The air was still. Not dead, not silent—just waiting.
Silas walked ahead, boots scraping against stone cracked by time. Velira followed close behind, her effigy trailing quietly, its body now slightly altered from the spells she'd begun shaping the night before. Cass brought up the rear, his hands lightly on the hilts of twin curved knives, his Light-bound effigy moving like a second shadow beside him.
They had returned to exploring at what passed for "dawn" in this skyless world. After rest and reading, the city felt different. No longer haunted. Just... hollow. Like a shell.
Buildings leaned as if whispering to each other. Market stalls had long rotted, but their metal frames remained—bent and half-buried in rubble. A few tattered banners still clung to stone. Their sigils were unreadable, worn down to ghosts.
> "This place used to live," Cass said quietly.
Silas nodded. "Now it waits."
---
Their steps took them down into the lower tiers—a sunken district full of half-flooded streets and echoing arches. More than once, they paused to read strange murals scratched into the walls. Stories of past battles. Of scholars turned to ash. Of something deeper beneath the city no one dared name.
Then came the scratching.
Soft at first. Skittering. The kind of sound that made the back of your neck tighten.
Velira's hand snapped up. "Movement. Left."
Her effigy drew water from its core, forming a thin, spinning ring of liquid around its wrist.
Cass's effigy pulsed faintly—light tracing through the seams of its limbs. "Something's stalking us."
The monster revealed itself when it was sure of the kill.
It leapt from the side of a ruined balcony—an elongated mass with too many limbs and a glistening, semi-transparent carapace. No eyes. No mouth. Just wet clicking and claws.
> "Reaver-spawn," Silas murmured, already drawing mana.
It was fast—but not faster than his effigy.
Void Clot exploded from its hand in a controlled burst, wrapping the creature mid-leap. It hit the ground with a hollow thud, limbs twitching under the pressure of spreading blackness.
> "That shouldn't have worked so well," Velira said, staring.
Silas frowned. "Maybe it's half-soul-based. Weak to suppression."
But another one crawled over the wall behind her.
This time, she reacted. A pulse of condensed water shot from her effigy, striking the creature's midsection and blowing it back—but not killing it.
Cass lunged forward, slashing across its side with glowing knives. His effigy blinded the creature with a flare of light, and Silas followed up with Ashpiercer Bolt, burning a hole through its core.
It slumped, finally dead.
---
They stood, panting slightly. Around them, the city fell quiet again.
> "How are there still monsters alive in here?" Velira whispered.
Silas stared deeper into the alley. "I don't think they live here. I think they're trapped here. Same as the knowledge."
As they continued forward, they found more oddities—books fused into stone, as if burned mid-ritual. A massive bell split down the center. A stone bridge with no supports that somehow still stood.
One building caught their attention. Its door was reinforced metal—unusual for a residential area. It bore no sigils, but the moment Silas's hand touched the handle, his effigy trembled slightly.
"This place remembers something," he said, more to himself than the others.
Cass moved beside him. "Think it's trapped?"
"Maybe."
They opened it anyway.
Inside was not danger, but silence. Rows of sealed glass containers, each holding old materials: bone shards, black stones, crystallized mana. A few scrolls locked in hardened wax.
"A storehouse," Velira murmured.
Not everything was functional. But a few things were still intact. Silas pocketed a faded leather-bound manual. Velira took a small flask of alchemic frost. Cass—after a moment of hesitation—lifted a curved metal disc with a Light sigil barely visible along the edge.
"We're robbing ghosts," he muttered.
"They're not using it," Velira said.
They left quietly.
---
As they returned to camp, they felt the weight of the city settle on their shoulders again. It wasn't just empty. It was watching. Or maybe listening.
And in the silence, something stirred far below.