Beneath the ruins of Aelintheldaar, which lay beneath the already ancient City of Cities, past the gnarled roots of forgotten trees and the shattered bones of foolhardy adventurers, there lay a box. It was not an ornate box, nor an obviously magical one. Its wood was blackened and warped, its carvings eroded by time into meaningless scratches. But it hummed, ever so faintly—a whisper of something ancient, something waiting.

  For nine thousand years, the box had been left undisturbed. Civilizations had risen and crumbled to dust above it. The stars had shifted in the sky, uncountable wars had been fought, and gods had both perished and been reborn. Yet the box remained. Sealed. Silent. Until, inevitably, the universe decided it was time for it to move.

  It began with the goblins.

  A paranoid, self-obsessed goblin warlord known as King Peegruc the Undying had claimed the box as his royal seat, but its journey into his grasp had been as absurd as the king himself. It had been discovered by one of his scouting parties—less an army, more a group of starving, disgraced raiders who had been searching the caves for anything valuable after being chased out of their previous den by a very angry owlbear. Their leader, a goblin named Jibbet, found the box wedged between the stones of an underground riverbank. Convinced it was cursed, he did what any goblin of sound mind would do—he tried to sell it to someone dumber than him.

  The shamans were the first to take interest. The box hummed, and that was enough to declare it a sacred relic. They paraded it through the tunnels, declaring it an artifact of prophecy, though what that prophecy entailed seemed to change depending on which shaman was asked. Some said it was a war engine, others that it was a prison for a dark god. One suggested it might contain an endless supply of beetles, which was met with mixed enthusiasm.

  Peegruc, already paranoid about usurpers, saw potential. If the shamans claimed it was powerful, he would claim it for himself before anyone else could. He planted himself atop it, declaring it his new throne, and dared anyone to challenge his right to rule from it. No one did. Not because they feared him, but because none of them wanted to find out what was actually inside the thing.

  For years, the box remained his seat of power. Peegruc never questioned its purpose, nor did he attempt to open it. It hummed, and that was enough for him.

  Peegruc ruled his cavern kingdom atop the box, issuing mad decrees, until one fateful night when his cousin, Slagg the Unyielding, led a bloody coup. The goblins fought in a frenzy, spears clashing, arrows flying. The box remained untouched for most of the battle—until Peegruc, cornered and desperate, made one final move.

  With a shriek of defiance, he kicked the box into the abyss, cursing his enemies to “never know the true power of what they had squandered.” The goblins, watching it disappear into the darkness, immediately lost interest. Their war raged on, and the box was forgotten once more.

  The box tumbled end over end, crashing against the jagged walls of the chasm, splintering rock and scattering startled bats. It hit an outcropping, bounced, struck another ledge, and finally plummeted into the lightless depths below.

  It struck a subterranean river, bobbing and spinning in the current like a forgotten relic of a lost age. The dark waters carried it onward, slamming it into jagged stones and half-submerged roots, but the box endured. Eventually, it was swept into a narrow tunnel, funneled downward through a series of cascading drops, until it reached a vast underground lake. There, it floated in eerie silence, the glow of bioluminescent algae casting shifting colors across its weathered surface.

  Time passed. Strange creatures nudged at it—blind fish, grasping mollusks, a many-limbed thing that recoiled at its hum. A band of deep-dwelling goblins, exiled from their kingdom above, discovered the box washed up on a shore of black sand. They prodded it, muttered about its ominous presence, and, after a brief and violent argument, traded it to a wandering merchant for a sack of glowing fungi.

  The merchant, a lonesome deep gnome with a love for oddities, carried the box on his back through winding tunnels for years, using it as a makeshift stool at rest stops. He never once managed to pry it open. Growing frustrated with its uselessness, he eventually abandoned it in an overgrown cavern, where the slow creep of roots began to claim it.

  There it remained for centuries, buried beneath tangled growth, as if nature itself sought to smother whatever lay within. The cavern, hidden and untouched, slowly became a refuge for those creatures that preferred the dark. Chitinous things scuttled over it. Bioluminescent moss coated its surface. And then, at last, the world shifted again.

  A tunnel collapse sent a cascade of boulders and earth tumbling into the cavern. The box, once buried, was suddenly unearthed, dislodged from its prison of roots and fungal overgrowth. It tumbled once more, rolling down into a lower cavern, where it landed, humming faintly, as if sighing in relief.

  Deep in the caves, among towering mushrooms and winding root systems, lived a small and peculiar myconid. He was unlike his kin—where others drifted in passive communion, content to decompose and renew the cycle of life, he was restless. Curious.

  He had no name yet. He was simply the prodigy, the wild one, the only myconid in generations to wield something akin to druidic magic. It surged through him chaotically, untrained and uncontrollable, manifesting in bursts of untamed life energy.

  For weeks, he had tried to bloom a single flower—a fragile thing, something foreign to these dark tunnels. He had found a pale, withered bud clinging to a rock near an underground stream and had poured his energy into it. He whispered to it, sang to it in the silent way of his people. But nothing. It would not bloom.

  Then one day, he found the box.

  It hummed, much like the mushrooms around him, but deeper—more alive than anything he had ever felt. And so, in the days that followed, he made it his companion, sitting beside it as he tried to coax his flower to life.

  The box did not answer. But it listened.

  Krungus drifted through the infinite black of Neverender, his body weightless, his thoughts unraveled like threads in a frayed tapestry. He no longer knew where his limbs ended, where his thoughts began, or if there was even a difference anymore. Time had ceased to function in any way that mattered.

  It had been centuries since he’d last moved. Maybe millennia. Once, he had tried to keep track. He had recited the names of every spell he had ever learned, counted the number of times he had whispered his own name just to hear it spoken, constructed entire imaginary civilizations in his mind and ruled them as a benevolent god until they crumbled into apathy and rot.

  He had tried everything. And then, he had stopped trying at all.

  And so, he floated.

  The darkness of Neverender was not merely the absence of light—it was a thing, a presence that wrapped around him like a mother’s embrace. He had long since lost any fear of it. What was there to be afraid of? He had exhausted the depths of loneliness, plunged headfirst into the cold abyss of solitude, and emerged on the other side where even despair had lost its edge. Neverender was the final floor of Syzzyzzy, the ultimate level of the grand magical construct he had built while trapped here. It was the culmination of his mastery over creation magic, a space without limits, without edges, a perfect void of infinite recursion. The final statement of his imprisonment, a paradox he had crafted and now could not escape.

  A memory drifted toward him, unbidden. He did not resist it.

  A tavern, millennia ago. A game of dice. A bet made in jest.

  Krungus and his brother Bahumbus had been drinking, their coin pouches heavy after a successful venture—some forgotten raid on an ancient ruin, back when they had both still cared about things like treasure and fame. They had wandered into a nameless tavern on the outskirts of The City, filled with the kind of ruffians who thought they were dangerous but had never truly tasted real peril.

  Bahumbus had been laughing, loud and unguarded, throwing dice across the table.

  “If I roll double sixes,” he had said, grinning, “you owe me a favor. No questions asked.”

  Krungus had smirked, swirling his drink. “And if you don’t?”

  “Then I owe you one. But I won’t lose.”

  And then, the dice had clattered across the table, tumbling end over end before settling.

  Double sixes.

  Krungus had groaned, Bahumbus had cheered, and they had moved on to the next round. The favor had never been called in.

  Not that it mattered now. Bahumbus was gone, lost to time, just like everything else. That night, that laughter, that moment of camaraderie—it was a relic, a shard of a world that no longer existed. And yet, here it was, floating through the void with him, untouched by the ages.

  Krungus sighed, or thought he did. It was hard to tell.

  Coincidence. That’s what the memory was. A coincidence, drifting up to taunt him, reminding him that even in a place beyond time, there were still echoes of what had been.

  Was there meaning in it? Probably not. Meaning was something for those who still had choices to make.

  Back in Neverender, something shifted.

  It was small, imperceptible at first, like the faintest tug against his being. A ripple through the nothingness.

  Krungus stirred, his thoughts sharpening for the first time in centuries.

  Something was coming.

  Or perhaps, something was leaving.

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  He could feel it—the unraveling of a tether, the slow uncoiling of a lock that had bound him for millennia. A crack in the prison that he had made into Syzzyzzy.

  Krungus did not move. He did not hope. He simply watched, waiting for whatever came next.

  Because after nine thousand years, what was another moment?

  On the day the mushroom was planning on giving up, the myconid gathered every ounce of wild, unrefined magic within himself and poured it into the flower one last time.

  A storm of spores erupted around him. The cavern trembled. Roots twisted and snapped, lichen shuddered, and the flower—at long last—began to open.

  And so, too, did the box.

  With a soft, delicate click, the long-forgotten seals shattered.

  With a deafening crack, the box exploded apart, hurling the myconid backward as a wave of raw, ancient power surged through the cavern.

  And then—

  Krungus emerged.

  He turned his head, locked eyes with the trembling myconid, and then—

  With a voice hoarse from centuries of silence, he rasped:

  “…Did you just open my prison with botany?”

  The myconid quivered, then responded in a series of soft, damp clicks—its own language. Krungus understood it perfectly and responded back in kind.

  "11077 EM," he muttered. "Nine thousand years. Damn."

  He reached down and picked up a twisted root from the cavern floor. He tapped it lightly against the ground, using it as a staff, and exhaled. "This will do for now."

  Nine thousand years. The number echoed in his mind like a cruel joke. He had been sealed away when the world still made sense—when his name meant something, when his enemies were known, when his plans had been in motion. And now? The world had no doubt marched on without him, reshaped by rulers, rewritten by scholars who had long since forgotten his existence. Or had it?

  His allies, his rivals, his foes—almost all of them were immortal. The Number. Those he had fought alongside, those he had battled against. They weren’t dust; they were still here, somewhere. But were they the same? Nine thousand years would change even the undying. Their ambitions, their allegiances—what had time done to them? Had they found new wars to fight, new ideals to chase? Would they even recognize him, or had he become nothing more than a footnote in their long, tireless existence?

  What kind of world would he be stepping into? One where the echoes of his time weren’t just faint—they had evolved, grown louder in ways he might not yet understand. And that, more than anything, unsettled him.

  Well, almost anything. There still remained the problem of his jailer. Sharrzaman. He had fooled Krungus once, 9,000 years ago. A backhanded trick when they should have been aiding one another.

  Krungus clenched the root in his hand, testing its weight. "Alright. Time to go murder someone."

  Krungus stood on a windswept cliff, the air crisp and bracing against his face. Behind him, the sea crashed angrily against jagged rocks, a sound he might have found poetic if he weren’t so profoundly irritated. His robes flapped noisily in the wind, and he clutched his crooked staff as though it might keep him from being blown away.

  Teleporting, as it turned out, was not like riding a bicycle. Nine thousand years of disuse had left his magical precision...lacking. After three misfires—one into a swamp, one into a very confused chicken coop, and one into what he was fairly certain had been someone’s bathing chamber—he had finally managed to land somewhere that looked vaguely familiar.

  “Progress,” he muttered to himself. “If by progress, one means landing in the approximate region instead of, say, someone’s breakfast.”

  He straightened, tapping his staff against the ground and muttering a soft incantation. The spell was meant to orient him, to point him toward the great nexus of magic that should still pulse at the heart of Aelintheldaar—the City of Cities. His crowning achievement. His legacy. The thought of seeing it again, after so long, brought a flicker of warmth to his otherwise sour mood.

  “Surely, they haven’t ruined it,” he said aloud, as though convincing himself. “Nine thousand years is a long time, but I engineered it too well for even the most idiotic of civilizations to muck it up.”

  The spell completed with a faint hum, and a glowing arrow appeared in the air before him, pointing southward. Krungus grinned—a crooked, toothy thing—and began his journey.

  The walk was not particularly pleasant.

  Krungus quickly discovered that the world had changed in ways both subtle and irritating. The landscape was dotted with strange, uneven hills where once there had been pristine flatlands. Rivers had rerouted themselves, creating inconvenient barriers that required either detours or improvisational magic.

  And then there were the people.

  He encountered a ragged caravan on the second day of his journey—a motley group of merchants and mercenaries trudging along a dusty road. Their wagons were laden with goods, their guards bristling with poorly maintained weapons. Krungus attempted polite conversation, hoping to gather information, but quickly abandoned the effort after the fourth person called him “old man” and suggested he buy a new robe.

  “Old man,” he muttered bitterly as he stomped away. “I am an archwizard, not some doddering hedge mage. If these cretins had the sense to recognize genius when they saw it—”

  He stopped mid-rant, his eyes catching a glimpse of something ahead.

  It was faint at first, a shimmer on the horizon, but as he crested the next hill, the sight took his breath away. There, in the distance, stood the City of Cities.

  Even from this vantage point, it was immense. Towers pierced the clouds, their spires glinting faintly in the sunlight. Walls stretched for miles, punctuated by massive gates that thrummed with latent energy. The city sprawled across the landscape, a living monument to his brilliance.

  Krungus allowed himself a rare moment of pride. He had built this. Well, not built exactly—more like perfected it while lesser beings did the manual labor. But still. This was his vision brought to life, his masterpiece.

  Krungus quickened his pace, the anticipation building with every step. He imagined the streets bustling with scholars and artisans, the air alive with the hum of magic. He imagined statues in his honor, libraries filled with tomes chronicling his achievements. Surely, his name would be revered, his contributions remembered.

  As he drew closer, however, he began to notice...details.

  The first was the smell.

  Even from the outskirts, the city exuded a pungent aroma—a rancid mix of unwashed bodies, rotting garbage, and something faintly metallic that Krungus couldn’t quite place. It was the kind of smell that clung to the back of your throat and refused to let go.

  The second was the noise.

  Far from the harmonious bustle he had envisioned, the city’s sounds were chaotic and jarring. Shouts and curses mingled with the clatter of wagon wheels and the distant wail of what he could only assume was some kind of warning bell.

  And then there was the city itself.

  As Krungus approached the gates, his excitement gave way to unease. The walls, once pristine and glowing with runes of protection, were cracked and weathered, their enchantments flickering like dying embers. The gates, enormous slabs of enchanted metal, were tarnished and dented, their once-impressive carvings obscured by grime and graffiti.

  “This...this cannot be right,” he muttered, his pace slowing as he passed through the gates and into the city proper.

  Inside, the scene was even worse. The streets were narrow and overcrowded, lined with ramshackle buildings that leaned at precarious angles. Vendors shouted over each other, hawking wares of dubious quality. Beggars crouched in shadowy corners, their outstretched hands ignored by passersby. The air was thick with smoke and the acrid stench of industry.

  Krungus stopped in the middle of the street, turning in a slow circle as he took it all in. This was not the city he had built. This was a mockery, a twisted parody of his vision.

  “What...what happened here?” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the din.

  “Oi!”

  Krungus turned to see a burly man lumbering toward him, his face half-hidden beneath a scruffy beard. The man wore a tattered uniform that might have once belonged to the city guard, though the insignia had been replaced with a crude patch depicting a snarling wolf.

  “You lost, old man?” the guard sneered, his hand resting on the hilt of a rusted sword.

  Krungus bristled. “I am not lost,” he snapped. “I am Krungus, the architect of this city! The very stones you stand on were laid according to my designs!”

  The guard stared at him for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Krungus, eh? Well, your ‘designs’ must’ve been real shoddy, ’cause this place is a dump.”

  “Shoddy?” Krungus’s voice rose, his temper flaring. “I infused this city with more magic than your primitive mind could comprehend! It was a utopia, a beacon of civilization!”

  “Yeah, well,” the guard said, smirking. “Ain’t a utopia anymore, is it?” He spat on the ground near Krungus’s feet, then turned and lumbered away.

  Krungus stared after him, his hands trembling with rage. “A beacon of civilization,” he repeated to himself, his voice hollow. “What...what have they done?”

  For hours, Krungus wandered the city, his initial disbelief giving way to a slow, simmering fury. Everywhere he looked, he saw evidence of neglect and corruption. The great aqueducts, once a marvel of engineering, now dripped with foul-smelling sludge. The magical streetlights, which should have illuminated the city in a soft, golden glow, flickered weakly or lay dark entirely.

  He passed through the market district, where merchants bickered and cheated each other with shameless abandon. He passed through the residential quarters, where families crammed into crumbling tenements and children played in streets littered with refuse. He passed through the once-grand plazas, now filled with shoddy stalls and drunken revelers. He passed through an area where he could’ve sworn one of Bahumbus’ charging stations for the sentries used to be. No sign of sentries, that was for sure.

  By the time he reached the central square, Krungus felt more exhausted than he had in centuries. He sank onto a cracked stone bench, his staff resting across his knees, and buried his face in his hands.

  “This was supposed to be my legacy,” he muttered. “My gift to the world. The City of Cities was meant to stand the test of time, to inspire awe and admiration for generations. And now...now it’s this.”

  He looked up, his gaze falling on a nearby statue. It was one of the few remnants of the city’s original grandeur—a towering figure of a robed man, his staff raised high in a gesture of triumph. Krungus’s heart leapt for a moment, recognizing the familiar figure.

  But as he approached, he realized the truth.

  Someone had defaced the statue, carving crude graffiti into its base. The once-proud features of the figure had been chipped away, replaced with grotesque caricatures. Worst of all, someone had scrawled a single word across the statue’s chest in bright red paint:

  “FOOL.”

  Krungus stared at the defaced monument, his breath catching in his throat. He felt a strange mix of emotions—anger, sorrow, disbelief—all swirling together in a maelstrom of frustration.

  “Fool,” he repeated softly, his voice tinged with bitterness. “Perhaps they’re right.”

  For a long moment, he stood in silence, staring at the ruins of his legacy. Then, with a deep breath, he turned away and began walking.

  He didn’t know where he was going, but one thing was certain: he couldn’t leave things as they were.

  Krungus had built this city once. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could rebuild it again.

  But first, he thought, glancing at the graffiti-covered statue, I'm going to give someone a piece of my mind.