Chapter 137 - The Ghost in the Foundation

The descent into the Capital's under-belly was not a journey through stone and earth; it was a crawl through the intestines of a dying god. We entered through a maintenance hatch hidden behind a derelict pump-station, dropping into a world where the air was thick enough to chew and tasted of oxidized copper. The walls here were a jagged mosaic of ancient granite and the same obsidian-black stone we had found beneath Valmere. They didn't just sit there; they hummed. Every time I touched the wall to steady myself, the interlocking circles on my palm flared a violent, sickening purple, sending a jolt of cold data straight to my skull.