Surtr paused, his hand resting on the bough of the tree, its grainy texture pressed into the bare, calloused flesh of his hand. He breathed deep of the cold twilight air, tasting the scents in the air; the wet, earthy smell of the moss on the tree, the sharp, rich flavor of the sanguin berries that were bursting with ripeness, hearing the soft cracks of branches snapping, the trees rustling softly as the evening air sailed through them. He looked past the tree, following with his eyes the contours of the ruins he beheld in front of him. Long abandoned and left exposed to the elements, they squatted in a forest they had no right to be in. The heavy, oaken branches of the surrounding trees branching over them, dappling the twilight so the whole scene was bathed in a rich orange glow. Although the ruins were indescribably old, the passage of time did not mar them. No vines snaked over the tall, heavy columns, nor did the deep roots of trees seem to have cracked the pale flagstones of the steps. He had found it. After many days of weary travelling through the deep forest, he had finally fallen across it. Its gracious arches and fluted columns were carved with a grace that seemed to oppose the natural wildness around him, a bastion of calm in the storm of nature. He took a step towards it, his leather wrapped feet crunching the undisturbed detritus of the forest floor. As he approached, he thought back to the lore he had read, that had led him here, the myth and legend, passed down the forest clans, distilled and mixed into folklore and superstitious tales. He approached, already reaching for his worn notebook in his heavy, pocket filled travelling outfit. He would document it, recording its facts and locations, dispelling the rumor about it, and bringing it back into the bright light of recorded knowledge, for that was his goal, and what he had done for the last decade. He stepped onto the old, paved flagstones and couldn’t help but notice how the forest seemingly shrank back, its looping tendrils receding, as if in fear, of this sanctuary. He approached the door, looking up to its mantle, 4 feet above his head, its thick, iron bracing and reinforcing at odds to the pale stone that created the rest of the building. The only decoration on the front of the door was a sculpted iron wolfs head, snarling, made of cold and unyielding iron. Surtr paused at the top of the stairs, evaluating what to do, before striding forwards and hammering his fist into the door, three times, the sound breaking the natural silence of his surroundings, with heavy thumps. He waited, straining his ears to hear any movement on the other side of the door, but there was only silence, and the sharp whistling of trees, grown more urgent. He knocked again, with equal success, before cursing and pushing on the doors. Despite their size and apparent weight, they swung open on oiled hinges, banging off the walls inside and echoing down the stone carved passage that awaited him. He looked into the corridor, seeing only darkness, a thick, roiling mass, that swallowed light and waited, patiently, like a predator for its prey. He paused, wary of the dark, like all humans are, before noticing the wall mountings, like those in the feasting halls back in his native Fellesvale, except these were half the size of Surtr and made of black, dense iron instead of the light, carved wood he would have expected. He reached into his voluminous pockets and pulled out his firelight and strode to the nearest. As soon as he stepped into the corridor, there was light. The brackets shone with a muted blood red glow, stunning Surtr, who stopped and gaped as the length of the corridor was revealed to him, realizing that inside the building, the passage seemed to stretch for a lot longer than was possible. All along it were brackets, shining their red light, not banishing the light, but sweeping into the cracks and edges of the walls, so that the corridor was bathed in an ethereal glow. He walked to the nearest bracket, and craned his neck up to see the inside, where the light was emanating from, seeing a chunk of crystal the size of his fist, pulsing and glowing in time with some rhythm only it could sense. He reached out to feel its heat, but there was none conducting from it, and when he touched its facets, they were as cold as ice. He withdrew his hard sharply, with a hiss, gazing at the light, before pulling out his notebook again and taking a sketch of the crystal with his stick of graphite. He put the notebook away and started down the corridor, the blue glow welcoming him in like a lost friend. Outside, the trees moaned as night fell.

Surtr trudged down the corridor, noting the lack of windows and the lack of decoration, as if the corridor was simply a conduit to another, more important place, which Surtr saw loom out of the glow at the end of the corridor. As he approached it, he made out more and more details of it, the tall, burnished gateway, the giant, bronze doors, seemingly covered in images that resolved themselves more as he approached, images of monsters and men, fighting, buildings burning, demons laughing, the red glow reflecting off the bronze, making it seem to come alive, the fires burning bright. He leaned in, entranced, staring at an image of a man, with the face of a demon, crouched on a pile of corpses, staring with mad, hate filled eyes, as if he wanted nothing more than to see everything be given over to ruin. He stared at the image, the fires burning red, and in the very extremes of his hearing, he could hear drums. Drums that beat in time with glow, with the fire. Drums that signaled the ending of lives and the ruin of men. Surtr broke contact with the demon, his heart pounding, and the drums stopped, and everything returned to normal, the corridor the same as before, the carving just a carving. Surtr cursed himself for his foolishness, ascribing it down to tiredness from the trek here. Again he pushed on the doors, this time, feeling the weight of them. He put all his strength into moving them, straining against the barrier. He had come too far to let simple physicality prevent him from reaching his goal. Slowly, the great, bronze doors opened, Surtr straining with all his might to unlock them and enter the chamber behind. After one last, final heave, the doors had parted enough to let him in, and he turned onto his side, and slid through to behold a spectacular sight. He was in a chamber, lit with the fey glow of the moon, which entered through a dome in the ceiling before hitting one of the crystals Surtr had already seen in the brackets, but twice as tall as Surtr and half again as wide. The light hit it and shattered, seeming to diffuse its light throughout the chamber, shadowing everything in the white glow of Luna. He gazed around, awestruck, as he saw the statues. A ring of them surrounded the crystal, tall and imposing, made of a deep black marble that Surtr had never seen before. With their wide shoulders and cowled faces, Surtr could not help but feel a shiver run down his spine as he regarded the sunken pits of their cowls, and imagining the demon face under them. The moonlight seemed to be absorbed by the figures; they drank it in, leaving voids in the illuminated hall. As Surtr walked further into the chamber, he noticed that on the floor there were 7 concentric circles, indented into the floor, all made of what seemed to be a different material. The outer one was a pale, non-metallic substance that looked like bone, the next one, the same dark marble of the statues, the next a white marble that shone with the split light of the crystal, the next was burnished bronze, followed by silver, then gold, and lastly, what appeared to be silver, but harder, and carved with what looked like words. He approached the closest circle to the crystal, trying to make out the words in the glow, careful to avoid stepping on any of the sunken rings. As he approached the crystal, he looked up to see that Luna had completely eclipsed her sister Amalthea. At this point, the room seemed to glow, the crystal appearing to swell with light before releasing it all in a burst that spread in a tidal wave to the far corners of the room. On the floor, and up the walls, previously hidden indentations filled with the bright, sparkling light of the moon, showing Surtr patterns that spread up the walls up to the circle where the light came from. Looping spirals and great twirling shapes filled his vision, glittering from the light that revealed them, before dimming to reveal pictures of men and women, arrayed behind the statues he had seen earlier, all staring at him. There was one with a sneer on his face, cruel eyes boring into him. There was one with eyes of death and a face like thunder, Surtr switched his gaze to a woman, unclothed and looking straight at him, her every curve hinting at pleasures. Surtr quickly averted his gaze from the moon-image and glanced down at the floor, where the inner rings words had also been filled with moonlight. He mouthed the words in his mouth, running them over his tongue as if to try them out. He had never seen this language before, with its looping letters, and sharp lines contrasting. For all his knowledge and reason, for all his years of wandering in the deep parts of the world, Surtr looked at the words beneath him, illuminated with their own wan glow, and trembled.