Adventure of Arlyias 1

The sorcerer lowers their hands from the seam and smiles at Arlyias, cold and knowing. Smoke curls between them, and the red-black fissure pulses under the blood-wet stone.

They gesture toward the ritual circle, not at Kaelith, but at Arlyias, as if naming a blade they mean to draw.

Kaelith freezes in the circle, his face draining of color. The seam answers with a hungry throb, and the smoke parts just enough to show a pale, blinking eye deep under the stone.

The sorcerer’s smile widens, all caution stripped away now that the truth is bare. They are not retreating from Arlyias, they are measuring him for the altar to come.

Arlyias plants his palm to the blood-slick stone and pours his will downward. The fissure shudders, its red-black pulse stumbling as if something below has been struck in the throat.

Cracks spider outward, then knit together under a hard wash of blue-lit force. Dust sifts from the ceiling, but the hungry glow beneath the floor gutters and narrows.

Kaelith flinches back inside the circle, his shoulders sagging with sudden, shaky relief. The pale eye under the stone blinks once, blurred by the sealing stone.

Their voice cracks with anger now, not control. The sorcerer steps forward, one hand half-raised toward Arlyias, but the floor between them gives a final, wet snap of red light and then goes dark.

The chamber answers with a low, settling groan. The fissure is shut, but the stone still hums under Arlyias's hand, and the sorcerer is already reaching for a new angle.