Night's veil had settled thick upon the realm of Arthoria, and the world below was cloaked in hues of obsidian and deep sapphire. High above the sleeping kingdom, a raven soared through the moonlit sky, its wings slicing the cold air in measured beats. This was no ordinary bird of omen, but a creature marked by magic older than memory its feathers shimmered faintly with an iridescent sheen, and its eyes, twin pools of glinting silver, scanned the land with uncanny precision.
It flew over stone-walled cities and silent keeps, through vales blanketed in mist, and above the steeples of hollowed cathedrals, each a sentinel to the power Arthoria had quietly amassed. Marketplaces long emptied of their midday clamor gave way to back alleys where shadows whispered secrets. Onward the raven flew past the glimmering rivers that once bore the blood of conquest, past fields where ghostly echoes of war still clung to the soil.
Then, banking westward with a sudden twist of wing, the bird left behind the golden heartlands of Arthoria. Its flight took it across the Sea of Storms, where spectral winds howled above churning waves. And there, where land met the endless tide, a port city, half-swallowed by fog and half-lit by lantern flame, emerged like a forgotten memory from the sea's embrace.
This was Velgroth's Hollow, a port city marked on most maps its name carried more in whispers than in ink. Here, among salt-stained alleyways and crooked docks, truths were bartered with the same ease as coin. The raven descended.
It passed over bustling markets that refused sleep, past oil-lit windows of brothels and dens where incense and illusion veiled darker dealings. As it glided low through the cobbled lanes, commonfolk spoke in the tongue of their language Englodian, a sharp and musical speech colored by the tidewinds.
"Hie thee, yond fish be as stale as yesterday's brine!"
"Nay, sweet Britha, I seen it caught by th' docks ere sun's rest."
"Thou call that fresh? Mine nose would fain differ!"
The voices wove together in a living tapestry of mundane resilience. Merchants argued with drunkards. A boy chased his runaway cap through puddles, and an old woman with a string of garlic round her neck cursed at the sea spray on her laundry.
The raven, heedless of their concerns, swooped through an open window on the second floor of a weather-worn tavern. Within, the light dimmed, the very air seeming to pause in reverence.
A cloaked figure knelt at the center of the room, the floor around him inscribed with circles of abyssal runes, glowing faintly with a lightless hue as though inked in darkness itself. The shadows swirled around him, not cast but summoned, coiling in slow spirals of blackened air. His hood obscured his face, and only the movement of his lips betrayed the incantation he chanted, slow and solemn.
"Ash'raveth dol nar'kaan... I call upon the Hidden One beneath all shadows..." His voice was a quiet storm.
The runes pulsed. The candles in the chamber flickered violently, bending toward the center. And then, a wind that came from no window swept the room, heralding the arrival of a disembodied presence, cloaked in a mist of crimson light and pulsating energy. It formed not into flesh, but into shape vaguely elven in contour, with elongated ears and blood-colored eyes like slits upon a blade.
"Speak, seeker," it said, its voice like the echo of music in a tomb.
The figure did not rise. He bowed deeper, pressing a hand to the rune-marked floor. "My lord," he whispered, "I have scouted the southern edge of the Whispering Hollow Mountain Region. The mists there stir unnaturally, and ruins long buried beneath time's passage now breathe once more. There is power yet hidden, but not far. Not far…"
The presence seemed to swirl more tightly. "The Hollow calls to those who listen. But beware it lies, even to the faithful. What of its heart?"
The cloaked stranger shook his head slowly. "No sign of the Vein. Only whispers. Only echoes."
A pause followed. Then, with a sound like breaking frost, the voice replied, "Continue your search. The threads fray. When they snap, even kings will bleed. I shall speak again when the Abyss yawns."
With a final pulse of red light, the entity vanished, leaving behind the bitter scent of sulfur and the quiet hiss of runes going dark.
The silence was broken by the fluttering of wings.
The raven had perched upon the edge of the windowsill, and now it hopped onto the stranger's shoulder. It stared into his hooded face and spoke not in the tongue of men, but in a chittering, unknown language whose syllables bent the air around them.
"Zhar'veth kall'noon. Sol'yran dreg vessh… vorn e'naal."
The man hummed softly in response, a sound devoid of melody yet rich in meaning.
He stood slowly, his dark cloak trailing the remains of magic on the tavern floor. He moved with purpose neither haste nor hesitation and descended the stairs into the tavern proper.
The tavern below bore the scent of old wood, brine-soaked floors, and the sweat of men who had sailed too long without coin. The light from iron-caged lanterns flickered against low beams, painting dancing specters upon the walls. At this hour, most patrons had found their cups empty and their tongues heavy with drink, yet a few still huddled by the hearth or leaned across game boards stained with ale and time.
As the cloaked stranger descended the stair, his boots silent upon creaking wood, voices rose around him like a tide unaware, uncaring, yet full of life. They spoke again in that strange and beautiful tongue of Englodian each voice a thread in the great tapestry of Velgroth's Hollow.
"Marna, prithee tell me—didst thou see yon merchant, the one clad in silks?"
"Aye, and th' shine upon his coin did gleam like morning dew! Methinks he'll not leave untouched."
"Untouched? Nay! Gritha's girls already laid claim to his purse… an' perchance his virtue too!"
Laughter barked through cracked teeth. Nearby, two sailors bickered over dice while a piper tuned a reed flute in the corner, testing broken melodies on a stubborn crowd.
The cloaked man passed through the room like a ghost. Though he brushed shoulders, none took notice not truly. There was something veiled about him, as though the air itself hesitated to betray his presence. Only the raven, still perched on his shoulder, drew the odd glance. Its gleaming silver eyes watched everything, recording each word, each tremor in the floorboards.
The man stepped out into the night.
Outside, the port city breathed, damp and restless. Ships bobbed in their berths like beasts tethered to a dock, sails furled, masts creaking with salt and wind. Lanterns swung overhead, casting long shadows across crates and coils of rope. Workers moved with quiet efficiency loading barrels, checking manifests, whispering behind gloved hands.
A fog had crept inland from the sea, veiling the cobbled lanes in a ghostly pall. It swallowed the edges of the world, letting only muffled light and sound slip through. Yet the stranger moved undeterred, his cloak barely stirring despite the breeze.
More voices, thick with the accent of sea-born folk, filled the air.
"'Twas a foul omen, I tell thee! The fishers caught none yestermorn—none, not even a bone!"
"Bah! Foul omens come from foul guts. Eat less stew, an' ye'll see fewer ghosts."
"Laugh whilst ye can, Daveth. The Hollow watches. I seen it eyes in the mist."
The stranger paused beneath a weathered statue of some long-forgotten sea god, its features worn smooth by centuries of salt wind. Beneath its gaze, he turned his head toward the great galleons moored along the far dock, their hulls bearing the insignia of far-flung ports Duskwyrm, Elenvar, Myrrhden, and beyond.
One ship in particular drew his eye: a sleek vessel clad in blackened hullplating, its sails furled tight like folded wings. No banner flew from her mast, yet the sigils upon her prow runic and arcane marked her as a ship of silent commission.
The raven let out a soft croak.
"T'reth shan yl'vor… vel aranoth var."
The stranger nodded. Whatever message passed between them, it was understood. He stepped forward, weaving between dockhands and sailors, his path unbothered, untouched as though fate itself parted the crowd for him.
At the base of the gangplank, a dockmaster glanced up, his face lit by a half-burnt oil lamp. He squinted into the hood, opening his mouth to speak then faltered. Something in the man's bearing stole the words from his throat. He simply nodded and stepped aside, letting the stranger pass aboard without a word.
As the raven's wings fluttered once again, and the sea sighed beneath the stars, the ship prepared to sail not into known waters, but toward a destination obscured by fog and prophecy.
And in the mist behind them, Velgroth's Hollow slept on ignorant of the storm gathering on the horizon.
The sails unfurled with a mournful groan, catching the wind like shrouds sewn from shadow and starlight. The vessel of silent commission drifted away from the docks, parting the sea's black waters with barely a ripple. No bells rang, no calls echoed from her crew only silence accompanied her departure from Velgroth's Hollow, broken only by the sigh of ropes and the occasional whisper of the sea.
The raven stirred upon the stranger's shoulder, ruffling its wings in the salt air. The moonlight kissed its feathers, revealing veins of runed silver hidden beneath the matte black. This was no natural beast, but a creature born of spells forgotten in the Age of Sundering. Its gaze was ancient its voice, when spoken, carried with it echoes of realms unseen.
"Th'run zhal veyr… va'senn morra. Hollen kest drai."
The cloaked figure stood at the stern, his face still cloaked in shadow. Yet his eyes, hidden beneath the cowl, stared toward the far-off horizon, past the last glimmers of harbor light, past the flickering constellations overhead. He was not merely leaving a city behind he was following a thread deeper into the tapestry of the Hollow Veil, where fate, time, and abyssal truth were knotted tight.
He did not speak in return, but his hand moved. Upon his palm, a rune scar pulsed faintly. The same that had flared to life during his communion with the crimson specter. It throbbed in time with the waves.
The Whispering Hollow Mountain Region lingered in his thoughts. The old ruins nestled beneath rotted stone. The monoliths half-buried in the bone-white trees. The low, droning sound that stirred in the roots of the world when nightfall came.
He remembered a day prior standing at the base of a fallen obelisk, its surface etched with symbols not even the Abyss dared name. As he'd touched it, the ground had quivered beneath his feet, and he had heard… laughter. Faint, inhuman, and yet familiar, as if the Hollow itself remembered him.
Back then, the raven had been silent. But now, as they drifted farther from shore, it sang.
A haunting, unearthly warble, not quite melody, not quite language. Yet the notes summoned images to the man's mind: a map burned in black ink, a tower beneath a mountain crowned with lightning, and a flame that whispered names in a tongue too old for mortals.
He closed his eyes, letting the song wrap around him. In his stillness, in his silence, he began to see.
A gate of stone, pulsing like a heartbeat.
A mirror with no reflection.
A crown forged from weeping bones.
And then… the eyes. The same blood-colored slits as before, but now larger. Closer. Watching. Judging.
The vision shattered with the raven's final note.
The ship creaked. The wind shifted. Stars swirled above like runes written upon the sky's black canvas.
He reached into the folds of his cloak and drew forth a parchment-bound codex, its binding scorched, its pages worn thin from many readings. He opened it to the blank leaf at its center and began to write not in ink, but in ash. The letters flared and faded, vanishing as soon as they were drawn. A report, a ritual, a record. All in one.
Observation: Velgroth yields whispers, but not the Hollow's Vein.
Suspicion: The ruin breathes. The eye is near.
Next course: Isle of Drelvahn. Coordinates marked in ink.
He closed the codex and turned his eyes eastward. Somewhere beyond the glimmering curtain of stars lay his next clue, another breadcrumb in the endless search for the Vein of the Hollow a source of power so great that even the Lords of the Abyss wants it amongs themselves.
And yet… that was not why he hunted it.
He hunted it because he heard it.
Even now, as the ship vanished into night, the voice of the Abyss murmured in his bones.