Labyrinth of the Lost

Day 2 – The City Rearranges Itself

Navigational Nightmare

Eris woke to the sound of shifting ice. A slow, distant groan, like the city itself was stretching.

Ash was already up, standing near the entrance, his posture rigid.

Something was wrong.

Eris rubbed sleep from her eyes and stepped outside—then froze.

The cathedral was gone.

She spun around, heart pounding. The space they had slept in was now an open street, flanked by crumbling buildings. No sign of the altar, the thick stone walls, or the sigil she had carved.

Ash muttered a curse under his breath. "It moved."

Eterna had rearranged itself.

But Eris had prepared for this. She inhaled sharply, pressing a hand against the nearest wall. Faint, almost invisible, the sigil she'd drawn the night before flickered to life. A confirmation.

"This was where the cathedral stood," she murmured. "The city isn't just shifting. It's replacing things."

They retraced their steps, searching for familiar landmarks. But turning corners only led them to unfamiliar streets.

At one point, they doubled back—only to find themselves stepping into a completely different district.

The city wasn't just changing. It was leading them somewhere.

Hours passed.

Or maybe only minutes.

Time felt wrong.

They walked endlessly, yet somehow, ended up where they started.

Ash exhaled sharply, his patience wearing thin. "This place is a maze."

Eris wasn't faring much better. Every turn, every street, every frozen alley felt slightly different, as if the city was shifting just enough to keep them guessing.

She clenched her fists. "If we don't find a way to track our movement, we're going to keep running in circles."

Ash took a different approach.

Instead of fighting the shifts, he started marking where distortions occurred.

"This spot," he pointed to an alleyway, "looped us back twice." He scraped a small X into the ice with his dagger. "And this street… it stretched time. We walked for an hour, but the sun barely moved."

Eris, meanwhile, began carving small runes onto walls—her own attempt at creating anchors.

The first few faded almost instantly.

But the fifth rune stayed.

She frowned, pressing her fingers against the cold surface. The rune pulsed faintly, resisting whatever force was erasing their tracks.

Eris glanced at Ash. "I think I can leave markers that won't disappear."

He nodded. "Good. We'll use both methods."

Even so, the city continued to change.

Every hesitation, every pause, seemed to make it worse.

Saria's Notes:

Ash is too focused on fixing distortions rather than navigating through them.

Shade is beginning to experiment with her ability but lacks confidence.

Both hesitate too much, causing the city to shift even more.

---

Nightfall – A New Shelter

By nightfall, they stumbled upon a small rundown building—a structure mostly intact, like the cathedral from before.

The city hadn't erased this place.

Yet.

Inside, the air was still freezing, but the walls were solid. A temporary safe zone.

But they needed a way to keep track of this place.

Eris traced a sigil into the doorway. "If this building shifts, at least we'll know where it was."

Ash, after some thought, reached into the folds of his coat and pulled out a watch—cracked, but still ticking. He set it down near the sigil.

Eris raised an eyebrow. "That thing still works?"

"Not properly," he admitted. "But if time shifts again, we'll see how it reacts."

Between her sigil and his timepiece, they had a chance at holding onto this shelter.

For now, at least.

They settled in for another night.

And outside, in the frozen streets of Eterna, the city waited.

Day 3 – The Whispers Begin

A Stable Shelter

For the first time since arriving in Eterna, something stayed the same.

The sigil on the doorway held. Ash's watch, though damaged, still ticked in place. The city hadn't erased their shelter overnight.

Ash leaned against the wall, exhaling. "At least we're not completely at its mercy."

Eris traced the rune again, reinforcing it. "We have a base now. But we still don't know what's in the heart of this place."

They had tested survival. Now, they had to push deeper.

The Descent Into Silence

The deeper they walked into the city, the more wrong it became.

Not in the way of shifting streets or vanishing landmarks. No, this was different. The air felt thick. The shadows stretched too long. And the silence—the silence wasn't empty.

It was waiting.

Then, a whisper.

Soft. Too close.

Ash stopped. His whole body went rigid. "No."

"You're just a second-rate trickster."

The voice slithered through the frozen streets like a blade against ice.

Eris turned sharply. Nothing. No one.

Then her own whisper came.

"You could've been something. Instead, you're just a shadow."

Celeste's voice.

The words hit harder than they should have. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold crept up her spine.

She clenched her fists. It's not real. It's not real.

But her chest was tight.

---

Psychological Warfare

Ash exhaled sharply, but his breath came out uneven. His control over time wavered—small flickers of distortion lashing out around him.

The whispers didn't stop.

"You were never meant to wield time." "Always second place, always failing."

Eris gritted her teeth.

"You were always weaker."

"Always jealous, never enough."

She knew it wasn't real. She knew. But the words sank into her bones, into the places she didn't like to acknowledge.

That's how it worked. The sentinels weren't just haunting them. They were tearing them down from the inside.

The air felt heavier. The shadows pressed closer. If they hesitated any longer, they would drown.

Breaking the Illusions

Eris dropped to her knees, fingers shaking as she scraped a rune into the ice. The first mark flickered. The second cracked. The third—held.

A ripple spread outward. The whispers faltered.

Ash inhaled sharply and closed his eyes. A thin layer of distorted time wrapped around him, dulling the voices. A break. A breath.

Then he stepped out. This time, his power was steady. "Acknowledge them. Then let them go."

Eris met Celeste's phantom gaze, exhaling.

"Maybe I was weaker."

The whisper paused.

"But I'm not anymore."

The ice shattered and she was free from its mind control.

They soon continued exploring the city, fighting sentinels which sought their minds along the way.

Eris pressed forward, each step crunching softly against the frost-covered stone. Ash walked beside her, shoulders tense, his gaze flicking between the towering ruins. He hadn't said much since they started facing the sentinels' tricks. Neither had she.

Then, something shifted.

The shadows deepened. The cold sharpened.

Eris frowned, glancing up. The sky was darker than before. Not the slow, expected fade of evening—but an abrupt shift, as if time had leapt forward without warning.

Ash stiffened. "It was midday when we finished off the last batch of sentiels"

Eris turned sharply. He was right. It had been midday. Hours should have passed, but not enough for the sun to vanish completely.

A prickle of unease ran down her spine. Eterna wasn't just warping space. It was playing with time.

"We need to go back," she said.

Ash didn't argue.

Navigating the Warped Streets

Retracing their steps should have been impossible. Eterna was a maze of shifting structures and broken pathways, the roads never quite the same twice.

But their way back was waiting.

The sigil Eris had carved on their doorway—the same one she had checked that morning—still pulsed faintly in the distance. The clock mechanism Ash had left behind flickered through the mist, ticking in a steady rhythm. Anchors. Their one defense against the city's constant shifting.

Eris exhaled in relief. "It worked."

Ash smirked, though it was faint. "Of course it did."

Even so, they moved quickly. The city felt hungry at night.

Safe, For Now

The moment they crossed the threshold of their shelter, the weight on Eris's chest eased. The cold was still there, the air still sharp, but the whispers did not follow them inside.

She ran her fingers over the sigil one last time. Unchanged. Untouched.

For now, they had carved a piece of stability out of Eterna's chaos.

But outside, the darkness stretched long and waiting. The city had let them go this time.

It wouldn't always.

Lesson of the Day

The sentinels didn't thrive on fear alone. They thrived on denial. The harder they fought, the stronger the voices became. But when they faced them—when they admitted the truths buried underneath— the power broke.

They had won .

But Eterna wasn't done with them yet.

---

Saria's Notes:

Ash is wasting too much energy blocking the whispers instead of countering them.

Shade is on the right track but struggles to keep focus under stress.

The city isn't just testing them physically. It's unraveling their minds.