The voice beneath the Gate

The stairs spiraled downward into darkness, but it was not the absence of light that made Thalen hesitate it was the weight. Each step dragged at his body like a thousand invisible hands, pressing down, testing not his strength but his will. The chain wrapped around his left arm pulsed with a soft hum, while the torch in his right hand flickered gently without flame, a phantom reminder of what it could become.

Behind him, the entrance to the bridge had vanished. The obsidian titan had folded shut again, sealing off the path to the others. He was alone now, deeper than anyone had descended in two decades. The silence was thick, broken only by the faint sound of his own breathing, and the low whisper of something ancient threading itself through the very walls.