Yig

Y I G THE LOST WATCHER Hidden deep in an ancient ruined city, there is an immaculate mirror. Peculiar indeed that it seems to be untouched by time or weathering. The glass is not dusty or cracked. The frame is not tarnished. It looks as if someone put it there yesterday as a first step towards restoring the place for living. Yet, there are no footprints. There is no camp, no voices. There are no signs of life at all.

Don't look at it. That's what he had said to Glaucus, as a compromise once he'd learned that the Wildclaw would not cancel his expedition to those ruins. That cursed place. The society that had lived there was entirely a mystery; with no evidence suggesting what lived there. Dragons? Beastclan? Who knew. The architecture was unlike any that had been discovered thus far. Glaucus scarcely knew what his mentor had been implying when he warned him. Don't look at what? There were no records of these ruins, and thus he regarded them as a new discovery. But there was fear in the old professor's eyes when he begged him not to go.

"I cannot tell you why." He had sighed, frustrated.

"What?" Glaucus scoffed. "Is this some kind of secret among archaeologists?"

"No," He replied sharply. "I literally cannot tell you why. Everyone that has gone there never comes back. The only clue we've ever been given was a hastily written letter delivered by a terrified familiar. All it said was, 'Don't look at it.'"

Glaucus paused, his thirst for adventure only growing with those words. "I don't believe in curses. I will bring a band of fighters with me. Clearly, there are hostiles living among the ruins."

A sound conclusion, honestly. Magic was brimming in the world but that didn't mean every ancient thing had some kind of curse. Still, even the markings on the map indicating the ruins' location gave Glaucus' mentor an uneasy feeling. That place was not for dragons to tread, or anyone. After a lengthy argument, it was clear that his student was going there no matter what ominous evidence existed.

"Just don't look at it, then. If you must go, avert your eyes from any mirrors you find."

Glaucus humored him and agreed, confident that everyone was overreacting. Perhaps the mirror was enchanted and triggered a trap to an underground prison and he would find the others. Perhaps it triggered an alarm that alerted the nearby savage tribe. At any rate, he could not bring himself to lend credibility to the idea that looking at a mirror somehow made you disappear. There was a reason it was there, and a measurable consequence of disturbing it. He would find the explanation and dispel these silly superstitions.

Days later, Glaucus would find himself regretting his arrogance. The first strange thing was that no life sang in the jungle. He heard no birds, no foraging creatures, no shrieking mysteries. Everything around the ruins was dead silent. Foolishly, he pressed onward anyway. And he found what he had been warned about.

As the slimy, formless thing wrenched its way through the pristine glass leaving him paralyzed with fear, its many bulbous eyes snapped to his location in one fluid motion. It oozed from the portal like sewer slime through a grate, blinking eyes sinking and emerging from the mass in a constant, roiling bubble. Always watching him. He tried to run, then fly, but the thing was far quicker than it looked like it should be. As his screams tore apart the deafening silence, his last vision was of the inscription above the mirror. It was in a language he knew, and it gave him no comfort.

Beware of what you gaze through, for something gazes back.