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Clash of Dooms
By [CEO]
Chapter Two: The Sigil and the Storm
Rain lashed the cliffs of the Blackspire as though the heavens themselves sought to scour the land clean. Waves crashed below in a frenzied rhythm, slamming into jagged rocks like drumbeats of war. Somewhere amid the fury, a crow screeched and vanished into the fog.
Kaelen awoke to the taste of blood.
His torch was gone. His limbs ached. Dust clung to his lashes like ash. For a long moment, he lay still, listening to the strange, low hum that seemed to pulse through the stone around him. It wasn't just the echo of the fall. It was… alive.
He sat up slowly. The chamber he had landed in was vast, with vaulted ceilings lost in shadow and walls lined with statues—knights, sorcerers, and beasts he could not name. All of them faced inward, toward a cracked black pedestal at the center of the room.
On it sat a single object: a disc of dark metal, etched with glowing lines that shifted like rivers of fire beneath its surface.
Kaelen rose to his feet, drawn to the artifact. As he approached, whispers filled the air—not spoken language, but thoughts pressed against his mind like icy fingers. His fingers brushed the edge of the disc, and the world shifted.
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In the skies above Saryndor, the Twin Moons flared crimson.
Elindra Moir clutched the edge of the observatory table as her vision spun. The Conclave had warned her of the consequences of using the Eye of Sahl, but she had no choice. The disc—the Sigil of Dythrien—had been touched. After two thousand years, it had awakened.
And so had the one who forged it.
"Elindra!" a voice called, urgent and ragged. It was her apprentice, Lorian, pale and wide-eyed. "The Seer's Pool... it's boiling."
"Prepare the binding scrolls," she said through clenched teeth. "We have to act before the Rift stirs."
"But Arch-Seer," Lorian whispered, his voice almost lost in the howl of the wind outside, "the scrolls are gone. Stolen."
Elindra's eyes darkened.
So, the betrayer had returned.
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Back beneath Durnholde, Kaelen staggered back from the pedestal, panting. Visions burned behind his eyes—cities consumed by black fire, armies of silver-clad warriors battling shadows without form, a voice older than time itself whispering his name.
The sigil was not merely a relic.
It was a key.
A prison.
And he had just unlocked it.
From the far end of the chamber, stone ground against stone. A hidden door began to open, revealing a corridor lit by cold blue flame. Kaelen reached for his sword, breath shallow.
Whatever waited in the dark was ancient. And it was no longer asleep.
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To be continued in Chapter Three: The Broken Oath
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