The passage beyond the chamber did not slope upward or downward.
It moved forward in a way that made distance difficult to judge.
Arios noticed almost immediately that the walls on either side were not parallel. They narrowed and widened subtly, never enough to alarm, but enough that the sense of scale kept slipping. Ten steps felt like twenty. Twenty felt like five. The dungeon was interfering not with his senses directly, but with his expectations of consistency.
He adjusted his pace.
Rushing would compound the distortion. Slowing too much would allow the environment to dictate rhythm. He chose something in between—measured, deliberate, repeatable.
The floor was smooth, but not polished. It absorbed sound without eliminating it entirely, leaving each footstep muted, softened, as if the stone itself were listening.
The limiter on his wrist remained steady.
