steps twisting upward into darkness. Light from above filtered down faintly, impossibly distant, but real enough to chase.

He took the first step.

Then the second.

The dungeon groaned around him, a low, settling sound, as though the stone itself were shifting its weight.

“Help—” he tried to shout, but his voice fractured, swallowed by the cavern.

He forced himself onward, hands scraping against the wall for balance. His robes caught on jagged rock; he tore free and did not look back.

He reached the curve of the staircase.

And then he saw it.

Not Idris.

His shadow.

It stretched along the wall ahead of him, impossibly long, bending where the stone bent, sliding over cracks and uneven surfaces like liquid ink. It moved against the torchlight, climbing upward even as the light fell downward.

The magister froze.

The shadow stopped too.

For one terrible heartbeat, neither moved.

Then the shadow tilted—as though something unseen had inclined its head.

The magister’s breath caught. His mouth opened to scream, to warn, to do something.

The torchlight behind him went out.

Not extinguished.

Eaten.

Darkness flooded the staircase, heavy and complete. The air grew cold, the kind of cold that pressed inward, stealing warmth without touching skin.

A presence settled behind him.

Close enough that he felt it without being touched.

His legs refused to move.

The shadow swallowed him whole.

Far above, the six magicians waited, unaware.

The dungeon fell silent once more.

And the Sovereign of Night continued his ascent.

He turned toward the spiral staircase.

Above, far beyond the shattered tomb, the dungeon trembled as fractures raced upward through its spine.

And somewhere near the entrance, six magicians felt the darkness move. They just didn't know it yet.

Idris took a step.

The shadows followed.

The Sovereign of Night had not spoken a single word—but the dungeon understood.

His stay there was over.