Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT063H72N7GQ78YTHD9V3RW

Dusk settled cold and quick across the trees as Aurora Carter pressed forward, her boots muffled by moss that seemed too soft, almost liquid underfoot. Ahead, the ancient oaks of Richmond Park thickened into a ring of standing stones, their gnarled surfaces gleaming faintly with a sheen that caught what little light remained. A subtle vibration hummed through the ground, low and constant, as if the earth beneath them throbbed with its own breath. The air changed as Rory crossed the boundary. The usual scent of damp earth and fallen leaves twisted into something sweeter, yet sharper. Wildflowers, blooming despite the season, ignited colors impossible in the mundane world—violets that sang with silver, and blues so bright they hurt the eyes when stared at too long. Her breath caught. "Aurora," came a voice behind her, soft and wavering like a breeze threading between leaves. Nyx floated there, their silhouette a shifting shadow that barely reflected the lingering daylight, violet eyes glowing faintly beneath a drifting hood. "You're certain this is the place?" Rory flicked her gaze over her shoulder before returning it to the glade. "Isolde’s grove, yeah. It’s... different." “You can feel it, can’t you?” Nyx twisted their fingers, which melted and reformed as if made from ink spilled on glass. “The Veil’s thin here, pulled taut.” Cautiously, Rory stepped between the stones, each inscribed with curves and runes that shimmered like starlight trapped in wood. The ground fell away suddenly, revealing a shallow hollow where wildflowers thrived in impossible abundance, petals reflecting light that didn’t belong to the sun. She caught a glimpse of herself in a puddle there—the reflection distorted, the edges of her black hair melted like smudged ink, her blue eyes pulsating with something unnatural. Nyx hovered beside her, voice a whisper that seemed to leak from the shadows themselves. “One step further, and less of you will stay behind.” "I’m not planning on losing myself today," Rory growled, the small crescent-shaped scar on her wrist feeling warm beneath her sleeve. The Heartstone pendant around her neck pulsed faintly, its deep crimson gem glowing like a heartbeat synchronizing with hers. They moved deeper. The trees arched taller, their branches twisting high into a roiling sky of shifting mists faintly tinged with amber—the warm shade of dusk bleeding into an unseen fire. The heavy scent of fermented fruit hung faintly, sweet yet rotten beneath it; the place exhaled gluttony, excess, but not cruelly. More a suffocating invitation, an alluring trap. Rory fingered the Fae-Forged Blade at her belt. The slender moonsilver dagger was ice-cold, the metal faintly luminescent in moonlight, which lingered here and there like gentle flickers trapped between branches. It hummed against her leg, a reminder that magic pulsed in this place and that some things better broken were not. “Those flowers,” Nyx whispered, tilting their head. “They don’t bloom for beauty—more like a symptom of something deeply old. Hunger.” Aurora knelt by the petals, brushing her fingers over their soft edges. The color shifted under her touch, blooming a deeper crimson. For a sliver of a second, she tasted something—sour, metallic, the lingering sting of blood. “Blight or blessing,” Isolde Varga appeared, stepping from nowhere as the air rippled around her, silver hair flowing like water over the wildflowers. No footprints marked her approach, and yet every movement seemed to tug at the fabric of the grove itself. Her pale lavender eyes fixed on Rory with a gravity both cruel and merciful. “What you see is a reflection,” she murmured without preamble. “A mirror of the gluttonous realm beyond, Dymas, touching this haven. Not hostile, but never indifferent.” Rory’s jaw tightened. “So this is a taste of Hel’s gluttony? A bleeding over from that realm?” Isolde nodded, lips parting to speak another riddle that hovered in the air like mist. “A feast never finished, a hunger never stilled. The amber sky sinks slowly, casting shadows longer than the night itself.” Nyx drifted closer to Isolde, sending their shadowed fingers out, probing the invisible threads linking this grove to Dymas. “The Veil’s tears are thin here. The pendant feels it too.” The Heartstone pulsed stronger, warmth radiating through Rory’s chest. She clenched her fist. “Then why would someone— or something—bring me here?” Before Isolde could answer, the ground trembled beneath their feet. Letters carved in the standing stones began to glow, shifting patterns that seemed to writhe like living flames. From the underbrush, a sound rose—soft, guttural sighs weaving through the branches, almost like voices begging or warning. “Look,” Rory whispered, eyes wide. In the distance, where the wildflowers gave way to dense thickets, a faint amber glow touched the horizon. The atmosphere thickened, as if breathing had become heavier, every inhale filled with the weight of something ancient and watching. Nyx’s form flickered, one hand reaching toward the shadows. “Shadows stretch hungry here. Gluttony isn’t just excess. It consumes.” Rory let her gaze wander, heart pounding in the hush. She glimpsed shapes—creatures more imagined than real, their outlines slipping beyond the reach of light. Here, fae-tainted trees twisted impossibly upward, their trunks inscribed with sigils old as time, their leaves whispering a language she almost understood but dared not speak aloud. “Stay close,” Rory ordered, stepping forward where roots wove thick and the earth was soft but alive beneath her boots. The deeper they went, the more the scent of spoiled fruit wrapped around them, like a velvet trap pulling them inward. Isolde followed, her presence a delicate shroud of silver light. “The choice to enter this boundary is to taste the sin without surrendering to it. You carry pieces of both the mortal and the fae. That balance is fragile.” The group passed into a clearing unlike the rest—a circle of twisted vines hung heavy with fruit its colour shifting fluidly between rich golds and deep purples, glowing faintly against the dim world. The air hummed with enchantment, fraught with a terrible beauty that sang promises and threats in equal measure. Nyx bent closer to the fruit, voice a thread. “A feast for earthly souls... or a curse for those who bite.” Rory’s knuckles whitened around the pendant. If the relic pulsed this strongly now, nearer a portal of Hel, what dangers waited deeper inside? A sudden rustle snapped their attention upward. Shadows writhed between the branches, and a voice, tangled and ancient, caressed the wind. “Choose carefully what you taste, for the hunger... it tastes back.” Rory’s breath froze, blue eyes scanning the thickening gloom where shadows lengthened between twisted trunks. Isolde’s gaze flickered toward the amber sky above, lips curving in something that might have been a warning or a blessing. “The Veil thins here, and not all who enter leave in one piece.”