Dear Diary,
After a long and hearty breakfast, we set off toward the forest west of the village, the hunt for the wyverns finally beginning. The journey took most of the day, the sun carving a slow arc through the sky as we traveled. The forest that greeted us was nothing like the twisted, brooding depths of the Lorewood. It was almost... normal. The trees stood tall and sturdy, the underbrush rustled with the movement of small creatures, and for once, I didn’t feel the weight of something unseen watching us from the shadows.
That sense of ease didn’t last.
An hour into our trek, we reached the base of a colossal rock formation. Sheer cliffs of stone, towering at least fifty meters high, loomed ahead. It was the perfect place for wyverns to roost—high ground, difficult to reach, and impossible to escape if they decided to attack.
Then we saw them. Dark shapes, standing motionless between the trees. Dozens of them, scattered through the forest like silent sentinels. My breath hitched. Every instinct screamed that we had walked straight into an ambush. Hands went to weapons. Muscles tensed. But the figures didn’t move. We crept closer.
Statues.
Not carved, not shaped by human hands. These were warriors—knights, hunters, even common folk—frozen in place, weapons raised in defense, faces twisted in horror. A chill crawled down my spine. This wasn’t the work of time or erosion. This was something else. Something alive.
Gael crouched, his sharp gaze sweeping the ground. “Tracks,” he murmured. “Big ones. Eight legs. Scaled. Long tails.” He glanced up, meeting my gaze with grim certainty.
Basilisks.
The word sent a ripple of unease through the group. We had dealt with monsters before, but basilisks were different. One wrong move, one careless glance, and you weren’t just dead—you were stone.
With the last of the light fading, we had no choice but to make camp. We found shelter in the crumbling ruins of an ancient structure, its walls barely standing, its history lost to time. Yet, as we explored, we found remnants of something unsettling—carvings of dragons, etched into the stone, their coiled forms worn but unmistakable.
A temple. A shrine. A place that once worshipped dragons.
Had the wyverns simply claimed this forsaken place? Or was something older, something far more dangerous, still lurking here?