Smoke met them the moment they stepped through the sigil.
Not fog.
Not gas.
Smoke.
Black, thick, clinging to the walls like it had been painted on with tar. It didn't drift upward. It hung suspended midair, swirling with a rhythm like breath—slow, steady, alive.
Seren covered her mouth with a cloth strip. Mira pulled her hood tighter. Sova rubbed her eyes until they watered.
Thane didn't flinch.
He stepped into the dark as if it welcomed him.
There was no light source.
And yet they could still see—barely.
Faint outlines of a corridor, floor etched with ashen runes, walls pulsing with ember veins that gave off no heat.
Every footstep left a print in the gray layer coating the ground.
Dust.
Or bone.
Or both.
"It's not choking us," Mira said, testing her breath.
"No," Thane answered. "It wants us lucid."
"You mean… it's choosing not to kill us?" Seren asked.
"Yet."
They pushed forward.
The smoke thickened, but never blinded.
It revealed.
Images flickered in the haze. Visions. Phantoms.
Themselves.
Moments earlier.
A second too late.
A breath out of sync.
They'd see their own shape walking ahead—then turn a corner and see nothing.
Sova shuddered.
"It's mimicking us."
Mira whispered, "Or remembering us."
They passed a wall of stacked urns—black clay, sealed with wax and twine. Each one pulsed faintly.
Thane reached out and touched one.
His fingers came away with ash.
The urn cracked.
Smoke bled out like blood.
And a voice whispered—
"You should not exist."
Seren drew her blade.
"What was that?"
Mira shook her head. "I didn't hear anything."
Thane's eyes flicked to her. Then to Sova.
They were pale.
But steady.
"Keep moving," he said.
The first enemies appeared at the hall's midpoint.
Ashborn.
Twisted humanoid shapes, their bodies made entirely of packed soot and burnt bone. No weapons. Just claws and mouths fused shut with heat. They didn't run. Didn't hiss.
They just advanced.
Silent.
Relentless.
Seren engaged first.
Her blade passed through one, leaving a streak of smoke behind.
But it reformed instantly.
Mira cast Force Wall—it passed through the enemy like it wasn't there.
Sova's arrows hit—solid contact—but when the creature dropped, the smoke reformed around it, pulling the shape back to life.
"They don't die," Sova muttered.
"They don't live," Thane corrected.
He raised a hand.
Scorch Zone.
The circle of flame ignited beneath the Ashborn—slow at first, then bright. One by one, the creatures began to flicker.
They didn't burn.
They unraveled.
Fire didn't kill them.
It unwrote them.
"Fire is memory to this floor," Thane murmured. "Anything that burns is forgotten."
The others looked at him.
Mira's voice was hoarse.
"How do you know that?"
He didn't answer.
But he cast Flame Arc and stepped through three Ashborn like they were paper ghosts.
The rest of the floor was a trial of patience.
Ashborn came in waves—sometimes three, sometimes ten.
Sometimes in the shape of people they knew.
Mira's mother.
Seren's old commander.
A boy Sova once buried.
Each time, they fought back harder.
Each time, Thane grew sharper.
More focused.
At one point, the smoke coalesced into a wall.
It spoke.
Not aloud.
But to him.
"You are not bound to this cycle."
"Why do you walk deeper?"
Thane pressed a palm against it.
The wall pulsed.
Then faded.
And the floor opened.
They reached the final chamber an hour later.
In the center: a pit of embers.
Floating above it—a memory.
An image of a boy.
Thin. Pale. Curled beside a gutter fire.
Coughing.
Dying.
Thane's face.
Younger.
More human.
Less flame.
The girls stared at it.
Mira looked at Thane.
"Is that—?"
"It's not me," he said.
Then stepped into the pit.
The illusion screamed.
It didn't fight back.
But it tried to beg.
He ignored it.
And burned it with a single Firebolt.
The sigil appeared.
The floor accepted the truth.
That night, they camped without speaking.
Sova polished her bow in silence.
Seren stitched a tear in her cloak.
Mira stared at Thane.
"You knew what this floor wanted," she said.
"Yes."
"You let it show you."
"I had to."
"Why?"
He met her eyes.
And said nothing.
📈 Level: 6
🧪 EXP: 19 / 200
🎯 Stat Points: 1
📜 Meteor Blueprint Progress: 3.6%