The tower door opened inward with a sound like rusted bones grinding together.
Eryndor immediately regretted entering.
Not because he was afraid.
Because the smell inside reminded him of hospitals.
Dust.
Metal.
And something faintly organic hidden beneath both.
—Excellent decision-making as always.—
He stepped carefully into the darkness.
The door closed behind him on its own.
"…Right."
No panic.
Panic required surprise.
And the tower had stopped being surprising the moment it replayed a bell incorrectly.
The interior was larger than it should have been.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to bother him.
The staircase along the inner wall spiraled upward around an enormous hanging pendulum that no longer moved.
At least—
he thought it wasn't moving.
Eryndor stared for several seconds.
The pendulum remained still.
Then suddenly appeared slightly farther left than before.
No motion.
No transition.
Just a different position.
"…I hate this place."
His voice echoed upward.
Then echoed again a second later from somewhere lower inside the tower.
Eryndor froze.
That second echo had not used his voice correctly.
Outside, the village had begun gathering near the square.
Nobody wanted to admit fear openly.
So naturally everyone was talking too much.
"I'm telling you the bells repeated."
An older farmer shook his head.
"Bells don't repeat."
A woman nearby folded her arms.
"And towers don't grow extra clock hands either, but here we are."
The drunk from earlier pointed aggressively at the tower from across the road.
"I knew that place was freyed."
The hunter from the tavern sighed heavily.
"You call everything freyed."
"That's because everything keeps proving me correct."
No one argued with that.
Near the edge of the gathering stood a Church observer wearing gray robes lined with pale silver thread.
Brother Caelum.
Technically not important enough to matter.
Unfortunately for him, strange events rarely respected rank.
He stared toward the tower with growing unease.
"…the pressure changed."
A nearby villager blinked.
"The what?"
Caelum hesitated.
"…Nothing."
But it wasn't nothing.
The air around the hill felt heavier now.
Not physically.
Interpretively.
Like the area had become harder for reality to process smoothly.
And somewhere beneath that pressure—
he felt something attempting to respond.
Inside the tower, Eryndor reached the second floor.
Broken gears and rusted mechanisms covered the walls.
Most were frozen.
Some moved occasionally when he wasn't looking directly at them.
That was becoming a theme.
A cracked mirror stood near the far wall.
Eryndor glanced toward it casually—
then stopped.
His reflection was still moving.
Not dramatically.
Just slightly behind him.
The reflected Eryndor slowly lifted his eyes first.
Then smiled faintly.
Eryndor did not.
The mirror cracked instantly down the middle.
He stepped backward immediately.
"…No."
A pause.
"…Absolutely not."
The tower remained silent.
Which somehow felt worse.
Far above him, something ticked once.
Heavy.
Ancient.
The sound vibrated through the entire structure.
Dust fell from the ceiling beams.
And for a brief moment—
Eryndor saw Threads.
Not clearly.
Barely.
Thin golden lines stretching through the darkness overhead like fractures hidden beneath reality itself.
Then they vanished.
His head suddenly pounded violently.
Images flashed across his mind.
A burning skyline.
Black oceans.
A giant structure beneath endless storms.
Something enormous turning slowly toward him from beyond a horizon split apart by light.
Then—
nothing.
Eryndor stumbled against the wall breathing unevenly.
"…what the frey was that?"
Blood dripped slowly from his nose.
He wiped it away silently.
The blood on his fingers looked wrong for half a second.
Too dark.
Almost golden beneath the dim light.
Then normal again.
Outside, the tower bell rang.
Once.
The villagers flinched collectively.
Then it rang again.
But not from above.
From underneath.
Silence spread instantly across the square.
Even the wind seemed uncertain.
Brother Caelum's expression changed completely.
"…That's impossible."
The hunter frowned.
"What?"
Caelum stared directly at the tower now.
"The lower mechanism was removed twenty years ago."
Nobody spoke.
Then somewhere near the back of the crowd, an old woman whispered quietly:
"…the tower is answering something."
Back inside, Eryndor slowly looked upward into the darkness spiraling above him.
The tower no longer felt abandoned.
It felt attentive.
And for the first time—
he realized something deeply unsettling.
The strange phenomena tonight were not random.
They were reactions.
Not disturbances.
Responses.
To him.