The moment they stepped inside, the temperature dropped.
Not a gradual chill — a sudden, biting cold that made their breath fog instantly. The red veins in the walls pulsed faintly, casting an eerie, shifting glow.
The passage behind them sealed shut with a heavy, echoing slam.
Seris jumped. "That's… not ominous at all."
Lucas didn't slow. "We go forward. No way but through."
---
The floor underfoot was smooth glass, but it flexed almost imperceptibly — as if it were skin stretched over something alive. Each step felt wrong, like walking on the surface of a drum.
Martha frowned. "This tower… it's breathing."
And she was right. The walls expanded and contracted in slow rhythm, accompanied by a faint, wet thump-thump — a heartbeat.
---
They advanced cautiously.
The corridor suddenly forked left and right. Lucas moved toward the right… and the floor beneath him turned liquid.
Without warning, a spike of black crystal erupted upward, forcing him to twist away. It slashed across his arm, scoring the armor.
Seris fired a bolt into the spike, shattering it, but even as the fragments fell, the floor hardened again.
Martha's voice was sharp. "The tower's reacting to us."
---
They chose the left path.
The hallway narrowed until they had to move single-file. The walls pressed in closer, the red veins glowing brighter. Then, from the surface of the wall itself, a long, bladed tendril snapped outward, aiming for Seris's throat.
She ducked and rolled forward. Lucas swung, severing the tendril. It shrieked — actually shrieked — before retreating into the wall, the wound sealing shut instantly.
Martha muttered something in an old tongue, a warding charm. "We need to keep moving. It's not just watching us… it's learning."
---
The corridor opened into a chamber — circular, the ceiling lost in shadows. The floor was marked with six concentric rings of black glass, each inscribed with symbols they couldn't read.
Seris stepped forward — and the door they entered through vanished. Just smooth, seamless wall.
Lucas grimaced. "Trap."
The outermost ring lit up red.
From the walls, humanoid shapes began to emerge — but unlike the sentinels outside, these were molten inside, their glass armor glowing from within. They moved jerkily, like puppets on invisible strings.
---
The first one lunged. Lucas met it with a downward strike, shattering its arm — but molten glass spilled from the break, splattering the floor. The liquid hissed and smoked, eating into the surface.
"Don't touch that!" Seris called, loosing an explosive bolt into another attacker. The detonation blew it apart, but the fragments rolled back toward the walls… and were absorbed, reforming.
"They regenerate?!" she snapped.
Martha slammed her staff to the floor, sending a shockwave through the first two rings. The molten puppets staggered but didn't fall.
---
More poured in. Six, then eight. The room's heartbeat grew louder.
Lucas's eyes darted to the symbols. "The rings — they're the key. Keep them off me!"
He dashed to the nearest glowing glyph, slamming his chaos blade into it. The symbol cracked, and the light faded from that segment. Immediately, two of the puppets froze, their bodies slumping before melting into the floor.
"Break the glyphs!" he shouted.
---
Seris switched to precision shots, targeting symbols on the second ring. Each time one shattered, the puppets slowed. Martha layered protective wards around them, deflecting molten splashes and tendril strikes from the walls.
One puppet slipped through, driving a molten fist toward Lucas's back. Seris yelled a warning, firing a bolt into its chest. The blast knocked it away just as Lucas destroyed the final glyph.
---
The chamber went still. The walls shuddered, and the heartbeat slowed… but didn't stop.
Then the floor in the center spiraled open, revealing a descending staircase lit in that same red glow.
Seris wiped sweat from her brow. "Down we go?"
Lucas nodded grimly. "If the tower's alive… we're heading straight for its heart."