Only the insistent drumming of raindrops falling against the ancient stone blocks could be heard in the darkness. Again and again they fell, crashing into the unwavering stone, only to be rebutted away with effortless ease. Yet still they came, in a desperate attempt to break through the molding stone. The storm was unyielding, relentless, fat tear-drops pounding away, as if the heavens themselves were crying, storming and raging in despair and agony at some unknown atrocity committed against them. And maybe they were.

Inside the stone, there was life. One need not peer too deep, nor listen too hard to know this. The soft patter of tiny paws as rodents scurried from nook to cranny, searching for a morsel to eat could be heard all throughout the night, even through the storm. Still, that was not all that could be heard. The sounds of men, rowdy and uncontrollable as they amused themselves with their petty vices, gambling and drinking the night away could be heard echoing within the stone.

The folk gathered in here were hardy, strong built, no doubt having been gathered from the roaming northern tribes, whether willingly or by force was anyone's guess. These people were of a fair, almost ethereal complexion, with pale skin and light blonde hair dominating their features and their eyes spanning a spectrum much wider than your typical brown and black of the Empire, traits that many would have considered attractive if it weren’t for their violent tendencies and fondness for the drink. These northern tribesmen were savages, barbarians with no culture, incapable of learning or reasoning. As such, it was only natural that the Empire take them in as protectorates, to teach and to protect these poor animals lest they continue to do themselves and others harm. Or at least, that is what most folk would tell you.

Yet all was not as simple as the sight and sound of these inebriated men would have you believe. These were no wayward travelers and vagabonds, simple peasants and farmers seeking shelter from the rain, making merriment for merriments sake, having a night of reprieve before returning to their daily toil once more. This was something else. There was nothing worth celebrating in here. Never had been, and there never would be. These men would not be returning to their old lives, traveling and working, the menial labor that they had all hated so much. The hard work that they all missed so much. They would not be leaving this stone fortress anytime soon. Not tomorrow, not in a week, a month, not for years. Perhaps not ever.

There were no lutes being strung inside the mess hall, the roaring fire and torches bracketed to the halls every few steps providing only a small amount of warmth and light. There were no jovial drunkards recounting their day’s events, standing on stools and shouting out over the throng of people wanting just one more drink. Everyone here had lived the day together, and none had reason to want to relive it. Neither were there tales of great adventures, of glorious escapades from days past being told, for those had all been recounted over and again the first few months of their stay in this gods-forsaken stone in the middle of nowhere. No, these men were a serious kind, drinking and finding respite from their lives at the bottoms of their tankards, gambling and swearing in an attempt to forget themselves, to find some modicum of what they remembered life was like before they were sent here to rot.

Still, the most obvious tell that these were no common folk was their wear. They were clothed in apparel that no commoner would have, especially not in the Empire. They were clad in armor, a ramshackle deal with flimsy scraps of leather clinging to their bodies, shoddy plates of dented metal or long-ago rusted chain mail, with ugly gashes running across the plates and chain links, testaments to past mistakes. Some of the men preferred to have blades strapped to their waists, pointy metal sticks made of crude iron, chipped and dull from negligence and misuse. Others still toted around large bludgeoning instruments, large wooden clubs made from light ash or oak, or perhaps even a large mace, heavy and unwieldy, forged from cast iron in some blacksmith far away from this place. Regardless the weapon, they all shared something in common. All these men had blood on their hands, and more often than not, it was not a warrior's blood.

The ancient stone castle sat situated at the very fringes of the empire, with not a fragment of civilization for many leagues in any direction. This was a lonely place, hidden in a stretch of the Mortuum Est Saltus, the Dead Forest. Nobody knew what had happened to these woods, only that the forest had been found and recorded by the empire, and other civilizations before them, dead and blackened. The trees bore no leaves, no plants could grow, no animals could live, no life could exist. The center, strangely enough, was the castle. The only hint as to what had happened to this forest were the trace amounts of powerful magic that still lingered here, only nobody knew what kind of spellwork could have wrought such death, nor how long ago it had happened or who had done it.

Alone in the stormy night, surrounded by a dead forest and secluded from the rest of civilization, this relic of a past civilization was the perfect place for keeping a secret. If anyone dared tread past the poorly armed warriors, the sputtering torches embroiled in their desperate and eternal struggle to keep the dark and cold at bay, deeper and deeper into the darkness of the cold, silent fortress, they would find a door. But this door was no ordinary door, for it was old. This door was as ancient as the stone that surrounded it from all sides, older than the empire itself. The door was made not of wood, or of iron, but of a strange metal, blacker than ink, forever cold to the touch. Black ice, it was called. Upon this black metal were runes, words of power etched onto its surface in a long dead magical language. They were seals. This door, this prison, for that was what it was, it had been created with a purpose. It had been constructed long ago, by a people long forgotten, for a single reason. To keep something in.

And still the secrets of this ancient prison did not end there. If any fool of sufficient power, a power hungry archmage or a meddling sorcerer were to force entry into this prison, breaking the seals and descending down the withered and broken steps that led to the dungeon proper, they would find a site that no mortal was ever meant to see. The prison had not even a passing semblance to the holdings of man, to the Empire’s sprawling networks of iron bars filled with screaming men and women, begging for mercy or pleading their innocence for crimes both petty and large, never to be granted either. Here, there was only silence. Here, there was only one room.

A single room. A single hall led to this single room. 10 steps. That was what separated the bottom of the stairs and the door to this single room. The hall was made of the same black ice as the door descending into it. The door leading into the single room was as well. No light touched this place. No light could exist in this place. The biting cold that clung to this black metal would ensure any spark died before catching fire. Any glimmer of light, of hope, would be doused in darkness, and frozen by ice.

Everything was covered in runes. There were seals and traps, illusion-breakers and detection charms, words of power that not even the brightest magi from the empire's finest academies could uncover the purpose of. The hall was lined with them, hundreds of them. The door at the end was comprised of nothing but seals. Whoever had built this prison, they had poured every fiber of their magical prowess towards the goal of allowing nothing to escape from this damned place. One could only wonder what it had originally been built to contain, and what had happened to both the prison’s builders, and whatever had been contained within the prison.

Walk down the hall 10 steps, open the door, and do it all without dying. A simple enough task the the Empire failed to accomplish. 27 legionnaires died in the attempt to force entry, 8 magi during the attempt to break the spells, and a total of 51 legionnaires and 17 more magi when they triggered a devastating fire rune, the flames flooding up the steps and spilling through the halls and into the castle proper. The flames all died moments later, snuffed out by the unearthly cold that radiated from the black ice. The stones, strangely enough, did not scorch. All of this, however, the months of work, all the lives lost, the mages pushed to extremes, holding up wards to stave off the cold and turning off the magical traps and seals one by one, it all paid of in the end. When they finally opened that black door, they found inside of it the magical find of the century.

Now, years later, inside that black door, there sat the tragedy of the century.