The chamber narrowed into a corridor that bent downward like a spine curling into the earth. My footsteps sounded wrong here—not echoes, but soft, dull thuds, as if the floor drank the sound.
The walls changed from stone to something smoother, almost polished, and streaked with veins of faint green light. I ran my fingers across it. Warm. Almost… alive.
The Nameless God's voice slithered through the silence. The first city still breathes. It remembers.
I ignored it, though part of me wondered if the faint vibration under my fingertips was a pulse.
The corridor opened into a wide avenue, flanked by towering structures carved directly into the cavern walls. They rose in spirals and jagged teeth, their shapes unnatural to human eyes—some bent inward like they were bowing, others stretched upward in twisted defiance.
No wind, no sun, yet banners still hung between them, tattered but untouched by decay. The fabric shimmered faintly in the green light, displaying a crest I didn't recognize—a circle of roots encircling a closed eye.
Beneath those banners, the street was lined with statues. Not kneeling like the ones above, but standing—heads high, weapons in hand. Warriors. Their armor was unlike any I'd seen: layered plates shaped like overlapping leaves, etched with spiraling runes that seemed to shift when I looked too long.
A low hum filled the air.
I turned a corner and saw them—not statues this time, but robed figures standing motionless in the middle of the avenue. There were six of them, their faces hidden by masks carved into the likeness of beasts: wolf, serpent, crow, stag, lion, and rat.
They didn't speak. They didn't move. But as I passed, each mask turned slightly to follow me.
The Nameless God stirred. Keep walking.
I did. Slowly. The masked figures didn't follow, but their gaze burned between my shoulders.
Beyond them, the avenue widened into a circular plaza. At its center lay a massive stone disk, cracked down the middle, as if something beneath had tried to break free. The air above it shimmered faintly, like heat over sand.
On the far side of the plaza, an archway waited. Its pillars were carved with thousands of names, each letter impossibly fine, the language unfamiliar.
I stepped closer. The green veins in the stone brightened at my touch, and a whisper brushed my ear—not the Nameless God, but something else.
Your empire was not the first.
The ground trembled beneath my boots.
From somewhere deep below, something shifted.