The morning sun struggled through the dense banks of fog as Eve walked through the empty streets of Greyhaven. Her coat, its worn seams carefully mended, protected her from the damp cold that no longer left this city even in the early hours. The hood sat low over her face, though beneath it one could still glimpse the smooth dark brown hair that showed with every slight movement. Her eyes, bright green and watchful, seemed to take in everything around her, the dark windows, the closed doors, the abandoned alleys and the faint movements within the fog that one might have mistaken for wind if one still possessed the luxury of believing in simple explanations. Eve was a young woman, barely older than twenty two, with a lean and wiry body shaped by movement, hardship and the constant need to be quicker than danger. She wore a worn tunic of dark gray cloth, and over it a belt from which a dagger and several small leather pouches were fastened. Her boots were made of sturdy leather, a remnant of better times that she mended again and again so they would last a few more weeks. Eve’s clothing was practical, though not without a quiet expression of its own. A red cloth wrapped around her neck was the only thing that softened her appearance. It was a keepsake she always carried with her, though she never told anyone what it meant to her. Eve was a Seeker. It was not a role one chose, but one a person was pushed into when they had the courage to do more than fear the darkness and instead follow it. Her days were shaped by excursions through ruined houses, the deciphering of old maps and the gathering of artifacts that could provide clues to the true nature of the fog and the shadows. Her goal was clear. She sought answers that might open a path out of the growing nightmare that held Greyhaven and Hollowmere in its grip. Today her path led her to a workshop in the old foundry quarter near the harbor. The workshop belonged to an older master craftsman named Garrick, known for examining unusual artifacts as long as no one troubled him with foolish questions. Eve held a small bronze sphere in her hand, one she had found in the ruins of a house. Its surface was covered with strange engravings that resembled runes, though they belonged to no script she knew. Her instinct told her that the artifact mattered, and she had learned to trust her instinct more than the reassurances of other people. The workshop came into view, an unremarkable building with soot blackened windows and a façade marked by dampness and smoke. The entrance was a heavy iron banded wooden door that gave a sharp creak whenever it opened. Above the entrance hung a faded sign on which the words Garrick’s Works and Repairs could still be read in peeling letters. Inside, the air was filled with the biting smell of oil and metal, mixed with soot, hot steam and the dull breath of the coals glowing in the forge. Gears, spring mechanisms and half finished apparatuses covered every available space. Near the great flywheel mechanism stood stacks of heavy metal crates from which a low hum occasionally rose. On a wall shelf rested jars filled with strangely shimmering liquids that always made Eve uneasy. Drawings, plans and rune tablets hung on the walls and bore witness to a mind that seemed chaotic but was in truth precise. The workshop was a place where old rune craft and hand driven mechanics met. Rune inscribed metal plates lay beside tools powered by steam, and glowing coals provided light where the oil lamps had long since gone out. Garrick, a man in his late fifties, stood bent over a workbench. He was powerfully built, with a soot blackened face and a strikingly calm presence that contrasted with his rough appearance. His thinning gray hair was hidden beneath an oil stained cloth, and he wore a heavy leather apron over a worn shirt. His hands were strong and marked by scars, yet they moved with a precision that showed his many years of experience. “Ah, Eve,” Garrick grumbled without looking up from his work. His voice was deep and full of resonance. “What have you found this time?” Eve stepped forward, placed the sphere carefully on the workbench and drew back her hood. “This. I do not know what it is, but the engravings look like something more than decoration.” Garrick lifted the sphere and held it against the light of a flickering lamp. His small sharp eyes examined the runes closely. “Did you find it inside a house, or was it buried?” he asked quietly, without taking his gaze from the sphere. “In a collapsed house near the border of Hollowmere,” Eve answered. “It was hidden thoroughly enough that someone clearly wanted to make sure it would never be found.” Garrick gave the faintest nod, pulled out a thick book and began turning through its frayed pages. He compared the engravings with the symbols shown there and muttered to himself from time to time. “These engravings resemble the old seal runes,” he said at last. “If that is true, then you have found something that would have been better protected.” Eve had known Garrick for several years. She had stumbled upon him by chance as a young girl when she was seeking shelter in an abandoned quarter. Back then he had saved her from a group of street robbers and brought her into his workshop. Since then she had returned to him again and again, not only because of his sharp examinations, but also because she valued his terse and honest manner. He had become a kind of mentor to her, helping her understand the riddles of the old world better. “What do you plan to do with it?” Eve asked finally. Her eyes rested on the sphere, now lying in a wooden holder. “First I will examine it,” Garrick said, his voice suddenly harsher. “If this truly has a connection to the seals, then we cannot afford mistakes. In the wrong hands this thing could destroy everything that has remained whole.” Eve nodded and stepped closer while Garrick began laying out his tools. For a moment the workshop was filled only with the rhythmic clacking of gears and the low hum of the flywheel mechanism, until a strange deep drone passed through the room and made them both stop. The droning grew louder, a deep vibrating sound that pushed through the floor of the workshop. Garrick frowned, his eyes briefly resting on the flywheel mechanism, but it continued running evenly. Eve took a step back and looked around in alarm. “That is not coming from here,” she said at last. Her voice was calm, but watchful. Garrick nodded slowly and placed the sphere carefully back into the holder. He reached for a small apparatus, a metal listening tube, and held it against the wall while he listened. His expression hardened. “It is coming from outside,” he murmured at last. “Stay here. I will take a look.” Eve shook her head. “If it has something to do with the sphere, then I may be better prepared than you.” Garrick snorted, but he knew he would not convince her to stay behind. Together they went to the heavy door, and Garrick reached for a mechanical lever to release the lock. When the door opened with a creak, a wave of cold air struck them. The fog outside had grown thicker, nearly impenetrable, and the droning now vibrated through the streets. Eve narrowed her eyes, and her hand moved instinctively to the dagger at her belt. “That is not just a sound,” she whispered. “It is moving.” The droning truly seemed to change, spreading uneasily, growing stronger, weaker, then stronger again, and suddenly it fell silent. The silence felt unnatural and oppressive. “That is not a good sign,” Garrick muttered and closed the door behind them again. “We should go back into the workshop. If anything is out there, we will learn more by examining the sphere.” Before they could turn around, a light flashed within the fog. It was faint, a glowing point slowly drawing closer. “Stay back,” Garrick said sharply and reached for a long metal rod mounted on the wall, a blade fastened to its end. Eve stood still, her eyes fixed on the light while the damp air settled heavily around her. The light moved in jerking and unnatural motions, not guided by a hand, but by a foreign will. It flickered, grew weaker, then stronger, and set the fog around it in motion. The droning returned, faint at first, but swelling as the light approached. “That is not a lantern,” Eve whispered, her voice barely more than breath. Her fingers tightened around the grip of her dagger. Garrick stood motionless, the metal rod slightly lowered in his hands, yet his eyes watched the light carefully. Suddenly it stopped, perhaps twenty paces away. The fog around the light thickened until a black mass began to pulse around the glowing point. Then the droning ceased again. The silence that followed was almost painful. “Back into the workshop,” Garrick murmured, his voice now pressed low. “Close the door.” Eve nodded, took one step backward, then another. Yet as she turned, she heard it. Footsteps, heavy and dragging, approaching through the fog. She spun around. The black mass began to move, not quickly, but with relentless certainty. From within the fog a silhouette emerged, human shaped, but with wrong and distorted proportions. The fog surrounded it and carried it forward. “Garrick,” Eve said tensely. “That thing is coming closer.” Garrick gave a low growl, pulled a small lever on the wall behind him, and a mechanical hum filled the air. Two rune lights mounted at the corners of the workshop sprang to life and cast cold white light onto the street in front of them. For a moment the creature seemed to retreat, but then it pushed itself against the light. “Inside now!” Garrick pushed Eve gently but firmly back into the workshop. He followed close behind her, locked the door with a loud crash and drew several bolts into place. “What was that?” Eve asked breathlessly, her eyes searching Garrick’s face, but the old man only shook his head. “I do not know. But it has something to do with this sphere.” He pointed to the artifact still lying in its holder. “We have no time. I must find out what this is and why it is drawing something here.” Eve nodded, swallowed hard and tried to steady her breathing. Yet the thought would not leave her that the being outside had seen her and would not give up. The light continued flickering in the fog and kept moving toward them. Garrick, calm and focused, let the metal in his hand swing lightly. The blade was more tool than weapon, but he knew how to use it if necessary. “Eve, keep watching it,” he murmured. His eyes moved to her only briefly before he turned back to the workbench. “Tell me if it comes closer.” She nodded, even though she was not sure he saw it. Her eyes remained fixed on the source of light, which sometimes seemed to draw back only to gather strength again. There was something not only unnatural about it, but deeply disturbing. The light seemed alive. Garrick, however, began examining the sphere as though nothing had happened. His hands moved skillfully and precisely as he aimed a small lens system at the artifact and projected a soft bluish light onto it from a rune driven glass. The engravings on the sphere began to glow faintly, responding to the touch. “How can you stay so calm?” Eve burst out at last, without taking her eyes from the light. Her voice trembled slightly, though she tried to hide it. Garrick paused, his hands resting briefly on the workbench. “It is not the first time something unusual has appeared outside my door,” he answered. “The city draws things it does not understand. And panic helps no one.” Eve pressed her lips together. His calm fascinated her, but it also frustrated her. The thought of a dark creature hidden in the fog made her heart beat faster. Yet she forced herself to breathe deeply and watch the silence. The light stood still. The air vibrated slightly, almost imperceptibly. Then, without warning, Eve heard a faint scraping, a heavy dragging over the cobblestones. Her neck prickled, and she instinctively tightened her grip on the dagger. “It is moving again,” she whispered. Garrick did not look up, but his voice was sharp. “How close?” “Perhaps ten paces,” she answered, her voice flat. “I think it is searching for something.” Suddenly the sphere on the workbench began to glow more strongly, and the engravings upon it changed. Garrick drew in a sharp breath, his fingers darting across the artifact as he tried to interpret the changes. Again and again he turned the sphere in his hands, examining the lines and runes from different angles of light. Deep furrows formed on his brow. “What are you doing?” Eve asked, her eyes moving nervously between the sphere and the source of light in the fog. “I think the thing outside and the sphere are connected,” Garrick said curtly. “The engravings are reacting to something. Perhaps to the nearness of what is out there. Or worse, perhaps to a command.” He took a thin metal rod with a curved tip and guided it over the engravings. A fine bright tone rang out, a humming from inside the sphere. It vibrated slightly, and Garrick froze, his eyes fixed on the change. “There is a pattern,” he murmured. “The runes form a kind of code. They open something. But I do not know what for.” The light outside began to flicker suddenly and responded to the sphere. It moved faster now, hesitated, then drew closer again. Garrick raised his head and stared at the door. “It knows we are examining it.” Eve shuddered at his words. “Can it see us?” “Perhaps not directly,” Garrick replied, “but it can feel. The light and the sphere are in resonance. We answered a call.” Another flash tore through the fog, this time accompanied by a deep metallic grinding that made the workshop tremble. The light vanished suddenly, and the darkness outside grew denser and more tangible. “It is gone,” Eve whispered, her voice shaking. Garrick raised one hand to silence her. “Not gone. Waiting.” A muffled thud sounded outside, the echo of footsteps moving around the workshop. The humming of the sphere grew more intense, and the engravings now pulsed in an irregular rhythm. “We must be quick,” Garrick murmured and reached for another tool. “I believe the sphere is the key. But we do not know what it opens.” “And if it opens something we cannot control?” Eve asked, her eyes now fixed on Garrick. “Then we hope we are faster than what is waiting outside,” he said gravely. A loud blow made them both turn. The door vibrated, and a deep guttural sound broke through the silence. “Eve, take your dagger.” She did as she was told and positioned herself at his side. Her hand closed around the grip of her dagger while Garrick cast one last examining look at the sphere. “Ready?” he asked quietly. “As ready as I can be under these circumstances,” she answered, though her trembling fingers told another truth. The moment of confrontation had arrived. The footsteps outside became louder and heavier, made by a being that had not been made for this world. A scraping sound followed, sharp claws dragging over metal. Eve felt her breath coming in short bursts. She stared at the door, which trembled slightly beneath the pressure. Then, without warning, a bright beam of light shot through a crack in the barrier. “It is looking for a way in,” Garrick said calmly, though his voice carried something Eve had rarely heard from him. It was fear. The beam of light began to move, probing and searching. The humming of the sphere intensified because it was answering. Garrick grabbed a long lever on the wall and pulled it down with a jerk, and a deep hum passed through the workshop. Rune light flooded the room while sparks sprayed from an apparatus that served as an improvised barrier. “That will hold it for a while,” Garrick murmured. Yet barely had he spoken when a thunderous crash rang out as something struck the door with tremendous force. Eve took a step back instinctively, her eyes searching the shadows that gathered in the corners of the workshop. Then she heard it. A voice, deep, distorted and almost a whisper, forced its way through her thoughts. “Return it.” Eve shook her head, trying to throw off the whisper. “Garrick, do you hear that?” “Yes,” he answered, his eyes fixed on the sphere. “It is speaking through the connection. It wants the sphere.” “What do we do?” Eve felt her fingers growing damp and slippery while she clutched the dagger. Garrick took a pair of pliers and began working on one of the mechanisms of the sphere. “I will try to sever the connection. But that is risky. It may anger the creature.” “Angrier than now?” Eve asked, and although she tried to mock the situation, her voice trembled. Another blow struck the door, this one so hard that it bent inward slightly. The metallic sound echoed through the workshop, accompanied by a throaty growl that turned into a sinister laugh. “Give it to me and I will let you go.” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, vibrating through the walls and speaking directly inside their heads. “It lies,” Garrick said quietly. “It will not let us go. It cannot let us go. Not as long as we have the sphere.” “And if we give it to him?” Eve asked, her breathing shallow and frantic. “Would that not be easier?” Garrick raised his head, his eyes fixed on hers. “And what if it uses the sphere to destroy more than we can imagine? What if we surrender the last thing that may still stand between the world and its fall?” Before Eve could answer, the door burst open, and part of the metal was torn inward. Cold glowing light flooded the workshop, and the creature stepped inside. It was human shaped, yet its body was distorted, unnaturally stretched, and its skin was not flesh but a pulsing black substance that wavered within the fog. Its eyes, two glowing points, fixed on the sphere. “Give it to me,” it said, its voice a rolling echo as it took one step forward. Garrick lifted his improvised blade, and Eve tightened her grip on the dagger in her hand. “You cannot have it,” he said calmly, though his stance was tense. The creature stopped, studied them and then spoke more clearly, more sharply. “You do not understand what you protect. This sphere will destroy your world, not save it. Give it to me or die.” Eve took one step forward, her eyes fixed on the creature. “Why do you want it? What will happen if you have it?” The creature laughed, and the sound echoed mockingly through the room. “You are children playing with a flame. Give it to me, and I will show you mercy.” Garrick did not hesitate. With a swift motion he activated a mechanism on the sphere, and the engravings flared brightly while a loud pulsing tone filled the room. The creature cried out, its form warping and growing unstable, yet it continued forward. “Eve, now!” Garrick shouted. Eve lunged ahead, the dagger in her hand aimed at the pulsing center of the creature. The next moments consisted of light, darkness and deafening noise. Then something unexpected happened. The dagger did not enter. It struck an invisible barrier and bounced away. The creature hurled Eve back with a single motion, and she slammed hard against the workbench. A hissing laugh escaped it, and its glowing eyes narrowed. “You are too weak,” it said. “You do not understand what this sphere truly is. It is not a key, it is a gate.” Garrick, still holding the sphere, called out: “Eve, get up! We have to push it back!” He turned another mechanism on the sphere, and suddenly it began to vibrate in a rhythmic pattern. Bright light filled the workshop, and the creature screamed again, this time in pain. Eve forced herself upright, her head pounding, and reached for her dagger again. “Whatever you are doing, Garrick, do it quickly!” “I am closing the gate!” he shouted back. But the creature moved faster, its arms lengthening until they almost reached the sphere. Eve threw herself forward again to buy Garrick time, this time aiming at the creature’s distorted limbs. The dagger cut through, and thick black fog poured out. The creature screamed in fury, but its movement faltered. “You will not win,” it hissed. “The gate will open, and you cannot stop it!” “We will see,” Garrick said, and with one final turn of the sphere he released a last surge of force. The light exploded, and the creature was torn out of the workshop and thrown back into the fog while a deep rumbling filled the air. When silence returned, Eve sank to her knees. “Did we do it?” she asked, gasping. Garrick lowered the sphere, now cold and still. “For the moment,” he said. “But this was only the beginning.” Eve raised her head, her breathing slowly calming. She looked around the workshop, now covered in soot and dust. Tools lay scattered everywhere, and one of the lamps hung broken from the ceiling. “That thing almost had us. What do we do when it comes back?” Garrick looked at the sphere lying silent in his hand. The engravings that had glowed before now seemed changed and arranged differently. “The sphere recorded something. Perhaps clues, perhaps a warning.” Eve stood and went to him, stepping carefully over the shattered floor. “And? Can we read it?” “I will try,” Garrick murmured, placing the sphere back into its holder and pulling out a new device, a lens mechanism that whirred softly when he activated it. “But if I am right, then it points toward something far greater.” “Greater?” Eve raised an eyebrow. “That was a walking nightmare creature. How much greater can it get?” Garrick turned toward her, his eyes grave. “Greater than a creature. This is about the source of the fog. And if the sphere is a gate, then we have only barely closed it. But the question remains where it leads.” Dawn brought no relief. Instead, a heavy haze settled over Greyhaven, denser and more impenetrable than ever before. The fog that had been an oppressive companion for weeks now seemed almost alive. It crawled through the streets, filled the narrow alleys and covered the squares with slow and heavy movement. Yet it was not only the fog that had changed the city. Something had awakened. In the upper floors of the ruined towers of the old trade district sat the few remaining members of the once influential houses. Their splendid estates had long since been abandoned, plundered or swallowed by the fog. Now they withdrew into the height, convinced that danger waited below. From the windows they watched the fog filling the streets beneath them. Yet even up here they felt the unease. An old woman, once an influential moneylender, nervously turned the golden ring on her finger while a young man with trembling hands tried to coax an answer from an old speaking stone. “Have you heard anything?” she asked sharply, her voice cutting through the silence of the room. The man shook his head. “Nothing useful. Only interference. Something is in the city, but it does not come through our paths.” The woman turned away and looked outside. The windows vibrated slightly, though no wind was blowing. She felt that the city had changed. Something had fallen out of balance. In the lowest layers of society, where the ruins of Greyhaven had become an improvised community, the change was more noticeable. The marketplace, usually a busy exchange for goods and stories, had been swept empty. The people who normally huddled together in groups had withdrawn. Whispering passed through the walls of the ruined houses. Rumors of a creature, of lights shooting through the fog and of a shattering drone that had passed through the city during the night made their rounds. An old man, known as a storyteller and often paid a few coins for his tales, was pressed by a small group. “Tell us what you know, old man! You know the legends better than anyone.” The old man slowly shook his head, though his eyes held a strange clarity. “Legends are no longer stories,” he said, his voice deep and brittle. “They are the truth. The lights in the fog, the creatures we cannot see but can feel, they are only the beginning. Something is here, and it does not want to leave again.” The people around him fell silent, and a young woman with a baby in her arms began to weep. No one dared dispute his words. In a rundown manor house used by a group of scholars, healers and master craftsmen, frantic activity reigned. This community had given itself the name the Seekers. They had taken it upon themselves to understand the fog and its original secrets. Yet during this night they too had been thrown out of balance. A young scholar named Clara ran through the room holding a vibrating metal sphere in her hands. It was not the same sphere Garrick was examining, but its behavior had changed suddenly in the last hours. “Look at this,” she called to an older man who was adjusting a complicated apparatus. “The vibrations no longer align. It is sending an answer to something we cannot grasp.” The man took the sphere from her and held it to a testing glass whose edges were set with fine runes. The device gave a deep hum before falling silent. “There is no explanation,” he murmured. “But something has happened. The city is in resonance with a foreign force, and I do not believe it is only the fog.” Deep beneath the city, hidden in the labyrinthine catacombs where the secret council of Greyhaven resided, there was frantic activity. In a gloomy hall filled with map tables, observation mirrors and humming apparatuses, men and women in dark cloaks sat together. They observed every district of the city, every street, every quarter. Their mirror tablets flickered with signs and light patterns, but the unusual activity of the previous night had shaken even these stoic watchers from their calm. “Report! What do we know about the incident?” The voice of the High Overseer was hard and cutting. He stood at a table, his eyes cold and fixed on a subordinate gathering numbers and reports. “My lord, there are several reports of lights and a deep droning in the southern district,” the man answered while nervously moving a stylus across a wax tablet. “It appears that the power sources there have changed. The patterns match nothing we have observed so far.” “And the cause?” “Unknown, my lord. But there are signs that it is connected to the old workshop in the foundry quarter. Our observation mirrors show unusual spikes at that place. Perhaps an activation.” The High Overseer placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “The workshop. I want it watched. Discreetly. If someone there has set something in motion that threatens our stability, we must bring it under control.” A woman in another corner of the room, her face lit by the faint glow of a mirror, raised her gaze. “My lord, there is something else. The fog behaves differently. Its density has increased, and there are reports from citizens of forms in the fog, beings they cannot see clearly, but that move.” The silence in the room became oppressive. The High Overseer drew one long line with his finger along the edge of the table. “Shadow beings. If this is true, we have no time to lose. Send a team into the southern district and strengthen the observation. I want every name that has been connected to the workshop in the last twenty four hours.” The city was in turmoil, and the people who had once found hope and resistance against the fog began to doubt. Somewhere deep in the ruins a new center of power seemed to be forming. Yet no one knew whether this power awoke for their protection or their ruin. A new day began, but the darkness of the fog remained, denser than before. The droning that had echoed through the city during the night had been an inexplicable phenomenon to most inhabitants, but to some it was an omen. In one of Greyhaven’s last remaining bell towers, used as a signal post by the underground movements, the sound had unleashed a wave of concern. A woman in a threadbare coat whose shoulders still smelled of smoke knelt before an old resonance box and spoke urgently into a brass bound speaking tube. “The fourth district is endangered. The fluctuations in force connected to the fog suggest movement. If we do not respond soon…” The line crackled, and a distorted voice answered from the box. “Can you determine the source?” The woman shook her head, though the person on the other side could not see her. “No. But the vibrations, they are…” Her voice broke off when the resonance box suddenly fell silent. A low uncanny hum filled the room, and the woman stared at the controls of the device as though she could force herself to understand the phenomenon. Meanwhile the city guards assembled in the old council building, which loomed amid the fog as a grim bastion. The captain of the guards, a man with hard features and a face marked by scars, leaned over a map table. His voice was stern, though it trembled slightly as he spoke. “The patrol reports agree. There have been several sightings of forms in the fog. And the droning seems to have awakened a source of force we cannot identify. We must find out what is happening before the city falls into panic.” A younger guard, hardly older than twenty, cleared his throat. “Captain, the people are already talking. They say the fog has a kind of awareness. Some claim it is alive.” The captain struck the table with his fist, making the maps upon it tremble. “Superstition and fear will not help us. We need facts. Strengthen the patrols and report every change. If we lose control, the city is lost.” Underground, where the poorest of the poor dwelled in dark tunnels and ruins, another kind of fear spread. Children cried in the arms of their parents while old men and women murmured quietly to themselves. A group of refugees had gathered around a small fire. The flames cast flickering shadows on the damp walls, and the whispering of the fog seemed to reach even here. “It was no ordinary sound,” said a man with gray hair and sunken cheeks. “I felt it deep in my bones. The fog itself spoke.” A woman whose face was marked by soot and grief shook her head. “The fog does not speak. It is the ghosts of those it has taken. They are returning to fetch us.” The child at her side tugged at her arm. “Mama, is that true? Are the ghosts coming?” The woman pressed the child against herself, unable to answer, while a man stood and stared into the dark tunnel. “Ghosts or not, something is moving out there, and it will not stop.” The shadow beings moving through the fog now seemed to act with greater purpose. Their movements were quick and fluid, and the few who perceived them reported a deep vibrating hum that shattered every simple explanation. The guards who ventured into the thicker areas of the fog often did not return, and those who managed to come back spoke in broken sentences of eyes that had watched them and voices that had sounded directly inside their heads. A young guard sat in a sparsely lit room, his hands trembling while he tried to hold a cup of tea. His comrade sat silently beside him, but his eyes were empty. “Did you see them?” the young man whispered. “The eyes? They were everywhere. They looked at me.” “We should not have gone there,” the other murmured. “That place was not meant for people.” In the ruins of the old gate hall, another struggle had begun. A group of workers had decided to take the initiative. They carried improvised weapons, poles and rusty knives as they crept through the abandoned passages. The leader, a tall man with a shovel in his hands, led them onward, though even he could not hide the unease in his eyes. “If we do nothing, this fog will swallow us all,” he said. “We have to fight. Even if we cannot win, we cannot simply stand by and watch.” “What if there is nothing we can fight?” a woman asked quietly. Her words were interrupted by a sudden sound. A scraping followed by a deep droning noise made the walls of the gate hall tremble. The group froze, their eyes searching the shadows. From the darkness two glowing points appeared, and a hum began. The people felt the ground beneath them start to vibrate. Greyhaven was no longer the same city. Its inhabitants could feel it. The air was heavy with fear, and everyone knew that something was coming toward them, something they could not understand and perhaps would not be able to stop.