"It details… Humanity, I guess," Sunny said slowly, his voice low, almost reverent despite the grim humor he tried to inject. "Or maybe just the world in general. Gods bestowing crowns, kings building cities, cities breeding prosperity. But then the flame begins to crack, and threads of black cut across everything. Blood, death, chaos… For a picture on a wall, it's disturbingly detailed."
He tried to lighten the weight of the observation with a half-smile, half-joke. "Really makes you appreciate the painters back then, huh? Talk about immersive storytelling."
Neither of the girls laughed.
"Does it say anything specifically about this City?" Cassie asked, her fingers still tracing the smooth surface of the bones that framed the mural.
"No," Sunny replied, scanning the panels again. "Doesn't mention it directly. I think it's just… general. A record of events, a warning, or maybe a history someone wanted to preserve."
Nephis exhaled, her eyes narrowing as she studied the mural's shadows and colors. "Right. So the flame still fades eventually, and the darkness creeps back in, rotting and decaying the world. That seems consistent with what we're seeing everywhere. This must be the source of the nightmares, the Corruption, the reason this City is dead. But… what were the Gods doing during all of this?"
Sunny tilted his head, peering closer at the intricate paintwork. "It doesn't say. The last we see of them, they're standing around the flame, watching it fade. And then… the mural jumps to humans, cities collapsing, kingdoms burning." He shook his head, a quiet frustration settling into his shoulders. "Nothing else. No explanation, no intervention. Just… witness."
Cassie's lips pressed into a thin line. "So even the Gods stood by as everything fell apart." Her whisper was almost a hiss, laced with disbelief.
"Or maybe it wasn't their job to interfere," Nephis suggested, her tone more analytical than moral. "Perhaps they set the world in motion and let it play out. Our role, as Sleepers, might just be the continuation of that… pattern."
Sunny sighed, leaning back slightly. "I suppose so. Makes our job sound a lot less glamorous than I imagined."
"How many more murals are there?" Cassie asked, her blind eyes scanning as if she could see with thought alone.
"Three," Sunny replied, gesturing to the right. "Three more of these. I have a feeling they're going to get… messier."
Nephis's silver-lit eyes glimmered in the dim light of the columbarium. "Then let's move. Knowledge does't directly come to you, you have to go seeking for it."
The third mural immediately struck the trio with a sense of incomprehensible dread. Unlike the first two, which had focused on the Flame, Humanity, and the Gods, this one appeared to unfold entirely within the Darkness—the Void itself. Its backdrop was an infinite black expanse, a churning nothingness that seemed to devour both light and shape, yet somehow gave birth to form. From the nothingness emerged abominations, grotesque and ever-shifting, bodies that flickered between angles and shapes as though their existence strained against comprehension. Limbs bent where they should not, faces formed only to dissolve into new arrangements, and eyes stared without thought. Every creation was fleeting, vanishing as quickly as it appeared, swallowed once more by the inexorable dark from which it had come.
Sunny's eyes squinted as he tried to process it. "These… these aren't just monsters. They're… experiments of the Void. Life that can't survive itself."
Cassie's fingers trembled slightly as she traced the mural from a distance, instinctively recoiling from the chaotic forms. "It's… endless. They keep coming and going, like the darkness itself is trying to learn how to create."
Nephis said nothing at first. Her gaze was steady, analytical, sweeping over each writhing form as though cataloging and measuring every anomaly. "The Void is unstable," she finally stated her theory. "It cannot sustain life without collapsing it. This… this is a record of that instability, of the constant cycle of creation and destruction."
Yet the mural did not remain in endless chaos for long. Slowly, amid the darkness, a single shape took form: a dim crimson sphere, its color muted against the Void, yet distinct. It pulsated faintly, the only stable presence in the otherwise unmanageable void. Following it, a strange, gnarled tree emerged, twisting unnaturally, with a male figure at its base and a female figure perched near its highest branches. Their postures suggested something almost ritualistic, a hierarchy or interaction that Sunny could not immediately place.
Next came a swirling ball of grey, black, and white, constantly shifting, a cyclone of shades that defied permanence. Unlike the chaotic abominations that had preceded it, these three shapes—the sphere, the tree, and the swirling mass—did not vanish. They persisted, stable, as though they had achieved a form of mastery over the Void itself.
And then, subtly but unmistakably, the seventh ember from the other murals appeared. Golden and small, it split into multiple fragments, scattering across the darkness. Most of the sparks dimmed and seemed to die, swallowed by the crimson sphere—but one lingered, weak but persistent. It was drawn into the sphere, which then cracked open and released seven new, horrifying and magnificent forms, each distinct yet interconnected in purpose and design.
The first was a woman of impossible form: three heads atop three conjoined bodies. One held a mercury river that flowed from nothing, one held a blade of mercury that sliced the back of the river, while the third's hands were busy weaving the front of the river.
The second was a conjoined trinity of men, locked in a circle. One body shimmered silver, a reflection of suffering and torment. Another was black, emanating the oppressive weight of sin. The third gleamed rainbow-colored, a manifestation of benevolence and hope. The trio spun slowly, a delicate balance of extremes, constantly chasing each other but never fully touching.
The third figure seemed to embody the cosmos itself: a humanoid silhouette filled with galaxies, stars, and nebulae swirling in its form. It shun like a thousand suns.
Next was a shadowy maw, a gaping void within the Void, full of churning chaos and primordial colors. It pulsed and churned as if digesting the very fabric of reality, an unending hunger that threatened to unravel existence itself.
Then appeared a tiny dot, unassuming yet radiant with energy, sending ripples across the Void. Each ripple spread outward like waves, expanding into infinity—a representation, perhaps, of sound or vibration, the first signal.
A massive figure followed: a Giant wrapped in bandages, streaked with gold plating, streams of putrid green water spiraling around him. His bulk seemed to contain both decay and majesty, a creature whose very presence was a lesson in mortality and entropy.
Finally, the seventh figure was a strange shadow, ephemeral yet distinct, existing in multiple planes at once. Only a pair of cold, emotionless eyes gave it coherence, observing everything in silence, unblinking, its attention impossible to avoid.
Sunny took a sharp breath, feeling the weight of the mural press on him. "Seven? What are these...Unholy Titans?"
Cassie shivered, drawing her hand back. "It's like… each one represents something fundamental. The three-headed woman is Fate, the Giant is decay, the star figure is the Cosmos, the swirling vortex is chaos and order...I can't guess some of the rest."
Nephis's silver eyes narrowed, her expression unreadable. "Then does that mean the Void has gone from everchanging to having a solidified form? Butthe Darkness remains even after these seven, no, these ten creatures exist. And what of the supposed Seventh God, the ember that was sacrificed? Is he dead?"
Sunny finally muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, "If the first mural was about the Flame, and the second about the world… then this… this is about our enemy, the things the Spellwants us to fight."
"Conjecture" Nephis interupted. "Remeber: all of this could be fake. Don't go believing paintings on a wall so easily."
Cassie nodded faintly, though her face remained pale. "Nephis is right, we have no way to validate this thing's authenticy."
"Next mural."