In the gray breath of an unremarkable morning, beneath skies that had long since lost their warmth, a city's slums lay cloaked in the weary silence of survival.
The narrow alleys were lined with sagging shacks of corrugated iron and patched wood, roofs bowed under the weight of years and dust.
But at the heart of this forgotten quarter stood something that did not belong.
A building—massive, ancient, rising from the filth and rubble like a monument to another age.
Its stone walls were darkened not by soot, but by centuries, the architecture too proud to have been born here.
The arched windows were veiled in grime, yet behind them faint flickers of light hinted at life within. It loomed like a slumbering giant among beggars, its shadow swallowing the cramped streets around it.
Inside, deep in one of its many cavernous chambers, two silhouettes stood facing each other across a long, battered table strewn with maps, talismans, and half-burned candles.
