The checkpoint materialized out of the morning haze like a steel and concrete tumor, bristling with more guards than Kael had ever seen at the Cathedral District entrance. What had once been a casual inspection point now resembled a military blockade, complete with searchlights and barricades that hadn't been there three days ago.
'Well, this is new,' Kael thought, slowing his pace as Mira tensed beside him. The golden threads he'd been following all morning continued past the checkpoint, weaving through the gaps in the fence like luminous serpents. Whatever they were tracking, it definitely didn't want to use the front door.
"State your business in the Cathedral District," barked the nearest guard, a woman with sergeant's stripes and the kind of permanent scowl that came from too many double shifts.
Kael adopted his most innocent expression—the one that usually got him out of trouble with shopkeepers. "Medical supply run. My sister's sick, and we heard there might be some antibiotics in the old pharmacies up there."
The sergeant's eyes narrowed. Behind her, two more guards emerged from the checkpoint booth, hands resting casually on their weapons. Casual in the way that suggested they'd been using those weapons recently.
"No civilians allowed past this point," she said flatly. "District's closed for structural assessment."
"Structural assessment?" Mira stepped forward, her voice carrying just the right note of concerned citizen. "What kind of structural problems?"
A new voice cut through the morning air, gravelly and tired. "The kind that make people disappear."
Captain Torres approached from the main booth, his uniform wrinkled and his face bearing the haggard look of a man who hadn't slept properly in days. Kael recognized him—Torres had a reputation for being straight with people, even when the truth wasn't pretty.
"Three people this week," Torres continued, stopping beside his sergeant. "Went in, never came out. Search teams found... traces. Nothing you'd want to see."
'Traces,' Kael repeated silently, watching the golden threads pulse with renewed intensity. They seemed almost agitated now, writhing against the concrete like living things desperate to escape.
"And the sounds," the sergeant added, her scowl deepening. "Coming from that old cathedral at night. Like... machinery. Or screaming. Hard to tell the difference anymore."
Torres shot her a warning look. "Point is, district's off-limits until we figure out what's happening. You want medical supplies, try the southern markets."
But Kael wasn't listening anymore. His attention had shifted to a maintenance grate about fifty meters to their left, where the golden threads disappeared into the darkness below. The metal covering looked old, corroded around the edges. Easy enough to pry open if someone knew what they were doing.
And if they were desperate enough to follow mysterious supernatural guidance into whatever fresh hell was waiting beneath the Cathedral District.
'Because that always ends well,' he thought grimly, already calculating the best way to reach the grate without attracting attention.
Sometimes, the front door was overrated anyway.
The maintenance tunnels beneath the Cathedral District stretched out like arteries in a corpse—cold, cramped, and carrying the distinct impression that something vital had stopped flowing through them long ago. Kael led the way through the narrow passage, his flashlight cutting weak paths through air that tasted of rust and forgotten years.
"These walls..." Mira's voice echoed softly behind him, wonder replacing her usual wariness. "Look at this."
Kael turned to find her running her fingers over elaborate murals carved directly into the tunnel stone. The artwork was ancient, predating the district system by decades, maybe centuries. Where modern Bastion showed seven walled districts radiating from a central hub, these images depicted something entirely different.
Seven towers. Tall, elegant spires reaching toward a sky that hadn't seen walls or barriers. The city spread between them like a web, connected by bridges and walkways that curved through open air.
'Before the Awakening,' Kael realized, studying the intricate stonework. 'Before everything went to hell and we built walls to keep the monsters out.'
"The First Binding," Mira read aloud, tracing weathered inscriptions beneath one tower. "Seven Anchors hold the... something. The rest is too worn to make out."
Kael's thread-sight flickered to life unbidden, and immediately he wished it hadn't. Above them, spreading through the Cathedral District like infection through a wound, black threads writhed and pulsed. They formed patterns too deliberate to be random—geometric shapes that hurt to look at directly, as if his eyes were trying to process something fundamentally wrong.
'The Weaver,' he thought, suppressing a shiver. Whatever was happening up there, it was getting worse.
"Someone's been through here recently," Mira called from further ahead, her tone shifting back to professional alertness. She knelt beside fresh scratches gouged into the tunnel wall—claw marks, maybe, or desperate fingernails. "Multiple people. Families, by the look of it."
She held up a small object that made Kael's stomach clench. A child's toy soldier, painted blue and yellow, one arm broken off. The kind of thing a kid would clutch while fleeing through dark tunnels, then drop when fear or exhaustion finally overwhelmed them.
'How many families tried to escape through here?' he wondered grimly. 'And how many made it out?'
But it was the symbols carved into the newer sections of tunnel wall that made him pause. Unlike the ancient murals, these were recent—crude scratches that formed patterns eerily similar to what his thread-sight showed spreading above.
Mira noticed his expression. "What is it?"
Before he could answer, a sound drifted through the tunnels ahead of them. Faint but unmistakable.
Clicking.
The same mechanical rhythm they'd heard in the medical facility. Only now it was coming from multiple directions, echoing off tunnel walls in a symphony of approaching menace.
'Well,' Kael thought, drawing his knife and noting how his hand barely trembled this time. 'At least we're consistent in our terrible life choices.'
The clicking faded as they climbed toward a faint glow filtering down through cracked stonework. Natural light. Actual, honest-to-god sunlight that didn't come from emergency strips or flickering maintenance bulbs.
'Amazing how much you miss the sun when you're crawling through tunnels like a particularly desperate rat,' Kael thought, hauling himself up through what had once been a service hatch.
They emerged in a narrow alley between weathered stone buildings, the air thick with incense and something else... hope, maybe. Or at least the stubborn refusal to give up hope, which was close enough. Through an archway ahead, Kael could see the modest spire of St. Meridian's Chapel, its bells silent but its doors open.
"Active church," Mira observed, noting the small crowd of people filing in for what looked like evening service. "Didn't think any were left in this district."
'Neither did I,' Kael admitted silently, though something about the building felt... familiar. Not in a good way.
They approached the chapel's entrance, where an elderly priest in simple brown robes was greeting parishioners. Father Aldric, according to the weathered nameplate by the door. His smile was genuine enough, but when his gaze settled on Kael, the warmth flickered.
"Welcome, travelers," Father Aldric said, his voice carrying the weight of decades spent offering comfort to the desperate. "Though I sense you carry burdens heavier than most who seek sanctuary here."
Kael felt that familiar crawling sensation along his spine—the one that meant someone was seeing more than they should. "Just looking for information, Father. About the district's... history."
"Ah." The priest's eyes crinkled, but not with humor. "History has teeth in this place, young man. Come. The service will begin soon, but perhaps we might speak privately first."
He led them through the chapel's modest interior, past rows of worn wooden pews where a handful of parishioners sat in quiet contemplation. Candles flickered along the walls, casting dancing shadows that made Kael's thread-sight twitch nervously.
'Even here,' he realized, watching faint dark threads pulse just beneath the surface of everything. 'Whatever's happening, it's everywhere now.'
Father Aldric opened a small door behind the altar, revealing a cramped study lined with books that looked older than the city itself. "The Cathedral District wasn't always... peripheral," he began, settling into a chair that creaked ominously. "Before the Great Reorganization, this was the heart of everything. The center."
"What changed?" Mira asked, though her hand rested casually near her weapon.
"The barriers went up. But they're not just walls, child." Father Aldric's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "They're part of something much older. A binding ritual that's kept certain... influences... contained."
'Until now,' Kael thought grimly, watching threads pulse darker in his peripheral vision.
"Recently," the priest continued, "several of my flock have sought help elsewhere. From someone who promises cures for incurable ailments." His gaze fixed on Kael with uncomfortable intensity. "Tell me, son—what exactly are you hoping to find?"
The cathedral emerged from the morning mist like a monument to forgotten gods, its Gothic spires clawing at the gray sky with desperate fingers. Kael crouched behind a collapsed section of the outer wall, Mira pressed close beside him, both studying the massive structure that dominated the Cathedral District's heart.
'Well,' he thought grimly, 'at least we found it.'
The building itself was a masterwork of architectural decay—flying buttresses stretched like skeletal ribs, supporting walls of blackened stone where ivy crept through cracks like veins. Most of the stained glass windows had shattered long ago, leaving jagged teeth of colored glass that caught what little sunlight managed to penetrate the perpetual gloom.
But it wasn't the cathedral's imposing presence that made Kael's blood run cold.
It was the threads.
Black and silver filaments stretched from every window, every doorway, every crack in the ancient stone. They pulsed with a rhythm that felt almost... alive. The web spread outward in all directions, some strands thin as spider silk, others thick as rope, all of them vibrating with purpose.
"Jesus," Mira breathed beside him. "Look at them all."
A steady stream of people approached the cathedral's main entrance—some limping, others carrying sick children, all moving with that same desperate hope Kael recognized from his own reflection. But there was something else...
Something wrong.
"Watch how they walk," he murmured, pointing to a middle-aged man helping his wife up the cathedral steps. "See the way their movements sync up?"
Mira squinted, then her face paled. "They're... they're walking in perfect time. Like..."
"Like marionettes." Kael's thread-sight revealed the truth—each person had dozens of nearly invisible strands attached to their limbs, their heads, their hearts. All leading back to the cathedral's highest tower, where strange lights flickered in patterns that hurt to look at directly.
They watched in silence as the couple disappeared through the massive oak doors. Minutes passed. An hour. Then...
"That can't be right," Mira whispered.
The same woman emerged alone, but she looked... different. Older. Her hair had gone completely gray, and deep lines etched her face where smooth skin had been before. She moved with the careful shuffle of someone whose bones had grown brittle in the span of a single morning.
'What the hell is happening in there?'
"Kael." Mira's voice was tight with recognition. "That woman by the fountain..."
He followed her gaze to see a familiar figure approaching the cathedral—Mrs. Chen from three blocks down. The woman whose young son had been dying of bone fever just last week.
The same son who was now running and playing like any healthy child.
"Her boy was cured," Mira continued, her voice barely audible. "Everyone said it was a miracle."
They watched Mrs. Chen disappear through the cathedral doors, black threads immediately wrapping around her like welcoming arms.
'A miracle,' Kael thought darkly, counting the other familiar faces in the approaching crowd. 'Right.'
The Weaver's influence wasn't just spreading.
It was *harvesting*.