The Scholar's warning proves true at once. The chamber floor ripples under Vespera's boots, as if stone has forgotten how to be stone. The old flaw is no flaw now, it is a mouth opening again.
Black runoff crawls from the seams and hardens mid-surge, knitting into jagged obsidian spikes. They spear up between Vespera and the hatch, cutting off the way back in a single brutal heartbeat.
The Scholar
It was bait. I led us straight into the trap.
Vespera lands in a crouch, her left forearm slick with a fresh smear of blood. The stone beneath her shifts again, trying to swallow her footing.
The Scholar
Vespera, move. It is building a cage, not a breach.
More spikes crack up from the runoff, boxing the chamber in on three sides. The dark seam behind them seals with a wet grind, and the trap remembers their shapes.
Vespera
The flaw was never a weakness. It was a hook.
Escape the trapped chamber