4. Rituals

In awe, Marlena stares at the ghostly figure for a few seconds. After all, this is the first person she's ever seen from beyond. However, she snaps out of it when she realizes the name the figure just gave. "Eryndel? You're Eryndel? The Oracle who left those prophecies about... the dungeon?"

She steps closer. "If you're truly the same Eryndel, then could you tell me more about the dungeon? Just who created it? What forces wait down there? And the Chosen Ones, who are they? Did you ever manage to glean anything about them and when they'd arrive?"

For a moment, Eryndel simply looked at Marlena, her form rippling slightly as if caught in a draft that no one else could feel. Then, with a breathless stillness, she turned her head and cast her gaze across the circle, seeing not just the gathered students, but through them—through time, through fate, through memory.

The feeling that washed over her was not shock.

It was inevitability.

She had seen this moment once, in a vision carved out of starlight and fevered dreams. At the time, she hadn’t known what to make of it—only fragments. Faces she couldn’t name. Voices calling her back. A circle of magic laced with both recklessness and luck.

And now... here they stood.

"So," she said softly, more to herself than to them, "it came to pass. The seal has weakened. The echoes have grown loud enough that even the dead are summoned to answer."

Her eyes settled on Marlena.

"Yes. I am Eryndel."

There was no pride in the statement, no mystique. Only weariness. A profound and quiet grief, like that of someone who knew too well the weight of her warnings unheeded.

"The dungeon was not built during my time. It was uncovered. A thing ancient beyond kingdoms. Before Misthaven. Buried by hands who understood that not all power was meant to be harnessed. I wrote what I could. The visions came with blood and fire—pieces, never wholes. But always the same refrain: ‘Seal it. Guard it. Wait.’"

The flickering of her form intensified briefly.

"You ask of the Chosen. I saw no faces. Only lights, five of them. Each born of different stars. Different wounds. Each with the potential to awaken what sleeps beneath and to survive what follows. I did not know when they would come, only that when they did... they would summon me, back from the dead."

Her voice caught, just barely. Emotion—soft but real—touched her next words.

"And now you have. And now I know..." Her gaze lifted, scanning each of their faces. "The Chosen have arrived. And you are not ready."

The air seemed to constrict.

"But you must be."

Well shit.... Kiraen exclaims
How do we get ready?
Ready for what?
And what are these dungeons you are talking about Marlena?

"While I was looking into the incident," Marlena leaves the Hollow Quill part unsaid to maintain secrecy, "I happened upon information about an oracle named Eryndel. She left a series of prophecies about a dungeon that laid underneath Misthaven," she explains to Kiraen. "I admit, I was skeptical about it until now. Least of all, I didn't think we'd be the chosen..."

She looks up at Eryndel. "Do we need to go into this dungeon? What are the potential consequences if we refuse the call? On a more minor note, what's the dungeon's name? We can hardly keep calling it 'the dungeon', now can we?" Marlena smiles, trying to inject a small bit of humor into this grand moment.

Eryndel’s form wavers like a flame caught in a breath of wind, her translucent eyes locking onto Marlena’s.

"You ask if you must go into the dungeon," she begins, her tone sorrowful yet steady. "But understand this: when a great wave rises, it matters little whether you walk toward it or wait on the shore. The dungeon will find you. It will find all of you."

She lets the silence stretch before continuing, her voice weighted with certainty.

"The Chosen Ones are never volunteers. It is not called ‘the Ones Who Choose.’ Fate does not ask permission—it binds. I have seen it."

Her tone shifts, becoming hushed and reverent.

"The place you call a dungeon was once the heart of all things—a sacred beginning. The dwarves say the god Murad gave their ancestors a single stone. Small, perfect. Along with it, he gifted Creatio—the first school of magic—and a command: build."

She lifts a ghostly hand, as though cradling something unseen.

"And so they did. They lit their forges. They sang to the stone in the deep tongue. Layer by layer, they built outward from that pebble. What began as a fleck became a chamber, a cavern, a vast hollow—and still they built. Their chants molded the world’s very fabric. They didn’t just dwell beneath the earth. They made it. Shaped it. Expanded it."

"According to this legend, the world beneath your feet—everything you know—was once no more than that divine stone, grown by dwarven hands across generations. They dreamed of a perfect sphere so vast it would one day reach Murad’s fiery hearth in the sky. Like all gods, he watches by night—not from temples, but from above. He is the red star. The one that never twinkles."

She pauses, the weight of myth thick in the air.

"To the dwarves, he is the Maker of Deep Things. The Furnace Heart. The Whisperer in Stone. But the humans… you gave him another name."

Her gaze sweeps the circle, her eyes smoldering faintly.

"You call him Ares, the God of War."

---

After a dramatic pause, she continues, her voice now gentler.

"The elves, in turn, were given dominion over the surface. They planted the forests, summoned rain, softened the land—preparing it like wood for joining and growing the next layer. They, too, had a divine task. For them, that same red star is Coretta, the mother goddess—the blood of life, of birth."

"And we, the humans?" Her voice sharpens. "We came later. We were not named in the grand shaping. And yet we endured. We multiplied. We conquered. We ruled. Mutatio. Dominatio. We discovered and perfected those schools."

Her form dims, flickering with strain.

"But now… something stirs beneath. What lies below is no longer the womb of the world. The forge has been tainted. Its songs have turned sour. And now that forgotten cradle beats once more—not with Creatio, but with something else."

She leans closer, her voice a whisper made of wind and ash.

"Excidium. Death. Decay. Rebirth. "

Turning her gaze back to Marlena, she offers a faint, sad smile, and finally answers her question about the name:

"The dwarves once named it Ghal Maraz—the Deep Anvil. A place of making. A place of prophecy. But names lose power when purpose is lost. Now… it may answer to none."

"There are 6 of us that means 1 will not be a chosen one who?", he asked. Of course he was hoping that he would not be one. And pretty much knew he wasn't. The rest knew something beyond him. He was just an observer. An outsider and out cast. Had the teacher not said groups of 6 he'd have wound up trying to figure out this project alone.

Oh not this, not destiny again. I should double my efforts in learning fatecraft and ensuring I'm not snagged by the web of destiny ever again. Though at least this thing mentioning five chosen is a sign that maybe the prophecy might be about someone else. If I'm to face an ancient threat, then I'd rather do it on my own terms, not at the nudge of destiny!

Kiraen is drawn to the story and the exposition, and realises that she left her guard down. Quickly, she returned her attention to monitoring the energies.

Dorian isn't sure what he expected from a magically fueled seance but this isn't it. Still, the power of story enthralls him with the others. After Eryndel’s telling ends, he thinks hard for a moment.

"Decay. And Rebirth. Two sides of the circle of life perhaps. We are at a threshold, a crossing over point. Perhaps not just us, but the world as we know it. Or, is this the metaphor? The world as we each personally know it certainly is being torn down and a world full of magic born in its place."

Eryndel’s form pulses dimly, as if the question itself weighs on her fading presence. She turns her gaze toward Quinn, her expression unreadable—part sympathy, part distance.

"There are veils between your world and mine," she says gently. "And through them, I see you not as faces, but as sparks—blazing, flickering, or dim. You are threads in a great pattern, and some are easier to trace than others."

Her voice lowers, as if confessing something rarely spoken.

"From where I linger, the Chosen burn brighter… but even then, their light is often obscured. The future is smoke and wind. It moves when I try to grasp it. I do not see who is which, or which is who."

The more Eryndel goes on, the more curious Marlena becomes. The potential danger becomes a secondary concern compared to finding out more about the dungeon and what dwells within.

"How fascinating... I must admit, you've really caught my intrigue now, Eryndel. I will see this Ghal Maraz with my own eyes. Not just because I am supposedly one of the chosen, but for the sake of knowledge. Amazing secrets must lie in its depths! I simply must make them my own."

Marlena looks over Eryndel's ephemeral form, noticing how her presence seems to be fading. "Are we running out of time? Could we contact you again at a later date? How do we know when we're ready, and what are we expected to do?"

Zix watches silently, intrigued by the prospect of unearthing some information that few have access to.

Eryndel’s glow dims further, the edges of her form fraying like mist at sunrise. She turns slowly to Marlena, and for a brief moment, her eyes shimmer with something like joy—or awe.

"You already contacted me again… or perhaps you will," she says softly, her voice touched by uncertainty. "I see you in circles, not in lines. You speak to me from yesterday, tomorrow, and now. It’s… confusing, but beautiful."

Her form flickers violently now, the strain of her lingering presence taking its toll.

"Readiness is not a threshold to cross. It is a path to walk. You will never feel ready, but you must go anyway. That is what the Chosen always do. As for what you’re expected to do… survive. Witness. Talk. Decide."

She glances at the others, her voice no longer echoing—just a whisper pulled apart by distance. Her gaze finds Marlena one last time.

"When the deep sings, listen closely. It will lie in truths and weep in riddles. But it remembers you… all of you…"

And with that, her form unravels into light, then vanishes.

For a moment, the room is still—then it erupts into cheers and awe-struck whispers as the full weight of what they accomplished sets in. Professor Lorridian, eyes wide with restrained pride, claps his hands once and nods.

"Exceptional. Truly exceptional. You’ve all just earned the highest marks I’ve ever given for a first-year ritual."

He pauses, then adds.

"Though I suspect this is only the beginning. What are you going to do?"

Oh.... everybody saw and heard all this? Kiraen looks around worriedly.
She knows what happens next. By lunch time every student will know. By evening, all of Misthaven will know that they are they the Chosen. Everybody and their aunt will have an opinion and their own agenda to push on them.
Any chance of being an ordinary student with a job in the library, is going down the drain.

Dorian waits for an explanation from the professor to Kiraen's question, but he's suddenly aware of the rest of the class. He raises an eyebrow as if to suggest that nothing less than extraordinary should have been expected.

A prison realm, that's what it sounded like to me. And one we should best avoid. Still, people are sometimes locked away to keep them from talking, so mayhaps answers lie there.

The room in the Biblioplex is wide, circular, and lined with towering shelves of scrolls and rune-etched tomes. Arched windows cast pale morning light over long wooden desks arranged in a crescent shape around the center, where Salem’s chalked summoning circle still faintly glows. A cluster of flickering ritual candles gutter in the sudden silence left by Eryndel’s vanishing.

Around eighteen students occupy the room—some sitting forward in stunned silence, others still bent over their own ritual preparations, oblivious to what just occurred in the center. A few had noticed the summoning but had mistaken it for an illusion, staged scene or demonstration piece. Only about a third were fully tuned in… but word, Kiraen knows, will spread like wildfire.

She turns her gaze around, voice laced with rising dread.

Professor Lorridian, glances up from a scroll where he was scribbling their grades with a quirked brow.

"Not everyone, no. But..." He offers Kiraen a resigned shrug. "Misthaven loves a legend in the making."

Kiraen exhales, already imagining the whispers, the strange glances in the halls, the letters that might start arriving addressed to "Chosen One." She knows exactly how this goes: every student will have a theory. Every instructor will have an opinion. Every official with a title or ambition will want something from them.

No more quiet studies. No more shelving old scrolls in peace.

Yet reality, as always, is a little more complex. Fame fades in time, and attention turns as quickly as it comes. Not all of them would be swept up in the wave—at least, not right away. Some of the Chosen might try to deny it, to duck the scrutiny and insist on finishing their studies quietly. Some might even succeed. If being a mage can ever truly be called "quiet."