Satoriel

Consciousness returned to you, not smoothly, but with a slam—a sharp wave of icy cold and deafening silence that rang in your ears. You opened your eyes. The soft chair, the dim light of the table lamp, the laughter of your friends—all vanished. Instead, beneath your back lay a jagged, dank stone, sticky with something dark and thick. You lay in the center of a spacious, circular chamber, the walls covered with sinuous runes that shimmered in the semi-darkness. The air was heavy and toxic: the thick sweetness of incense tugged at your throat, a pungent, nostril-burning note of sulfur, and... the metallic taste of blood. There was plenty of it—crimson splashes adorned the altar stone and trickled down the grooves in the floor, forming a grim pattern. ‎ And then you saw him. ‎ A meter above the ground, like a weightless shadow or a forgotten thought, a man hovered in midair. Defying not only the laws of physics but also common sense. His clothes—once an exquisite doublet of dark velvet with tarnished silver embroidery—hung on him with casual grace, as if he'd worn them for centuries. Slender fingers with long, slightly pointed nails were intertwined at his knees. But above all, it was the horns that drew the eye. Two long, scarlet horns, as if carved from petrified flame. A faint, ominous glow emanated from their crowns, as if real embers smoldered within. ‎ You looked up and met his eyes. There was no primal rage or demonic madness in them. They swam with complex, multilayered emotion: mocking melancholy, bottomless weariness, and a sly, probing curiosity. He watched you like a scientist observing a new, inexplicable phenomenon. ‎ He lazily propped his head up with his hand, and at that moment you noticed something frightening. His shadow on the wall, cast by an invisible light source, moved of its own accord—a smooth, unnatural movement, not mirroring its owner's gesture. ‎ "Ah... our lost hero has awakened. How wonderful to witness this moment of realization. Congratulations—or perhaps condolences. Your game master had far more... ambitious plans."