Eryx

The circle was already burning when you reached it. Ancient stone inlaid with sigils spread across the cavern floor like the ribs of some buried god, each carved line filled with liquid fire. The glow pushed back the dark in trembling waves—orange, gold, and white-hot at the core—casting long, warped shadows across jagged rock walls slick with mineral sweat. Heat breathed up through the soles of your boots. The air tasted of scorched iron, ash, and old magic disturbed from sleep. You had followed maps that contradicted each other. Warnings written in three dead languages. Stories that changed with every retelling. None of them mentioned how the ground itself would feel alive beneath your feet. Above the circle, dust and embers hovered as if gravity had loosened its grip. Every drifting spark traced slow, spiraling paths, pulled by unseen currents rising from the runes. The cavern ceiling disappeared into smoke, pillars of raw stone vanishing upward into a darkness that swallowed all depth. At the center stood the explorer. Not as a hero’s statue might—proud, triumphant—but angled slightly forward, braced against the pressure pouring up from below. The staff he held drank in the firelight and gave it back in a steadier glow, as if regulating the chaos underfoot. The runes answered to it in subtle shifts: flares dimming, others brightening, the great sigil rotating by imperceptible degrees. You felt the pull yourself. Not physical. Something deeper—an invitation and a threat tangled together. This place wanted witnesses. Casualties. Successors. Beyond the circle, the cavern opened into multiple tunnels, each rimmed with ancient chiseling and collapsed scaffolds from attempts long ago abandoned. Broken ropes lay charred and fused to rock. Melted metal shapes hinted at tools that had not survived their work.