There were lights that illuminated only whisps of walkable terrain, but he knew it was all in his mind, twisted and oppressive as if pressing down upon the world itself, a spider under glass. Away, the sea was unnaturally still, stagnant, as though time itself had taken a breath and dared not exhale. There, at the edge this Seeker, Amun, whose legend whispered of pacts with forces beyond human comprehension felt that this was supposed to make him fearful and mayhaps that would be wise. No ordinary willer of the continuum was he — his goods and trade were neither spices nor silks but things far more intangible, and far more dangerous. He would need it all.

Amun had spent decades navigating the shadowed trade routes of the planes where mortal men mewled for riches and power, the seduction of their vices, for forgiveness. This Seeker was drawn by whispers of places that shouldn’t exist—places like this "Carcosa", a doom of the very gods, the cursed city plagued by the supposed "Yellow King". It was said to lie somewhere between the folds of reality, its non-Euclidean streets weaving between time and space, defying all logic and reason. The rumors of unLaconian power, the source of the continuum and other rumored lore consumed Amun's soul, driving him toward the one destination no fool should dare seek.

The Meisters had the bound tome, nearly undecipherable and the peak of their Spire: "the King in Yellow", whose reach extended beyond the stars, whose madness twisted the minds of those who dared to look upon his pale mask. The mark of his gaze to one should not look upon. Yet it was not fear that held Amun back but the intoxication of the unknown and the realization that he was underprepared. He had already crossed the boundaries of the sane world long ago, his mind fragmented by encounters with eldritch truths, his soul bound by the pacts he had made. He would be cursed to walk here countless times mayhaps, had he been here and failed at the King's gnarled feet before? In this mire, where all was predatory, the vines all sought throat, the air was meant to choke, there was no retreat.

The scene had swallowed him until the twin moons broke free of the night to stare at him, a mist rose from the waters, thick and cloying, pulling the world into a haze of distorted angles and twisted reflections. Amun stood on the deck of a once mighty ship, an Eastern Galleon of some sort that had been absolutely ravaged. The wood too laden with foul waters for ages, her sails all spectral tatters. Amun's eyes fixated on a point far beyond the horizon where no stars gleamed. It was there that his throat hitched momentarily and he gritted his dream teeth for he looked to a place where the sea and sky melded into one, and reality bent in unnatural ways.

Through atrocity, Amun unlocked the twisted way to Carcosa, paths that did not exist on any map and could not be charted by human minds. His ship moved not through the sea, but through the folds of reality, gliding between dimensions where the angles of existence fractured and bent in ways that made his head spin.

Looming ahead—Carcosa, its towers stretching toward a dark sky, each spire piercing through dimensions, shifting from one plane of existence to another. The streets below writhed like serpents, winding in impossible directions, their angles too sharp, their curves too fluid. A sickly yellow light glowed from within the city's depths, where something sinister waited.

As Amun’s ship docked at the silty shore, he felt a presence pressing into his mind—an ancient, maddening force that had been waiting for him. Though no form or face could be discerned in the swirling chaos of shadows and light, no gargantuan presence, no theatrics. It was not a voice, but a sensation—a psychic intrusion that coiled around Amun’s thoughts, pulling them apart strand by strand, a cerebral vortex, a parallax web that assaulted his senses entirely. He pondered what had spun such a wretched web and what approached in its snare?

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He attempted to debark, each step heavier than the last as the world bent and twisted around him. He wretched at the vertigo and fought for a heading. The very air seemed to choke with unspoken dread, and Amun felt the presence of creeping nothingness growing stronger, sinking deeper into his mind. His thoughts fragmented, spiraling out of control as the pathways shifted beneath his feet, leading him ever deeper into the heart of the city. He cast somatic wards, but the words left him his vigor drained away.

Time no longer had meaning. Space collapsed in on itself. The buildings around him towered and shrank, folding into impossible angles, warping between planes. The city itself was alive with the madness of its king, and Amun realized too late that Carcosa had been waiting for him all along. He had not sought the city; the city had drawn him, called to him across the void of space and time.

His old heart thundered in his chest, surely it would fail, and as he stumbled through the ever-shifting streets, the psychic assault intensified. The enemy was no longer merely a presence in his mind but an overwhelming force, tearing at the seams of his sanity, he strained for his soul. He tried to fight it, to retain control, but it was like trying to hold water in his hands. The harder he struggled, the faster his mind slipped away. Was he the childe or was he the warlock, was he the woman in the painting? Was this the first time or could it be the finality?

Suddenly, the street before him bent and twisted in ways no human eye could comprehend. Reality itself ripped apart, and from the tear in space, a fissure emerged, not unlike what his blade could tear—not as a figure, no lines or borders, but as an unspeakable force that washed over Amun, sinking its claws into his mind.

His vision blurred. His body felt weightless and heavy all at once. His thoughts shattered, unable to distinguish the real from the unreal. And then a torrent of torment so personal, so exacting, tuned to every nerve that made him HIM began—unbearable, unrelenting.

Amun’s body convulsed as Hastur’s psychic tendrils coiled around him, ripping into his flesh without ever touching him. His mind was being devoured, his very essence torn apart as if reality itself sought to consume him. He looked down and saw his own body betraying him—his hands, twisted and grotesque, moved without his command. They dug into his abdomen, pulling at flesh and sinew, tearing at his insides as though his own body were acting under the will of the Yellow King.

Blood poured from his wounds, dark and thick, splattering onto the writhing streets of Carcosa, which seemed to drink it in. His entrails slithered out of his torn abdomen, snaking along the ground, dragged by some unseen force into the very heart of the city. Amun screamed, but no sound escaped his lips. His own hands—no longer his—reached deeper, pulling at organs, flaying skin, unraveling him from the inside.

The fissure yawned agape to the front, the only witness though Amun could no longer see clearly through the shock. He could only feel the overwhelming presence of Hastur, laughing silently as Amun's body disintegrated under the weight of madness. His soul was devoured, bit by bit, as his body followed suit, the last of his humanity stripped away in the streets of Carcosa.

In his final moments, Amun's thoughts dissolved into a formless void, his body a hollow shell, torn apart by the very forces he had sought to understand. Carcosa, the city of non-Euclidean madness, had claimed him.

And so, Amun Jaro, the once-great Warlock, became nothing more than a twisted memory in the shifting streets of Carcosa. His body was scattered across dimensions, his mind broken and consumed. The city remained, as it always had, waiting for the next fool who dared to seek its forbidden knowledge.

For in the end, there is only entropy and the void. Hastur.