Shadow took Noel and released him lower along the mountain in a chain of measured jumps, each "Shadow Step" carrying him from one patch of darkness to the next until the ridge above vanished behind black stone. Noir stayed close, silent and alert, her paws barely making a sound whenever the terrain allowed her to run beside him before she slipped back into his shadow again. The farther they descended, the stranger the valley became.
The pressure in the air changed first. It grew heavier, but not in the same way as the rest of the mountains. Up above, the mana of the range always felt wild, restless, alive in an unstable way. Here, it felt settled. Old. The silence deepened with every step until even the wind seemed to lose interest in the basin below.
