Perspective: Alessio Leone
The stairs didn't end.
Alessio had already lost track of time.
Only when he glanced at the game's internal clock did he realize that nearly twenty minutes had passed since they began their descent.
His boots hit the stone in a steady rhythm, the muffled sound repeating like a hypnotic metronome.
He could no longer tell how many hundreds of meters below the surface they were.
It felt like a literal descent into hell.
With every step, the darkness thickened.
The torchlight flickered, but it wasn't enough to drive away the feeling of emptiness pressing in around them.
The silence was so absolute that, if not for Sith's presence just behind him, Alessio might've believed he was starting to hallucinate.
The weight of the darkness made the mind conjure shapes — imaginary movements along the damp stone walls.
Only the sound of their alternating footsteps, echoing on the stairs, kept him anchored to reality.
Then, finally, the monotony broke.
A faint glimmer appeared ahead — a distorted point of light at the end of the tunnel.
With each step, it expanded, taking form.
Calling it light, however, was almost an insult to the word.
What illuminated the space wasn't the warm gold of a normal flame but a sickly green hue, flickering like living poison.
The chamber opened wide before them — rough stone walls lit by torches burning with green fire.
That spectral glow pulsed in uneven waves, casting long, warped shadows across the hall.
Alessio recognized it instantly: this wasn't normal fire.
It was the product of corrupted magic.
The hall itself was empty.
Only cold stone, uneven ground, and the dense silence of centuries forgotten.
But it wasn't the emptiness that drew his attention.
Across the room stood a door.
A massive door, crafted from noble wood — an odd contrast to the cavern around it.
Alessio recognized the material immediately: the kind of wood found only in the homes of nobles or wealthy merchants rich enough to flaunt their fortune through craftsmanship.
Here, in the heart of darkness, that door looked out of place — like a relic of another world embedded in stone.
And flanking it were the most disturbing details: two green torches, one on each side, burning bright and illuminating the carved symbols around them.
Symbols that any veteran of the Kingdom of Thalgrande would recognize in an instant.
At least, any veteran from Alessio's previous life.
The same symbols that haunted the nightmares of those who had survived the wars of the future.
In the center of the door was a half-moon carving.
When the eerie green light touched it, the design seemed to breathe — taking on a mossy glow, pulsing faintly as though alive.
Alessio couldn't help it.
The words of the old madman echoed sharply in his mind:
"The moon turned green…"
Yes.
He was in the right place.
There was no doubt now.
And he also knew, with absolute certainty, what awaited behind that door.
Still, he had to move forward.
Standing before the structure, eyes steady and breath heavy, he heard Sith's voice break the silence.
"Do we just open it?" she asked, straightforward as ever.
Alessio kept his gaze on the green half-moon.
"Yes," he said without hesitation. Then, in a deeper, steadier tone, he added, "But from this point on, stay ready for combat at all times."
Sith nodded silently — serious, fully aware of the gravity of what lay ahead.
And yet, a faint smile tugged at her lips.
That small detail told him everything.
She didn't just understand what was coming.
She was looking forward to it.
Unlike the heavy wooden door that had concealed the tunnel above, this one required no effort to open.
Alessio's hand turned both handles, and the door split down the middle, swinging open without a creak, without resistance.
Smoothly.
Too smoothly — almost as if it whispered, Welcome.
What lay beyond, however, was anything but welcoming.
A laboratory.
But not the polished, pristine kind found in the universities or magical academies of the kingdom.
No rows of gleaming tomes, no marble tables or neatly arranged instruments.
What stretched before them was something cruel.
Cold.
Filthy.
The stone floor was stained with dark marks — long since dried, but never erased.
Even degraded by time, they still carried the memory of blood.
Long tables, once sturdy wood, now rotted with age, filled the center of the room.
On them, bones lay in disordered piles, tangled with rusted tools — blades, saws, hooks.
Nothing about it resembled science — only the brutality of a butcher's den.
Cracked skulls rested in uneven rows along toppled shelves like forgotten trophies.
Many bore deep cuts, traces of experiments that should never have been attempted.
Glass jars, coated in thick layers of dust, still held dried remnants of liquids — dark residues clinging to the bottom like tar.
The air was heavy with a sour-sweet stench, a mix of rotting herbs and rust.
At the far end, a large circle had been carved into the floor itself.
Time had worn it down, but its ritualistic pattern was unmistakable — curved lines crossing in symbols of binding or summoning.
Inside, nothing remained but scattered bones, as though the decades had reduced whatever once stood there to dust and decay.
And hanging from chains attached to the ceiling, two rusted cages swayed gently — despite the absence of any wind.
Inside them, shriveled skeletons sat in eternal silence, their bones coated in a thin film of green mold.
There was no order.
No dignity in these walls.
Only a place of degradation — of experiments performed without regard for life, of magic fueled by suffering.
And even after decades — perhaps centuries — since the last breath of any living soul had touched this chamber, the air still carried a suffocating weight.
The kind of weight Alessio recognized immediately.
This wasn't a place abandoned by chance.
It was a legacy of horror.