The sky bled crimson over the Shattered Plains, three hundred leagues from Goblin's Hollow. Where once fertile farmland had stretched to the horizon, now only cracked earth remained, split by fissures that glowed with an unnatural blue light when darkness fell. Farmers who had tilled these lands for generations had abandoned their homesteads, fleeing with tales of whispers emerging from the cracks—voices that spoke of hunger and patience and the coming end of all things.
Standing at the edge of this desolation, Magister Vorenus of the Royal Academy adjusted his observation equipment with trembling hands. The brass telescope, enhanced with fragments of ancient technology, allowed him to peer into the deepest fissures. What he saw there had already driven two of his apprentices to madness.
"Record the measurements again," he instructed his lone remaining student, a hollow-eyed young woman who had not spoken in days. "The rate of expansion has increased."
