The ruins breathed like something asleep.
Not in the way beasts breathed—no rise and fall, no warm exhale—but in the quiet movements of old air through stone, in the faint hiss of wind slipping along cracks that had been carved by centuries rather than claws. Alaric stood just inside the archway, palm pressed lightly against the shimmering barrier that had sealed behind him, and listened with a child's stillness and a man's caution.
Outside the barrier, Gina's face hovered like a pale ghost behind glass, her amber eyes bright with fury that had nowhere to go.
"I am going in," Alaric said, voice low.
Gina's jaw tightened hard enough to make the line of it gleam. "No," she snapped instantly, as if she could reach through the barrier and seize him by the collar. "No. You will stand where I can see you. You will not go deeper."
Alaric's gaze flicked over the knights beyond her—white-and-gold armor, tense stances, swords drawn and useless against an invisible wall. Their captain's expression was grim, as though he already imagined writing the report that would end careers.
"There is no other choice," Alaric replied softly.
"You made the choice when you left camp," Gina hissed.
The anger in her voice was real, but beneath it Alaric heard the tremor of fear she refused to show anyone else. Gina did not fear much. She feared poison and palace eyes, yes, but those were threats she understood. A blade could be blocked. A rumor could be countered. A spy could be rooted out.
Ancient ruins did not play by rules she recognized.
Alaric turned his head slightly, letting his eyes trace the broken stonework behind him—the collapsed columns half-sunk in earth, the stairwell descending between cracked pillars, the darkness below that seemed thicker than the night above. He felt the ruin respond faintly to the mana braided in his chest, dormant enchantments stirring like sleepers rolling over.
"If I stay here," he said, "I learn nothing. If I go in, I might find the mechanism."
Gina's hands clenched at her sides. "Or you might find death."
Alaric's small fingers curled against his cloak clasp. "Then I will be careful," he said.
Gina's eyes narrowed, and her voice dropped into something colder than anger. "You are four."
Alaric lifted his chin. "And I am the fief-lord of Asmora," he replied.
For a heartbeat, Gina looked as though she might scream.
Instead, she inhaled sharply and forced control back into her face, the same way she always did when she remembered servants might be listening, even here in the cold hills. "Knights," she snapped without taking her eyes off Alaric, "search the perimeter. Find another entrance. A vent. A passage. Anything."
The captain bowed, relief and dread tangled together. "As you command, Head Maid."
The knights moved immediately—some circling the archway, some climbing the hill's edge to peer down into brush and stone, some scanning the ground for seams. Above, far back toward camp, Alaric could hear the distant calls of griffon handlers being roused, the soft thunder of wings as a few mounts stirred and lifted, beginning to circle overhead.
Gina stepped closer to the barrier, lowering her voice so only Alaric could hear through the shimmer.
"You do not move fast," she said, each word measured. "You do not touch anything you do not understand. If you hear something—anything—you return here."
Alaric nodded once. "I will."
Gina's gaze flicked to the ruin behind him again, then back to his face. For a moment, something softer pressed at the edges of her fury, something like helplessness.
"You should not have to do this alone," she whispered.
Alaric's throat tightened, but he did not allow it to show. He only nodded again and turned away from the barrier.
The moment he did, the ruin seemed to swallow sound. Gina's voice faded into a muffled distance, as though the barrier did more than block bodies—it muted worlds.
Alaric stepped toward the stairwell.
The stairs were old, carved from pale stone that had once been polished smooth. Time had pitted it, chipped it, softened edges into uneven shapes. Moss clung in dark patches. Frost slicked certain steps where dampness seeped from the walls.
They descended steeply, winding at first, then straightening into a long drop that felt like walking down the spine of the hill.
Alaric placed one small hand against the wall as he began, boots careful on each step. His legs were short; each stair was too tall for him. He had to climb down more than walk—one foot lowered, then the other, then a small shift of weight, his cloak brushing stone.
His breath began to fog again, thicker now. The air grew colder with every step, and it carried a faint metallic tang, like old iron left in rain.
After a dozen steps, light from the archway above began to fade.
Alaric paused.
A child's fear, primitive and instinctive, whispered to him about darkness and deep places. He pressed it down with the same firm discipline he used on mana.
If you panic, you die.
He drew his mana upward, slow and steady, and shaped it the way he had been practicing in secret—braiding cold and heat into a balanced thread. Then he pushed it into a simple structure that felt like a wordless thought.
Light.
A soft glow bloomed above his palm, pale and clean, not fire but luminance—moonlike and steady. It illuminated the steps below, the wall carvings that had been worn almost smooth, and the dust that floated lazily in the air, stirred by his passage.
Alaric exhaled slowly, relieved by the small success.
The spell drained mana from him—subtle, but noticeable. It was like pouring water from a cup: not emptying it, not yet, but proving the cup could be poured.
He continued.
Down and down he went, the stairs stretching longer than they should have for a mere hill. The stone around him felt older than the Empire, older than even the capital's foundations. The walls were carved with faint patterns that looked like vines, stars, crescents, and arcs—motifs that tugged at his memory of fantasy illustrations.
Occasionally, small side passages branched off into darkness, collapsed or blocked by fallen stone. Alaric did not explore them. He memorized them instead, marking them in his mind like points on a map.
At last, the stairs ended.
He stepped down into a large alcove, wide enough that his light did not reach its edges fully at first. The ceiling arched overhead, supported by thick stone ribs. The floor was smoother here, less broken. Dust lay in thin drifts, disturbed only by the faintest of old footprints—faded tracks that might have been made by rodents, or something else.
The alcove felt… deliberate.
A threshold space.
A place meant to be approached, not stumbled upon.
Alaric's glow brightened slightly as his focus sharpened, and the far end of the alcove emerged from shadow.
Two doors stood there.
Not wooden. Not iron.
Mithral.
They were colossal, each one tall enough that even a grown man would have to crane his head to see the top. The metal gleamed faintly in his spell-light, polished so well that it caught and reflected the pale glow like moonlight on water. Golden arcs accentuated the doors in elegant sweeping patterns, not gaudy, but purposeful—like sunrays trapped in metal.
There were no knobs.
No hinges visible.
No keyhole.
No seam except the thin line where the two doors met.
Alaric approached slowly, the tiny sound of his boots on stone echoing softly in the alcove. The closer he drew, the more he could feel the doors—not physically, but in the same way he could feel mana: a pressure, a presence, a warded stillness. The mithral seemed to drink the air's cold and hold it.
He stopped before them and lifted his free hand, touching the metal lightly.
It was not cold.
It was neutral, as though it refused to participate in temperature at all.
Alaric swallowed.
"Open," he whispered, feeling slightly foolish.
Nothing happened.
He set his hands against the doors and pushed.
His small shoulders strained. His legs trembled. His boots slid slightly on dust.
The doors did not move a hair.
He stepped back, jaw tightening.
Of course brute force won't work, James Silver's mind remarked dryly. Not even with a high Strength score you can't actually use yet.
Alaric breathed out slowly. The door had no mechanical access. It was meant to be opened by something else.
Mana.
He pressed his palm against the mithral again and guided his braided mana into it, slowly, carefully, like feeding oil into a lamp.
For a heartbeat, he felt a response—faint, almost curious.
Then the mana simply… vanished.
Not absorbed. Not reflected. Not rejected.
It was as if the doors swallowed it and gave nothing in return.
Alaric's breath hitched.
His light spell flickered faintly as his concentration wavered. He steadied it, forcing calm.
So it's keyed, he thought. It doesn't accept raw mana. It accepts a pattern.
His gaze dropped to the golden arcs. They weren't random decoration. They curved in a way that suggested flow, like channels. Like circuitry, if one squinted hard enough and pretended a medieval world understood such things.
He traced one arc with his eyes, then another.
There.
Near the center seam, the arcs converged into a small circular motif—barely noticeable until he looked for intent. It resembled a stylized ring or ripple.
A knock.
Alaric blinked.
The concept hit him with an odd certainty, half intuition and half old memory of spell lists.
Knock.
A spell to open sealed doors, to force locks to release.
In Dungeons & Dragons, it wasn't low-tier.
But Zoridia was not a rulebook. It was a world with its own balancing, and this door—this place—felt like it had been built to be accessed by initiates, not archmages. The archway itself had responded to a spoken phrase, not a grand ritual.
Maybe the spell's "sphere" here wasn't what his old books insisted it should be.
Alaric licked his lips, suddenly aware of how dry his mouth had become.
He had not yet cast many true spells. Light, yes—simple luminance. Warming his hands, yes—minor manipulation. But Knock was different. It was intent turned into command.
If it worked, the doors would open.
If it failed…
He did not let his mind complete the thought.
He stepped back, squaring his small shoulders, and inhaled deeply. He drew mana into his core, feeling the reservoir respond. He had trained hard enough these last days that he could feel the "shape" of his first sphere—like a ring he could push energy through to produce structured effect.
He raised his hand, palm toward the doors, and began to build the spell.
Not with words at first, but with pattern.
He braided mana tighter, condensed it, sharpened it, then pushed it into a precise structure that felt like tapping on a surface that wasn't physical.
A command wrapped in resonance.
Then he spoke the word aloud, not loudly, but with the quiet certainty of someone speaking a password.
"Knock."
The air snapped.
A soft, resonant sound echoed through the alcove—not a loud bang, but a deep, ringing thoom that felt like it came from inside the mithral itself. The golden arcs lit for a heartbeat, faint lines of light racing along their curves like sunfire poured into channels.
The seam between the doors brightened.
Then the doors moved.
Not swinging outward. Not creaking on hinges. They slid apart with smooth, silent grace, retreating into the stone as if the walls were swallowing them. The opening widened slowly, deliberately, like an eye opening after long sleep.
Cold air poured out.
Not the cold of winter, but the cold of stale centuries—dry, thin, ancient. It carried the scent of dust, old paper, and something faintly sweet, like dried herbs forgotten in jars.
Alaric stood still for a heartbeat, stunned by success.
Then, with his light spell hovering obediently near his shoulder, he stepped through.
Beyond the mithral doors lay the remnants of an elven wizard's tower.
Not a tower in the sense of a structure reaching skyward—this was buried under hill, hidden, but its interior architecture still carried the vertical ambition of a place built for those who thought height was power. Broken staircases spiraled upward into darkness where the ceiling rose far above. Cracked balconies ringed the space at higher levels, their railings carved with delicate motifs. Stone columns stood like ancient trees, some broken, some intact.
The room he entered first was a study.
It was vast, far larger than any single room should have been beneath a hill. Shelves lined the walls from floor to high beyond his light's reach, stacked with tomes that had survived when everything else had crumbled. Some shelves had collapsed, spilling books into heaps. Others remained miraculously upright, as if preserved by enchantment.
The books themselves were not all intact. Some had rotted covers. Some had pages fused together by damp. Some were pristine, their bindings unmarred, as though time had forgotten to touch them.
Alaric's breath caught.
A library.
A wizard's study.
His mind flashed through every story he had ever read, every campaign he had ever played where ancient ruins held knowledge and artifacts and curses.
His small feet moved forward without him quite meaning to. He stepped between fallen stone, past a cracked desk whose surface was carved with faint runes, and into the first aisle of shelves.
His light drifted, illuminating titles—though the letters were in that same elven script, flowing and beautiful and frustratingly unreadable.
Alaric lifted his hand toward a book, fingertips hovering.
Then he froze.
Because behind him, faintly, muffled through stone and distance, he heard Gina's voice again—distant now, but sharp with panic.
"Prince! Alaric!"
The sound was faint. Not coming from the barrier above. Coming from somewhere else—like an echo through hidden channels.
The knights must have found something. A vent. A passage. A seam.
Alaric's heart hammered.
He turned back toward the mithral doors.
They were still open behind him, but the space beyond them looked darker now, as if the ruins preferred to close around him once he entered. The golden arcs on the doors had dimmed back to inert metal.
He swallowed hard.
If Gina and the knights found another way in, they could reach him.
They could also bring the entire Empire's scrutiny down on this place.
Alaric's gaze swept the study again—ancient tomes, carved desks, broken balconies, and somewhere in the depths of the tower, secrets that had slept longer than the Almeric Empire had existed.
A choice settled in his chest like weight.
Return to the doors and wait—safe, scolded, contained.
Or step deeper into the library before the adults arrived and wrapped this discovery in chains.
Alaric's small fingers curled into a fist.
His light spell hovered near his shoulder, steady as a moon.
And in the dust-laden silence of an elven wizard's study, Prince Alaric Voss Ecthellion took one more careful step forward—toward knowledge that might save his village, his fief, and perhaps his future—before the world outside could catch up and tell him no.