Krungus stood on a windswept cliff, the air crisp and bracing against his face. Behind him, the sea crashed angrily against jagged rocks, a sound he might have found poetic if he weren’t so profoundly irritated. His robes flapped noisily in the wind, and he clutched his crooked staff as though it might keep him from being blown away.
Teleporting, as it turned out, was not like riding a bicycle. Nine thousand years of disuse had left his magical precision...lacking. After three misfires—one into a swamp, one into a very confused chicken coop, and one into what he was fairly certain had been someone’s bathing chamber—he had finally managed to land somewhere that looked vaguely familiar.
“Progress,” he muttered to himself. “If by progress, one means landing in the approximate region instead of, say, someone’s breakfast.”
He straightened, tapping his staff against the ground and muttering a soft incantation. The spell was meant to orient him, to point him toward the great nexus of magic that should still pulse at the heart of Aelintheldaar—the City of Cities. His crowning achievement. His legacy. The thought of seeing it again, after so long, brought a flicker of warmth to his otherwise sour mood.
“Surely, they haven’t ruined it,” he said aloud, as though convincing himself. “Nine thousand years is a long time, but I engineered it too well for even the most idiotic of civilizations to muck it up.”
The spell completed with a faint hum, and a glowing arrow appeared in the air before him, pointing southward. Krungus grinned—a crooked, toothy thing—and began his journey.
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The walk was not particularly pleasant.
Krungus quickly discovered that the world had changed in ways both subtle and irritating. The landscape was dotted with strange, uneven hills where once there had been pristine flatlands. Rivers had rerouted themselves, creating inconvenient barriers that required either detours or improvisational magic.
And then there were the people.
He encountered a ragged caravan on the second day of his journey—a motley group of merchants and mercenaries trudging along a dusty road. Their wagons were laden with goods, their guards bristling with poorly maintained weapons. Krungus attempted polite conversation, hoping to gather information, but quickly abandoned the effort after the fourth person called him “old man” and suggested he buy a new robe.
“Old man,” he muttered bitterly as he stomped away. “I am an archwizard, not some doddering hedge mage. If these cretins had the sense to recognize genius when they saw it—”
He stopped mid-rant, his eyes catching a glimpse of something ahead.
It was faint at first, a shimmer on the horizon, but as he crested the next hill, the sight took his breath away. There, in the distance, stood the City of Cities.
Even from this vantage point, it was immense. Towers pierced the clouds, their spires glinting faintly in the sunlight. Walls stretched for miles, punctuated by massive gates that thrummed with latent energy. The city sprawled across the landscape, a living monument to his brilliance.
Krungus allowed himself a rare moment of pride. He had built this. Well, not built exactly—more like perfected it while lesser beings did the manual labor. But still. This was his vision brought to life, his masterpiece.
Krungus quickened his pace, the anticipation building with every step. He imagined the streets bustling with scholars and artisans, the air alive with the hum of magic. He imagined statues in his honor, libraries filled with tomes chronicling his achievements. Surely, his name would be revered, his contributions remembered.
As he drew closer, however, he began to notice...details.
The first was the smell.
Even from the outskirts, the city exuded a pungent aroma—a rancid mix of unwashed bodies, rotting garbage, and something faintly metallic that Krungus couldn’t quite place. It was the kind of smell that clung to the back of your throat and refused to let go.
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The second was the noise.
Far from the harmonious bustle he had envisioned, the city’s sounds were chaotic and jarring. Shouts and curses mingled with the clatter of wagon wheels and the distant wail of what he could only assume was some kind of warning bell.
And then there was the city itself.
As Krungus approached the gates, his excitement gave way to unease. The walls, once pristine and glowing with runes of protection, were cracked and weathered, their enchantments flickering like dying embers. The gates, enormous slabs of enchanted metal, were tarnished and dented, their once-impressive carvings obscured by grime and graffiti.
“This...this cannot be right,” he muttered, his pace slowing as he passed through the gates and into the city proper.
Inside, the scene was even worse. The streets were narrow and overcrowded, lined with ramshackle buildings that leaned at precarious angles. Vendors shouted over each other, hawking wares of dubious quality. Beggars crouched in shadowy corners, their outstretched hands ignored by passersby. The air was thick with smoke and the acrid stench of industry.
Krungus stopped in the middle of the street, turning in a slow circle as he took it all in. This was not the city he had built. This was a mockery, a twisted parody of his vision.
“What...what happened here?” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the din.
“Oi!”
Krungus turned to see a burly man lumbering toward him, his face half-hidden beneath a scruffy beard. The man wore a tattered uniform that might have once belonged to the city guard, though the insignia had been replaced with a crude patch depicting a snarling wolf.
“You lost, old man?” the guard sneered, his hand resting on the hilt of a rusted sword.
Krungus bristled. “I am not lost,” he snapped. “I am Krungus, the architect of this city! The very stones you stand on were laid according to my designs!”
The guard stared at him for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Krungus, eh? Well, your ‘designs’ must’ve been real shoddy, ’cause this place is a dump.”
“Shoddy?” Krungus’s voice rose, his temper flaring. “I infused this city with more magic than your primitive mind could comprehend! It was a utopia, a beacon of civilization!”
“Yeah, well,” the guard said, smirking. “Ain’t a utopia anymore, is it?” He spat on the ground near Krungus’s feet, then turned and lumbered away.
Krungus stared after him, his hands trembling with rage. “A beacon of civilization,” he repeated to himself, his voice hollow. “What...what have they done?”
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For hours, Krungus wandered the city, his initial disbelief giving way to a slow, simmering fury. Everywhere he looked, he saw evidence of neglect and corruption. The great aqueducts, once a marvel of engineering, now dripped with foul-smelling sludge. The magical streetlights, which should have illuminated the city in a soft, golden glow, flickered weakly or lay dark entirely.
He passed through the market district, where merchants bickered and cheated each other with shameless abandon. He passed through the residential quarters, where families crammed into crumbling tenements and children played in streets littered with refuse. He passed through the once-grand plazas, now filled with shoddy stalls and drunken revelers. He passed through an area where he could’ve sworn one of Bahumbus’ charging stations for the sentries used to be. No sign of sentries, that was for sure.
By the time he reached the central square, Krungus felt more exhausted than he had in centuries. He sank onto a cracked stone bench, his staff resting across his knees, and buried his face in his hands.
“This was supposed to be my legacy,” he muttered. “My gift to the world. The City of Cities was meant to stand the test of time, to inspire awe and admiration for generations. And now...now it’s this.”
He looked up, his gaze falling on a nearby statue. It was one of the few remnants of the city’s original grandeur—a towering figure of a robed man, his staff raised high in a gesture of triumph. Krungus’s heart leapt for a moment, recognizing the familiar figure.
But as he approached, he realized the truth.
Someone had defaced the statue, carving crude graffiti into its base. The once-proud features of the figure had been chipped away, replaced with grotesque caricatures. Worst of all, someone had scrawled a single word across the statue’s chest in bright red paint:
“FOOL.”
Krungus stared at the defaced monument, his breath catching in his throat. He felt a strange mix of emotions—anger, sorrow, disbelief—all swirling together in a maelstrom of frustration.
“Fool,” he repeated softly, his voice tinged with bitterness. “Perhaps they’re right.”
For a long moment, he stood in silence, staring at the ruins of his legacy. Then, with a deep breath, he turned away and began walking.
He didn’t know where he was going, but one thing was certain: he couldn’t leave things as they were.
Krungus had built this city once. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could rebuild it again.
But first, he thought, glancing at the graffiti-covered statue, someone’s getting turned into a toad or something.