The streets of Ma'habre stretched endlessly beneath Roy's feet.
Ancient stone roads split apart beneath thick roots that had forced themselves upward through the city over centuries untold. Massive structures towered overhead, their architecture impossibly grand, built not for men but for beings that stood far taller. Pillars thicker than entire houses rose toward the heavens, engraved with spiraling patterns and depictions of gods he could barely stand to look at directly.
And yet the city was dead.
Silence ruled Ma'habre in a way Roy had never experienced before. Even the wind blowing between the streets felt muted, as though afraid to disturb the sleeping remains of something sacred.
A lone moon hung high in the sky, shining its silver light onto the streets below and making them shine like a dead man.
Roy wandered through the streets in a daze.
His legs moved on their own while his mind floated somewhere far away, wrapped inside a strange dreamlike haze. The pain from the hall of the new gods had dulled considerably now. His thoughts no longer raced with panic. Instead, they drifted slowly from one realization to another.
Ma'habre. The city of the gods that was once inhabited by the old ones.
The city where Alll-Mer, the ascended had once treated the streets of and soon cast his shadow to rise into the ranks of the older gods.
Ma'habre was ancient beyond comprehension. Older than kingdoms. Older than empires. Perhaps older than civilization itself.
Every structure carried impossible craftsmanship. Massive statues stood beside the roads depicting crowned figures and old gods alike. Long dried fountains stretched across plazas large enough to fit entire towns within them. Bridges connected distant towers overhead like veins crossing through the body of some gigantic beast.
And yet there was nobody.
Only emptiness.
Roy slowly walked past one particularly gigantic monument depicting a faceless humanoid figure seated upon a throne. Moss and roots had nearly swallowed it whole. Tiny flowers bloomed from cracks in the stone.
A strange sadness settled into his chest.
What happened here?
What kind of disaster could erase a place like this from the world?
He walked for what felt like hours.
Or perhaps minutes.
In this place frozen in time, it was difficult to figure out how long he had spent inside it.
Sometimes he thought he saw figures standing in distant alleyways only for them to disappear when he blinked. Sometimes he heard faint whispers drifting through the streets, speaking in languages his mind somehow almost understood.
At one point, Roy found himself staring upward at the black sky.
There were no stars — only the moon.
A massive pale moon hanging unnaturally close above the city.
The farther he wandered into Ma'habre, the less real his body began to feel. Thoughts came sluggishly now. His limbs moved without instruction. Even fear itself had become distant.
Like a dream.
A terrible dream wearing the shape of divinity.
Eventually, Roy wandered toward a quieter section of the city.
Smaller stone houses lined the street here, though even these were larger and more elaborate than most modern mansions. Wooden doors had long since rotted away. Vines crawled along marble walls. Dust coated everything in pale grey layers.
Roy absentmindedly stepped into one of the houses. The room was dimly lit by faint moonlight spilling through cracks in the ceiling. Broken shelves lined the walls while strange metallic instruments sat scattered across stone tables. Many had rusted beyond recognition.
His eyes drifted slowly across the room.
Glass vials filled with dried black liquid sat organized neatly across shelves. Strange bundles of herbs hung upside down from strings near the ceiling, now brittle with age. Thin silver needles rested inside shallow trays beside small carved figurines made of ivory and stone.
One of the tables was covered entirely in jewelry.
Thin golden chains decorated with tiny bells and crimson gemstones. Bracelets engraved with symbols Roy recognized from old texts discussing ritual worship. A silver necklace shaped like intertwined serpents.
He slowly picked it up.
Cold.
Despite the age of everything around him, the metal still felt unnaturally pristine.
Roy placed it back down carefully.
The deeper he wandered into the house, the stranger the objects became.
A bowl filled with pale teeth.
Bundles of reddish hair tied together with silk ribbon.
Fragments of parchment covered in diagrams of the human body, except the organs had been replaced with spiraling symbols and depictions of flowers blooming inside open flesh.
Roy swallowed quietly.
Even now, inside this dreamlike haze, unease began creeping back into his chest.
"What the hell…"
His voice sounded small inside the empty house.
And then—
Something caught his eye.
Near the back wall sat a wooden desk partially collapsed beneath debris and dust. Unlike the rest of the room, this section seemed deliberately hidden, almost swallowed by shadows.
Roy slowly approached it.
The desk was cluttered with objects.
Small polished stones, cracked mirror, talisman of unknown origin and finally, resting near the center— a box.
It was small enough to fit inside both his hands comfortably. Dark wood carved with delicate swirling patterns covered its surface. Unlike everything else in the house, it looked untouched by time.
Roy hesitated.
Then slowly opened it.
Inside were two balls. Wrapped tightly in cloth.
Roy felt his pulse quicken slightly.
The moment he stared directly into them, warmth spread faintly behind his own eyes.
And so he knew what these were.
The eyes of the old god of Creation, love and fertility who gave birth to humans.
The eyes of Sylvian.
His fingers moved before his mind fully caught up.
The moment he picked them up—
Thump!
His heart slammed violently inside his chest.
Roy gasped sharply.
Heat surged through his body like molten liquid flooding his veins. The exhaustion clouding his thoughts shattered instantly. His senses sharpened all at once.
He could suddenly hear the wind outside more clearly, feel the coldness of the stone beneath his shoes and even hear the blood coursing through his veins.
The deep mental fatigue dragging his consciousness downward began peeling away rapidly, like waking from an impossibly long sleep.
And then he woke up.
...