Cold air wafted up from the passage, carrying with it the faint smell of damp stone and something older—like ashes that had never quite cooled. Asher descended carefully, each step ringing softly against the metal-rimmed edges of the stone stairwell. The light from above faded quickly, replaced by a dull red glow that pulsed somewhere far below.
He reached the bottom after what felt like several minutes. The air was heavy, thick with stagnant energy. The chamber opened into a wide underground hall—a vault carved directly into the mountain beneath the manor. Faint veins of crimson ore ran along the walls, glimmering like half-buried veins of blood.
At the center of the chamber lay a heap of corpses. They were old—long dried, their flesh blackened and shriveled—but they hadn't decayed naturally. Their bodies were twisted, their bones warped as if something had been feeding on them even after death. A ring of old runes encircled the pile, their color drained to a sickly gray.
