Image_large_001.jpg ⇒

The sun hung low over the jagged peaks of the Obsidian Range, casting long, bruised shadows across the valley floor. High above the tree line, where the air grew thin and tasted of ancient snow, Elias adjusted the straps of his worn leather pack. He had been climbing for three days, following a map etched onto a piece of birch bark that his grandfather had pressed into his palm moments before passing.

He wasn't just standing on a mountain anymore. The Pillar was a key, and he was the one who had finally turned it. From the valley below, the village elders looked up to see a beam of pure light shoot straight into the heavens, tearing a hole through the clouds and revealing, for the first time in a thousand years, the path back to the world they had once called home.

As Elias reached the base of the spire, the wind died down to an eerie, expectant silence. He reached out a trembling hand, his fingers brushing the cool, pulsing surface of the stone. The moment his skin made contact, the white light flared, blindingly bright, and the ground beneath him began to hum.

The image in his mind, and the one he now saw unfolding before him, was identical to the legend: a lone spire of white stone, glowing with an unnatural luminescence against the darkening sky. They called it the Star-Fall Pillar. It wasn't made of the same dark rock as the rest of the range; it looked like a tooth pulled from the mouth of the moon.