The void didn't vanish—it unfolded.
One moment, Luna stood in starless silence. The next, the air around her clanged like a struck bell. Metal groaned. Gears the size of moons ground into motion overhead, their teeth biting through clouds of steam. Pipes snaked across the sky, hissing hot vapor that smelled of oil and ozone. Beneath her feet, the platform reshaped itself into a gridded walkway suspended between colossal pistons, each thudding in slow, rhythmic pulses—like the heartbeat of a sleeping machine god.
Luna didn't flinch. But she did shiver. Not from cold. From the sheer weight of logic pressing down on her.
A voice spoke—not through sound, but directly into her mind. Calm. Precise. Utterly devoid of inflection.
"Subject Luna-Alpha. You now face the Trial of Equilibrium. Administered by Mechanicus Prime, Custodian of Moral Calculus."
