The bold chord from Mikasi faded, its resonance swallowed by the labyrinth's endless appetite for sound. Vesta walked on, the defiant set of her shoulders softening into contemplation. She hummed softly, a new melody trying to form, trying to make sense of the curtain-lined memory lane she'd just traveled.
"So it's not just a maze, it's a therapist's couch made of rock," she muttered to the walls, plucking a thoughtful arpeggio. "A little invasive, if you ask me. My childhood memories are B-sides, not the main performance." The wall gave no answer, its internal glow pulsing gently.
A slight tremor ran through the floor, a vibration that was less a shake and more a deep, grinding sigh from the stone itself. Vesta stopped humming. She blinked, her violet eyes scanning the corridor. From the seamless joints between cloud-stone blocks, patches of the wall began to bulge and crack. Dust, ancient and dry, trickled down as stone shed from forms that had been perfectly camouflaged moments before.
They unfolded like nightmarish origami. Hound-like creatures the color of storm clouds, with folded wings tucked tight against muscular bodies and eyes that were dull, unlit Dials. Their movements were accompanied by the gritty, grating sound of stone grinding on stone. The Gargoyle Sentinels were awake.
They didn't roar. They simply turned their blank, dial-eyed faces toward her, lowering into prowling stances.
Vesta stood frozen, her grip tightening on Mikasi's neck. This wasn't a puzzle. This was a threat. Her mind, a vast encyclopedia of Straw Hat facts and musical theory, contained exactly zero entries on 'How to Pacify Animated Stone Dogs.'
"Um," she stammered, her voice a squeak. She cleared her throat, forcing a performer's smile onto her face. "Hello! Lovely evening for a patrol, isn't it? Would… would you be interested in a song? I do a great rendition of 'Binks' Sake'?" She struck a hopeful, cheerful chord.
The nearest Sentinel took a step forward, its stone claw scraping against the floor with a sound that set her teeth on edge. The chord she'd played seemed to hang in the air, pathetic and small against their monolithic silence.
"Okay, not fans of the classics. Maybe something more modern?" she tried, backpedaling slowly. Another one emerged from a side passage she could have sworn wasn't there a second ago, cutting off her retreat. Her heart hammered against her ribs. "A rousing battle hymn, perhaps? No? Too on the nose?"
A low, subsonic growl seemed to emanate from the pack, a vibration she felt in her bones rather than heard. It was the sound of a door being closed. More of them were appearing, not with dramatic leaps, but with a slow, inevitable emergence from the very architecture, herding her, step by reluctant step, away from the labyrinth's heart. The air grew thick with the strange, heavy energy of the Seastone woven into their frames, a static charge that made the fine hairs on her arms stand up.
"Alright, I see how it is," she said, her voice rising in pitch with her nerves. "The opening act isn't to your taste. Message received!" She turned fully, intending to make a dignified retreat, only to find two more Sentinels blocking the way she'd come. They advanced, a slow, grinding wall of stone.
Panic, cold and familiar, began to prickle at the edges of her vision. The awful silence of the crater on Birka threatened to swallow her again. She couldn't fight. She could only… perform. Or flee.
She chose flee.
With a yelp, she spun on her heel and broke into a run, the platform boots she'd once thought so stylish now feeling impossibly clumsy. The Sentinels didn't give chase so much as they orchestrated her exit. They emerged from walls ahead to funnel her down a specific corridor, their presence behind a constant, grinding pressure. It was less a pursuit and more a guided tour out of the premises.
"I'm going! I'm going!" she shouted over her shoulder, her rainbow hair streaming behind her. "You don't have to be so pushy about it! The Yelp review for this 'Path of Enlightenment' is going to be scathing!"
Ahead, a soft, natural light filtered into the corridor. An archway, not of carved stone, but of living, tangled cloud-vines. The Sentinels at her back stopped advancing, their blank eyes watching. She didn't need another invitation. Vesta put on a final burst of speed and stumbled through the archway, out of the labyrinth's oppressive silence and into the open air of Lumenara.
She burst into the crater basin, buckling over at the waist and gripping her knees, gasping for breath. The familiar, soft glow of the city's Lumen-Lanterns greeted her, a sight so normal and welcome it made her want to weep with relief. She straightened up, wiping her brow with the back of her hand, her entire body trembling with spent adrenaline.
"Shew," she breathed, leaning back to look at the towering, intricate facade of the Temple she'd just been ejected from. "That could have been a total disaster." She hugged Mikasi close, the guitar giving a sympathetic, quiet hum. "Note to self: stone guard dogs have no appreciation for the arts."
---
The game of tag was the most important thing in the world. Eliane's laughter echoed off the seamless cloud-stone, a bright counterpoint to the labyrinth's ancient silence. She ducked behind a curved buttress, her silver ponytail whipping around, only to yelp as Jelly, a bounding azure blob, rounded the corner with a triumphant "Bloop! Got you!"
"No fair! You're too bouncy!" she protested, though her grin never faded.
It was then that a low, deep tremor ran through the floor, a vibration that traveled up through the soles of Eliane's boots and set Jelly's entire form aquiver. The playful echo of their laughter died, replaced by a new sound—a slow, grinding rumble of stone moving against stone.
From the very walls of the corridor, sections that had seemed like solid, carved reliefs began to detach. They were hound-like creatures, larger than a man, hewn from the same pale cloud-stone as the labyrinth itself. Their bodies were bulky, with folded wings tucked tight against their backs, and their eyes were dark, vacant hollows. They moved with a stiff, prowling gait, the sound of their steps a gritty scrape that set Eliane's teeth on edge. A faint, dry smell of powdered rock and hot metal filled the air.
Jelly tilted his head, his starry eyes wide with curiosity. "Ooooh! New friends are rocky!" He wobbled towards the nearest one. "Tag! You're it!" he chirped, tapping a stony leg before bouncing away.
Eliane, caught between caution and the infectiousness of Jelly's mood, decided it must be part of the labyrinth's game. "Yeah! You can't catch us!" she taunted, darting between two of the slow-moving sentinels. They weaved through the emerging creatures, their giggles ringing out, treating the advancing stone wardens like an obstacle course. For a moment, it worked. The Gargoyle Sentinels were slow to turn, their movements deliberate.
But the atmosphere began to curdle. The initial handful of creatures was now a dozen, then a score. They no longer allowed the children to slip between them; instead, they shifted with a collective, grim intent, forming a solid, advancing wall that filled the corridor from side to side. The playful path was gone, replaced by a barrier of living stone. The friendly game was over.
Eliane's smile vanished. "Jelly, I don't think they're playing."
Before she could say more, one of the sentinels lashed out. A stone foreleg, reinforced with a dark Seastone composite, swung in a short, powerful arc. It connected with Jelly with a sound like a wet sack of flour hitting a wall.
Splat.
Jelly was flung across the corridor, his gelatinous form flattening against the cloud-stone wall with a comical, yet horrifying, finality. He slid down, leaving a sticky, glittery trail, and pooled into a quivering, blue heap on the floor.
"JELLY!" Eliane's scream was raw and sharp. She rushed forward, ignoring the advancing wall of stone, and fell to her knees, trying to scoop the trembling puddle into her arms. "Jelly, please!"
The puddle jiggled, coalesced, and with a wobbling effort, reformed into his familiar shape. He bounced upright, his red bandana slightly askew. "Whoa! That was a super bounce! New game!" he declared, completely unharmed but for his pride.
Eliane let out a shuddering sigh of relief that was half a sob. But there was no time for comfort. The grinding was louder now, the wall of Gargoyle Sentinels only a few paces away, their sheer mass blocking all light from the corridor behind them. A strange, heavy energy emanated from them, making the air feel thick and difficult to breathe.
"Run!" Eliane screamed, grabbing Jelly's wobbly hand.
They took off, their flight no longer playful but desperate. The sentinels behind them did not give chase so much as they pursued, a relentless, slow-moving avalanche of stone. They weren't trying to catch them; they were herding them, turning them down one passage and then another, cutting off any route but the one they intended. The children scrambled around corners, their hearts pounding, the relentless scraping of stone on stone a terrifying soundtrack to their flight.
Finally, they burst through a wide archway, stumbling out of the labyrinth's oppressive interior and into a broader, quieter chamber. They skidded to a halt, gasping for air, and turned around. The Gargoyle Sentinels had stopped at the threshold. As one, they turned and retreated back into the shifting depths, their forms melting once more into the walls until the corridor was empty and silent again, as if they had never been.
Eliane and Jelly looked at each other, chests heaving. The terror of the moment hung in the air, and then, as children do, they let it out in a burst of nervous, relieved giggles.
"That was… scary," Eliane admitted, wiping a smudge from her cheek.
Jelly bounced in agreement, his form still jiggling with leftover adrenaline. "Again! Again!"
Both their heads snapped up, their laughter dying in their throats, when a faint, familiar voice echoed from somewhere in the distance, calling their names.
*****
A dull, throbbing ache behind his eyes was the first thing Daniel Kamath became aware of. The second was the soft, woven blanket of his own bed. He blinked, his vision swimming into focus on the familiar, spartan stone ceiling of his personal chambers in the Celestial Monastery. The air smelled of the faint, earthy scent of the moss that grew in the cracks between stones and the clean, slightly metallic tang of recycled air.
A rustle to his side drew his gaze. Gianna Kalfas sat in a simple chair, her slender form illuminated by the soft glow of a data-slate. Her long silver hair was a cascade over her shoulder, and she looked up as he stirred, her piercing blue eyes softening.
"Oh, good. You are finally awake," she said, her voice a gentle counterpoint to the pounding in his head.
Daniel pushed himself up on his elbows, the room tilting slightly. "Where…?" he mumbled, his tongue feeling thick. "How did I…?" The last clear memory was a spike of pure fury in the control room, the sight of that garishly dressed engineer dismantling sacred history, and then… nothing.
Gianna offered a small, understanding smile. "You passed out. But it only makes sense, after everything we witnessed. The divine presence… it was overwhelming for all of us."
Then, like a dam breaking, it all rushed back. The Weaver. Her command. The open door. The outsiders. The control room.
Daniel's eyes flew wide. He threw the blanket aside and jumped to his feet, a wave of dizziness making him stagger against the cold stone wall. "The Chamber!" he gasped. "The outsiders! Where—?"
"Daniel, please," Gianna began, setting her data-slate aside and rising, her hands outstretched in a placating gesture.
But he was already moving, shoving past her and out the door into the dimly lit hallway. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of premonition. He barely felt the cool stone beneath his bare feet as he ran, his dark robes flapping behind him like the wings of a distressed bird.
He burst into the cavernous control room and skidded to a halt, his breath catching in his throat.
It was a carcass. A ghost of what it had been. Where once there had been a ring of pristine, crystalline consoles, now there were gaping holes and tangled, glittering innards. Wires snaked across the floor like metallic vines, and the dust that had once lay in a peaceful shroud was now churned into chaotic patterns around a central, empty space where a mountain of parts had clearly been stacked and removed. The sacred silence of the place had been replaced by the lingering, energetic hum of violation.
A few junior scholars were still present, carefully documenting the remaining glyphs on the walls. They turned at his sudden entrance, their faces brightening with the excited awe that had gripped the Monastery since Ibu's appearance.
"Archivist Kamath!" one of them greeted, her voice trembling with reverence. "The patterns we're finding are incredible! It's as if the goddess herself left us a new scripture to—"
"Where are they?" Daniel's voice was a low, dangerous growl, cutting through her enthusiasm like a shard of ice.
The scholars flinched. "They… they have already left," the same woman stammered, her excitement withering under his glare. "The outsiders. They returned to their… their vessel, with the components."
"This is outrageous!" Daniel roared, the sound echoing off the cavern walls. He swept a trembling hand around the gutted room. "They have desecrated this sacred site! Pillaged it! We must—"
Gianna arrived at the entrance, breathless, her face etched with concern. "Daniel, let me explain!"
He reeled on her, his expression a mask of betrayed fury. "How could you allow this? You were here! You stood by while they… while they looted the heart of our history!"
"It was the Weaver's will! They are part of the mending!" Gianna insisted, trying to step closer, but Daniel was already marching past her, back into the hallway.
His mind, reeling from the divine revelation, had now snapped back into its old, rigid patterns, fortified by a fresh, burning sense of violation. The secret he carried, the truth of the Typhons, was a weight that demanded order, not this chaotic sacking of the past.
"They will not get away with this," he seethed, his voice carrying down the stone corridor. Scholars and novices peeking from doorways quickly ducked back inside at the sight of his stormy expression.
He strode into the Monastery's main communications hub, a smaller chamber lined with humming crystal relays. Gianna was on his heels, her pleas falling on deaf ears.
"Under my authority as Senior Archivist," Daniel announced, his voice ringing with a fervor that bordered on fanaticism, "I am mobilizing the Sanctioned Frames! We will retrieve them and the stolen artifacts at once! This blasphemy ends now!"
Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel, his bare feet slapping against the stone as he stormed away to ready the Monastery's guardians, leaving a stunned and fearful silence in his wake. Gianna could only watch him go, her shoulders slumping, the hopeful peace of the morning shattered by the sound of impending conflict.
-----
The hum of the ship's engines was a steady, reassuring drone, a stark contrast to the unsettling silence of the monastery. Inside the cramped, utilitarian cargo hold, the air smelled of grease, old metal, and the faint, sweet scent of the insulating tape Bianca favored.
"Okay," Bianca announced, wiping a grimy hand across her forehead, leaving a new streak next to the existing ones. She gestured to a crate where a softly pulsing, violet crystal the size of her head was securely nestled. "We like, totally lucked out with this Psycho-Reactive Crystal. It's perfect. We just need to snag a Stable Minovsky-Ionesco Core and some Lunar-Titanium Alloys, and we will be like, out of this crazy place." She beamed at Charlie, who was meticulously noting each component in a ledger.
"Ahem! The cultural exchange, while tumultuous, has been undeniably fruitful," Charlie declared, his pith helmet looking absurdly out of place in the metal belly of the ship.
Nearby, Emily and Souta were huddled on a stack of crates, speaking in hushed whispers. A soft, unguarded giggle escaped Emily, a sound so foreign to her usual serene composure that it made Souta's usual intense expression soften into something genuinely warm.
Across the hold, a different, more tense conversation was underway. Kuro and Aurélie stood flanking Ember, who sat on an ammo crate, looking small and lost in her tattered Lolita dress.
"So, to summarize," Kuro said, adjusting his glasses. "We are in a separate reality, our goal is to repair this vessel, and our… previous understanding of your condition appears to have been… incomplete."
Ember nodded slowly, her gaze clear but weary. "It's all… very strange."
Aurélie placed a hand on her sword's hilt. "The 'strangeness' appears to be the default state of existence here."
Up in the cockpit, the steady hum was broken by a sharp, insistent beep from the console. Evander, his hands resting on the controls with a noble's grace, frowned. "That is odd."
Caden, slouched in the co-pilot's chair, raised a single, skeptical brow.
"It's a Sanctioned Frame signal," Evander continued, his green eyes scanning the readout. He pressed a button, his voice adopting a formal, resonant tone. "This is the JFF freighter Mule. Identify yourself."
The comm crackled to life with undignified energy. "Hey, it's me!"
Caden simply shook his head, a long-suffering look on his face.
Luke's voice continued, cheerful and unconcerned. "So, funny story! I have to bring you back." He let out a booming laugh. "Turns out someone didn't like you taking off with all those shiny parts!"
Evander and Caden exchanged a glance of pure confusion. Caden leaned forward. "Luke, we only have so much fuel left. We can't just turn around for a—"
A new alarm blared, this one a shrill, urgent wail that killed all other conversation dead. Evander's eyes darted to the main scanner screen, and the color drained from his face. He cursed, a short, sharp word that was utterly at odds with his usual chivalrous demeanor.
Caden's body went rigid. He didn't need to look at the screen; he could feel it—a psychic wavefront of pure, mindless hunger that felt like needles being driven into his temples. He slammed his hand on the ship-wide comm. "Luke, get out of here! We have a Class III Cataclysm Beast on intercept!"
Luke's laugh came back, undaunted. "Guess you'll need a little help then! Don't worry, I brought a whole team with me! This'll be fun!"
The comm link cut out. Evander and Caden groaned in unison.
"We can't worry about that right now," Evander gritted out, switching back to the internal channel. His voice, strained but controlled, echoed through the ship. "All passengers, brace. We have an incoming Typhon, Class III. Additionally, it appears the Monastery's Sanctioned Frames are en route with… ambiguous intent."
In the cargo hold, Kuro let out a long, weary groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. "And I was so looking forward to a future where my life did not involve being hunted through the void."
Then it came. A sound that had no right to exist in the vacuum of space—a deep, deafening roar that vibrated through the ship's very hull, a wave of primal noise that seemed to tear at the mind itself.
Evander's voice came over the comm again, tight with urgency. "Bianca! Get up here and take the helm. Caden and I need to suit up."
The hopeful peace of their escape was shattered, replaced by the chilling silence that followed the monster's cry and the frantic scramble for survival.
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