Once, magic flowed like rivers nurtured by the Grim guardians of life and death. They were neither gods nor demons but keepers of balance, ensuring souls passed peacefully into the beyond. Among them was a young Grim, a boy with a gentle heart, who walked the earth unseen to replenish its fading magic. 
But the greed of powerful mages shattered this harmony. 
They sought immortality, power beyond mortal limits. In the dead of night, they ambushed the Grim, stole his Grimoire of Eternal Passage, and left him for dead.   Yet, they could not read its secrets.  
Before vanishing, the Grim left behind an Artifact of Severance a cursed relic that began draining the world’s magic.  
As the years passed, those with weak abilities withered, while the strong ruled with an iron fist. Monsters emerged from the hadows, terrorizing the land, and the ten kingdoms struggled to survive under relentless attacks.   

And so, the slow death of the world began.

The entrance to the Ashen Fissure swallowed the light behind them. The air grew thick and humid, tasting of metal and something faintly organic, like damp roots and old blood. Borin's torchlight flickered against walls that weren't stone, but something more like petrified cartilage, veined with faint, pulsing lines of amber light.


Chapter 12 - The Descent of the Ember Wolves