The mountains were not the first curse.
But what lay between us and them.
The path stretched like a black tongue, writhing in the soil as if whispering names forgotten by the world.
No one spoke a word. Not because silence was a virtue, but because the air was thick with something else... something that watched, or listened, or longed to be watched.
From the very first step, everything changed. The smell. The light. Even time.
The sky wasn't above us—it seemed closer. Too close.
And the trees... those twisted trees like the fingers of a dead old man, seemed to be exchanging glances behind us.
We were seven. But after just one mile, each of us felt as though walking alone.
The dwarf "Gremlen" yawned with fake exaggeration and said, "If your treasure is in the mountains, this path holds enough ominousness to feed me gold. Are we sure we're not already inside a curse?"
"Mara" replied as she ran her fingers along a trunk carved with an ancient symbol: "Sometimes... the path resembles what we'll find at its end. Maybe we're walking into the beast's mouth, not to its cave."
"Kaith" laughed as he watched the strangers behind them: "Or maybe we're in some grand theater, and all these clowns came to laugh when we're the first to die."
But "Ostiar" said nothing. He stared at the map, then at something unseen, as if the mountains had called his name first.
The ground beneath their feet grew more rugged, the sand turned to stone, and then to black ash the closer they got to an unspoken point.
And with every step, the whispers began.
They weren't from any of them.
One heard his mother's name. Another saw his shadow walk ahead of him... not behind.
"Nira" suddenly stopped, stared into the horizon, and said softly, "Someone is ahead of us."
"Or waiting for us," said Raker coldly as he drew his sword.
Ostiar knelt down and pulled a small object from a leather pouch—a stone etched with blood: "Those who pass this path never return the same. And if they do, they no longer know who they are."
They looked at each other. It wasn't a threat. It was an accurate description of what had already begun to happen to them.
But they didn't stop.
No one stops when the curse begins. Because the first to stop... confirms it.
And the mountains weren't receding, they seemed to grow nearer—like they were waiting.
Like they were opening their mouths at last.
But what came out of that mouth was neither welcome nor silence.
It was a tremendous scream that shook the ground beneath them... and with it, a gate opened to something they had never anticipated.
They were not alone.
And that land was no dormant mystery.
Out of the mist, another squad emerged—four riders on skeletal beasts that made no sound, clad in armor that didn't reflect light, as if forged from a dense shadow unwilling to leave the earth.
Their leader stepped forward, head covered with a round helmet, sword dripping with black light, then raised a strange banner: an inverted sun, from which hung a cracked heart.
"The Seventh Dagger Division, from the Eastern Continent," Ostiar whispered.
"But... they're not supposed to be here."
Someone laughed—from the edge of the valley—and then vanished.
Suddenly, black arrows burst from the mountain edges, as if the rocks themselves were firing them, attacking like silent flaming rain. No sound—only the marks they left on the skin like permanent tattoos.
The teams scattered.
Mara and Raker slid to the right, while Gremlen leapt atop a charred tree and began hurling smoke bombs like toys.
Nira summoned a specter of fog, covering her body before vanishing into the cracks.
But Ostiar didn't move.
He kept staring at the Dagger Division's commander, who stared back and then removed his helmet.
His face... was Ostiar's own.
"What?!" Nira screamed from behind.
But before he could reply, another scream echoed from the opposite direction.
A third squad.
This time, they were dwarves—not like Gremlen—but an ancient exiled group from the Iron Mountain, known as "Ringbreakers."
They served no one, trusted by none, and were rumored to sell their souls to the highest-paying enemy.
"Lovely…" Gremlen muttered, "Even my cousins came."
The battle hadn't started yet... but it was about to.
Three squads.
Three banners.
And the mountains opened their jaws wider... to swallow the losers.
Then... the ground trembled again, but this time from within.
A crack split open in the mountain, as if something had struck its heart from the inside.
And they heard the voice.
An ancient, deep voice that should never have been uttered:
"Open the gate."
The voice was like a hammer blow to the city's heart, and when the rusty gate slowly opened, its joints screamed as if finally letting out centuries of silence.
The squads emerged, one after another.
A group of men clad in dragon-hide, bearing spears taller than themselves, their faces hidden behind bronze masks, showing only unblinking grey eyes.
A squad of barefoot women, dressed in patched animal hides, followed by violet smoke of unknown origin.
A squad of knights, each with a different emblem on their armor, as if returning from a thousand fallen kingdoms—united now by one goal: survival.
And in the midst of this chaos, the seven moved forward.
No one spoke, but their steps were synchronized, as if they knew the path before it was drawn.
The first path was a slope of glass-like rocks, crossed by coiled black roots, some still pulsing as if alive. The air was heavy, sunlight could not reach. The birds flying above... had no wings.
Gremlen struck the ground with his axe:
"This isn't land... this is a scar."
Nira the elf replied sharply:
"We are walking over something dead… and it doesn't want to be awakened."
Not long passed before the first scream was heard.
Far away, at the Valley of Seven Necks, two squads clashed. No one knew why, but blood began to stain the stones, and green magic soared like a spark into the sky.
Kaith the mercenary smirked:
"The game has begun."
Mara said,
"Don't approach... not yet. Let us be the last to kill."
But the chaos drew closer.
And when a strange squad passed beside them, one of its members suddenly stopped… looked at Ostiar, the dark mage, and spat on the ground:
"You… exile from the Night Council, aren't you?"
Ostiar didn't answer.
But Raker placed his hand on his sword's hilt.
The man smirked and walked on... but the ground behind him didn't remain the same.
Where one squad passed, another followed.
The second passage was narrower, flanked by carved stone arches—but no one had ever carved them, or so they said.
Each wall bore prints of hands... not human hands.
Three fingers. Long. Each pointing to the sky.
Suddenly, from behind those arches, the creatures emerged.
They were neither alive nor dead.
Forms riddled with holes, moving in silence as if guided by unseen strings, bearing jagged bone blades, and their eyes... did not exist.
"Get ready!" Raker shouted as he blocked the first strike.
Gremlen let out his war cry, and his axe struck the first creature, slicing it in half… but it didn't fall. It began crawling with half a body.
"This is a curse!" Mara screamed as she traced a flaming circle in the air.
Ostiar chanted in a long-dead tongue, darkening the air around them.
They fought.
One by one, the creatures fell—but with every scream, more echoed from the earth itself, as if it didn't want them to pass.
After the battle, they sat gasping beside a broken statue of a faceless woman, from whose palm a red stone dripped.
"This was just the edge…" Kaith murmured.
"And we still have days ahead…"
Days, and paths, and things unspoken—
before they reached the mountains.
The Agra Talon Mountains do not welcome... they only watch.
And that is enough.
Because in this world, the mountains don't need to collapse to show anger...
It's enough that they watch you—
and they begin to change.
---
The following three days passed in a descent into the unknown.
The path, once named "The Stone Stairway," was neither a stairway nor a path.
It was a giant wound in the back of the earth, with slanted stone pillars scattered along its edges, as if someone had once tried to build something… then abandoned it in anger.
Each night, the septenary squad camped in a different spot.
And each night, they saw other squads growing fewer.
Not all battles were visible. Some were swallowed in silence, as if the earth opened its mouth in the shadows and closed it before anyone could scream.
One evening, Nira said:
"Something is following us."
No one looked at her, but no one denied it either.
Even Raker, who only believed in what his sword could cut, began sleeping with one eye open.
And on the fifth night… the shadow attacked them.
It wasn't an army.
It was a black dot walking along the ground, growing larger as it approached.
And when it arrived, arms emerged from it, and voices, and remnants of unknown faces.
"Clinging to the past…" Ostiar murmured.
"And that is their final mistake."
They fought.
But the more shadows they tore apart, the more shadows emerged—as if they were fighting a sin unpardoned, or a history that refused to be erased.
Gremlen lost half his helmet, Kaith took a stab to the shoulder, and Mara's magic circle exploded in her face.
But when Nira raised her hands and screamed in the High Elven tongue...
Everything stopped.
The shadows froze.
Then the sky split.
A thick cloud parted, and from it descended a cold green light—resembling neither the sun, nor the moon.
Raker, rising from the rubble, asked:
"What is that?"
Nira, her eyes unblinking, replied:
"This… is not my power."
And on the horizon…
The tower appeared.
It wasn't on the map.
But the mountains began to change toward it.
As if they were twisting, or bowing, or walking.
Ostiar said slowly:
"Someone has changed our path… or perhaps the real path was never drawn at all."
The tower stood alone, built of black stone, with a balcony like an eye above it, and atop that… a tattered banner fluttered, from no known era.
And at the base of the tower… a faint fire moved.
Not a fire—someone was waiting.
And he was not alone.