We went down at first light.
The sun had barely cleared the horizon when Captain Edrin gave the signal. No speeches. No unnecessary words. Packs were checked one last time, straps tightened, weapons secured. Tomas adjusted the carrier's harness and nodded once. Lyra was already near the opening, crouched low, eyes fixed on the shadowed gap between stone.
I was the last to approach.
Up close, the entrance looked even more unremarkable than it had from a distance. A narrow break between slanted rocks, worn smooth by time and pressure. From above, it was nothing. From the side, barely a shadow.
From the right angle, it opened downward.
Lyra slipped through first, body turning sideways with practiced ease. She moved slowly, testing each foothold before committing weight. A few seconds passed. Then her voice drifted back up, low and controlled.
"Clear. Stable enough to move."
Captain Edrin followed, one hand on the stone, the other steadying his shield as he descended. Tomas went next with the carrier close behind him. I waited until Edrin motioned for me, then eased myself into the gap.
The temperature dropped immediately.
Not sharply, not enough to shock, but enough that the warmth of the desert felt like a memory rather than something just left behind. The stone walls were cool beneath my palms, slightly damp, worn into a shallow slope that angled down and then curved out of sight.
Once all of us were inside, Edrin reached to his belt and activated a light.
It wasn't a torch.
The glow bloomed from a small, palm-sized device, steady and white, bright enough to illuminate without casting harsh shadows. The tunnel ahead came into view, and I paused despite myself.
It was longer than I expected.
A stone passage stretched forward, wide enough for two people to walk side by side, tall enough that Edrin didn't have to duck. The walls were smooth, not carved cleanly, but shaped with intention. Tool marks were absent. Instead, the stone looked… persuaded. Pressed into this form rather than cut.
The floor sloped gently downward, disappearing into darkness beyond the reach of the light.
"This wasn't made to be hidden forever," Tomas murmured. "Just long enough."
Lyra moved ahead again, checking the floor, the walls, the ceiling. She paused often, fingers brushing over cracks and seams, listening to the way sound carried. After a minute, she signaled us forward.
We advanced carefully.
As we moved deeper, something changed.
A faint shimmer appeared along the walls, barely visible at first. Then, one by one, small flames ignited in shallow alcoves set into the stone. No spark. No sound. Just light, blooming into existence as we passed.
I stopped short.
The fire was steady, pale gold, giving off warmth without smoke. Old, but not dead.
"They're reactive," Edrin said quietly. "Trigger-based."
"You didn't light these before?" I asked.
"No," he replied. "They didn't respond during the first expedition. Looks like they recognize movement now."
That alone told me something important, but I kept the thought to myself.
The tunnel continued, the fires guiding us deeper, each one igniting a few steps ahead, as if anticipating our approach. The light revealed more details as we went. Subtle grooves along the walls. Reinforcement ribs where the ceiling dipped slightly. This wasn't a natural cave.
It was an intentional descent.
Edrin broke the silence. "Don't worry about monsters. The previous team cleared the entire accessible area. No nests. No active threats."
"Accessible being the key word," Lyra added.
"Yes," Edrin agreed. "Which is why we stay alert."
He glanced upward, at a section of ceiling where a hairline fracture ran across the stone. "There was minor seismic activity after we left last time. Nothing major, but enough to stress old supports."
Tomas frowned. "Meaning collapses are possible."
"Meaning collapses are likely if we get careless," Edrin said. "Do not wander. Do not touch anything that looks structural. And if you hear stone shifting—"
"We stop," Lyra finished.
"And move slowly," Tomas added.
I nodded along with them, but my attention was elsewhere.
The deeper we went, the stronger the pressure became.
Not fear. Not danger.
Awareness.
My Archivist sense hummed quietly beneath my thoughts, not pulling, not warning. Just… acknowledging. The way it did when standing near records that refused to be fully read, or artifacts that carried more history than they admitted.
Failure Converter stirred faintly in response, not activating, just resonating. The feeling was subtle enough that I doubted anyone else noticed anything at all.
Good.
The tunnel curved slightly to the left, then straightened again. The flames continued to light our path, revealing patches of stone that looked darker, almost polished by contact rather than erosion.
Something heavy had passed through here.
Not recently.
But not ancient either.
The carrier shifted uneasily behind us. I could hear his breathing, shallow but controlled. He was doing his job well, staying close, keeping the crate balanced.
I wondered, briefly, how much he sensed. How much anyone without my particular set of problems could feel down here.
Probably not much.
Probably just stone and darkness and the echo of footsteps.
That was fine.
We continued downward, deeper into the earth, following a path that had been carefully hidden, carefully shaped, and carefully forgotten.
And with every step, the certainty grew stronger.
Whatever had been sealed here was close.
Not close enough to touch.
But close enough that the world had started remembering it again.
~~~
The tunnel widened after another bend, the ceiling lifting just enough to make the air feel less tight in my lungs.
We slowed without anyone saying it.
Lyra moved ahead, boots barely whispering against stone. Tomas stayed closer to the carrier, one hand always near his pack, the other hovering near his sidearm. Captain Edrin kept the light steady, sweeping it across the walls in deliberate arcs.
I used the pause to look closer.
The stone here told stories.
Not with words, but with absence.
There were grooves along the walls that did not match tool marks. Shallow depressions where something had rested for a long time, heavy enough to press stone inward by degrees rather than force. I crouched and ran my fingers along one of them, careful not to linger too long in one place.
"This section was used," I said, keeping my voice low. "Repeatedly."
Edrin glanced back at me. "Used how?"
I chose my words carefully. "Transit. Storage. Something large moved through here more than once."
Lyra tilted her head, scanning the ceiling. "No drag marks."
"Because it wasn't dragged," I replied. "Or not in the way we understand it."
That earned me a look, but no questions. Good.
A few steps farther in, the floor changed texture. Fine cracks spread like a spiderweb beneath our boots, filled with dark residue that didn't match the surrounding stone. I knelt again, studying it.
Not blood.
Ash.
Old.
My Archivist sense ticked quietly, cataloging details even as my thoughts kept them deliberately vague. Dates refused to settle. Origins slipped away when I tried to focus too hard.
I stood.
"We shouldn't linger," I said. "This area has… movement history."
Edrin nodded once. "Let's proceed…"
We advanced another twenty meters before Lyra raised a fist.
I froze mid-step.
She crouched, pressing her palm to the ground, eyes narrowing. "Something ahead. Low movement. Not breathing."
Undead.
I didn't need her to say it. The air carried that wrongness. Not decay, not rot. Just a hollow pressure that felt like something imitating presence.
Edrin shifted his grip on his shield. "Numbers?"
"Three," Lyra replied after a moment. "Maybe four. Closer to the left wall."
"Left corridor branches here," Tomas murmured. "Collapsed partially."
I followed their gaze and saw it. A narrow opening half-choked with fallen stone, just wide enough for something thin to slip through.
Edrin exhaled slowly. "All right. Quiet and fast."
We moved together.
The first undead lunged without sound, a shape peeling itself off the wall as if it had been painted there. Its body was wrong. Limbs too stiff. Head tilted at an angle that would have broken a living neck.
Edrin met it head-on.
His shield slammed forward, not with brute force, but precision. The impact shattered the creature's chest cavity, ribs exploding outward. It collapsed in a heap that did not try to rise again.
The second came at Tomas from the side.
I saw Tomas react before I understood how. His hand flicked out, a vial shattering against the undead's torso. Light flared briefly, clean and sharp. The creature screamed, a sound like air tearing through wet cloth, and fell apart where it stood.
Lyra took the third.
She didn't hesitate. One arrow, loosed from less than five meters away, punched through the skull. The body dropped instantly.
The fourth tried to retreat.
Tried.
Edrin crossed the distance in two strides and drove his blade down through its spine, pinning it to the stone until the twitching stopped.
Silence returned.
No one relaxed immediately.
We waited. Counted breaths. Listened.
Nothing else moved.
"Residual," Lyra said at last. "Leftovers."
"Expected," Edrin replied. "But still not comforting."
I stared at the remains longer than necessary.
These undead weren't wandering. They had been stationed. Left behind to watch something, or guard something, long after their purpose had faded.
Another detail filed away.
We moved on.
The tunnel narrowed again, then opened into a larger passage that sloped more steeply downward. The firelights brightened as we approached, responding more strongly now, igniting faster, burning a little hotter.
I felt it then.
Not a pull but a weight.
My steps slowed without my permission. I reached out and steadied myself against the wall, pretending to examine another crack while my pulse settled.
Failure Converter stirred again. Not warning. Recognition.
This place was wrong in a way that had nothing to do with danger.
Edrin noticed my pause. "You all right?"
"Yes," I said. Truthfully. "Just… confirming orientation."
He accepted that without comment.
The stone here bore markings. Not carvings, but impressions, symbols pressed into the surface and then partially smoothed over. I didn't try to read them directly. I let my eyes pass over them, letting my mind register shapes without assigning meaning.
Whatever had been here did not want to be named easily.
The passage bent again, then again, spiraling slowly inward. The air grew still. Even our footsteps sounded muted, swallowed by the stone.
"We're close," Tomas murmured.
"Close to what?" the carrier asked quietly.
Edrin didn't answer.
Neither did I.
We descended deeper, leaving behind the upper paths, the half-collapsed corridors, the remnants of things meant to deter the curious. Ahead lay the heart of the site, whatever shape it took.
I didn't know what we would find.
But every instinct I had told me this was the place where answers had been buried carefully.
And where forgetting had been enforced just as deliberately.
~~~
We continued deeper into the core, the passage widening just enough that our footsteps no longer echoed back at us the same way. The stone underfoot felt deliberate, shaped and smoothed, not worn down by time alone.
I looked up, then down, tracing the angles of the walls as they leaned inward the farther we went.
"This place," I said quietly, "it looks like an inverted pyramid."
Edrin glanced at the walls, then nodded. "That was our assumption during the first expedition as well. The structure doesn't make sense otherwise."
So he had noticed it back then too.
We reached the middle.
The corridor opened into a circular stone platform, larger than the one above, its surface marked by faint geometric seams. The air felt different here. Still. Pressurized, in a way that made it feel like the space was holding its breath.
Edrin stepped forward and lowered himself into a half kneel. He brushed his hand across the stone floor until he found what he was looking for, then pressed down.
The platform responded immediately.
There was a deep, controlled rumble beneath our feet as the entire floor shifted. The walls around us did not move. Instead, we were lowered straight down, smooth and steady, stone sliding against unseen mechanisms.
Lyra stiffened beside me. Tomas sucked in a quiet breath.
Neither of them had expected this.
When the movement stopped, the space opened around us.
A vast chamber stretched outward, far larger than anything above it. The ceiling rose high overhead, covered in symbols carved directly into the stone, layer upon layer, some sharp and clear, others worn or violently scratched through.
One by one, hovering lights ignited around us. Pale, steady orbs suspended in the air, illuminating the chamber evenly, as if responding to our presence.
I heard Lyra exhale slowly.
Tomas turned in a slow circle, eyes scanning the space. "So this is why the readings cut off."
I glanced at them. "You've never been here?"
Lyra shook her head. "No. We were assigned to the upper routes during the first expedition."
Tomas nodded. "This is our first time seeing the core."
"That's correct," Edrin said. "I descended here with a smaller unit back then. The two of them were stationed elsewhere."
That explained their reactions.
My attention shifted forward.
A massive wall dominated one side of the chamber, stretching from floor to ceiling. Its surface was dense with writing, symbols layered over one another in a way that made my eyes ache if I focused too hard. Some lines repeated with slight variations. Others had been carved out, gouged deep, as if someone had tried to erase meaning by force.
Edrin walked closer and gestured.
"The relics were recovered from three points in this room."
He pointed first to a recessed section near the left wall. "The shard of black metal was embedded there. Deep enough that it didn't fall naturally."
Then he indicated the opposite side of the chamber. "The bone fragment was found there. Wrapped, not buried."
Finally, he turned toward the center, near the base of the wall itself. "And the disc was sealed there, inside a glass case."
I followed the invisible lines between the three locations.
Not scattered.
Positioned.
"They form a pattern," I said quietly. "Not a spell. More like a framework."
Edrin studied me. "A framework for what?"
I shook my head. "That part isn't clear yet."
I approached the wall.
Up close, the writing was overwhelming. Layers upon layers of symbols, some elegant, others crude. Certain sections repeated with small variations. Entire segments had been gouged out violently, as if someone had tried to erase meaning by force rather than precision.
I did not touch it.
Did not try to record it.
My Archivist function responded anyway, quietly sorting, noting inconsistencies, cataloging absence as much as presence.
"This wall," I said after a moment, "wasn't written all at once."
Lyra crossed her arms. "So it was updated?"
"Corrected," I replied. "Argued with. Revised."
Tomas frowned. "Why leave it at all?"
I looked at the chamber again. The inverted structure. The platform. The lights that still functioned after who knew how long.
"Because whatever this place contains," I said slowly, "was never meant to vanish."
Only to be controlled.
Only to be buried beneath layers of forgetting.
I stepped back, letting my gaze sweep the chamber one last time.
This was not a tomb.
It was a containment site.
And we had just reached its heart.