Date: February 12, 542 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
The passage through the Gate left a feeling as if the body had been run through a hundred millstones. Grak the Axe was the first to come to, instantly leaping to his feet. His legendary weapon was already in his hands, enveloped in a barely perceptible pulsating haze—a passive manifestation of his will. As a Herald, he regained control of his senses faster than the others, but even on his stern face, one could read confusion.
Beside him, breathing heavily, Liana rose. She pressed her palm to her temple, trying to quell the dizziness. Two other knights—the silent veterans Soren and Thorn—took up defensive positions, but their swords trembled in their hands. It wasn't the tremor of fear, but a strange vibration emanating from the floor itself.
"Where are we..." Liana whispered, surveying the hall. "Commander, this doesn't look like the Temple."
They were in a huge chamber that seemed the embodiment of profound antiquity. The walls were made of the same obsidian as the entrance corridors, but here the stone looked exhausted. The surface of the blocks was covered in a network of such fine cracks they resembled the skin of an ancient creature. A thick grey suspension hung in the air, smelling of rusty iron and dried dust, which settled on the knights' armor in seconds.
Liana shifted awkwardly, and her scabbard scraped against one of the columns. Instead of a ring, a dull, wet sound came. The girl watched in horror as a massive piece of stone fell from the column and, before hitting the floor, crumbled into fine sand.
"Do not touch anything unnecessarily," Grak boomed. His voice in this silence sounded unnaturally low, as if sound itself had undergone some distortion.
He approached the edge of the hall, where a thin trickle of water seeped from the ceiling. A drop slowly swelled, fell... but its fall was strange. Midway, it suddenly turned yellow, shriveled, and turned into a dry grey speck of dust before it even touched the surface.
"The space here is... unstable," Grak frowned, peering into the grey twilight. "I don't know where the portal threw us, but this place is actively destroying the very structure of matter. This is no ordinary trap; it's a fundamental violation of order."
The commander raised his axe, and a powerful wave of his inner essence radiated in all directions, creating a sphere of stability around the group. Inside this dome, the air instantly became cleaner, and Liana felt the oppressive anxiety recede slightly. Grak didn't know exactly what he was fighting, but his Herald experience suggested: they needed to shield themselves from this place with their own will.
They moved forward along the only corridor. Their steps sounded muffled, as if the floor was carpeted with an invisible soft rug. Liana walked beside Grak, carefully watching the edge of his protective dome. She saw the steel rivets on Soren's cloak, who was slightly behind, suddenly covered with a rusty patina and crumbled to dust within seconds. Soren flinched and instinctively densified his Warrior power, trying to keep his armor from disintegrating.
"Commander, look at the shadows," Liana whispered, pointing at the wall.
Their own shadows, cast by the light of Grak's axe, were behaving oddly. They didn't precisely mirror the knights' movements, but seemed to lag by a fraction of a second, or conversely, made gestures the people would only make an instant later. It seemed reality itself here was broken into thousands of small fragments, each living in its own rhythm.
"This place seems to be... grinding everything that enters it," Tórn speculated, rubbing his stiff arm. "As if we're inside a giant hourglass that forgot to be turned."
"Perhaps," Grak stopped at a fork. "But this process has a purpose. The Temple of True Equilibrium does not tolerate chaos. If decay reigns here, then somewhere else—creation. We must find a way to the central axis. My ability to hold this dome is not infinite. The density of the surrounding environment drains my strength far faster than any battle."
They turned into the left tunnel, where the walls were covered in strange bas-reliefs. On the stone were depicted people who, before one's eyes, turned into old men, and then into infants. The cycle of life and death was looped into an endless spiral. Liana felt her "Guiding Branch" Spirit vibrate anxiously, pointing ahead into the darkness.
"Someone's there," she instantly drew her thin needle-sword. "Not ruins. Living. I feel active resistance to the background."
Grak nodded, his gaze hardening with focus. "Competitors. Looks like someone else ended up in this labyrinth. And they're also trying to cut a path through by force."
The commander checked the sharpness of his axe blade. He didn't know which part of the Temple they were in or how long this march through disintegrating space would last, but the presence of an enemy was something understandable and tangible. In a world where water turns to dust in flight, an honest fight seemed almost a relief.
"Move quietly," Grak commanded. "We need to understand who they are before they notice us. In this place, any wound could be fatal if it falls into a zone of accelerated decay. Don't step outside my protection."
The group disappeared into the shadows of the corridor. Liana felt fear mixed with excitement pulse within her Vessel. They were Knights of Order, and now the universe itself was challenging them, trying to erase them from the fabric of time. But as long as the light of their commander's axe burned, they had a chance not to become just another handful of grey dust under the vaults of the ancient Temple.