Stone dust rains from the broken vault ceiling. Alice Feilth lands hard among cracked slabs and old gold sigils, the device in his hand flaring once like a heartbeat.
The chamber answers with a low hum. Lines in the floor wake in sequence, pointing toward a sealed arch deeper below, its face banded with roots of blackened metal and rune-locks.
The Researcher
This is it. The origin chamber. If the seal is intact, then the device was made for here.
The Prisoner pushes upright near a fallen pillar, head snapping from the arch to Alice. The sigils around the room brighten, as if sensing the bearer.
The Prisoner
If that thing opens the way, then open it. We are not dying in the dark for their secrets.
The Researcher takes one careful step toward the arch, hands raised, fear and hunger for answers fighting across his face.
The Researcher
Do not force it blindly. That seal may hold the truth of the device, and whatever made the ruins begin to fail.
The device pulses again, and a thin seam of light appears in the sealed stone, giving Alice a direct path to the chamber below.
Enter the chamber below