"Let's go," Iris said.
She stepped off the stone path without hesitation, sandals sinking a little into the loose grit, and kept walking as if the desert had invisible streets only she could see.
Alisa blinked and hurried after her, then glanced back over her shoulder.
The golem still stood where it had lowered them, an unmoving mass of packed earth and rough stone, hunched in the moon-pale dawn like a statue. Its shoulders were broad, its limbs too thick to look elegant, and the seams where rock met clay pulsed faintly with a dull, mineral warmth.
"Wait, what about the golem?" Alisa asked, voice catching on the dry air. "Isn't that… how I'm supposed to get south?"
Iris didn't slow. "We're not taking it."
Alisa stopped for half a step. "Why?"
"It'll wait," Iris said simply, like she was talking about a horse tied outside a shop. "It won't wander. It won't disapear. If you ever need to find it again, it'll still be there."
Alisa stared at the thing one last time, at how it didn't even look up as she left and forced herself to turn away. The desert swallowed the path behind them almost immediately, the wind dragging thin veils of sand across the stone.
They walked.
Not through dunes at first, but through a harsher country, broken ground and reddish rock, slabs jutting out of the sand like ribs. The air was still hot even as the light shifted, and everything smelled faintly of dust warmed in a fist. Every few minutes Alisa had to adjust her scarf, tugging it higher when the wind threw grit at her face. Her winter clothes, bundled and strapped awkwardly, thumped against her hip with each step like an accusing reminder that she didn't belong anywhere.
Iris moved ahead in an easy line, not fast, not slow, never seeming to pick her footing yet never slipping.
Alisa kept thinking they were walking nowhere.
Then the ground began to rise.
At first it was gentle enough that she didn't notice. Then it steepened. The sand grew deeper, finer, and the rocks disappeared beneath it, until the slope became a single, massive dune cutting into the sky.
Alisa slowed, squinting up.
The dune was wrong.
Not just tall, unnaturally tall. It didn't look like the wind had built it. It looked like something had pushed the desert upward from underneath, like a buried giant had taken a breath and never let it out.
"Iris," Alisa said, uncertain, "that's…"
Iris was already climbing.
She didn't glance back. She didn't reassure. She simply went, leaving Alisa no choice except to follow or be left alone at the base of something that felt unnatural.
Alisa gritted her teeth and started up.
The climb burned.
Sand slid under her boots, stealing half her effort.
Her legs ached.
The sun pressed against her back like a hand.
She had to stop twice to catch her breath, palms braced on her thighs, forcing air into her lungs despite how the heat fought her for it.
Iris waited near the top, not impatient, just still and watching the horizon as if she could already see what Alisa couldn't.
When Alisa finally reached the crest, she stepped up and the world changed.
A pyramid stood on the far side.
Not half-buried. Not eroded.
Standing.
It was enormous, rising out of the sand like a deliberate skyscraper. And it didn't look like stone should look. Its faces were so perfectly smooth that the light didn't scatter; it slid, as if the pyramid's surface refused to accept the sun and just absorbed the light.
Black, obsidian black, yet not dull. Not dead.
Between the blocks, if they were blocks at all, ran hairline seams that shimmered with silver. Not paint. Not metal plates. A faint inner glow, like moonlight trapped under glass, threading through the pyramid's body as if something inside it was alive and breathing slowly.
Alisa's mouth went dry.
"What… is that?" she whispered, and hated how small her voice sounded against something that big.
Iris didn't answer right away. She simply started down the slope toward it, as if the pyramid had been waiting for them and she didn't want to keep it waiting any longer.
Alisa followed, eyes locked on the structure.
At the apex, where a normal pyramid would narrow into a point, there was no peak.
There was an opening.
A clean, geometric absence, like the top had been cut away with a blade. And within that opening hung something that caught the light and threw it back in a colder color.
A crystal.
Huge. Quartz-like in shape, but too perfect, too clear, too bright. It suspended there as if supported by nothing, emitting a steady silver radiance that spilled down the pyramid's black faces and made the seams glow harder, like veins responding to a heartbeat.
The silver light touched the sand around it and the sand glittered faintly, as if dust had been turned into stars.
Alisa slowed without meaning to, dread and awe tangling together in her chest.
Nothing in this place should have looked so precise.
Nothing in this place should have looked like it had been built to last forever.
And as the pyramid filled her vision, Alisa realized, with a sudden, sinking certainty, that they hadn't been walking toward shelter.
They'd been walking toward a door.
They descended the far side of the dune in long, sliding steps that felt like a slow motion fall.
The sand here was wrong,finer, colder beneath the surface, as if the heat of the Sahra Vey simply gave up trying to penetrate it. Each time Alisa's feet sank, the earth made a dry, whispering sound, a hushed friction that didn't match the howl of the wind.
The air had shifted, too. The heat remained, but the weight of it had vanished; it felt held back, as if the pyramid's shadow didn't just block the sun, but actively rewrote what the light was allowed to do to the skin.
Ahead, the black faces of the structure rose higher with every step, so impossibly smooth that the sky reflected in them like a dark, bruised mirror, an upside down smear of pale blue and drifting haze.
The silver seams weren't just decorative. The closer they got, the more Alisa realized they weren't random. They formed patterns, slow, agonizing spirals and interlocking angles, symbols that looked almost like writing and almost like old, silver plated scars.
She kept glancing at Iris, waiting for the girl to show a flicker of the reverence or fear that was currently clawing at Alisa's own throat. But Iris walked like she had walked this path a thousand times. There was no fear, no awe, just a calm that felt more terrifying than any scream.
As they reached the base, the pyramid stopped feeling like architecture and started feeling like a presence. The wind didn't howl here; it thinned into a steady, rhythmic hush, like the desert was whispering. Even the sand seemed to avoid the pyramid's shadow, veering away in faint, deliberate curves.
And the crystal at the top, Alisa tried not to look, but her eyes were drawn to it like a moth to a funeral pyre. It hung there, impossibly clean, emitting a light that wasn't warm. It was moonlight made dense, a quiet, cold radiance that made Alisa's skin look like marble where it touched her hands. Inside the crystal, slow-moving threads of silver pulsed, lightning trapped in a cage of ice.
"Iris," Alisa whispered, her voice sounding like a splinter of glass in the vast silence. "What is this place?"
Iris didn't look at her. "A shrine."
Alisa almost laughed, a sharp, nervous sound. "A shrine? This is a monument to something that could kill the world."
"A shrine can be a monument," Iris replied, her tone terrifyingly mild. "It just depends on who it was built for."
They rounded the base, and the entrance appeared. It wasn't a gate. It was a cut. A clean, triangular opening carved into the black obsidian, so perfectly sharp it looked like the stone had simply decided to part.
The darkness inside wasn't an absence of light; it was a space so deep it was impossible for her to see.
Alisa slowed, her heart thudding against her ribs. The entrance didn't feel like a doorway. It felt like darkness.
"So… the god you mentioned is in there?" Alisa asked, her voice thin.
Iris nodded.
"And you're coming with me." It wasn't a question. It was a plea, a desperate anchor she needed to keep her from drifting away.
Iris looked at her then. Really looked. Her eyes were steady, her face softening in a way that felt like a goodbye. "I'm not."
The words hit Alisa with the force of a physical blow. "What? Why not? You said you'd…"
"I said I'd bring you close," Iris said gently. "And I did."
Alisa's fingers clenched around her old clothes until the fabric dug into her palms. Don't leave me. Not here. Not with this.
"Are you leaving?" she asked, her voice barely a breath.
Iris's gaze shifted to the dark triangular hole. "Yes. For a while."
"How long is 'a while'?"
Iris hesitated, and that hesitation was the cruelest thing she had done. "A long time. Long enough that you'll change."
"But i don't want to change," Alisa snapped, her eyes stinging.
"I know," Iris said. "But you will. You have to."
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a
conspiratorial whisper. "Listen to me. You're going to meet people who smile like they understand your pain. You're going to want to believe them, because believing is easier than being alone. But Alisa… don't confuse being seen with being safe."
Iris's gaze flicked past her, toward the horizon, looking suddenly exhausted, like someone who had carried a mountain for a thousand years and was finally being forced to hand it over.
"There's something else," Iris said, her tone sharpening. "Inside."
"The god?"
"No." Iris's eyes turned cold, a warning flair behind the iris. "If you see someone… someone wearing a white robe, hide,run, do anything but getting seen. Do not stare. Do not challenge them."
"Why?" Alisa's stomach dropped.
"Because there are monsters out there," Iris said softly. "And some monsters won't hesitate to devour you."
„There is a monster in there?" Alisa gasped shocked.
Iris shook her head. "A person. And in this world, that's sometimes more dangerous than any god. You need to learn to watch out for yourself. Alisa now go in there. It will help you."
"Will I see you again?" Alisa's throat burned.
"Yes," Iris promised. "But not soon."
Iris stepped back, her outline sharpening against the desert light. She glanced over her shoulder one last time. "And Alisa… just try to believe in yourself even if it seems impossible."
And then, she was gone. No flash of light, no gust of wind. She was simply absent, as if she had been erased from the frame of the world.
Alisa stood alone. The desert felt deafening, the wind, the blood rushing in her ears, the silence of the pyramid. She forced her feet forward, every step feeling like she was walking away from her own soul.
At the threshold, the heat died. It wasn't replaced by cold, but by a stillness so thick it pressed against her eardrums.
The silver light from the crystal above died at the edges of the opening, refused entry.
Alisa hugged her bundle of clothes closer and stepped in.
The darkness didn't swallow her; it welcomed her.
She walked into the cool, damp stone, her footsteps muted and wrong.
Gradually, silver veins appeared on the walls, thin glowing seams like the ones outside, sketching the shape of a corridor that slanted downward into the earth.
It felt like walking through the inside of a living thing.
The descent into the pyramid's throat felt less like entering a building and more like sliding down the gullet of a sleeping titan.
Outside, the world had been a blinding contrast of gold and obsidian; here, the light was a filtered, subterranean silver that seemed to possess a weight of its own, pressing against her skin like cold water.
Alisa's eyes tracked the silver veins that threaded through the black walls.
They weren't just cracks or mineral deposits; they were intricate, branching networks that pulsed with a slow, rhythmic luminosity, sketching the shape of a corridor that slanted downward.
Despite her fear, a frantic, nervous curiosity took hold.
She reached out, her fingertips grazing a particularly bright seam.
The sensation was startling. It wasn't the porous grit of stone or the biting heat of the Sahra Vey.
It felt like polished glass-chilled, impossibly smooth, and vibrating with a faint, high-frequency hum she felt in her teeth.
As her skin made contact, the silver light beneath the surface reacted.
A cascade of tiny, diamond-bright sparks swirled toward her touch, dancing beneath the glass-like barrier like bioluminescent creatures trapped in a dark sea.
"It's like... it's reacting to me," she whispered, her voice a dry rasp. She pulled her hand away, watching the sparks settle back into a dull glow, and hugged her winter bundle tighter.
She continued deeper, the air growing still and heavy. Finally, the corridor opened into a small, hexagonal chamber.
Alisa stopped. This was a dead end, or it was supposed to be.
In the center of the room sat a heavy stone plinth, its surface covered in strange, interlocking metal rings and etched grooves.
On the far wall, a massive obsidian slab blocked the way.
To someone from this world, the setup was an obvious trial: a mechanical "Riddle-Lock" designed to test the mental acuity of a seeker.
Alisa approached it tentatively, her brow furrowing. She stared at the symbols on the rings, jagged, geometric lines that looked nothing like the alphabet of her home world.
She didn't have the slightest idea what they meant. To her, it wasn't a puzzle to be solved; it was an alien machine that might as well have been from another galaxy.
I'm stuck, she thought, a cold spike of panic hitting her chest. I can't do this. I don't know the rules.
But as she stepped closer, she realized the "Trial" was already over.
The metal rings weren't waiting for her touch. They had been forced into a specific, complex alignment, glowing with a fading amber light that suggested a massive amount of energy had just been used to bypass the mechanism.
The grooves on the plinth were still smoking faintly, smelling of ozone and burnt copper.
Beyond the plinth, the massive obsidian door wasn't sealed. It stood slightly ajar, leaving a jagged, vertical sliver of darkness that led into the heart of the shrine.
Alisa's heart hammered against her ribs. She hadn't solved the riddle. She didn't even understand the question. But someone else had.
Someone had arrived only minutes-maybe seconds-before her.
They hadn't just solved the lock; they had dismantled the logic of it so efficiently that the door hadn't even had time to close itself.
Iris's warning echoed in her mind, sharper than ever: "If you see someone… someone wearing a white robe, hide."
She looked back at the long, dark tunnel she had just walked through.
There was nowhere to go but forward. Taking a shaky breath, Alisa squeezed through the gap in the heavy door, her winter bundle snagging slightly on the sharp obsidian edge.
Then she suddenly was in an alleyway stretching forward like a long, lightless throat, reaching nearly a hundred meters into the heart of the structure.
The heat of the desert was now a distant memory, replaced by a stillness that felt heavy, as if the air itself was made of lead.
As Alisa stepped forward, the silver veins in the walls flickered, casting a rhythmic, stuttering light over a scene of absolute, calculated carnage.
Originally, this place must have been a grand corridor of honor. Along both sides of the path, pedestals were built into the obsidian floor, spaced around five meters apart.
On several of them, the heavy, clawed feet of statues still remained, anchored to the stone, while the rest of their bodies lay in ruin.
These had been guardians, statues nearly two and a half meters tall, carved from a strange, iridescent silver stone.
Unlike the rough, packed earth of the desert golem, these were made of something that looked like polished mercury, shimmering with a metallic, pearlescent sheen even in the gloom.
But they were no longer standing.
The statues lay in shattered heaps, silver limbs and heavy torsos strewn across the floor in heavy, shimmering chunks.
Alisa slowed, her boots crunching on silver gravel. As she looked closer, a cold dread began to hollow out her stomach. This wasn't the messy remains of a struggle or a frantic fight.
Every single head or the fragments of where the heads used to be, bore the same mark.
A perfectly circular hole was punched directly through the center of the silver stone, right where a face or a "core" should have been.
The edges of the holes were slightly blackened and melted, the stone turned to slag as if struck by a concentrated, unnatural heat.
One shot for each guardian. Precise. Efficient.
Alisa's knees buckled.
The sight of those holes, those "impossible" points of entry, triggered something deep and violent in her mind.
Her vision blurred, the silver-flecked darkness of the pyramid suddenly being overlaid by a blinding, flashing white.
Pop.
The sound of a sharp, distant crack echoed in her ears.
It wasn't the sound of stone breaking; it was the sound of a "Certainty."
She felt a phantom heat in her chest, a memory of being hunted by something she couldn't outrun through a landscape she didn't recognize.
Her breath came in shallow, panicked stabs.
Her vision tunneled until all she could see were the holes in the statues' heads.
It's happening again, a voice whispered in the back of her mind.
He's here.
The one who was chasing me.
She didn't know why she was thinking of a "he," or why her mind was conjuring the scent of ozone and gunpowder, but the terror was physical.
She collapsed against the wall, her fingers clawed into the smooth obsidian as she struggled for air.
The sensation was overwhelming, a physical weight on her lungs, a trembling in her hands that she couldn't stop.
She felt like she was losing time, the walls of the pyramid closing in like a trap.
No.
Stop it.
She forced her fingers to let go of the stone.
She didn't know who was ahead, but she knew she couldn't stay here, shivering in the dark like a broken thing.
With a sudden, violent motion, Alisa raised her hands and slapped her own cheeks.
Hard.
The sting was sharp and grounding, a physical anchor that dragged her out of the mental fog and back into the black-and-silver hall.
The pain was real.
It meant she was awake.
It meant she was still moving.
"I'm here," she hissed to herself, her voice trembling but determined.
"I'm just... here."
She forced herself upright, her legs shaking.
She wouldn't look at the statues anymore.
She focused on the floor, on the path ahead, on the remaining meters of silence.
She began to walk again.
Each step was a battle against the urge to turn and flee.
The silver stone golems lay like fallen stars around her, their empty, hollowed-out faces watching her pass, but Alisa kept her eyes forward.
She adjusted the strap of her winter bundle, the weight of the old clothes bumping against her hip, and moved toward the end of the alleyway.
Ahead, the silver light of the veins was being drowned out.
A new light was pulsing from around the corner, a cold, electric blue that flickered with a mechanical rhythm.
And then, she heard it.
The sound of a soft, bored hum, followed by the metallic click-clack of something being slotted into place.
The corridor opened into a space that felt like a hallucination.
It was a sanctuary of impossible life, hidden deep within the pyramid's obsidian ribs.
Shallow, crystal-clear pools ringed a central dais, the water so still it looked like a floor of glass until the silver light from above caught the ripples.
Around the edges, lush palms with deep green fronds reached toward the ceiling, their leaves rustling in a phantom breeze that carried the scent of wet earth and blooming flowers.
It was beautiful, tranquil, a garden built for a god to rest in.
But in the center of it all, the peace was being systematically dismantled.
A girl stood at the altar, her back to Alisa.
She was draped in a heavy, high-collared white coat that looked far too pristine for the desert, her auburn hair pulled back into neat, long braids.
She was small, dangerously small, possessing a compact, athletic build that made her look like she was made of springs and wire.
Across the small of her back sat a weapon that looked like it had been stolen from the future.
It was a long, modular sniper rifle, matte-black and segmented, looking less like a gun and more like a surgical instrument designed for long-distance executions.
In front of her was a mess of "magic" that Alisa couldn't begin to name.
It looked like a clock had been exploded and frozen in mid-air.
Floating brass rings, glowing blue wires, and crystalline shards spun in a tight, humming orbit.
To Alisa, it looked like the girl was playing with the very soul of the pyramid, her fingers twitching through the air as her right eye flickered with a ghostly blue light.
"Come on, come on... don't be a pain," the girl muttered to herself. Her voice wasn't the scary, deep tone of a villain; it was the casual, annoyed mumble of a teenager trying to fix a broken toy.
She leaned in closer to a spinning gear, her braids brushing against the white fabric of her coat. "If the output is this high, the resonance should be... ah, there you are, you little brat."
She flicked a finger through a holographic projection, her eyes narrowing behind that glowing blue lens.
"Stupid," she whispered, a small, predatory smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.
"Building a whole temple just to hide something boring like that?
Did you really think no one would notice the gap in the frequency?
It's like leaving the front door wide open and being surprised when someone walks in."
She let out a short, dry chuckle and reached for a metallic module, slotting it into the floating mess with a sharp clack.
"There. Now let's see what's actually hidden here. Better be worth the walk, or I'm going to be seriously annoyed."
She tapped a final sequence into the air and stepped back, her hands dropping to her sides.
The silver light from the apex crystal didn't just brighten, it screamed.
The peaceful garden was suddenly drowned in a searing, violent white glare.
The water in the pools began to churn, splashing against the palms, as a massive, hulking shadow began to pull itself out of the light in the center of the dais.
Alisa huddled behind her pillar, her breath hitching.
She watched as the girl casually reached back, her hand closing around the grip of the black rifle with a movement so smooth it looked like her arm was made of liquid.
The silver light on the dais thickened, curdling into a physical weight that drew in the garden's humidity and the fine mineral dust of the chamber.
Slowly, the Guardian rose, a five-meter monolith of interlocking silver-mercury plates and jagged obsidian.
Its torso was as broad as a carriage, and its limbs hissed with escaping steam as they settled into a stance of geometric violence.
To Alisa, cowering behind the rough trunk of a palm, the thing looked like a prehistoric god.
It's too big, she thought, a frantic hope clawing at her chest.
It's a lumbering statue.
She can just run.
The girl in the white coat stood with her back turned, hands casually in her pockets.
Compared to the titan, she looked like a porcelain doll.
Alisa wanted to scream, but her voice was a frozen shard in her throat.
The Guardian raised a fist the size of an anvil.
Then, the world skipped a beat.
The titan didn't swing; it displaced.
In an instantaneous burst of motion, it vanished and reappeared mid-strike.
The "slowness" had been a lie, a byproduct of its internal systems priming for a vacuum-sealed dash.
Its fist cut through the air with a boom that shattered the reflections in the water, spraying Alisa with a stinging mist.
The girl wasn't there.
She moved at the exact microsecond the Guardian's gears shifted.
She performed a tight, aerial corkscrew, her white coat flaring like the wings of an owl.
She grazed the top of the Guardian's forearm, using the wind pressure of its own momentum to loft herself higher.
Mid-flight, the matte-black sniper rifle was in her hands.
CRACK.
A bolt of energy hissed.
The Guardian snapped its arm up to shield its core.
The shot ricocheted off the silver plating with a spray of sparks.
The girl landed on the tip of a swaying palm frond, her weight so perfectly distributed that the branch barely dipped.
She looked... bored.
"Ugh, so you are the adaptive type" she muttered, her right eye flickering with a ghostly blue light as she scanned the impact site.
"The more I hit it, the more the material hardens to compensate for the force.
If I keep plinking at it, I'm just building it a better suit of armor.
I've only got one shot at a total structural collapse, or this is going to be a long afternoon."
The Guardian roared and lunged.
It became a relentless bombardment of blurred silver and stone.
The girl became a ghost in white and auburn, flipping off walls and sliding through pools.
"Is that all?" she chirped, back-flipping over a sweeping claw.
"You're moving like you've got rust in your sub-routines.
Honestly, who coded you? A toddler?"
She didn't fire at the titan.
Instead, she fired three rapid shots into the high, vaulted ceiling, hitting specific, darkened veins of reddish rock directly above an obsidian-lined trench.
"Hey! Over here, you big paperweight!" she shouted, waving mockingly.
The Guardian pivoted with a violent hiss of hydraulics.
It charged, its five-meter frame gaining terrifying momentum as it thundered toward her.
"Three... two... one..." she whispered, a predatory smirk pulling at her lips.
She fired a final shot, not at the Guardian, but at a structural pillar.
The impact caused a chain reaction.
The ceiling veins groaned, and massive, multi-ton slabs of jagged rock sheared away, plummeting toward the floor.
The Guardian tried to halt, but its own massive inertia betrayed it.
It skidded on the wet obsidian, losing traction.
As it stumbled into the trench, the ceiling collapsed.
Tons of stone rained down, pinning its silver limbs and crushing its obsidian torso under the weight of the pyramid's own architecture.
The titan was trapped, its mineral fire flickering weakly.
"See? Gravity always works" she said, hopping down.
She walked toward the wreckage, her boots clicking on the stone.
She reached into the center of the crushed machine, her hand disappearing into the gap in its chest.
With a metallic snap, she pulled out a glowing, fist-sized orb of pure silver energy.
She tossed the "heart" into the air, catching it with a satisfied hum before sliding it into a pouch.
"One minute, forty-eight seconds," she sighed, popping a lollipop into her mouth. "A bit of a workout, I guess."
Then, without turning around, her voice dropped into a sweet, terrifying purr.
"You can stop holding your breath now, little mouse. You're going to pass out if you keep that up."
She turned slowly, her predatory blue eye-lens locking onto the palm tree where Alisa was hiding.
"Come out. I don't like talking to people i can't see. It's annoying, and I've already used up my patience for the day."
Alisa's legs felt like they were made of water.
She slowly stepped out from behind the thick, mossy trunk of the palm tree, her boots squelching slightly in the damp soil.
She clutched her bundle of clothes against her chest as if it could shield her from the person who had just collapsed the ceiling on a titan.
The girl stood by the wreckage, her matte-black rifle already slung back across her shoulders with practiced ease.
As Alisa emerged, the blue light of the lens in the girl's eye flickered, scanning Alisa from head to toe.
The predatory smirk didn't just fade, it vanished into a look of genuine, squint-eyed confusion.
She tilted her head, the auburn braids shifting over her white coat.
"Wait... what?" she muttered, the glowing HUD in her eye reflecting off her lashes.
"You're just a little girl.
I thought the temple had sent a scout or some local 'chosen' hero to stop me."
She sighed, the tension leaving her shoulders as she relaxed her stance.
She looked less like an assassin now and more like a bored traveler who had been interrupted during a chore.
She held out a small, gloved hand toward Alisa, her expression softening into something almost approachable.
"Relax. Come closer," she said, her voice regaining that light, airy quality.
"I don't bite. Usually. I'm Dottie."
Alisa stood frozen for a long moment, her eyes darting between Dottie's outstretched hand and the crushed heap of silver stone behind her.
"Alisa," she whispered, her voice so thin it was nearly swallowed by the sound of the falling water in the pools.
She didn't move any closer.
"Nice to meet you, Alisa.
Now, care to tell me why a teenager is wandering around a death trap in the middle of a desert?" Dottie asked, her blue eyes sharp with curiosity.
"You don't exactly look like the tomb-robbing type."
Alisa didn't answer.
She looked down at her boots, her knuckles white as she gripped her bundle.
Her mind was a whirlwind of Iris's warnings and the sheer violence she had just witnessed.
Dottie watched her for a few seconds, then let out a long, dramatic sigh, dropping her hand.
"Fine, keep your secrets. But seriously, stop shaking. It's annoying to look at," Dottie said, reaching into her coat to adjust her gear.
"You can breathe. I'm not such a bad person that I'd go around hurting teenagers.
I have standards, you know?
Besides, you're not a threat.
My lens is basically telling me your heart rate is high enough to power a small village. You're terrified."
Alisa looked up, her gaze wandering toward the pouch on Dottie's belt where the silver light was still faintly leaking through the leather.
"What... what was that?" Alisa asked, her curiosity momentarily overshooting her fear.
"The thing you took from the golem. The light."
Dottie patted the pouch, a small, satisfied grin returning to her face.
"This? It's just an energy core. Think of it like a battery, but way more temperamental. It's something important for my work, I use them to bridge the gap between this ancient junk and my machines. Without it, my 'toys' don't have enough kick."
She popped the lollipop back into her mouth and turned back toward the floating machinery at the altar.
Dottie leaned back against the obsidian altar, the blue light of her lens casting a faint, rhythmic glow over her freckled face.
Seeing that Alisa was still tight-lipped and trembling, she gave a nonchalant wave of her hand.
"Look, if you don't want to talk, don't talk. I'm not going to play interrogator all day. I've got a schedule to keep," Dottie said, her tone shifting back to that casual, bored melody.
Alisa swallowed hard, her voice finally finding some strength. "I'm... I'm searching for a god."
Dottie froze. She didn't look impressed or enlightened; she looked like someone had just told her the sky was actually purple.
She stared at Alisa for a beat, then let out a dry, sharp puff of a laugh.
"A god?" Dottie repeated, shaking her head as she turned back to her floating gears and humming wires.
"Sweetie, I don't know what you're talking about, but you're not going to find anything like that. Just old stone and a lot of dust."
She reached into the floating mess of machinery, her fingers dancing through the blue holographic displays.
"Actually, if you mean a god in general, like anywhere, you're wasting your time," Dottie continued, her voice dropping into a darker, more private register.
She didn't look at Alisa now; she was staring at a spinning brass ring.
"If there actually is a god out there, he's a cruel one. This world is way too gruesome for someone 'merciful' to be running the show. It's just a cycle of broken things and people getting crushed."
She stopped mid-sentence, her fingers hovering over the light.
She blinked, as if suddenly realizing she had let the mask slip too far.
"Well... never mind. Forget what I just said. Let's talk about something else," she mumbled, her expression snapping back into its usual playful, focused mask.
She fell silent for a moment, the only sound being the high-pitched whirring of the gears as she made a final adjustment.
Click.
The sound was tiny, but in the silence of the chamber, it rang out like a gunshot.
Dottie's eyes widened, and a bright, genuine smile broke across her face.
"Finally!" she cheered, her voice bouncing off the high ceiling.
Alisa blinked, taking a small, hesitant step forward.
"What... what happened?"
Dottie's smirk returned, sharper and more excited than before.
"Look and watch."
A low, tectonic rumble started deep beneath their feet.
The water in the pools began to dance and splash over the edges as the obsidian floor in front of the altar began to split.
With a heavy, grinding roar, the stone retracted, revealing a wide staircase that spiraled down into the earth.
Rows of silver-white lights flickered to life one by one along the walls, trailing down into the depths like a string of fallen stars.
Dottie let out a low whistle, her braids swaying as she peered into the new passage.
"Woah. Didn't expect that. Talk about a hidden layer."
Alisa stood there, her mouth slightly open as she watched the glowing path reveal itself.
It felt impossible, yet so familiar.
"Like in the movies..." she mumbled under her breath.
Dottie paused, her sharp blue eyes darting toward Alisa. "Did you say something?"
Alisa's face instantly shook her head. She looked down at her bundle, hugging it tighter.
"Uh... no. Nothing. Nothing at all."
Dottie chuckled, popping her lollipop back to the other side of her mouth.
"Sure, kid. Whatever you say. Since you're looking for 'divinity' and I'm looking for some components, I guess we're going down."
Dottie didn't bother waiting for a formal invitation.
She hopped off the altar with a sharp, metallic clack of her boots and headed straight for the yawning descent, her white coat billowing behind her like a shroud.
Alisa hesitated for only a second, the thought of being left alone in the silent chamber with the mangled remains of that silver titan was way scarier than following the girl who had just dismantled it.
She hurried after her, the sound of her own heavy footsteps echoing off the cold, obsidian walls.
"Watch your step, little mouse," Dottie called out, her voice echoing up the spiral with a casual, airy lilt.
"These stones are basically ice. One slip and you're just a messy splatter at the bottom, and I really don't feel like cleaning that up."
Alisa gripped the strap of her clothes, her eyes locked on the strange, glowing blue ring hovering just in front of Dottie's right eye.
It wasn't a physical lens, but a flickering hologram that pulsed with a ghostly light, casting sharp, digital lines across the girl's freckled cheek.
"What is that?" Alisa asked, her voice hushed and curious. "The... the light in front of your eye."
Dottie reached up, her gloved thumb tapping a small sensor near her temple. The blue hologram flickered and vanished instantly, leaving her eye completely clear.
"This?" she asked, not looking back as the darkness of the stairs swallowed them.
"It's how I read the world. It shows me heat, where things are weak, and where the power is flowing. It's basically a small help so I don't have to waste time on things that don't work."
She tapped the sensor again, and the blue glow flooded back, the translucent HUD hovering once more before her pupil.
"Pretty cool, right? Beats just staring at a wall and hoping for the best."
Dottie tilted her head back slightly, her sharp eyes scanning Alisa's silhouette in the dim light.
"Speaking of weird... your clothes. What's the deal with that?"
Alisa looked down at her thick, heavy layers, the sturdy wool and the old-world Russian stitching that felt so right in her memories but so heavy in this heat.
"They're... from my home," she mumbled.
"Well, your home must be freezing," Dottie remarked, her auburn braids swaying as she descended.
"It's totally out of place for a desert, but the way it's made... it's different.
You know, you actually remind me of someone. Another girl I've got staying with me.
You two have the same 'out of place' vibe."
Alisa's heart skipped a beat. A spark of desperate hope flared in her chest.
"Another girl? Who? Is she... like me?"
Dottie's posture stiffened for a microsecond. She reached into her pocket, moving the lollipop to the other side of her mouth, her expression going uncharacteristically quiet.
"Don't worry about it," she said, her voice suddenly flat.
"She's just a girl I found. Not really your business."
"But—"
"I said forget it," Dottie interrupted, her tone sharp enough to end the conversation.
"We've got enough to deal with right now."
The air began to change as they went deeper. The scent of damp earth was replaced by a sharp, biting tang of ozone and old, stagnant electricity.
The silver lights on the walls began to pulse in time with a low, heavy thrum that Alisa could feel vibrating in her teeth.
"I like your rifle," Alisa said, trying to fix the mood.
Dottie's hand drifted to the matte-black grip of the weapon on her back.
"Her name is Requiem," she said, a hint of real pride returning to her voice.
"I built her myself. Most people around here are happy with rusty knives, but I like things to be precise. If you're going to hit something, you should do it right the first time. It's more elegant that way."
As they rounded the final curve of the spiral, the staircase didn't just end; it opened into a space so vast the ceiling was lost to the dark.
Dottie slowed her pace, her hand tightening on her rifle, her casual attitude replaced by a sudden, sharp focus.
"Well," she whispered, the blue hologram in front of her eye strobing rapidly as she scanned the abyss ahead.
"This definitely isn't the basement I expected."
Alisa stepped out beside her, her breath hitching.
In the dim silver glow, something massive and impossibly smooth stretched out before them, a structure that looked less like stone and more like a giant, sleeping machine.