Mr-Calma
This short story follows a royal inquiry led by Ser Wilson Liawn, Commander of the Kingsguard, in the twenty-seventh year of King Aldric's reign over Ironspire. Tasked by the sovereign to investigate strange disturbances near ancient cave mouths-where folk vanish and locals speak of creeping dreams and earth-born whispers-the company includes five noble knights and a healer from the Order of the White Hearth. The tale also weaves in ancient history: three centuries prior, Queen Lyra the Wise journeyed into the same depths to stop plagues that blighted the land, returning bloodied and violent with no sign of her twelve guardians. As Ser Wilson leads his group into the caves, they find unnatural cold, blasphemous spiral carvings that twist the mind, and a vault filled with unknowable tomes bound in strange leather, their pages bearing shifting script that hints at star-dwelling beings and uncharted realms. Pressing deeper, they discover a hidden city hewn from black stone, laid out in impossible geometries with a towering central edifice whose door devours light. Ascending a spiral stair within, Ser Wilson reaches a chamber opening onto pure void-where nameless colors swirl and formless shapes move through a space beyond mortal comprehension, accompanied by the grinding sound of worlds. When he turns, his companions have vanished without a trace, and a crushing weight compels him to flee. He emerges at sunset, alone and battered, his torches extinguished and armor torn; behind him, the cave appears ordinary once more. Though he returns to Ironspire to submit his account on the Eleventh Day of Frostwake in the Year of the Black Anvil, much of what he witnessed defies description, and from that time forward he gazes endlessly at the sky, searching for something only he can see-lurking between the stars, waiting.