Maniero Di Mystwood -

Elias took a heavy brass key from the journal and inserted it into the clock. He wound it tight, the gears screaming as they ground against decades of rust. With a thunderous tick , the house shuddered. The fog outside pulled back. The shifting walls grew still.

Elias arrived at dusk. The wrought-iron gates groaned in protest as he pushed them open. The manor was a sprawling gothic beast of ivy-strangled brick and stained-glass windows that looked like unblinking eyes. Maniero di Mystwood

The interior was a labyrinth of frozen time. Dust motes danced in his lantern light, settling on velvet furniture and portraits of ancestors whose gazes seemed to follow his every move. In the grand hall, a massive stood silent, its pendulum locked in place. Elias took a heavy brass key from the

Elias backed away, but the door he had entered through was gone. In its place was a wall of smooth, cold stone. The manor was shifting, rearranging its organs like a hungry predator. The fog outside pulled back

Elias Thorne did not leave Maniero di Mystwood. He became its new Master, the one who keeps the clock winding and the shadows counted. If you visit the valley today, you might see a single light burning in the highest tower.

He spent three days running through the shifting corridors. He saw rooms filled with gold that turned to ash when touched, and hallways that stretched for miles in the blink of an eye. He found his uncle’s glasses sitting on a side table that looked suspiciously like a human ribcage.