The air in the hidden library of the convent was thick with the scent of decay and dust. Candles flickered, casting dancing shadows across the crumbling shelves packed with forgotten tomes. Sister Agnes, her brow furrowed in concentration, ran a trembling hand across the brittle parchment. Days she had spent here, fueled by lukewarm ale and the gnawing dread that clawed at her soul. Days turned into nights, blurring into a single, unbroken vigil.

She had found the library by accident, a concealed passage behind a crumbling statue of Saint Michael. It felt like a forbidden space, a repository of knowledge that should have remained buried. But the desperation of Aethelburg, the horrifying groans that rattled the very foundations of the city, had driven her to seek answers wherever she could find them.

The language of the texts was ancient, a dialect of Old Northumbrian twisted and corrupted by centuries of isolation and whispered secrets. Progress was slow, agonizingly so. Each symbol required painstaking deciphering, each word a perilous journey into a mindset she struggled to comprehend. Yet, she persevered, driven by the hope that these crumbling pages held the key to saving what little remained of her flock.