The canyon stretched like a scar through the earth, wide and jagged, its walls humming with a strange, musical vibration. The wind didn't whistle—it resonated, like a glass rim being traced by an unseen finger.
"Remind me again," Luma said, carefully stepping over a cracked slab of stone, "why we're walking into what is obviously a trap?"
"Because the blueprint's coordinates point here," Ion replied. "And because we're terrible at staying alive."
Cassel added, "And because I want to see a rock sing."
Toma sighed.
As they descended into the gorge, the ground beneath them shifted—not in the usual way, but in pulses. Every few minutes, the stones would breathe, lifting slightly, then settling, as if the canyon itself was sighing.
"Feels like walking on a sleeping beast," Toma muttered.
Luma reached down and placed her palm against the ground. "It's… vibrating."
Ion knelt beside her, eyes narrowing. "Harmonic frequencies."
"Huh?"
He gestured at the rock surface. "Some force is applying regular vibrational energy at specific resonances. Like when soldiers march across a bridge and it collapses—not because of weight, but because of rhythm."
"So someone's weaponizing music now?" Luma asked.
Cassel looked excited. "Like a rock concert that punches back?"
Ion chuckled. "In a way, yes."
Deeper into the canyon, the walls began to twist. Not physically—but perceptually. Straight lines curved. Shadows leaned in directions they shouldn't. Luma nearly stumbled as the path beneath her tilted left, even though it looked flat.
She blinked. "Am I going crazy?"
"Nope," Ion replied. "You're just walking through a region of gravitational phase distortion."
"You say that like it's normal!"
"It's not. Which is why we should hurry."
But the canyon had other ideas.
A low rumble echoed through the walls, followed by a sharp crack. From above, a slice of cliff peeled loose—but instead of falling straight down, it curved in midair and spun like a coin.
Luma dove aside. Toma yanked Cassel back. Ion activated a field resonance emitter, slamming it into the ground.
A harmonic pulse spread out like a ripple.
The falling stones froze, caught mid-spin, hovering for a split second—then dropped harmlessly around them.
Cassel gasped. "That was AWESOME."
Ion panted. "Temporary stabilization. It won't last."
Luma stared at him. "What did you just do?"
"I matched the gravitational drift of the canyon's frequency using a counter-wave. Basically… I sang to the rocks and told them to calm down."
"You could've just said that," Luma muttered.
"I did. Just with math."
They made camp on a ledge halfway up the twisting gorge. Above them, the stars swirled in lazy spirals—evidence of distorted spacetime, Ion said.
Toma sat sharpening his blade again, visibly unsettled. "Why does everything feel… wrong here?"
"Because gravity," Ion explained, "isn't just about falling. It's the curvature of space and time. Something down here is bending it."
"Like a black hole?"
Ion nodded slowly. "Except black holes pull everything in. This place just nudges you wrong."
Luma stared into the fire. "If the Entropy Engine is responsible for this… what happens when it finishes?"
Ion looked at her, a seriousness in his voice she hadn't heard in days.
"Then the world stops making sense. And when things stop making sense… people stop surviving."
That night, as Luma lay curled near the warmth of the embers, she heard it.
A low hum. Faint. Not from outside, but from her gauntlet.
She flicked it open.
A new message.
Coordinates.
A phrase written in Spire glyphs: "She's watching."
Her heart skipped.
She looked up at the stars—and in the distortion above, just for a moment, she swore she saw Saren's silhouette watching from the opposite ridge.
But when she blinked—it was gone.