Curian stood at the base of the stairway, her eyes fixed on the trinket as it floated above the tower in the distance. She looked around again, an uneasy feeling bubbling up in the pit of her stomach. This looked nothing like anywhere near Rivenbrook, nor the Shaded Weald near its edges. Curian had heard rumors of forgotten castles once lorded over by mighty kings and queens, all well beyond the Luminous Gates that surrounded the Westenvale Kingdoms, but they were just that–rumors. Ghost stories to tell greenhorn adventurers to keep them on their toes when venturing into the badlands beyond the kingdoms’ walls.

This looked like none of the places Curian had ever seen or heard of, and she couldn’t help but wonder how far she’d traveled.

“May as well retrieve the damned thing before I get my bearings,” Curian muttered to herself. She took a cautious first step, allowing only her toes to touch the stone first. She shifted more of her weight to her foot until finally she had fully stepped onto the first stair. There was a deafening silence as nothing out of the ordinary happened, and Curian breathed a sigh of relief.

The trinket glimmered in the air far ahead and above, bright even against the clear daytime sky. Curian gathered up her nerve and pressed onward, her goal visible and waiting for her arrival.

The castle ruins were interesting in that they didn’t seem to belong to one castle, but several. Obsidian stonework abruptly gave way to slate before shifting without warning to sections carefully crafted with clay and straw. The craftsmanship of each section was amazing, and Curian couldn’t help but admire it as she walked along. She found herself wondering who lived here that they decided to sample so many styles of building.

Curian almost missed the first royal crest, or at least what was left of it. A charred outline of a shield was all that remained, the thick layer of ash a severe contrast to the surrounding limestone. She wondered how many such things she had missed as she walked along, but her curiosity was not so great as to reverse her progress. She made a mental note and continued onward. It was, she reasoned, not uncommon for a dragon to destroy the markings of the rulers of a castle it razed. Perhaps that was the fate that had befallen this unusual place, she wondered, and her thoughts quickly turned to hurrying to the trinket in hopes that it would take her from this broken husk of what once was and back home, or at least somewhere a little more inviting.

The stairway sloped downwards, evening out until it became a pathway through a spacious courtyard. A fountain towered at its center, and its statue depicting a hero wielding a sword and shield was noteworthy for not having a head. Stagnant water sloshed gently over the lip of the fountain’s base with each breeze, a sickly green dense with plant growth. The gardens were overgrown with wild, grasping vines covered in thorns so long and sharp they could be used as daggers in a pinch. Curian followed the path along to where it forked around the fountain’s base. She felt a chill run up her spine that stopped her dead in her tracks.

Curian looked around. There was a second level overlooking the courtyard. Remnants of the floor jutted out with broken balconies extending further still. Beyond the stretch of floor, however, was darkness. The roof, or what was left of it, allowed for nothing to be seen beyond a certain point despite the sun shining through in a number of places.

A glint of deep purple was visible in the shadows for only a minute, and then it disappeared.

“Nope,” Curian muttered. “Absolutely not.” She turned on her heels and started walking faster. She reached the next portion of the stairs, which climbed along the side of a smaller tower, winding out of sight ahead. She could feel the hair standing up on the back of her neck as whatever she saw, she feared, watched her as she continued her progress towards the trinket. She walked faster still.

Her foot met the next stair, which gave like wet paper beneath her weight. She stumbled forward, grabbing hold of battered stone of the next stair. Three stairs behind her gave way, leaving her hanging on above the void. She clambered up onto the newly formed ledge, cursing the whole way, and once she was safely on part of the stairs she felt was secure and safe, Curian allowed herself a glance downwards. She immediately regretted it. Nothing was visible beneath where the stairs had broken away, or at least nothing was visible aside from the seemingly bottomless chasm that had opened up.

Curian breathed a sigh of relief before carefully getting to her feet. The stairs opened up to a small bridge that spanned between the tower she was on and the massive tower at the ruins’ heart. The trinket looked far closer now than before. Not willing to tempt fate, Curian picked up a large stone and threw it to the center of the bridge. It clicked and clacked along the stones of the floor, throwing off small sparks. The bridge held fast, not showing signs of being any less sturdy than the day it had been built.

“One easy step after another,” Curian reassured herself. “How difficult can it be? Almost there.” She stepped onto the bridge, each muscle moving into each step charged and ready for a mad dash to the other side should the bridge choose this to be its final moments. She reached the bridge’s center, and her fear began to give way to hope as the trinket seemed well within reach.

“How curious,” rumbled a voice from ahead, though Curian could not see who had spoken. More shadows had pooled just at the edge of the bridge, blocking the path to the final stair ascending the tower above which the trinket floated.

“Curious indeed,” Curian replied, a ghost of a tremor in her voice threatening to betray the coy tone she was trying to put on. “And with whom do I have the honor of speaking? The master of the castle?”

There was a horrible sound like millstones grinding to a sudden halt. Curian could feel it deep in her bones, and it took a moment to realize what she had just heard was laughter.

“It has been some time since anyone has come here,” the voice said. “I am not used to guests. I would ask you to forgive the state of things, but it appears you are passing through and not terribly interested.”

Curian tensed. If the trinket was her way home she couldn’t risk whoever–or whatever–she was now staring down taking interest in making it theirs.

“Just a student of the architectural arts passing through, admiring the many varied facets and facades of this magnificent castle,” she replied. “Very interested in the journey. No destination in mind just yet.”

There was a sudden rush of cold around Curian’s neck, along her shoulders. She could feel a presence only a few paces behind her, and the air around it was cold as the worst of winter. She could not muster the nerve to look.

“By all means, admire,” the voice said. There was an edge of something to it that Curian couldn’t quite pin down, but it left her feeling a very strong urge to get the hell away as quickly as possible.

“You have my thanks,” Curian said. “But also my apologies, as I don’t believe I’ve gotten your name.”

More laughter, accompanied by another blast of frigid breath. “No, I don’t think you did,” the voice mused. “A discussion for another time, perhaps, as I must tend to other matters at present.”

The oppressive presence behind Curian disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and the base of the stairway was once again bathed in sunlight.

“To the seven Hells with that,” Curian blurted out, breaking into a full sprint. She took each step along the stairway winding around the tower with great care, though each step touched the stones only as long as necessary. With one last leaping step, Curian stumbled forward onto the circular platform at the tower’s zenith. She gasped for breath, hunched over but her eyes still locked on the trinket.

“I’ve got,” Curian said between deep, gasped breaths. “Even more. Questions for you, damn it.” She straightened up and took a step towards the center of the platform. The trinket, almost as if in response to Curian’s approach, drifted downwards until it was only a couple feet above the floor.

A newly familiar, horrid laugh issued from behind Curian, causing her to flinch.

“The Prognosticarium, here and ready to be taken,” the voice rumbled. “How convenient. And I suspect I owe you the thanks for bringing it to me, so unwittingly and carefree?”

Curian spun on her heels, fists raised. “Listen, you,” she snapped, ready to teach this king among creeps a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget. The next words she had meant to say hitched just behind her teeth when she saw who had been following her. The figure depicted by the statue.

He was tall, dressed in an outfit that screamed nobility. A wine red cape fluttered around the deep purple regalia. The silver of his gauntlets shined in the light of the trinket. He smiled at Curian, his purple eyes locked with hers. His head was tucked neatly in the crook of his right elbow, his neck topped instead by a thorny crown of jagged interwoven metal bands.

“What are you?” was all Curian managed to ask.

“Hardly your concern, child,” the creature said. “Step aside. You have no idea with what you are trifling. Once I have made use of the Prognosticarium, however, I assure you that you will be…” He paused, a dreadful smile creeping across cracked lips.

“Rewarded,” he added. The suggestion his tone gave the word did little to put Curian at ease.

She took a step closer to the trinket–the thing he was calling some strange, long, important-sounding name–and raised a hand towards it.

“You don’t know me,” Curian said. “I’m not terribly good at listening. Definitely lousy at taking orders.” She leaned closer to the trinket, her fingers hovering around it.

The creature recoiled ever so slightly, eyes narrowed. “That would be…” he said. “Unwise.”

Curian let out a laugh. “Good thing, then,” she said. “I’m not always the wisest, or so I’m told. Let’s see what happens if I do this.”

The creature let out a terrible, roaring shout as Curian’s fingers closed around the trinket. It was both burning hot and painfully cold to the touch. A burst of light emanated from it, rushing over the platform and spilling out far across the open air beyond the castle ruins. She could feel it shifting in her grasp, but this time it seemed to be growing in size.

Curian could feel parts of the trinket opening up as it moved in her palm until she could hold on no longer and was forced to let go. A number of pieces orbited a core of radiance and warmth, spinning faster and faster, some having changed direction and going opposite of the other pieces. Suddenly, the pieces stopped.

Before either the creature or Curian could say anything, the pieces rocketed off across the open air one by one, until the final piece was left.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Curian muttered as she reached out into the final piece’s path as it screeched through the air. Her fingers locked around it, and before Curian could process what had happened she was lifted off of the platform and into the air. The world below rushed by rapidly, and Curian felt her stomach turn. She shut her eyes, clenched her jaw, and offered a short prayer to any Gods she hadn’t recently blasphemed.

She hit the water just as a wave crested, the cold salt water forcing its way up her nose. The shock of the impact caused her to gasp, and she immediately regretted it. Curian bobbed at the water’s surface, only to sink into its inky depths. She clawed at the water around her with one hand while flailing her fist–still clenched tight around the piece of the trinket she’d grabbed–until she broke the surface.

Curian gasped for air, her eyes darting around madly. There was nothing but ocean for miles in each direction, it seemed, but before she could resign herself to her clear fate she heard a voice from behind her.

“Swim this way! Hurry, or the storm will claim you as its own!”

Curian turned and spotted a robed figure, hood obscuring its face, standing on what looked to be the edge of an island taken up by one squat, dome-shaped building.

With few other options, Curian swam towards the safety of shore.