The first glimpse of the tower came beneath the ashen light of late morning, when clouds stretched thin like torn parchment across the sky. The plains had given way to gentle hills, and upon the farthest ridge, the broken silhouette of stone loomed. It was a ruin and yet not - its core structure still clawed high into the sky, perhaps six stories, though the upper half listed at an angle where age and violence had sheared half the foundation away. Portions of its outer wall had sloughed off long ago, exposing jagged ribs of staircases and collapsed floors, as if the tower itself had been gutted from within.

  Ren adjusted the strap of his pack as he peered upward. The faint hum prickling against his skin wasn’t in his imagination. The air itself held a low vibration, like a string plucked deep beneath the earth.

  “Wards,” Leo murmured, his voice almost reverent. “Still active. After all this time…”

  Sinclair shaded his eyes. “Active means dangerous. Wards don’t last centuries without eating something.”

  “Or someone,” Raven said coolly, her cloak stirring in the wind.

  The path up to the tower was overgrown with brambles and cracked stone, and yet even here Ren felt the wrongness in the soil. Grass bent away from the base, curling yellow as though refusing to root too near the ruin. He shifted uneasily.

  “We’re really going inside?” he asked.

  Sinclair glanced back. “We didn’t march this far to turn around. Towers like that don’t stand empty. Even fragments - runes, cores, old manuals - could be worth a year’s wages. More importantly, it could hold clues about the seals.”

  That ended the debate.

  The “door” was long gone. Instead a yawning gap opened where the main archway had collapsed. As the party drew close, the hair on Ren’s arms rose. The air shimmered faintly, as though thickened into glass. Leo crouched near the threshold, fingers tracing glowing etchings only he could see.

  He pressed his palm forward. Sparks spat against an unseen barrier.

  “A repulsion ward,” he said. “Old, but potent. Push through wrong and it’ll boil your marrow.”

  Sinclair’s jaw tightened. “Solution?”

  “I can attune us,” Raven said. “But one at a time.”

  Drake snorted. “And if you’re wrong, we’ll know immediately.”

  Raven ignored him. She dusted chalk from her satchel and scrawled counter-runes across the stone. The air thickened with a metallic tang until, with a sound like glass fracturing, the shimmer dulled.

  “Go.”

  Sinclair stepped through first, grimacing as if pushing against invisible weight, then emerged unharmed. The rest followed one by one.

  When Ren stepped forward, the world warped around him. Air turned viscous. His bones vibrated like struck crystal. Then suddenly he was through, gasping on the other side.

  The tower’s interior smelled of cold stone, ash, and something faintly metallic - like dried blood.

  What had once been a grand entry hall was now a cavern of rubble. Sunlight bled through the collapsed roof, catching on broken banners and skeletal remains slumped against the walls. A dozen at least - long dead, their armor rusted into flaking red-brown.

  Ren crouched near one corpse. The armor was unfamiliar: overlapping scaled plates with glowing script etched along the edges. The script pulsed faintly even now.

  “War mages,” Leo whispered. “Not elven. Not draconic. First Concord era. I thought nothing from then still - ”

  His words cut off as Raven smashed the skull with her dagger hilt. Bone cracked sharply.

  Ren flinched. “Why - ”

  “Because wards cling to their owners,” Raven said flatly. “Better one useless husk than an angry guardian waking up.”

  Her paranoia was justified. As Sinclair stepped deeper into the hall, a low rumble stirred. Glyphs flared crimson along the walls. A construct lurched from the shadows - stone limbs bound with iron bands, a chest cavity glowing faintly.

  “Down!” Sinclair barked.

  The construct swung an arm thick as a tree trunk. Masonry exploded on impact. Ren’s bow was in his hands before he thought, but his arrow sparked uselessly off stone. He cursed, switching to his dagger.

  “Eyes and joints!” Sinclair shouted.

  Ren dove low, scraping his blade along a seam of glowing sigils. The construct jerked. A scout was on it a breath later, her own blade driving into the same crack. With a grinding shriek, the glow sputtered. The golem froze, then collapsed in a heap of rubble.

  Ren coughed dust from his lungs, blinking grit away.

  Sinclair exhaled slowly. “That was one.”

  His gaze drifted upward toward the leaning heights.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “How many more do you think wait above?”

  The stairwell wound along the inner wall, half collapsed in places. Each step groaned under their weight. On the second level, shattered tomes lay strewn across the floor, their ink burned away by lingering wards. A single pedestal remained intact, runes etched across its surface.

  Leo leaned in.

  “Careful,” Sinclair warned.

  Leo touched a rune.

  The pedestal screamed.

  A blast of force hurled them backward. Stone shards tore through the chamber. Ren slammed onto the floor, ears ringing. When dust settled, the pedestal was gone - nothing left but a smoldering crater.

  Leo coughed blood. “Worth it,” he wheezed, though his hands shook violently.

  Sinclair’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t comment.

  They climbed onward.

  The third level was worse. A long corridor lined with cracked mirrors, each reflecting distorted versions of themselves. As they passed, their reflections twisted - eyes glowing gold, teeth bared in warped smiles.

  “Don’t look,” Raven warned. “Mirrors lie.”

  Ren looked anyway.

  His reflection grinned - and reached through the glass.

  A crystal hand clamped onto his wrist.

  Ren yelped, stabbing his dagger into the mirror. Shards exploded outward, cutting his arm. Sinclair dragged him back, carving the reflection apart. All along the corridor, other mirrors stirred. Figures pressed against the glass.

  “Run!” Sinclair bellowed.

  They sprinted. Raven slammed a glyphstone into the wall at the stairwell, triggering a barrier that sealed the corridor behind them with a thunderous crack.

  Ren’s breath rasped harshly. His arm bled, but the cut was shallow.

  “Stay focused,” Sinclair told him. “Don’t let the tower into your head.”

  They ascended.

  The fourth floor was a charnel pit - corpses torn apart or fused into stone. The fifth was a library turned to petrified shelves. Leo tried to pry at a tablet until Raven physically dragged him away.

  “Knowledge is worthless if you die reading it.”

  They pushed on.

  The sixth level opened into a vast chamber beneath the leaning spire. Broken windows spilled pale light across a central dais where a war staff stood upright, embedded in cracked stone. Golden veins pulsed faintly along its length.

  Ren drew in a sharp breath. It looked disturbingly alive.

  Leo stared like a drowning man seeing land.

  “That - That’s - ”

  “Trap,” Raven said.

  “Treasure,” Leo shot back.

  “Both,” Sinclair finished.

  As if answering, the staff stirred.

  Light flared outward, reactivating glyphs across the walls. Three constructs sloughed free of the stone - not of rock this time, but shimmering energy shaped like humanoid forms.

  Sinclair swore. “Form up!”

  The battle descended into chaos. Ren’s arrows passed through the constructs like mist. His dagger barely slowed them. Sinclair’s sword - glowing faintly with Leo’s hastily drawn runes - cut through one. Raven danced behind them, unleashing quick bursts of mana before slipping away.

  Ren fought to survive. He ducked under a sweeping blow, rolled, and drove his dagger into a construct’s back. It burst into motes of light. One by one, the constructs fell.

  When the last dissolved, silence swallowed the chamber.

  They collapsed where they stood - panting, scraped raw, bleeding, exhausted.

  “We can’t… keep doing this,” Sinclair rasped, lowering himself onto rubble. “We’re running on nothing. No food, no rest, no supplies. This was supposed to be a scouting mission, not a godsdamned war.”

  Ren sheathed his dagger with a shaky breath. He didn’t disagree.

  Leo slumped against a cracked pillar. “This place was a supply hub during the War of Fractures. If we’ve made it this deep…” His voice trembled with hope. “There might still be something left.”

  “After centuries?” Raven asked, though her eyes flicked toward the inner door. “You think scavengers haven’t picked it clean?”

  “Constructs were still active,” Leo said quietly. “Something kept the preservation wards running.”

  Hope flickered across the group - small, fragile, but real.

  “Fine,” Raven said at last. “We search. Carefully.”

  The inner door was half-collapsed but sealed with ancient glyphs. It took Raven nearly an hour to dismantle the wards. When they broke with a muted ripple, the stone slabs shifted enough for them to squeeze through.

  The chamber beyond was different. Cooler. Untouched by dust. Preservation runes glimmered faintly across the walls.

  And in the center -

  “A storage ring,” Leo whispered.

  He stumbled forward, hands shaking. The ring was plain silver, large enough for a thumb, glimmering faintly with mana.

  “Careful,” Raven warned.

  Leo ignored her. He closed his hand around the ring.

  The runes on the walls flared.

  The chamber thrummed like a living heart.

  Then fell silent.

  “It’s active,” Leo breathed. “Still active.”

  “Open it,” Sinclair said.

  Leo slid the ring onto his finger and focused.

  A flash of pale blue light burst across the dais.

  Objects spilled out in a cascade - blades, spears, armor, wooden crates with intact seals, leather pouches heavy with coin, and - most importantly - wax-sealed ration packs, fresh as the day they’d been stored.

  No one moved.

  Then Sinclair let out a laugh strangled with relief. He dropped to his knees beside a crate, tore it open, and inhaled.

  “Food,” he whispered. “Real food.”

  Ren swallowed hard as tension unwound inside him. They had stretched their scavenged scraps as far as possible - and still they’d been starving. Another day, maybe two, and they’d have collapsed.

  He picked up a ration pack, fingers brushing the wax seal. It felt impossibly fresh.

  Raven exhaled softly, her composure cracking for a heartbeat. “Usable,” she murmured, handling a blade. “All of it.”

  Leo clutched the ring like something holy.

  They spent an hour cataloguing everything. Enough rations for weeks. Weapons sturdy and serviceable. Partial armor. And coin - more wealth than any of them had seen in months.

  For the first time in weeks, hope flooded the group in full.

  When they stepped out of the chamber, their burdens felt lighter. Their exhaustion remained, but despair had loosened its grip.

  Ren looked at the ration pack in his hand. His stomach growled. He smiled - unexpected and genuine.

  For the first time in a long while, the expedition felt hopeful.