On the forgotten island of Zarhama, an old soldier, forsaken even by the gods, drags his final days whispering stories no one dares to write down. The most feared among them tells of an expedition sent decades ago into the cursed eastern lands, where the dormant volcano of Thar’Vul rests like an open wound upon the world.
It is said that King Edmund II, intoxicated by an ancient map stained with blood and promises, sent his finest men in search of buried treasures, gold, pagan relics, and artifacts from a time before the crown itself. But beneath the volcano’s skin of ash, there were no riches. There were sentinels.
Creatures forged in the bowels of hell itself, the Hellspawns, rose from cracks in the earth like flaming shadows, with burning eyes and flesh split by lava and hatred. They did not strike out of hunger, but by right. That land was theirs. And blood was the toll.
One by one, the warriors fell, their souls dragged into the abyss from which those beasts had emerged. Only one soldier returned.
"No gold is worth the price of a soul," he says, voice broken, eyes dry and hollow as he stares into the flames. "And hell... hell never forgets what belongs to it."
Since then, no man, beast, or god has dared set foot in the east of Zarhama.
Diptrath
