🐊 Chapter I — The Beginning

“Before maps erased it, before men forgot it, there was a marsh. And this marsh had a heart.”

Long before roads wound through the southern lands, before villages were settled and men named things, there was a wild, unfathomable expanse that the ancients called Namaruun—the place where shadows breathe.

This swamp, shrouded in eternal mist, seemed to live by its own laws. Trees grew twisted, the waters sang forgotten whispers, and the stars refused to shine. Time was different there. Slower. Older. As if each drop of water contained the memory of a world no one had ever seen.

The first to walk this land were neither men nor beasts. They were the Watchers. Born from mud, roots, and silence, they were half-plant, half-animal, and carried within them the wisdom of a world without language. They spoke not, but communicated through spores, the vibrations of the soil, the invisible currents of the water. They built nothing, owned nothing, but watched over the marsh. Over its secrets. Over its heart.

At the center of Namaruun, buried beneath the roots of the oldest cypress tree, beat the Heart of the Black Water. It was neither stone nor metal, neither organ nor relic. It was a pulse. A presence. A living memory. It was said to beat to the rhythm of the seasons, and that whoever heard it could speak to the dead... or awaken them.

The Watchers protected it, not out of fear, but out of duty. For they knew that the heart must never be disturbed. It was the breath of the marsh, its balance, its soul. And as long as it beat, Namaruun remained intact, outside of time, outside the world.

But one day, a stranger arrived.

He carried a lantern that never went out, and a name no one understood: Elias Thorn. He came from a distant world, or perhaps from a forgotten time. Some say he was an alchemist, others that he was a hunter of truths. He sought neither gold nor glory, but something even the Watchers feared to name.

Elias went deeper into the swamp, guided by maps no one had seen, by whispers no one had heard. He walked without fear, as if he already knew the paths the swamp refused to show. The Watchers watched him, silent, unable to stop him. For Elias broke nothing. He listened. He waited.

Then, one evening, he found the cypress tree. It was a moonless night. The swamp was quieter than ever. Even the waters seemed to hold their breath. Elias placed his lantern at the foot of the tree and knelt. He remained there for hours, perhaps days. And his heart, for the first time in centuries, beat faster.

What happened next, no one really knows.

Some say Elias spoke to the dead. Others say he awakened something that should never have awakened. The Watchers tried to stop him, but it was already too late. The swamp changed. The waters grew darker. The songs fell silent. The roots shrank. And the shadows began to walk.

Namaruun became Lost Swamp.

The sanctuary became an enigma. The heart, corrupted or broken, ceased to beat with the seasons. And the Watchers, powerless, withdrew into the depths, becoming silhouettes, whispers, memories.