Bent. Dispersed. Bound to slow decline.
One force remained. Vast. Rooted in things older than the world, and heedless of all who named it.
It did not redeem. It devoured.
And Gorzod had found it.
“You shall be proud again,” he whispered.
His fingers traced the runes etched into the tablets — stone unearthed in the tombs of his bloodline, still dark with memory.
He knew what waited here.
The fate of his people had settled into his hands like weight.
The words carved into the rock spoke of power beyond naming — a last glimmer within the ash of all that had failed.
And a warning, too:
A force no soul born of flesh shall command.
He turned from the brink and entered the ritual hall.
The mountain muttered beneath his feet — the breath of buried fire stirring in the deep.
Ancient sigils lined the black stone walls, catching the restless light and throwing it back in fragments.
The rite he had prepared was old. And perilous.
This was not the first time he had stood here.
Each time, he had been torn — courage on one side, fear on the other.
Would he dare it now? Would it save them?
Or would it shatter what remained?
The visions always came. Not prophecy — but possibility.
They struck in flashes: radiant, and terrible.
They stirred his blood. Set his spirit shivering.
And beneath that trembling — hunger.
He had seen the orc-banner rise — across Fallgar, across Wetherid, even beyond the horizon’s edge.
A world brought low beneath their feet.