The kingdom of Eldoria was a place of wonder—a land where magic thrived, shaping cities of floating spires and rivers that shimmered with arcane light. The Eldorian Mages, protectors of the realm, stood at the peak of magical mastery. They wielded forces that could bend time, alter reality, and even glimpse beyond the Arcane Veil—the invisible boundary between our world and the unknown.

But there are places even magic should not reach.

The Moonlit War was the night that Eldoria fell. The night the twin moons turned black and red—a celestial omen of doom. It was the night the Rift opened, and something came through. The war was not fought for power or conquest. It was fought for survival.

I, Merlin, have seen the rise and fall of empires. But nothing—not the great wars of man, nor the fall of ancient gods—could prepare me for what we unleashed that night.

And the worst part?

It was our own doing.

The Night the Moons Changed

Eldoria had stood for a thousand years, its people thriving under the wisdom of the Council of Mages. Magic flowed freely through the land, bound by laws that kept it in harmony.

But laws can be broken.

And some knowledge is too dangerous to remain hidden.

It began in the Celestial Archives, where the greatest arcane scholars studied the secrets of the universe. It was there that High Mage Vaelorian discovered the Veil Theory—the belief that magic was not born in our world but borrowed from a greater force beyond the Arcane Veil.

Curiosity became obsession.

Vaelorian led the Eldorian High Mages in their experiments, crafting spells that pierced the fabric of reality itself. They called it The Grand Tearing—a controlled rift meant to reveal the source of all magic.

They believed they could harness it.

They were wrong.

On the Night of Twin Moons, the experiment reached its final stage. The skies split, and the Rift opened.

Magic did not flow from it.

It spilled—a raw, chaotic force that twisted everything it touched.

And from its depths, they came.

The Riftborn.

The Creatures Beyond the Rift

No two Riftborn were alike.

Some were shapeless, mere shadows that slithered along the walls, devouring light and leaving behind only emptiness. Others were tall and gaunt, their bodies shifting with each step, their faces voids of nothingness. And some—the worst of them—were things that did not move at all.

They simply watched.

And wherever they watched, reality unraveled.

The High Mages tried to control them.

They failed.

Within hours, half the city was lost.

The Last Stand of the Mages

The Council of Mages acted swiftly, gathering what forces remained. If the Rift was not sealed, all of Eldoria—perhaps the entire world—would be swallowed by the entities pouring through.

And so, they built the gate.

The Eldorian Gate was meant to be a final barrier, a spell-forged seal that would close the Rift forever. It would take every last drop of magic to bind the breach, but it was their only hope.

As the last battlemages stood upon The Spires of Eldoria, they unleashed a final incantation, weaving together every ancient spell they had ever known.

The Rift began to close.

But not before it took something with it.

The mages were never seen again.

Their bodies were gone.

But their shadows remained.

The Watchers in the Mist

Even after the war ended, even after the Rift was sealed, something lingered in the ruins.

Whispers of the lost mages, wandering the streets, their faces hidden beneath deep hoods.

They were not ghosts.

They were something else.

Bound to the magic that had destroyed them, forever watching the Rift they had barely contained.

And so, Eldoria was abandoned, its people fleeing the cursed land, leaving behind only the echoes of a war that should have never happened.

But magic does not fade.

And some doors never stay closed.

The Rift pulsed, stretching the sky like torn fabric. A wound in reality itself, weeping magic into the world. It had started as an experiment—a pursuit of knowledge, the last great ambition of the Eldorian Mages.

Now, it was a battlefield.

And we were losing.

The Fall of the Capital

The grand streets of Eldoria’s capital, once paved with shimmering stone, were breaking apart.

Rivers of pure magic—uncontrolled, unstable—flowed like molten silver through the ruins. Towers once home to the greatest arcane scholars collapsed, their runes screaming as their wards failed.

The Riftborn had no form, yet they took whatever they needed.

Some were shadows that slithered, leaving behind nothing but emptiness where they passed.

Others were giants, bodies shifting between stone, flesh, and void, moving like beasts that had never known gravity.

But the worst of them… were the ones that stood still.

Watching.

Waiting.

Their very existence warped reality around them.

I had seen kingdoms fall before, but this—this was not conquest.

This was erasure.

The Council’s Desperate Plan

High Mage Vaelorian stood on the final floating platform—the last stronghold of Eldoria’s mages. His once golden robes were tattered, soaked in the dust of his dying kingdom.

And yet, he was not broken.

“The Rift must be sealed!” he shouted, his voice shaking the air itself with command. “We have no choice—we must build the Gate!”

I met his gaze. “The cost—”

“I know the cost, Merlin,” Vaelorian said, his face unreadable. “And so do you.”

There was no alternative.

If we did nothing, the Rift would consume everything—not just Eldoria, but the entire world.

But if we used every ounce of magic left to forge the Eldorian Gate, we could contain it.

A prison. A seal.

A desperate final act to lock the Rift away forever.

The Ritual Begins

We moved swiftly.

The remaining twelve High Mages formed a circle around the Rift, their staffs raised, their voices weaving a single incantation that would define the fate of magic itself.

The air hummed as they channeled their power.

Golden runes spiraled outward, wrapping around the Rift, tightening its edges.

But the Riftborn felt the magic—they knew what was happening.

And they fought back.

The shadows howled, their twisted forms lunging toward the circle.

Mages fell—ripped apart, burned into nothing, their very existence devoured.

But we held the line.

And I… I made the final move.

The Gate Is Sealed

I stepped into the circle, feeling the magic burn through my veins. The Gate could not simply be built—it had to be forged in magic and sacrifice.

I spoke the last word of the incantation.

A word that had not been uttered since time began.

And the world answered.

The Rift shrieked, its endless hunger chained in place.

The golden runes solidified, twisting into a great stone gate, its frame carved with the names of the fallen mages—Vaelorian, Elyndra, Saedric, and so many others.

The Rift was no longer open.

It was contained.

But the cost…

The cost was their souls.

The Price of Magic

The High Mages were gone.

Not dead. Not living.

Something in between.

Their shadows remained, flickering in the mist.

Bound to the Gate.

Bound to the Rift.

They had become the Watchers.

And I—I walked away.

I left Eldoria behind, knowing that one day…

The Gate would not hold forever.

The Rift Was Never Fully Sealed

The Eldorian Gate stood tall, its massive stone structure glowing with the golden runes of the twelve sacrificed mages. The Rift had been contained, forced into dormancy, but it had not been erased.

The war was over.

But something was wrong.

I stood before the sealed Rift, feeling the unnatural stillness in the air. Magic should not be silent—not here, not in the heart of where reality had nearly been undone.

But as I reached out…

I felt it.

A heartbeat.

The Rift was alive.

Something inside was still waiting.

And it was watching me.

The Survivors of Eldoria

I turned away from the Gate, walking toward the ruins of Eldoria’s last stronghold. The city had been abandoned, its people either fled or lost to the Riftborn during the war.

Or so I had thought.

But then—I saw movement.

Shadows flitted between the broken towers, too solid to be Riftborn, yet too quiet to be human.

I was not alone.

There were survivors.

And they had been waiting for me.

The Hidden Order

A voice echoed through the ruined streets.

“Merlin of the Arcane Council, you have returned at last.”

I turned sharply, staff raised.

A group of cloaked figures emerged from the mist, their robes dark blue, lined with silver glyphs. Their faces were covered, but their presence was undeniable—mages.

But not the ones I had fought beside.

These were not the High Mages of Eldoria.

These were the remnants of something else.

“We are the Keepers of the Rift,” one of them said. “We know the truth of what you have done.”

The Gate Was Never the End

I narrowed my eyes. “The Rift is sealed. Eldoria is gone. What more is there to say?”

A ripple of energy passed through the air. The runes on the Eldorian Gate flickered—just for a second.

And then I knew.

They were right.

The Gate had not been built to permanently close the Rift.

It had been built to delay it.

The High Mages had sacrificed themselves to buy us time, but they had known all along that the Rift would not stay shut forever.

One day, it would break open again.

And when that day came…

Would we be ready?

The Hidden Truth of Eldoria

The lead figure stepped forward, lowering his hood. His face was lined with age, but his eyes burned with unfathomable knowledge.

“There was another way to seal the Rift,” he said. “But the Council never told you the full truth, did they?”

A chill ran down my spine.

“What truth?” I asked.

The man’s gaze flickered toward the Gate.

“The Rift was not meant to be closed from the outside, Merlin.”

“It was meant to be sealed from the inside.”

I froze.

The weight of those words sank into my bones.

The mages who had vanished during the final battle…

They had not been consumed.

They had stepped through.

They had entered the Rift.

The Watchers Were Never Trapped

I turned my gaze back to the Eldorian Gate, my mind racing.

The Watchers in the Mist—the shadows that still lingered in Eldoria’s ruins, the figures I had believed to be remnants of lost souls—they were not prisoners.

They were guardians.

And they were still inside the Rift.

“The war never ended, Merlin,” the man continued. “The High Mages did not sacrifice themselves to die. They sacrificed themselves to fight—on the other side.”

I exhaled slowly, my grip tightening on my staff.

This was not over.

The Rift was not waiting to reopen.

It was still active.

Still fighting a war that never truly ended.

And the worst part?

I had no idea who was winning.

A Choice That Cannot Be Undone

The air grew heavier, the energy around the Gate shifting. Something deep within the Rift stirred, as if it had felt our conversation, as if it knew I had learned the truth.

I could walk away now.

Leave the past behind. Let the Rift remain someone else’s problem.

Or…

I could finish what we started.

I could enter the Rift.

Find the High Mages who had never returned.

Face whatever still lurked inside.

And either seal the Rift forever…

Or be lost within it.

The Keepers watched me in silence, waiting for my choice.

I took a deep breath.

And I stepped forward.

I stood before the Eldorian Gate, feeling the weight of history pressing down on me. The truth had been buried for centuries, hidden behind whispers and forgotten ruins.

The Rift was never truly closed.

The High Mages had not died.

They had crossed over—choosing to fight on the other side.

And now, as I gazed upon the flickering runes of the Gate, I realized the most terrifying truth of all:

One day, it will open again.

A Seal That Will Not Hold Forever

The Keepers of the Rift stood in silence, watching me with unreadable expressions. They had spent generations guarding this place, ensuring no one disturbed the seal—but even they knew its power was not eternal.

I turned to them. “How long?”

The eldest among them, the man who had revealed the truth, exhaled softly. His gaze flickered to the Gate, then back to me.

“The runes weaken, Merlin. We can feel it. It could be a hundred years. A thousand. Or it could be… soon.”

A gust of unnatural wind swept through the ruins. The sigils along the Gate dimmed for the briefest moment—so fast that if I had blinked, I might have missed it.

I had seen this before.

This was the first sign.

A crack in the foundation of a spell woven in desperation.

The same kind of arcane instability that had stirred the Forgotten Gate centuries later.

The events were not separate stories.

They were the same battle, played across different times.

The Rift Will Call Again

I turned away from the Gate, gripping my staff tightly. The war we had fought here—the Moonlit War—had not been the end of the story. It had been the beginning.

The Watchers in the Mist, the lost mages of Eldoria…

They were still fighting.

Still waiting.

And one day, when the Eldorian Gate weakens completely, when the final rune flickers and dies…

The Rift will call again.

And someone will have to answer.

A Path Leading to The Forgotten Gate of Eldoria

As I stepped away from the ruins of Eldoria, the echoes of the past still whispered in the wind.

I would not return here for many years.

Not until I felt the first signs of the Gate’s awakening in The Forgotten Gate of Eldoria.

Not until I realized too late…

That the Rift was never meant to stay closed forever.