Bioluminescent moss throbbed in a sickly violet, like a bruise lit from the inside. Each step landed wrong—a little too loud, hanging in the air longer than it should, like the stone wasn't ready to let the sound go.
Verek muttered arcane syllables as they moved, half under his breath, not for show and not for casting—just to hold onto something. These tunnels liked to rearrange themselves. Memory was a lifeline.
They marked turns with chalk. The chalk didn't stay.
Time frayed at the edges. Torches flickered without wind. A turn left became a turn right. Paths they'd taken narrowed behind them like they were being exhaled from the stone itself.
Caylen hummed low and slow—a cradle song from too long ago. Nothing magical about it. Just something to push the fear back.
Ezreal led, that unnatural light always glinting behind his eyes. "There are seams here," he said, just above a whisper. "Like something stitched this place together wrong."
Dax looked up, scowling at the walls like they might answer. "You mean like cracks?"
Ezreal said nothing. Verek did. His tone was flat and tight. "Reality leaks here. This place has bled through itself."
Thimblewick finally spoke, perched twitching on Verek's shoulder, his shape more static than fur. His voice slipped through the dark like a splinter. "Even I don't like it here."
Passages twisted in knots. They passed a ruined chapel with a split altar, only to circle back to it ten minutes later—from the opposite side.
Bones littered the path. Not bones laid to rest—bones broken and scattered. Ribcages snapped like cages. Gnawed femurs. A child's skull, the teeth filed to razors.
A statue had collapsed ahead, half its body split open. Behind it, a hidden tunnel yawned.
Ezreal raised a hand. "Stop."
Everyone froze.
He pointed into the belly of the broken idol. "There are carvings inside. This isn't a doorway. It was never supposed to be used."
The hollow was carved in mirrored script, the pattern spiraling inward like something sucking its own tail.
Verek stepped closer, squinting. His voice caught a sharper edge as he read: "The door that births itself. Drink the silence. We are watched by the unborn star."
Dax growled and yanked his blade free, his tone a clenched fist. "I've had enough. I hate this damned place."
Still, they pressed on.
By the fourth hour underground, the vines arrived.
They'd seen weird flora before—bruised-petal things, moss that seemed to breathe—but this was different. The hall ahead was walled off by a tangle of glistening vines, thick as thighs and wet as blood, pulsing with amber and pink light beneath stretched skin.
Caylen touched one and it hissed. He jumped back, wiping his hand on his sleeve like the thing had burned him. "What kind of plant hisses?"
"They're not plants," Thimblewick breathed, and there was no slyness in it. Just dread.
The vines came alive.
They hit fast and hard. No roar, no build. Just motion. Ezreal lit two of them up, violet blasts tearing through. Dax wrenched one from Caylen's leg and crushed it underfoot with a snap. Verek snapped his spellbook open and flung mirrored flame that licked down the corridor, setting roots to shriek.
When the last one died, the walls wept.
Not moss. Flesh.
The stone twitched once. Then stopped.
No one spoke.
Eventually they found a space that might have once been holy. High ceilings, stone melted smooth like glass. Webbed roots in the arch, glowing spores like frost clinging to air. The breath of the place was dry but wrong—like something had breathed in centuries ago and forgotten to let go.
A statue stood in the middle. Tall. No face. Seven arms outstretched like it was pleading or offering, hard to tell which.
Ezreal sagged against the wall, shaking.
"We rest," Verek said, soft but final.
Caylen stared at the statue, voice low. "We shouldn't."
"We have to."
And that was that.
They sat. Rations came out in silence. Thimblewick paced once around the statue, sniffed at its feet, then ducked into Verek's hood.
"It watches without watching," the familiar muttered, then vanished.
Caylen plucked a string on his harp. One note. It died fast.
Dax broke the quiet, his voice like gravel being stirred. "What are we even looking for down here?"
Verek answered without a pause. "A mistake."
Ezreal glanced up, his tone half-daring. "You don't believe in mistakes."
"No," Verek said, quiet and steady. "Just consequences."
Later, while the others packed, Ezreal stayed near the statue. He pressed a hand to its base.
"You don't scare me," he whispered. "I've seen worse."
The statue didn't move.
But the stone beneath it cracked.
A slow ooze pushed through the gap. Green. Ancient. Thick as sap, streaked with veins that shimmered faintly like starlight.
Something watched.
And the real descent hadn't even begun.
The next hall sloped down like a throat cut too wide. Moss wept from the ribs of the walls. The cold wasn't just touchable, it got into your head. Breaths fogged. Thoughts dulled around the edges.
Every footstep landed with too much sound. And the echoes? They didn't fade. They bounced back wrong, like something big and buried was listening.
The green ichor ran ahead of them, split like veins finding paths. It throbbed faintly, slow and deliberate. Somewhere, something with a monstrous heart was beating.
Dust drifted against the wind, drawn deeper like it remembered the way.
The walls began to murmur. Not words. Just rhythms. Patterns you could almost remember if you stopped thinking.
These weren't tombs anymore. They weren't anything meant for the dead. Stone sagged. Arches leaned. The whole place slouched inward like it had gotten tired of pretending to be a place at all. Fungal bulges pushed out from corners, faintly glowing, breathing just slow enough to notice.
One corridor had a floor that dipped inward like a throat gulping down silence. Gravity got confused. Up got forgetful.
Somewhere far above, the statue still stood. Dust slid from its shoulders. The stone trembled beneath their feet, a soft, constant hum.
And below? That green ichor pooled in shallow dips. Faces slipped across its surface. Human-shaped. Distorted. Gone before they could be read.
Something down there was moving.
Not buried.
Not dead.
Just tied up in dreams.
They kept walking.
Too deep for prayers to follow.