The chamber closed the moment he crossed the threshold, its vast interior humming with something that was neither mechanical nor divine, but unsettlingly wedged between both.
Beneath his boots, interlocking plates stitched with sigils and circuitry pulsed to life, glowing faintly as he passed like nerves awakening after a long coma.
Towering arcs curved overhead, layering massive engines into ancient stone as if heaven and machinery had been forced into marriage. Every footstep echoed too long, too deeply. This wasn't a room. It was a ribcage of technology.
The air tasted old—metal and ash and something else he couldn't name, like rust dissolved in prayer.
Solmir inhaled anyway, forcing breath into lungs.
At the center waited a table made of darkness pretending to be steel, swallowing light instead of reflecting it.
