You stand alone in the town square.

The celebration is over. The crowds have gone. The lanterns hang dark and cold from their posts. Only the gem remains, pulsing atop its pedestal like a beating heart – but dimmer now. Waiting. Hungry.

Three souls already swirl within its depths. Seraphine. Aldric. Thornwen. You can see them if you look closely – faces in the purple light, mouths open in silent screams. The histories have been written. Seraphine vanished seeking forbidden knowledge. Aldric succumbed to sudden illness. Thornwen passed peacefully in her beloved grove.

But the ritual is not complete. Three souls are not enough.

The Binding of Souls requires four.

You approach the pedestal. The gem’s light intensifies as you draw near, shifting from purple to hungry violet. It knows what you’ve come to do. It has been waiting for this moment since the first stone of Eldermoor was laid.

You reach out to touch it.

“Don’t.”

Seraphine’s voice erupts from the crystal, sharp as breaking glass. The gem blazes with light, and in that light you see her face – not a memory, not an echo, but something that has been watching and waiting all this time.

“You don’t have to do this, Varek. Walk away. Let us rest. Let yourself remain… human.”