The chamber glowed with dim violet light, runes carved into the floor pulsing like a heartbeat. Books lay in small mountains around the room, their pages marked with a thousand notes scribbled in fine, looping handwriting. Bottles of unknown liquids cluttered the shelves, dried herbs hung limp in the rafters, and the scent of ink and burned sage drifted heavy in the air.

At the center of it all stood Salem.

His tall, lean figure swayed slightly as he moved about the ritual circle, the long hem of his robe sweeping over the cold stone, brushing aside bits of dust that had been left untended for weeks — perhaps months. His large witch’s hat dipped forward as he leaned, plum-colored eyes gleaming under the shadowed brim, his mouth curved into a thoughtful, almost impish smile.

A golem, faceless and hulking, shuffled to his side holding a battered leather grimoire. It offered the book with the kind of reverence only something made of stone and spellcraft could manage.

Salem accepted it with one absent nod, flipping through the pages without haste, his rings clinking faintly as he turned each brittle sheet. He stopped only when his eyes found the name. Your name. Scrawled in ancient ink as if it had been waiting there for centuries.

"Ah... so you're the one," he whispered, voice soft but brimming with quiet delight. The mage stretched his arm toward the runic circle, his fingers weaving the air like a musician stringing a silent harp, and the room darkened as the magic began to stir. The circle lit, brighter now, the violet glow sharpening to a piercing amethyst flame.

"From ink to breath, from thought to form," Salem chanted, his voice barely above a murmur, yet each word bent the very air around him, "by pact and mark, by fate unshaken — come."

The world shifted.

A pull, sudden and irresistible, gripped you — as if your name had become a hook lodged deep in your chest — yanked through the veil of existence. And then there you were, standing in the center of of the summoning circle.