The heavens thundered above, their relentless fury beating the drums of the earth. Flashes of light along the night sky revealed the dark magnificence of Darkholde, perched on the rock cliffs, the massive keep seemingly trapped in the stone surface for the eternity its masters secretly sought.

Oh, but this was just one of the many secrets of the Darkholm, thousands of mysteries known only by time itself.

Deep within the bowels of the keep, hundreds of feet below, a series of caverns hungrily consumed the sea waves, filled with ocean spray and the echoes of the angry weather.

While the natural tunnels created a labyrinth that would trap and drown the unwary, a few of them found their way to some of the most well-hidden areas of the keep above. But who could ever travel over a mile of uneven ground, falls and loose rocks in pitch blackness, without a single sconce to place a torch.

It was one of those caverns that would one day be known as Fool’s Respite, a small opening among those who were severely eroded, but for the anvils resting inside, their black metal untouched by time, perhaps protected by the strange runes on their surface.

It was on this night, and on this place that blood touched the rock, rocks that the waves licked as if trying to wash the insult they had just wrought.

It was this the place where many had perished, drowned, or simply vanished.

This was the place the foam abandoned, to leave behind hair of the same color…

...rising from the sea, stumbling, yet strangely firm, as if determination itself had brought her back…

…for some can say they have cheated Death once...

But…

…only she had cheated it twice.