The light of a fire casts a gentle glow on the ruined arch of a long-forgotten temple. Brambles and thorns cover the face of the ancient structure, and the area is choked with weeds and thorny flowers. Though the campfire is only fifteen feet from the arch, the space between seems distant and removed. A strange, barren circle rings the archway, as if plants refused to grow there.
One of the men tending the fire prods it with a long stick, causing the flame to jump up as fresh wood catches light. The light flickers and dances, briefly highlighting fragments of verse written across the collapsed arch.
"...chambers of the sun, that now from ancient melody have ceased... left the ancient love that bards of old enjoy'd... words shall return to end the pained night of... and fill the void of torment..."
The fire is ringed by nine men. Most sit idly in quiet conversation, though one tends the fire and prods the coals, an iron pot bubbling with soup made of trail rations. Another sits, idly tuning a lute for several minutes before launching into a quiet song, lamenting long-lost poems.
A man turns and idly tosses a stone toward the collapsed arch, bouncing it off the only curve of the arch which has not yet collapsed under the weight of time. The stone arch totters for a moment, then collapses backward into the brambles which lay behind it, crunching and tearing away the foliage which hid from sight a stairway leading down into the earth.
The crashing brings the men to their feet in a start, several of them drawing blades or quickly moving to string bows. A few moments pass, the crunching of stone down the stairwell echoing up into the night, before a ringing silence fills the air.
Deep in the ruined temple, the echoes of the collapsing arch can be heard. Sympathetic collapses throughout the temple knock drop loose stones into hallways. One such stone falls onto a dusty, old bookshelf, causing it to topple forward. An old, jewel encrused tome falls to the side, open to a page with a long-forgotten divine symbol, and an unnatural breeze begins to stir the halls. The symbol glows, and a rushing sound like that of thousands of voices slowly raising in a cry echoes out of the halls, carrying up the stairs and breaking the silence of the night.
The sound abruptly stops, and a man stands where the jewelled tome lay, holding the tome in his hands, looking slightly bewildered.