It was an ordinary Sunday. 

The summer's sweltering heat was all-encompassing yet there were many people in the park. 

Old people were sitting on the benches, drying their bones, young people were walking around and sitting on picnic blankets, children were playing and making much noise.

This was the last day before Monday and most had to work or study the next week. It would be too much of a shame to not spend their time outside, enjoying this summer ambiance and absorbing the fresh summer air in the small island of green in the middle of the huge grey city.

It was in this atmosphere that this story began.

A family of three were having an outing. A man, a woman, and a child.

The little girl was having much fun as she rode on her father's shoulders from place to place, the mother was watching from the side on a bench.

Suddenly, the girl's laughter abruptly stopped. She was fine the second ago and then, as if someone has flipped switch, she has stopped moving completely.

The change was so sudden that her father didn't have time to notice and she flew from his shoulders, carried by inertia

"Mary!", her mother jumped from the bench seeing her daughter fall.

"God!", luckily the father managed to come to his senses and catch the little girl before she kissed the ground, "Mary, what happened to you?"

He looked at the little girl and nothing was reflected in her empty brown eyes. The slow rising and falling of her chest and abdomen were the only indicators that she was still alive. Yet her eyes were so empty as he stared into them...

...

"Phwua! Huuu, huuu, huu", putting his hand on his chest, Waylen slowly calmed himself.

It's been so many years but he could not forget the nightmare that has changed his life forever.

How long has it been? Time seemed to lose meaning after what inexplicably happened to his daughter. Sometimes it felt like it just stopped, yet he'd find more wrinkles and grey hairs on his face every time he looked in the mirror.

The assistant servant reacted and silently came to Waylen, clothing in tow.

Waylen got up and looked out of the window as he was being dressed. 

The moonlight was shining brightly in the otherwise black skies. How long did he sleep this time? Four hours? 

He dismissed the servant and went to the sink to start brushing his teeth. His dull face, mired with wrinkles, looked back through the mirror.

The healers couldn't find the cause of her condition. Every test showed that she was fine but she'd just refuse to react to any outside stimulation. 

Naturally, medicine was powerless to help her. 

He washed his face and went to the kitchen. 

The kitchen servants were already there, breakfast in tow. 

His wife left the world around half a year after his daughter fell asleep. She'd visit the healer temple every day and every day she looked like she lost a piece of her soul.

The world just turned upside down without any rhyme or reason.

Taking the silver utensils into his hands, he prepared to dig in.

Not long after he buried his wife, his daughter began approaching a critical condition.

She was dying. She was too malnourished, too drained. The healers did their job well. But well just wasn't enough.

Having been done with the omelett, he got up and the ever-silent servants went to clean the table.

He, as always, headed into the basement.

He was already on his last legs. He had lost his wife, his daughter was comatose and nobody could help. Now she was going to leave him too. He'd be all alone. It was too painful.

He didn't dare to go to the temple for a week. By the end of it, he'd decided to commit suicide after he sent his daughter off.

But life gave him hope. And, as always, hope was the most expensive thing of all...

There were no servants in the basement. He had automated everything in there that could be automated - but he couldn't trust his projects to machines or servants.

As he took the last steps off the staircase, the lights slowly lit up the spacious area underneath the mansion. 

One by one, the cold blue lights came alive with a mechanical cadence, making a soft buzzing noise.

They found him in a tavern. Those rubbish. He'd been coming and going there the past week, drinking his sorrows away. Alone, vulnerable, disheveled, nobody would miss this kind of character should he suddely dissappear, right?

They took him away when he came out, and nobody even noticed...

The basement was very cold even during summer. It was not a place meant to house living persons.

Waking up in an unfamiliar place surrounded by unfamiliar but clearly threatening people was surprisingly underwhelming.

He couldn't find it in himself to work up the panic, the fear, the apprehension that would usually follow. All he could do was stare at his captors stupidly.

The basement was surpisingly neat. Not empty for its impressive size, but neat. It was very clean and although there was no shortage of shelves, closets. tables and boxes - everything looked very tidy.

There were several walls partitioning the basement into rooms. When Waylen came down it was the dressing room awating him.

He put on a leather apron with large pockets, large leather gloves and transparent goggles that covered half his face. He then put on long black boots that came up to his shins, then walked towards a nearby door.

He was beaten up, tortured, and they prepared to sacrifice him to some evil ritual when the city guards busted down the door and stormed into the surprisingly large house. 

The knife was a finger's width away from his chest...

The cultists were quickly apprehended and, he didn't know what he was thinking then, Waylen managed to grab one of the cultists handbooks amidst the chaos and then stuffed it into his pants. 

He acted more out of  instinct, rather than making a rational decision. 

It was never found.

The room housed a huge over-like metal box, with many shining sigils on them. It stood on the floor and came up to Waylen's shoulders. 

It was grey in color, like most things in his mansion, and it had a large black vertical handle on its door.

Waylen took a wand from its holder on the shelf on the wall, pressed it against the sigils one by one, channelling his magic in them.

He could use specialised tools powered by gems, but they'd never give him the same precision.

When he was done adjusting the sigils, he put the wand back in its holder and walked back out. The results would be ready in only half an hour and he had other things to attend to.

He was let out of the guard station quickly enough. They let a healer tend to his wounds and gave him the talk, but mostly let him have his space.

They'd contact him if they needed any more information, they said, but he doubted this statement.

They never did. By the time he got home, it was already evening.

He had found the handbook in his pocket. It seemed to gleam ominously in the dark...