The last echoes of the swarm die behind the cathedral doors, but the floor still shudders under Thadeus and Elizabeth. Ahead, the nave opens into a long aisle of broken-star symbols pulsing like a signal.
Thadeus and Elizabeth move forward together, and the vibration resolves into a mechanical hum beneath the stone. The building is not waiting, it is running.
A seam splits in the floor at the center aisle. Brass edges rise through the stone, revealing a hidden panel stamped with the same broken-star ring from the ledgers and invoices.
Elizabeth Bathory
This is their route. The cathedral is the hub.
Thadeus Jovanović
The symbol matches the paper trail.
The panel unlocks with a heavy click, and a narrow stairwell opens downward into lit concrete and humming machinery. Somewhere below, voices and footsteps move in a controlled rhythm, like a processing line.
Thadeus and Elizabeth stand at the threshold of the hidden network at last, with the path to Stars of Divinity laid bare beneath the church floor.
“Thadeus surveys the rest of the cathedral. He sees a large stairwell that goes up to up to a large bell”
Thadeus looks beyond the stairwell and catches the cathedral’s other spine, a steep stair rising to a shadowed bell tower. The whole place is laid out like a machine, one path down, one path up, both feeding the same hidden heart.
Thadeus Jovanović
One stair drops, one stair climbs.
Elizabeth turns with him, then looks back at the sealed doors and the dead quiet above. For a moment, the nave feels less like a church and more like a control room built to funnel anyone inside.
✓ Quest Accepted
Locate the robed figures
“Thadeus suggests they first check the bell tower above. "We may be able to have our exit ready if we secure above first." Elizabeth nods, "Agreed. I'm right behind you." Thadeus moves up the stairwell of the bell tower. When they reach the floor, they see a stone path that seems to float in the air that attaches to another tower of the cathedral.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +2)
Thadeus Jovanović
We may be able to have our exit ready if we secure above first.
Elizabeth Bathory
Agreed. I’m right behind you.
Thadeus takes the bell stair two at a time, Peacebringer tight in his hand, while Elizabeth follows close through the dim rise. The cathedral hum deepens underfoot, vibrating through the stone like a machine waking up.
At the landing, the stair opens onto a narrow ledge and a floating stone path bridging to another tower. The route hangs in the air over a dark drop, impossible and deliberate, like someone designed the building to be walked in sections.
Thadeus Jovanović
The path is part of the structure, not a break in it.
Elizabeth stops beside him, staring across the gap with wary interest. Below them, the open floor panel still glows from the nave, but the real pull now seems to come from the towers above, as if the cathedral is funneling them toward one hidden center.
Elizabeth Bathory
This place keeps changing shape around us. That means somebody is still steering it.
“Looking more closely around the bell tower, Thadeus finds a level protruding from the ground. Thadeus attempts to move it, but it doesn't budge. Elizabeth grins, "Need a hand?" Thadeus steps away and bows, "If you insist, my love." Elizabeth walks up to the lever, and effortlessly push the lever forward, causing the stone bridge to connect to the bell tower, giving them a path to the next tower. Thadeus thinks to himself, "Well, I loosened it for you, Elizabeth"”
SUCCESS (Superb Strength, rolled +3)
Thadeus crouches at the landing’s edge and notices a low brass lever set into the stone, half-hidden by the tower’s trim. He tries to shift it, but it refuses to give.
Elizabeth Bathory
Need a hand?
Thadeus Jovanović
If you insist, my love.
Thadeus steps back and bows out of the way. Elizabeth crosses to the lever, plants both hands on it, and drives it forward with smooth force.
Stone grinds in the walls. The floating bridge swings and locks into the bell tower with a heavy, exact fit, opening a clean passage onward.
Thadeus Jovanović
Well, I loosened it for you, Elizabeth.
A hidden seam in the tower face splits open beside the new bridge, exposing a narrow service notch with fresh concrete inside, like a control route tucked behind the architecture.
Elizabeth Bathory
There. That is not decorative.
“Thadeus and Elizabeth carefully walk across the stone bridge, careful not to lose their footing and fall to the cathedral floor below. Elizabeth crosses first, turning to Thadeus, "Okay, now we..." She is interrupted by the floor giving way beneath her, Elizabeth letting out a brief scream as she disappears into the darkness. Thadeus shouts, "ELIZABETH!!". He clears the stone bridge and quickly examines the hole. The darkness is complete, he can't see below. "I'll find you, Elizabeth" he thinks as goes down this second tower.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +0)
Thadeus goes first, taking the bridge in careful, measured steps. The stone holds, and the bell tower’s hum follows him across the gap.
Elizabeth Bathory
Okay, now we...