The Seals of Delgath

Prologue

The realm of Delgath has known peace long enough to forget what it cost. Its taverns are warm, its roads are busy, and its cathedral city of Ashenveil hums with the comfortable noise of scholars arguing and merchants haggling and bells marking the hours. It is a world worth loving — which is precisely why what is happening beneath it matters so much. For centuries, something has been locked in the Sunken Vault, buried in the mist-covered highlands at the heart of the realm. The Veilborn — a consuming darkness of terrible hunger — has waited behind seals of ancient magic, patient as rot. Now those seals are failing. The signs are small at first: cattle dying without cause, children waking screaming, roads near the highlands grown strangely quiet. But the scholars of Ashenveil have done the arithmetic, and the numbers are not kind. When the last seal breaks, there will be no negotiating with what walks out. A scattered cult called the Hollowed is already working to hasten that moment, shattering wards while the realm sleeps. The dungeons of Delgath hold the fragments that might yet restore the seals — and the path through the Sunken Vault itself must be fought floor by grueling floor before any confrontation with the Veilborn can be survived. Across Delgath, something stirs in those few souls capable of answering. The hour is already late.