Corrupted beginnings.

The Shadow-Bound Sentinel turns from the others and moves first, armor faintly lit with ghost-blue fire. One gauntleted hand lifts in a curt beckon toward the sloping dark ahead.

Tululu reads the tunnel's runes, and the air tastes of ozone and old spellwork.

Tululu follows, leaving the threshold and the rest of the party behind. The carved passage narrows, and the mountain seems to swallow every sound but the Sentinel's measured шаг.

Behind them, the hidden chamber's glow fades to a dim bruise of light. Ahead, the darkness opens, and the Sentinel's armor becomes the only clear guide.

The stone-being tilts its head, then sinks one hand into the tunnel wall. Pebbles shiver loose around its wrist.

Its answer comes wrong, thin and distant, as if the tunnel swallows half the vow. The air tightens, and the rearward dark seems to shift closer.

The Sentinel does not look back. Their pace slows just enough to force Tululu to choose, follow tight or risk the narrowing drop behind.

Tululu slips in behind the Sentinel as the tunnel pinches tight. Stone scrapes close on both sides, and the slope steals the last easy footing.

Ahead, the Sentinel lowers their shoulder and leads into the dark without slowing. Tululu follows on their heels, blades steady, feet landing light on the shifting grit.

The rearward hush dulls behind them. In its place, a faint pulse of old magic beats through the rock, slow as a buried heart.

A seam of black stone opens in the right wall, slick with age. White runes crawl around it, half buried in dust and root-fiber.

The Earth Elemental is left behind in the narrowing above, but the tunnel no longer feels empty. The black seam seems to listen as Tululu draws near.

Tululu plants the containment stone against the rune-ringed seam and threads power through it. Pale light gathers in the crystal, then sinks inward like breath held in a chest.

The black stone answers at once. Fine cracks of silver fire web across its surface, and the runes around the seam flare, caught and caged within the stone's glow.

A low murmur rises from deep inside the wall, old and unmistakably alive. The seam contracts into a tight line, and a shard of shadow slips free into the stone, swirling like smoke trapped in glass.

The stone is warm now, and heavier than it looks.

Dust falls in a thin curtain from the ceiling as the tunnel steadies around them. The Sentinel lifts a hand toward the stone, waiting for Tululu to decide whether to press deeper or speak to the trapped power.

Tululu lets the stone rest in both hands. The captured shadow-light steadies, then unspools into a thin, silent current between their fingers.

A whisper gathers inside the crystal, not from the wall now, but from the thing trapped within it. The voice is worn smooth by age, yet clear enough to carry a name that Tululu can feel more than hear.

The Sentinel lowers their hand, reverent and shaken. The glow in the stone reveals a faint shape, like a crowned profile held in storm-dark glass.

The shadow inside the stone turns toward Tululu, waiting, as dust continues to sift from the ceiling in a soft, patient veil.