The pale creatures did not speak as they led Kai, Vepice, Orlin, and Seyren through the twisting, fungal-slick tunnels. Their footsteps were oddly quiet, their bare feet whispering over stone with a disquieting softness. Every now and then, they would stop and sniff the air, their skeletal heads tilting in unison.
When they reached the edge of the abandoned city, the passage widened into a cavern of enormous breadth. A hush fell over the group. Towering ruins, half-submerged in moss and phosphorescent roots, stretched out before them, remnants of a once-proud civilisation long since buried and broken. Stone spires leaned like drunkards, barely holding together. Bridges dangled by threads of rope or root. Lichen clung to walls like cancerous growths. Pools of shimmering green light collected in the low places, fed by some unknown, glowing runoff.
And then they saw them.
