Beneath the ruins of Aelintheldaar (which hasn’t been called that in thousands of years) past the grasping roots of twisted trees and the skeletal remains of adventurers whose ambitions exceeded their skill, there lay a box. Not a particularly ornate box, nor one that looked magical at first glance. Its wood was blackened and warped, its carvings weathered to illegibility. But the box hummed faintly, emitting a vibration that only the most perceptive would detect—a faint warning to anyone curious enough to linger near it.
For nine thousand years, the box sat undisturbed. Entire civilizations rose and fell, their ruins piling upon each other like discarded clothing, while the box slumbered in the dark. Wars raged, kings and queens made grand proclamations, and gods waged their eternal bickering, but none dared disturb the box. And so, in silence and solitude, it waited.
Then, naturally, a group of idiots came along and opened it.
“I told you,” Nimeia said, her tone edged with the kind of weary patience one might reserve for toddlers or unusually dense barn animals, “this is a terrible idea.”
“Noted,” said Saja, who, by the tone of her voice, had clearly not noted it at all. The gnome crouched in front of the box, her nimble fingers twitching with the restrained energy of someone who had not yet stabbed anything today and was getting twitchy about it. “Now hand me the chisel.”
Vesper, the ranger, leaned silently against a nearby column, her face locked in its usual mask of grim disapproval. If she had an opinion about the box, she hadn’t voiced it. Not that anyone would have listened, mind you.
Nimeia crossed her arms, casting a glance at Saja, who was now inspecting the intricate lock on the box with the enthusiasm of a cat about to knock something fragile off a table. “Saja. Please. Let’s think this through.”
“Oh, I thought it through,” Saja replied with a toothy grin. “It looks expensive. Probably magical. Maybe cursed. Either way, I like my odds. Might make some of these damn voices I’m always hearin’ go away.”
Vesper sighed. A deep, soul-weary sigh that carried the weight of a thousand bad decisions—not all of them her own.
The lock gave way with an audible click, and for a moment, the three of them stared at the box. There was a brief silence, heavy with the kind of tension that usually precedes an explosion or a particularly messy dismemberment.
“Well,” Saja said, standing and dusting off her hands, “that wasn’t so—”
The lid flew open with a deafening crack. A wave of dark energy burst forth, rippling through the chamber and extinguishing every torch in an instant. The adventurers were plunged into a suffocating darkness, pierced only by the sudden, guttural roar of something that had spent an eternity trapped in a wooden coffin and was understandably annoyed about it.
When the light returned—courtesy of a sputtering spell hastily cast by Nimeia—the box was empty. Empty, save for a short, wild-eyed man who stood atop it, his hair a riotous tangle and his robes so filthy they could have been mistaken for compost. He clutched a crooked staff in one hand and wore an expression that suggested he had been rudely awoken from a nap that had lasted several millennia.
“What is this?” The man’s voice was hoarse but filled with wonder, his wild eyes darting between the adventurers and the now-open box. “I’m free? Truly free? Who—no, what are you to have undone the seals of my prison?”
Saja crossed her arms, eyeing him with curiosity. “Adventurers,” she said plainly. “We found the box, poked around a little, and here you are.”
The man blinked at her, then at the glowing remnants of the enchantments on the box. “Poked around...?” His brow furrowed for a moment before smoothing with realization. “Ah! A clever ruse. You play the role of bumbling wanderers to mask your power—wise. Breaking the seals on this prison would require a mastery of magic far beyond the ordinary. Tell me, which among you is the archmage?”
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Nimeia shifted uncomfortably, her hand brushing the hilt of her dagger. “None of us. We’re not archmages.”
“Hmm.” He squinted at her, as if trying to see through an illusion. “Curious. What year is it?”
Nimeia hesitated, glancing at the others before answering. “It’s 11077 EM.”
The man froze, his eyes widening. “Eleven thousand...seventy-seven? From the End of Magic? That would mean...” His voice trailed off as he began to calculate, his lips moving silently. Then his expression changed, a mix of awe and despair washing over his face. “Nine thousand years,” he whispered. “I have been imprisoned for nine thousand years.”
Vesper shifted uncomfortably. “That’s...a long time.”
“A long time?” the man repeated, his voice rising slightly. “Do you understand what nine thousand years means? Entire empires have risen and fallen. The fabric of reality itself may have shifted. I’ve missed—” He stopped abruptly, his expression turning sharp. “Tell me, did the war of the liches occur?”
Nimeia frowned. “Not that I’ve heard of.”
The man groaned, running a hand through his tangled hair. “Of course not. Nine millennia, and they couldn’t even get their crap together. What have they been doing?”
“Well,” Saja said, “there’ve been plagues, famines, big wars between kingdoms. Oh, and...someone figured out better ways to grow potatoes.”
The man stared at her, his face a mask of disbelief. “Potatoes? Potatoes? Nine thousand years of progress, and you’re telling me that potatoes are the pinnacle of civilization’s achievements?”
“It’s not all bad,” Nimeia offered cautiously. “There’s magic. A lot of magic in the world now.”
“Yes, there is magic,” he said, his tone softening as he looked at the remnants of his prison. “And yet, you are the ones who freed me. You must be more than you seem. Tell me—what did you touch to break the spell?”
Saja shrugged. “Red rune.”
The man groaned, slapping his forehead. “Of course. Sharrzaman’s arrogance. He always over-thought his traps.”
“Who’s Sharrzaman?” Nimeia asked.
“My betrayer,” the man said, his voice low and bitter. “The one who sealed me away, the one who feared my power. But I will have my revenge.” He straightened—or tried to, though his hunched posture and filthy robes made the gesture less grand than he intended. “But first, I must regain my strength and standing in this world.”
Saja raised an eyebrow. “How are you gonna do that?”
“Ah, that is my concern, not yours,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “You have done your part, whether intentionally or not, and for that, I thank you.”
He raised his staff—or rather, a gnarled stick he seemed to have picked up somewhere—and muttered an incantation. A faint ripple of energy surrounded him, and he began to vanish. Before he disappeared completely, he turned back to them, his voice tinged with curiosity. “Tell me one more thing—how did you find me?”
“Luck,” Saja said. “And a little curiosity.”
“Interesting,” he murmured, and then, with a faint shimmer, he was gone.
For a moment, the chamber was silent. Then Saja broke the tension. “Well. That was...anticlimactic.”
“You just unleashed a nine-thousand-year-old wizard,” Nimeia snapped. “And you’re calling it anticlimactic?”.
Vesper let out a deep sigh, the kind that spoke volumes without words—an unmistakable acknowledgment that they had just done something profoundly, irrevocably stupid.
“He wasn’t very impressive,” Saja said with a shrug. “But...potatoes? Really?”
And so, with the box now empty and the ruins eerily silent once more, the three adventurers did what adventurers do best: argued about whose fault it was, and completely failed to grasp the enormity of what they had just set in motion.
Far away, in a cave that smelled faintly of bat guano and despair, Krungus sat cross-legged on a pile of rocks, muttering to himself. “Nine thousand years,” he grumbled. “Nine thousand years in that cursed box, and now I’ve got to figure out where to find Sharrzaman. Probably holed up in some gaudy tower, the pretentious bastard...”
He sighed, rubbing his temples with a hand that was already trembling with the onset of a headache. “At least they opened the box,” he muttered. “Morons, the lot of em, but useful morons.”
And with that, Krungus began to plan. Or, at least, he tried to. It was difficult to focus when one hadn’t been on this plane in nine millennia, and he found himself distracted by an unfamiliar craving.
“Potatoes,” he muttered, his lip curling in disgust. “What the hell are potatoes?”