Chapter Text
The ruins hadn’t been touched in centuries - no - millenia. It had become a graveyard teeming with the dead souls and spirits of ancient forces that no one dared to disrupt, lest it be interrupted.
It was intimidating and eerily still, with everything seemingly blanketed in a thick layer of tension that could snap at the slightest of movements. Huge chunks of rubble were precariously balanced on each other, fitting together like broken puzzle pieces as they sat in the giant chasm. Dead matter coated everything, a mix of heavenly structure and remains of who knows what. Dead plants surrounded the entire scene like bystanders, drooping like mourners as dead organisms sat in almost pristine condition as if they refused to decompose. Everything was perched in such a way that even one breath could ruin the entire scene, send the entire structure collapsing into even more pieces.
That’s what the history books described. That’s what was drawn in pictures. That’s what the common folk were told. That’s what many nobles were told.
They were told that the Ruins of Heaven were a pristine place despite being a ruin, everything looking divine and heavenly despite the circumstances that caused its existence. A “little white lie” to keep prying eyes from exploring the topic any further. There were hundreds upon hundreds of artist renditions, tens of drawings published in history books spanning the continents. People claimed to have seen the place themself, describing it in vague detail that complied with the already existing knowledge recorded. Funny enough, many of these “eye witness reports” were small nobles or others of similar rank seeking fame and flourish, often found to have never gone any further than their town.
They bragged about the simplest of wealth, going around their village and boasting about their riches. They were stuck up and snobby and just everything stereotypical that you would expect from nobles like them.
Fools.
“The Ruins of the Heavens” or whatever they deemed it now was far from divine. Far, far from it.
It looked like a hellish summoning circle, runes carved into everything as far as the eye could see and huge markings still dug into the ground after millenia. Golden blood turned dull, coated almost everything in sight, splattered across runes and drenching plants or anything that was unlucky enough to be within range back then. It looked like a massacre of divine beings and painted a vastly different image than the one that had been carefully crafted over the centuries.
There was one thing they had right, a small fact that many argued was irrelevant or mockery. Many never meant all.
There were whispers passed down to each king’s hand, snaking through time with every passing generation.
Whispers that the spell was fading. That the tremble of the runes and the faint shake of the earth was a sign. That something was coming. They could feel it in ways that no one else could. It just felt wrong.
It felt wrong in all the worst ways.