Exploring Vael'Zhurin

They had named it Vael'Zhurin — the Valley of Binding — long before the world forgot how dangerous bonds could be.

I, Echo Seeker Kaslen, now stand within the gaping maw of a forgotten tomb, deep beneath the valley.

The air is thick with dust and the vestiges of old magic, clinging to the stone like a breath held for centuries. My lantern light dances over ancient iron rings bolted into the walls, the corroded remnants of shackles still humming with a faint, resentful power. The binding enchantments — crafted by masters whose names history itself has forgotten — are degraded, but not dead. I dare not touch them.

The walls themselves are a testament to the years of imprisonment. Deep claw-marks gouge the stone, chaotic at first, then ordered: tallies of days, months, perhaps centuries. Alongside them riddles, jokes, insults etched with a sharp claw and sharper mind. The anger is there, simmering, but never simple. It is a clever fury — the fury of a trickster denied his stage, not a beast stripped of hope.

It unsettles me more than rage would.

I will document it all. Every glyph, every scar, every bitter whisper trapped in the rock. For the world must remember — and perhaps, prepare.

For somewhere, in some corner of the world, the once-trapped Monkey King is now free.

And he is smiling.