1. The Last Hearth of Vatra Luminii

"They once called this place Vatra Luminii—the 'Hearth of Light.' "

For fifty years, your people thrived atop the ancient ruins of Mordesha, blissfully unaware of why the knightly orders of old had abandoned the crypts beneath your feet. But a decade ago, the world grew cold. The Rotten Breath (Dravahul) plague arrived, turning every living thing into a potential soldier for a shambling, unholy army.

You remember the desperation of the Great Ritual—the followers of Helia raising a shimmering bubble of golden light powered by a rare Sunstone. It was supposed to be your salvation, but it became your cage. When the undead army finally breached the village a year ago, the 'Hearth of Light' became a slaughterhouse.

While your neighbors were dragged from their homes, you and a handful of others made a desperate choice: you fled into the darkness of the Mordesha crypts. It was a gamble that paid off. The very necrotic energy that once drove the ancients away now acts as a shroud, masking your life force from the predators prowling the streets above.

Fourteen months. That is how long you have lived in the damp, claustrophobic silence of the tombs. Your world has shrunk to the flicker of a dying torch and the taste of the thin, conjured gruel provided by Părintele Andrei Speranțescu.

As you look around the flickering campfire tonight, you see the faces of your companions and the fifteen refugees who remain. You are the last of Vatra Luminii. But the stone walls are cold, the food is failing to sustain your strength, and the silence from the surface is starting to feel less like safety and more like a challenge.

The shadows are long, and the air is thin. Who among you is keeping watch tonight?"

The Refugees