Centuries ago, there were five great Undercities.

Karzakaad was lost to time and memory.

Karzinkol fell to the shifting of the Deep.

Karzacath succumbed to war, greed, and hubris.

Karzurkul became the first victim of a darkness that has been long forgotten.

Now, Karzgorad is the last.

All two hundred thousand souls that call its caverns home rely on magic from the Ancients to survive, from the farms to the mines to the sewers. To the very arcano-sun itself.

But the Gift of magic always was a rare one, and when mages started going insane, the Magistratum called for all new Gifted to be shackled, their freedom taken from them to serve the greater good of civilization's last bastion.

When Talia's Gift awakens, the thin veneer of a predictable future is torn away. Suddenly, she has to contend with the fact that one day, she'll lose her mind. And with the fact that if she doesn't disappear, she'll be hunted down and imprisoned well before then.

Low on options, she flees the safety of her home to join an expedition to explore the Deep Under, hoping against the odds that the cure to mage-madness lies hidden within the decaying husks of dead cities. Or, at least, that by the time she returns, the mage-hunters will have forgotten all about her.

Little does she know that the stakes of her journey are much higher than anyone could have predicted, with dangers to match. The Deep, after all, is not a forgiving place, even to those prepared for its pitfalls.

Volume 1 is done: Chap 1-77 (~700 pages)

Volume 2 is in progress.

Chapter Size: 2k-3k words

Any comments and critique are much appreciated, especially if you didn't like something, let me know in a comment or a PM.