The progression became a waking nightmare, a funeral march through the entrails of the world. Their footsteps echoed with a muffled resonance, swallowed by the smooth, unnaturally calm walls. The noise they produced now felt pathetic, a pitiful last stand against the complicit silence of the mountain. They were intruders, tolerated for now.
The smell shifted again. The mold and salt gave way to a metallic tang, acrid, like old blood and ozone after a storm. The air vibrated with a dull energy, tangible even to the non-Awakened. A faint, phosphorescent glow began to seep along the walls, replacing the waning light of their torches.
"Look," Inès whispered, her voice strangled, as she pointed her bolt toward the ground.
They followed her gaze. The floor was littered not with rock debris, but with scraps of rotted fabric, broken blades, fragments of armor gnawed by time… and bones. Human bones, stripped clean, scattered with chilling indifference. The remnants of past expeditions.
