The Path of the Lost wound downward, and the oppressive crush of rock suddenly receded, revealing a tangle of detritus like a receding tide. Before them lay a village abandoned by the world, huddled at the bottom of a narrow valley.
The air hung stagnant, thick with the scent of old dust and withered grass. Here, ruin had no taint of corruption—only pure, suffocating stillness. Time itself seemed frozen, then slowly rotted away.
The skeletal frames of houses leaned drunkenly, as though their spines had been pulled out. Collapsed thatch roofs gaped like empty hollows. Weathered timbers exposed rough stone walls, overtaken by brittle vines.
"Ugh." Karrion stopped, stroking his beard thoughtfully. He surveyed the ruin with a dwarf's wary eye. "No sign of life. Not for a long while."
Thalia tightened her cloak, her pale cheeks growing nearly translucent. She tilted her head, as if straining to hear sobs carried on a wind that held no sound. The weight of despair here felt almost tangible.
Raine's heart sank. He stepped onto the village's only half‑overgrown dirt road. His foot crunched broken potsherds, their bright clack jarring in the oppressive silence.
Scattered relics whispered of a panicked flight: a toppled wheelbarrow, its wheel rotted away; frayed cloth bundles faded to spider‑web rags. A lone wooden door lay propped in a corner, its carved patterns long since blurred.
They moved in silence. Every hollow structure seemed to stare accusingly; every relic a mute lament.
Karrion tapped the handle of his hammer against a wobbling wall. "Not rot," he muttered. "No warped growth—just… spent."
Spent of what? Supplies? Hope? Life itself? Raine dared not imagine what had befallen this place.
At the village's end lay a small, crooked graveyard. A few crude headstones and wooden markers leaned among thorny grass. Their inscriptions were weather‑blurred, as if even the names of the dead had been forgotten.
Thalia halted at the edge, but did not venture closer. Instead, she scanned the far cliffside, where an unnatural shadow flickered. "This air… is so heavy," she whispered, her voice barely there.
Raine's gaze was drawn to a half‑collapsed hut beside the graves—a child's cottage, or a craftsman's shack. Its rotted frame revealed only darkness within.
Compelled, he approached. Karrion frowned but trailed him; Thalia remained rooted, her expression inscrutable.
Raine brushed aside dead vines at the door and peered inside. Dust and mildew choked the narrow space; rotten timbers and unidentifiable tools lay strewn. On the floor, half‑buried in grime, was a small object.
He knelt, clearing away dust. It was a tiny wooden bird, simply carved yet crafted with care. One broken wing lay beside it.
As his fingertip brushed the cold wood, a torrent of ice ran through his mind—not the star‑fire backlash, but a haunting echo of past despair.
Shattered visions stabbed at his thoughts like glass shards: dim lantern light on haggard faces; soft coughs and muffled sobs; empty granaries crawling with rats; a mother rocking a feverish child under a leaking roof, her eyes emptily fixed on it; a man slamming his fists on parched earth; arguments over the last scrap of rotted food—then a vast, hollow silence. No monsters, no unsettling whispers, only hunger, disease, and oblivion, tightening like a noose and snuffing out all life.
"Ugh…" Raine jerked his hand back, clutching his temples as nausea and a pounding ache shattered his equilibrium.
"Raine!" Karrion lunged forward, gripping his shoulder. The dwarf's coarse palm smelled of embers and metal. "What's wrong? You look ashen!"
"I'm fine…" Raine gasped, fighting off dizziness. "Just… saw something."
Thalia stepped beside him, her gaze fixed on the little wood carving. "The sorrow here is too great," she said softly, her voice carrying an uncanny weight. "It's frozen in time, waiting to be touched."
Raine pressed his back against the rotted doorframe, chest tight. Looking out over the ruined village and toppled headstones, he realized destruction wears more faces than the corruption of shadow. To be abandoned, forgotten, and starved out in silence is its own annihilation.
He thought of his sister's phantasms, of Marcos's cruel trap, of the corrupted star‑blood wraiths—his ancestors—beckoning him. The world was riddled with wounds. Corruption was merely the boldest gash; beneath its surface lay countless secret sores.
His purpose crystallized. He must uncover the truth—not just for his sister or his house, but to prevent further tragedies. To stop these silent massacres. To spare all of Etheiria from becoming another forgotten graveyard.
Karrion, watching Raine's steely resolve, turned to a nearby headstone and kicked a loose rock in fury. "Bloody nonsense!" he cursed under his breath. "A pack of—thrown‑away wretches rotting here like carrion!" He spun on Raine. "Those highborn snobs—Star‑blooded lords, the Church—puff themselves up as guardians, yet their power struggles and wars leave nothing but misery in their wake!"
He spat, eyes blazing with righteous anger. "I watched my own home die for their games!"
Thalia listened without interjection, her gaze drifting north toward the Corrupted Wood. "Despair is fertile soil," she murmured, half to herself. "The Void loves to take root in such places."
Raine drew a slow breath of the dusty air. Cradling the broken wooden bird in his pocket, he stood. "Let's go."
Without looking back, they left the village behind. The wind moaned through hollow walls like a mournful dirge. Under the ashen sky, their footsteps echoed—a testament to lives unrecorded, hopes unfulfilled, and the urgent vow to press on through the gathering darkness.