Fantasy
To Return, Remember
“Where do you think you’re headed?” asked a burly voice from behind Steph. Where did this monstrosity come from? Steph wondered, turning to see a minotaur lumbering toward them from the direction they’d just come. There were no other doors, no hidden paths—at least, none Steph could see. But in this place, what did visibility really mean?
By Lillianna Nightveilabout a year ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 7
They stood at the edge of the forest’s breathless hush, staring at the black glass spire on the cliff beyond. The tower rose like a needle from the land’s charred bones, fractured but whole, reflecting slivers of starlight in its broken surface. It was older than Hollowspire, older than the Flamecourt, older even than the songs Elira’s ancestors once wove into stone.
By Richard Baileyabout a year ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 6
Even as the glyphs of the temple dimmed, the hush they left behind was not peace, it was a silence waiting to be broken. The trio climbed the winding stairs back to the surface, each step echoing with ash-soaked finality. The stone underfoot still radiated warmth, the heat of forgotten power bleeding upward through the marrow of Hollowspire. Elira’s hands glowed faintly with residual spellwaltz rhythm, the sigils trailing off her fingertips like fading notes written in flame. Tovik’s palm still bore the shape of the seared mask, a blackened imprint over trembling skin that pulsed faintly like a living wound.
By Richard Baileyabout a year ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 5
The mask was heavier than it looked. Tovik turned it over in his hands, feeling the obsidian glass flex faintly at his touch, an impossible pliability, like it breathed with him. Its surface shimmered faintly beneath the temple’s flickering glyphlight, catching motes of golden dust in its curves. The DuMonte crest etched in gold was no longer dormant. It glowed as if lit from within, pulsing gently with every beat of his heart, as though answering some ancient rhythm.
By Richard Baileyabout a year ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 4
The air beyond the gate was thick, not with dust, but with memory. It pressed against them in invisible waves, each step drawing deeper into a space where time folded and meaning unraveled. The corridor curved downward into the earth, its stone walls alive with ever-shifting glyphs. Elira watched them shift as she passed, each sigil reacting to her presence, some flaring briefly, others dimming like ancient spirits holding their breath, whispering old songs in a language of light.
By Richard Baileyabout a year ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 3
The descent began at dusk, when the last light touched the horizon like a burnt wick. The mine entrance gaped like an ancient mouth, framed by rusted rails and reinforced with skeletal supports etched in a hybrid of old sigils and modern stabilizing glyphs. The surrounding earth seemed to lean inward, as if trying to reclaim the wound. The stone glimmered faintly, not with ore, but with veins of dormant light, pulsing softly to the rhythm Elira now recognized: not natural tremor, but echo-song. A buried harmony that tugged at magic, memory, and marrow alike.
By Richard Baileyabout a year ago in Chapters
