Session 3 - Day 8 and 9 - The Hollow Spire Ruins

I arrived at dusk.
 
The Hollow Spire loomed like a broken tooth against the sky, jagged and defiant. I should have felt fear. Instead, I heard the astrolabe hum, buried under the rubble—soft, steady, like a heartbeat not my own. Its glow kept the shadows at bay through the night, casting a pale dome of protection around my camp. I slept beneath its light, dreamless but not untouched. Something watched. Something waited.
 
By morning, I stepped into the first chamber.
 
It was... not what I expected.
 
A plant—tentacled, bioluminescent, and deeply committed to its role as the worst comedian in the realm—anchored to the ceiling began its performance. “What did the lich say to the necromancer? You raise me up!” It cackled. I winced. The jokes were so bad they scraped at my spirit, each pun a psychic abrasion. I felt my resolve thinning, my will fraying. It wasn’t trying to kill me. It was trying to demoralize me into oblivion.
 
Running as quickly as I could from this unfunny botanical nightmare, I heard it say with a groan, “Tough crowd,” as it slinked back into the ceiling.
 
The second room was worse.
 
Glyphs covered every surface—walls, floor, even the air felt etched. They pulsed with malevolence, not just old magic but active hatred. He stood at the center, cloaked in shadow and fury. His voice was like rust scraping stone.
 
“I am Erderr Dolbyne,” he said, stepping forward. “My master told me to wait here for you. You will submit, or I will end you.”
 
I didn’t flinch.
 
“I don’t know you,” I replied, rapier in hand, relaxed. “I don’t know who holds your leash, but you’re a fool to think I’ll allow anyone—or anything—to put a leash on me.”
 
He laughed—a dry, hollow sound that made the glyphs flicker. “Then you will die defiant.”
 
He attacked.
 
The fight was long. Grueling. My blade sang, my limbs burned, and the Turtle Shell spell that I’d invoked turned each blow he struck. He was stronger than he should have been—fed by the glyphs, by something deeper. I faltered.
 
Then came the wind.
 
Almathea.
 
She arrived like a storm wrapped in sunlight—hair streaming, eyes alight with purpose. Her presence shifted the room. The glyphs recoiled. Erderr hesitated. And in that moment, we struck together. He fled, wounded and snarling, vanishing into the ruin’s depths.
 
After the silence returned, Almathea knelt beside the glyphs. “This evil can’t be destroyed by force alone,” she said. “Only the good from a being of this world can unmake it.”
 
I didn’t ask what she meant. I already knew.
 
The words came to me—not from memory, but from truth. I spoke them aloud, voice steady, heart bare. The glyphs screamed, then shattered. The room exhaled.
 
It is gone now.
 
But the Spire remembers.
-E