Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNEZG7PDRTNC80JSC2R86SQ

The air changed the moment they stepped between the oak standing stones. The thick, damp scent of Richmond Park—wet earth and decaying leaves—vanished, replaced by something sweet, clean, and utterly alien. A heavy, profound silence settled around them, broken only by the sound of their own breathing and the soft crunch of their footsteps on a carpet of moss that hadn’t been there a second before. Rory stopped, her hand instinctively reaching for the cold weight of the Fae-Forged Blade at her belt. Beside her, Nyx’s form solidified, the shifting shadows that made up their body coalescing into something more distinctly humanoid, their faintly glowing violet eyes sweeping the grove with keen interest. “We are elsewhere,” Nyx whispered, their voice the soft rustle of leaves in a distant wood. That was an understatement. They stood in a clearing that defied reason. Wildflowers in impossible shades of silver and deep violet bloomed in profusion, their petals seeming to drink the muted light. The trees were ancient oaks, but their bark was smooth and pale as bone, and their leaves rustled with a sound like chiming glass. There was no sun, no discernible source of light, yet the grove was bathed in a perpetual, gentle twilight. The air hummed with a low, resonant energy that made the fine hairs on Rory’s arms stand on end. “Isolde?” Rory called out, her own voice swallowed by the immense, watchful quiet. A figure detached itself from the deeper shadows beneath one of the bone-white oaks. She moved with a preternatural grace, her steps making no impression on the soft moss. Her silver hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall of mercury, and her pale lavender eyes held an ageless weariness. This was the Seer. “You found the path,” Isolde said, her voice melodic and distant. “Not all who seek it do.” “You said you had answers,” Rory said, her grip tightening on the blade’s hilt. The Heartstone Pendant against her chest was inert, a simple cold stone. They were far from any Hel portal here. “I have truths,” Isolde corrected gently, a faint, unreadable smile touching her lips. “Answers are for you to find. Come. The grove is restless tonight. It feels your purpose.” She turned and glided away without another word, leading them deeper into the unnatural wood. Rory exchanged a glance with Nyx, who gave a slight, shadowy shrug before flowing after the Half-Fae. Rory followed, her senses on high alert. The further they went, the more the grove revealed its strangeness. They passed a stream where the water ran not with water, but with liquid silver, bubbling softly over smooth, dark stones. The trees began to twist into archways and natural corridors, their branches woven together overhead like the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral. Bioluminescent fungi clung to the roots, casting pools of soft blue and green light onto the path. “Time is… thin here,” Nyx observed, their whisper close to Rory’s ear. They reached out a hand of solid shadow to brush against the trunk of a tree. “It flows like the silver stream, but not in one direction. Can you feel it?” Rory could. It was a disorienting pull, a sense that moments were stretching and compressing around them. A shiver, not entirely from the chill, traced its way down her spine. This was wonder, yes, but it was a dangerous, unsettling wonder. It felt like standing on the edge of a precipice she couldn’t see. They emerged into another, larger clearing. At its center stood a shallow pool, its surface as still and black as polished obsidian. Around it, the ground was bare except for a circle of flat, rune-carved stones. The air here was different—heavier, charged with static. Isolde stood at the pool’s edge, her reflection a perfect, ghostly duplicate and what may yet be.” “A scrying pool,” Nyx murmured, their form flickering with clear interest. “A powerful focus. Such things are rare, even between realms.” “Look into it,” Isolde said, her lavender eyes fixed on Rory. “Seek your question in the darkness.” Hesitantly, Rory approached the black water. She felt a deep resistance, a primal fear of what she might see. Her childhood scar on her wrist itched faintly. She knelt, the cold of the Fae blade’s hilt a grounding presence in her palm. She leaned over, her own face a pale, anxious moon in the impossible darkness of the pool. For a long moment, there was nothing. Just her reflection, her bright blue eyes wide with apprehension. Then the image rippled and dissolved. The black water showed her a sprawling vineyard under a warm amber sky. She saw tables groaning under the weight of impossible feasts, chefs with blank, focused eyes preparing elaborate dishes. She felt a pang of recognition, a bizarre homesickness for a place she’d never been. Dymas. The pendant on her chest remained cold and still. This was a memory, not a present threat. The scene shifted again, violently. The amber sky darkened to a bruised purple. The lavish feast halls were empty, the tables overturned. A figure, tall and cloaked in absolute shadow, stood amidst the ruins, and from it radiated a cold, devouring hunger that made her want to recoil. It was a presence of pure, ravenous absence. The image in the water fractured into a thousand shards, each showing a different, terrifying possibility: London streets cracking open, her friends screaming, Silas’s bar in flames, Eva reaching for her— Rory jerked back from the pool as if burned, her heart hammering against her ribs. The tranquil beauty of the grove now felt like a thin veneer over a bottomless terror. “What was that?” she breathed, her voice unsteady. “A path,” Isolde said, her expression unreadable. “One of many. The threads of fate are tangled around you, Aurora Carter. You have drawn the attention of… an appetite.” Nyx moved to stand between Rory and the pool, their solid form a welcome barrier. “The Gluttony princedom is in turmoil. The vision confirms it. A power struggle. A vacuum.” Their glowing eyes narrowed. “And vacuums… attract.” “The pendant was a key,” Isolde said, her gaze falling to the crimson stone at Rory’s throat. “And a tether. It does not only sense portals. It calls to the one who seeks its pair. You carry a piece of a broken contract into a realm that thrives on them.” The wonder of the grove had curdled into a profound unease. The chiming leaves now sounded like warnings. The sweet air tasted of ominous portent. They had come for answers and found only a deeper, more terrifying maze of questions. Rory stood up, her knees weak. She had fled one life of danger and obligation in Cardiff only to be thrust into the center of something infinitely larger and more hungry. She looked from the enigmatic Seer to the shifting form of Nyx, then down at the black mirror that held such terrible promise. They weren't just explorers in a wondrous place anymore. They were pieces on a board she couldn’t see, and the game had already begun.