The Artifact's Location

The air in Lyra’s hidden grove, usually alive with the hum of unseen insects and the gentle rustle of ancient leaves, felt heavy, stagnant. It mirrored the oppressive weight that had settled over Ubbe’s spirit since the blight had begun its insidious spread. Sunlight, filtering through the dense canopy, cast dappled patterns on the moss-covered stones of Lyra’s dwelling, but it offered no warmth, no comfort. He sat across from the elder, his massive frame hunched, the familiar scent of pine and damp earth now tinged with the acrid undercurrent of decay that clung to everything the curse touched.

Lyra, her face a roadmap of centuries, her eyes like polished obsidian reflecting the dim light, traced a symbol on the worn wooden table with a gnarled finger. The symbol pulsed with a faint, internal luminescence, a stark contrast to the encroaching darkness outside. “The blight,” she began, her voice a low, resonant murmur that seemed to vibrate in the very bones of the earth, “is not merely a sickness of the flesh. It is a wound upon the spirit of the land, inflicted by a hand that remembers a time before your lineage claimed dominion.”

Ubbe’s jaw tightened. He knew this already, the gnawing certainty that this was more than a natural phenomenon. He had felt the imbalance, the discord in the symphony of the wild that was as natural to him as his own heartbeat. “Kaelen,” he stated, the name a bitter taste on his tongue.