Despite their age, the bricks sparkle. Ancient minerals, trapped glass. The bricks are imperfect–they were so from the day they were cast and they have grown ever more imperfect with time, beaten down by footsteps, weathered by wind and rain, gathering dirt and grit with each year that passes, stained like old teeth, grey as old bones.
Crumbling. Crumbling now into decay. Coated by soil and wet moss that clings and permeates, rotting from the inside. Now, the bricks are little more than husks, empty remnants of old walls.
Mighty arches once rose here. Blood was spilt for these bricks–now buried and forgotten. The castle has been swallowed by the forest and is ignored even by the wolves. Trees rise in places that towers once stood, their roots forcing the bricks apart, cleaving ancient dungeons open to the sky.
Decades pass. Centuries.
And then…
Michael Scott Hand 