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Evoker Kalo of the Heath (#1032)

Owner: 0xe9a1…78d3

Chapter 27: The Ruins Remember

They stepped from the Wild Heath like ghosts returning home. The mother and child moved in silence, dusk falling behind them like a curtain. The land here felt heavier, older — not with memory, but with defiance. As the mists parted, the full shape of their home emerged from the gloom. Where the clearing opened out, a manor had risen: towering, elegant, and dark as mourning silk. Its spires reached crookedly toward the sky like grasping fingers; its windows burned with a soft violet glow from within. The manor’s walls were forged of obsidian brick and bone-white mortar, etched with Drow runes that shimmered faintly as the stars began to emerge. It was a thing of beauty and warning — both sanctuary and snare. Black roses bloomed in thorned arches along the gates, and the garden beyond was wild and sacred. Fanged liliescurled lazily around basalt fountains; willow trees with silver leaves wept into still pools where ghost-lanterns floated. Everything was alive — and watching. The pair moved up the winding obsidian steps. Heavy doors, carved with the Drow crest — a fractured moon cradled in thorns — swung open on their own at her approach, as though the house itself breathed her name. The grand hall beyond was cathedral-like in scale: gothic arches soared above, crisscrossed with webs of glowing sigils. Long banners of woven midnight silk hung from rafters. The scent of jasmine, ashwood, and magic filled the air. In the center of the room stood a long table of dark glass, veined with starlight, surrounded by high-backed thrones of carved duskwood. The hearth crackled with green fire, and shadows on the walls moved just a fraction slower than they should. The mother stepped forward with regal calm. Her form was striking — tall and lithe, clad in layers of shadow-dyed robes that shifted like smoke. Her braids shimmered with gemstone dust, and her violet eyes held centuries behind them. A crown of twisted silver branches rested lightly on her brow — not a symbol of rule, but of remembrance. The child followed, silent but alert — his cloak trailing, boots quiet on the rune-carved stone. They took their seats at the long table, the room vast and hushed around them. Somewhere deeper in the manor, the sound of windchimes — made from old bones — rang once, then ceased. He looked to her, wide-eyed. “Mother… how did the Drow come to this land?” She did not answer immediately. Her fingers traced a spiral in the arm of her chair — an old sigil of journey and return. When she spoke, her voice was even, but low. “We were born beneath the stone, where the old gods sleep and the rivers run upside-down. But this land… this was once ours, too. Before it had a name. Before the roads. Before the bells.” She turned her head slowly, her gaze drifting toward the tall windows where the stars gleamed faintly beyond twisted branches. “We came not to conquer. We came to remember. But they — the surface dwellers, the townsfolk — they build. Always they build. No matter what is buried.” The child frowned. “Why do they build over us?” She gave a bitter smile. “Because they believe nothing existed before them. Because they fear the dark — and so they cut it down. Silence, mystery, depth… these are threats to them.” She rose now, moving toward the glass wall that overlooked the garden. The black roses there pulsed gently in the moonlight. Her reflection shimmered against the glass — regal, unbowed, eternal. “The town they build — Grimthorn,” she said. “It grows like mold. It ignores the soil beneath it. It silences the ghosts. It poisons the water with forgetfulness.” The boy joined her at the window. Far off, in the distance, the lights of Grimthorn flickered — small, golden, and defiant. He looked up. “Will they always take?” Her eyes narrowed. In them, the violet burned like starfire. “Wherever these towns appear,” she said, “they destroy the old ways. They choke what came before. They are not just trespassers — they are a blight. A weed.” She turned now, face solemn and resolute. “And every weed,” she said, her voice cold and bright with power, “must one day be plucked.” Behind them, the manor stirred. Lights dimmed. The black flowers of the garden leaned toward the window, listening. The wind curled through the high halls of the dark house like a promise remembered. And in the heart of the child, the seed of vengeance began to bloom.

Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3

Chapter Six: Sprig in Grimthorn Hollow

Through all the mayhem — the collapse of the Hourglass, the whirl of untime, the tearing of all things known — Sprig, the little green asp familiar, had survived. Coiled tightly for ages in the folds of his master’s pocket, he had felt each shift like distant thunder in a dream.

Now, in the quiet of the wild heath, surrounded by whispering grasses and moonlit hush, he poked his head free and blinked.

"Safe," he hissed with a relieved flutter of tongue.

Red, the squirrel, crouched beside him and gently tapped his scaled head. The two exchanged a glance — Red with respect, Sprig with satisfaction.

Kalo knelt. “You’ve had your time to hide away, little one,” the Evoker said softly. His cloak whispered as he reached down. “Now I ask something of you.”

Sprig uncoiled slowly, rising like a green flame, his eyes gleaming with intelligence and a trace of vanity.

“We will begin to settle here for a time. But you — I need you to scout,” Kalo said, gesturing to the distant lights beyond the bramble-hollowed ridge. “That town. It shouldn’t be here — not in this time. Journey there. See what you can learn. Especially about Grimthorn Hollow — its construction, its residents, and their intentions.”

Sprig gave a quick nod, tongue flickering like a whisper of moss in wind. Then, without another word, he slipped off into the wild dark, barely a ripple in the grasses behind him.


Grimthorn Hollow

From the shadows beneath an uprooted willow stump, Sprig watched the lights of the strange town grow brighter. He slithered along fenceposts and under mossy boards, coiling within knot holes and peeking through thickets of thorn and bramble.

Grimthorn Hollow was bustling.

Not with cityfolk or soldiers — but with a curious mixture of woodland creatures made civilized. Badgers, with worn toolbelts and soot-darkened paws, hammered away at rooftops. Moles, blind but precise, tunneled foundation roots with stubborn pride. Hedgehogs, adorned in patched smocks, stacked bundles of kindling for hearths. Foxes, elegant and suspicious, wandered the perimeter with watchful eyes.

And at the center of it all, shouting orders with a clipboard of bark in his hands, stood a gnome in red suspenders and a thistle-crown hat.

“We’ll have the town square done by fortnight’s end!” the gnome called out. “Tea house to the west! Archive to the north! No, no — the well stays where it is!”

Sprig moved unnoticed — a shimmer in a puddle, a flicker behind a lantern, a coil in the crook of a half-built wall.

He lingered in the unfinished town square, watching as settlers dragged down a weathered statue — a tall, veiled figure with long, carved braids and outstretched palms.

“Ugly thing,” muttered a hedgehog as they tied a rope around the statue’s neck. “Looks like it’s weeping.”

“Old junk,” said a badger. “Some idol from before anyone civilized lived here. Tear it down — we'll use the stone for the library steps.”

Sprig stilled.

The statue fell with a crash that echoed too far and too loud. A fox laughed. The gnome dusted his hands. “That’ll do. Drows are long gone, if they were ever real.”

Sprig's eyes narrowed. From the rubble of the shattered statue, violet light bled faintly into the ground… and vanished.


Return

Slipping away, Sprig took one last look from a thatch of moss high on a scaffolding. The gnome now toasted the construction crew, unaware of what they’d disturbed.

Sprig turned and vanished into the long grass of the heath, heading back to camp. His coils seemed tighter. His eyes brighter. The land was remembering something. And not kindly.

The Drow were not gone.

And the wild was stirring.

Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3