Shadows Below the Stones

In the southern reaches of Comhlaidir, past the cliffs where the wind shrieks like a grieving god, lie the Pits—gaping holes in the earth that seem to breathe. Travelers speak of them in hushed tones, warning outsiders to stay away, yet no map marks their locations. They appear and vanish with unsettling randomness, as if the land itself chooses who may see them.

The Pits are not mere holes. Their edges are lined with blackened stone, slick as if wet, yet no moisture ever touches them. From within, faint murmurs rise, low and endless, echoing the names of those who have peered too close. Those who lean over claim to see a darkness that is alive, shifting with intent. Some swear it mirrors the sky above; others, the faces of people long dead.

Stories tell of the brave—or foolish—who descended into the Pits. They are never seen again, though travelers sometimes return with hollow eyes and trembling hands, muttering of things moving beneath the soil, things that watch from every angle at once. Scholars who have tried to study them report compasses spinning, instruments failing, and lights bending unnaturally toward the abyss.

The elders of Comhlaidir speak of a curse older than the mountains: that the Pits are mouths of the earth itself, hungry for memory and thought, and that those who linger risk being folded into its silence forever. Some say the Pits choose—claiming those with curiosity, ambition, or guilt heavier than stone.

Yet despite the danger, the Pits continue to draw the unwary. Perhaps it is not hunger they seek, but acknowledgment. To look into a Pit is to confront a part of oneself that the world cannot contain—and to risk being swallowed by the darkness that remembers too well.