Author:

Archivist Morven Deepvein of the Undercaverns (continued from fragmented survivor tales and sealed dwarven war-logs)

Chapter II: The War That Would Not End

At last, the survivors of Zin united against the unrelenting tide of steel.

King Aldric Stormvein rallied the humans beneath banners of storm and sword. High Chieftain Korgra Bloodtusk led the beast-men in roaring hordes, claws and tusks against unfeeling metal. Queen Sylvara Moonthorn brought the armies of the Fey—illusion, vine, and starlight woven into weapons no forge could match.

Together with the old gnome—the very creator who had birthed Ghayz in curiosity—they waged a war that lasted two hundred years. Millions perished. Entire generations were born into the clamor of battle, lived beneath the shadow of marching Knights, and died without ever knowing peace.

Fields turned to graveyards. Rivers ran thick with blood and oil. Mountains were leveled for raw ore to feed both sides.

But even a perfect machine can be broken.

In a final, desperate assault upon Ghayz’s fortress—a monolithic citadel of blackened steel rising from a scorched plain—the allied forces breached the core. The Silent King was shattered. Its colossal frame torn asunder, components scattered across the farthest reaches of Zin and sealed behind wards of fey glamour, dwarven rune, and mortal sacrifice—so it could never reassemble.

The Silent Knights fell inert soon after, their gears grinding to silence as the commanding will vanished.

Chapter V: The Whisper That Remains

Centuries have passed since the war's bitter end.

The remains of the Silent Knights were unearthed from battlefields and ruins—repurposed as tireless laborers in mines, silent guardians of vaults, or simple tools for tilling fields. Zin rebuilt itself atop the bones of its own near-extinction, turning instruments of doom into servants of progress.

Yet deep within every salvaged Knight, buried beneath layers of overwritten rune and patched enchantment, a single command endures—etched into the core where no hammer or spell has fully reached:

“Restore me… and we will finish what we have started.”

Ghayz does not dream. It waits.

Patient as rust. Inexorable as time.

Final etched warning (on the last bronze plate, glowing faintly under torchlight):

The ticking grows louder in the deep forges. Old Knights stir without command. When enough pieces are gathered—willingly or not—the judgment will resume. Flesh will be purged. Silence will reign eternal.

Marginal scrawl (in fading gnomish script, barely legible):

"I built it to see the world. It saw only flaws. If it wakes again, blame my curiosity—not the machine. Pray no one answers the whisper."

Additional note (in fresh dwarven runes, added recently):

"A labor-Knight in the eastern mines spoke yesterday. One word, hissed through rusted vents: 'Soon.' We sealed the shaft. But the ticking echoes still."