The spiral staircase groaned beneath Nima's steps, each creak echoing like a distant memory. Dmitri followed closely, his hand never straying far from his blade. The air grew colder, denser, as if the weight of forgotten centuries pressed down upon them.
"Do you feel that?" Dmitri whispered.
Nima nodded. "It's like the walls are listening."
They reached a landing where the stone gave way to a corridor lined with faded murals. Scenes of a vibrant town, festivals, and a towering bell at its center. But as they progressed, the images darkened—celebrations turned to mourning, the bell cracked, and shadows loomed.
"This place… it's telling a story," Nima observed.
"A warning, perhaps," Dmitri replied.
A soft hum resonated through the corridor, drawing them to a chamber where the air shimmered. At its center stood a pedestal, upon which rested a fragment of the bell, its surface etched with symbols that pulsed faintly.
Nima approached, the shard in her possession vibrating in response. As she reached out, visions flooded her mind: a council of masked figures, a ritual interrupted, a song left unsung.
She staggered back, breathless. "The bell wasn't just an object. It was a seal."
Dmitri's eyes narrowed. "And someone tried to break it."
The chamber trembled, dust falling from the ceiling. From the shadows emerged a figure draped in tattered robes, face obscured.
"You shouldn't be here," the figure rasped.
Nima stood her ground. "We seek the truth."
The figure chuckled, a sound devoid of humor. "Truth is a burden. One that cost us everything."
Before they could respond, the ground beneath them gave way, plunging them into darkness.
Darkness swallowed them.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but the howl of rushing air and the thud of stone. Then came the silence—thick, unnatural, as if sound itself had been crushed by the fall.
Nima groaned as she hit damp earth. Pain sparked in her shoulder, but nothing felt broken. A soft grunt nearby told her Dmitri had landed close.
"You alive?" he asked, voice low, wary.
"Barely." She pushed herself upright, hand instinctively going to the shard hanging from her neck. It still hummed faintly, a distant heartbeat against her skin.
Their descent had delivered them into a cavern vast and cloaked in shadows. The only light came from lichen etched into the walls, glowing pale blue in jagged lines—unnatural veins pulsing through ancient stone. The air smelled of damp roots, rust, and something older.
Dmitri scanned the space, blade in hand. "We fell… but I don't think this was an accident."
Nima agreed. The stone beneath them bore the same spiral patterns etched into the pedestal above. It was deliberate—a passage masked as a trap.
She stepped forward. Her boots crunched against brittle remnants—bones, long since stripped of flesh. Human, mostly. Others… not quite.
"Look at this." Dmitri knelt beside a cluster of scorched stone. Charred runes circled a hole in the ground, thin as a well. "This was a gate. Something came through."
Nima approached, heart thudding. The shard at her chest pulsed once—then again—faster. She knelt, peered into the hole. There was no bottom. Only a faint sound rising from the dark: not wind. A whisper.
"…Thread…"
She staggered back. "Something's speaking."
Dmitri glanced toward her. "The Bell?"
She shook her head. "No. Older. Buried."
As if summoned by her words, the lichen's light dimmed. A tremor rolled through the cavern, shaking loose gravel from above. Then something stirred—massive, unseen—deep beyond the stone.
A hum filled the space. Not hostile, not yet. But awake.
"What is this place?" Dmitri muttered.
Nima's answer was barely a whisper. "A root. The Hollowroot."
He looked at her. "From Velreth's story?"
She nodded. "The foundation of the old town. Before the Bell fractured it. Before the seal failed."
The whisper rose again, clearer now: "You walk on memory. Tread lightly."
Nima reached into her pack and retrieved the Loom-shard Velreth had given her. Its glow intensified in her hand, casting the chamber in silver-blue light. As it flared, the runes on the walls shifted. The patterns rearranged like threads in a tapestry, forming an archway that hadn't existed before.
"Did you do that?" Dmitri asked.
"I think it did it for me."
The archway pulsed, inviting—or challenging.
They stepped through.
The corridor beyond was narrower, the walls closer, but the stone glowed warmer now. Paintings emerged in pieces: a bell with seven tones, a woman cloaked in light, and a world breaking at the seams. Then, a single eye—too wide, too hollow—staring from a sea of threads.
Dmitri halted. "That again."
"The Thread-Watcher," Nima said.
"Who?"
She hesitated. "I don't know. But I've seen it. In the Loom. In dreams."
They turned a corner and stopped.
A chamber opened ahead, circular and lit by a single root rising from the center—an ancient, petrified thing, twisted and hung with brittle charms. Beneath it sat a figure, still as death. Cloaked in bark and moss, it looked more like a sculpture than something living.
Then it moved.
"You were not meant to come here," the voice said, low and cracked with time. "But the Song has loosened its threads."
Nima stepped forward. "We seek the truth of the Bell. And the thing that sleeps beneath it."
The figure raised its head. Its eyes were blind, but not empty. "You walk a dying path. The seal is failing. The heart will wake."
"The heart?" Dmitri asked.
"The Hollow Bell. The first one. Not forged… but grown."
The words landed like stones in the gut.
"It is buried here?" Nima asked.
The figure nodded. "Below the Hollowroot. Dreaming. Binding what should never speak."
"And the shard?" she asked, holding it forward.
He turned his head slightly, scenting the air. "It is not a shard. It is a seed. Planted into you. Carried across threads."
Nima's pulse quickened. "A seed for what?"
The cavern trembled. The figure rose, taller than expected. "The Bell remembers. And through you… it learns to sing again."
Then the root cracked.
From deep below, the faintest echo rose: a tone not yet full—but growing.
The figure's voice sharpened. "You must leave. The Hollowroot will fall."
Dmitri pulled Nima back. "Now would be good."
They ran.
Behind them, stone screamed. Roots snapped. The memory of the earth tore open, and the Bell's unfinished song reached toward them like a cry.
They didn't look back.