Trust is a precious thing.

It is one of those things in the world that is earned, not given; a fragile little orchid that must be cultivated and maintained in tandem with another before it can flower, the petals only gaining color when it builds roots in a garden it knows will not cut it down. It is something Kvasir can be particularly choosy about, careful with-- there has to be some layer of precaution, after all, when his memories fail him so readily and his mind is full of hollow spaces in the shapes of people he knows he should know. For all his skill with botany, he's cautious with where he lets the seeds of trust blossom.

Still, there are inevitably some of those people he cannot help but trust a bit more readily than others, the garden bearing fruit a bit faster. There is Morrigan Moonweaver, an overflowing grove of flowers and fallen stars, who Kvasir would hand his very life to if they asked it of him. There is Nyr, his apprentice, who has his trust and adoration in full form. There is Zarius, who has shown him unwarranted kindness time and time again.

And then there is Cirice Lunestra, bright-eyed and sweet-voiced and kindly-smiling, moondust condensed into a wisp of a woman, her love of the world and gentle passion for justice easily having seized Kvasir's trust in their first meeting.

He does not regret handing her that distinction-- not in the slightest. But as he stands here in the far reaches of the White Sand Sea, beneath the sparkling stars, the moon looming over them like a full and curious eye, he is beginning to realize that perhaps he should not have trusted her so deeply that he agreed to following her out on what apparently amounted to a religious pilgrimage to a location they'd just have to figure out together-- a location that he'd not only desperately been trying to avoid, but that he'd been expressly forbidden from stepping foot near, lest old memories carry him to a place where he can no longer be reached.

And now here they are, in the White Sand Sea, standing at the mouth of a crater that crests down to the gaping maw of a cavern, one that spirals down, down, down. It looks horrifying, the very image of some dreadful place a storyteller would spin a horror story about, but there is no worry in Cirice Lunestra's face as she stands beside him-- only sweet, placid joy, serenity, this sense of welcoming what awaits.

Kvasir thinks of a lotus seed, heavy in his satchel-- he thinks of sorrow-stained chiding from his beloved enchanter.

Gods, he doesn't know how he will survive this night.

"...Cirice," he begins uncertainly. "...I do wish you had told me that this would take us so far out into the desert. I... I really am not supposed to venture out here."

“You aren’t? Why…?” Cirice tilts her head, looking at Kvasir with concern. Her eyebrows scrunch into a frown and she bites her lip in worry. “I am so sorry! I didn’t know… Well honestly I didn’t know exactly where we were going either, just to ‘a sunken pit where secrets lie among the sand.’ If I had known that it was not a place you were comfortable with I wouldn’t have asked you to come. I just thought it would be nice to see your apothecary and then have you along for my journey. If you need to leave I’ll escort you home and return alone. I don’t mind.”

Little rivulets of sand slide into the crater like that of an hourglass as Cirice peers over the opening and into the dark ruins deep below. The ancient crumbling stonework reminds her uncomfortably of the dungeon she so foolishly delved with Cyran and Gerhart not too long ago and causes her to shudder involuntarily. Perhaps this was not the greatest idea but she couldn’t turn back. Mother Moon had led her here for a reason. If she had to brave this pit alone she would. But… the biggest lesson she’s learned on her adventures is that having a friend at your side makes everything better.

That is why she’d asked Kvasir to join her in the first place. She was slowly gaining friends along her journeys but the handsome foxman held a special place in her heart. No one else she had met had shared her fiery passion for others’ wellbeing like he did. She thought them kindred spirits and she would not threaten their friendship for the world. Not even the near-magnetic pull of the gaping maw of the earth at her feet would make her ruin their bond. She tears her eyes away from the chasm and looks at him once more before she can be enthralled by the mysterious draw beneath them.

As soon as Cirice's face twists with concern, those big eyes wide with what might be a touch of guilt, Kvasir immediately feels the instinct to go back, to unravel all he's said and pretend nothing is wrong in the slightest, to pick up the pieces of implications and stow them neatly away. It doesn't matter how the dull ache in his skull that started budding since they crossed the threshold into the White Sand Sea has started blossoming into a sharp agony, doesn't matter that he can feel disorientation and that telltale haze setting in, curling around his memories like he's on some misty morning walk-- the last thing he wants is for his friend to think she's done something terribly wrong, especially since she... genuinely did not know this is where the path would lead.

His head aches terribly and dizziness whirls around the edges of his mind, but he will stave it off as well as he can. Hopefully, they can merely go in, get whatever Lunala has apparently requested of Cirice, and get out, and Kvasir can charge back through the doors of the Desert Rose and sink into bed and pray that he loses nothing more to the sands tonight. Maybe the worst thing to happen will be an expansive lecture from Morrigan, which may sting in the moment, but that... that will be alright.

"Ah, well... it's nothing of concern, Miss Cirice," Kvasir says, voice just a little tight, but he's quick to iron it out. "Ah, please, don't worry about such a thing. I don't want you exploring a place like this by yourself. I'd rather be around to ensure your safety, alright?"

He sets a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, a silent offer of reassurance he polishes off with a fragile smile, before he turns to take a few cautious steps into the crater, steadily approaching the mouth of that strange and ominous cavern.

"...Really, I am happy to accompany you. So, Miss Cirice... you say Lunala herself guided you here?"

“If you’re absolutely certain…” Cirice says quietly, hearing the tightness in his voice and him trying to hide it. “I’m no wilting flower, Kvasir. I can go alone if it will pain you.” There is no malice or accusation in her words, just acceptance and feigned confidence. She gazes into the cavern alongside him, feeling unsure of her footing the magnetism to go down is so strong.



“Yes… Mother Moon is calling me in. Something is down there she wants me to have, something sacred. She told me of it in a dream, told me to come here. I feel it. The pull towards it is so strong I fear I’ll fall.” She plants her feet firmly and looks at him seriously. “I don’t know what will be down there. For all I know there could be monsters or cultists or vipers… Or bone snakes, traps, maybe an evil snake lady…” Her hand goes up and gingerly touches her eye. Its whole and unmarred but it was only thanks to Mother Moon’s grace that it wasn’t lost to her in that gods forsaken dungeon. A twinge of pain originates behind her once-ruined eye and travels throughout her body, making her swallow hard and nearly fall to her knees. Just thinking of that place makes her want to fall apart. The pull is stronger than the fear though, no matter what awaited her beneath the sands she couldn’t ignore it. “I don’t want to lose you. I won’t. Promise me if you go down and things get really bad you’ll leave, you’ll run. Promise me you’ll save yourself if you have to, Kvasir.”



She raises her hands and a glittering silvery disk of light fills the mouth of the cavern, giving a soft glow to break up the gloom below¹. She steps onto it carefully and holds her hand out to him, palm up, a reassuring smile on her face. “You won’t hurt my feelings if you refuse.”

---

1 Wall of Light

There are some alarmingly specific possibilities Cirice is raising in her theorizing about what may lie beneath the sands.

In all his practice with keeping his emotions well-concealed, Kvasir can't hide the concern that flashes across his face at the mention of bone snakes and horrid traps and myriad other terrible things, spoken with the broken certainty of someone who has faced those things and walked away with the scars of places danger readily nipped at their heels. Cirice's face unveils no sorrow, no answers, but when he studies her features, those lilac eyes distant, alabaster-painted lips pursed in the beginnings of speech, she seems a million miles away.

She is floating somewhere just beneath the surface of some grand, incomprehensible ocean, caught up in its divine current, and she has so sweetly asked Kvasir to dive in beside her, to hold her hand in case the water makes a grave of her sanctuary. He knows in this moment that he will not let her drown.

"Miss Cirice," he begins, shooting her another sad smile, his eye softened at the edge. Not even the usual lines of cerulean and pale crimson pigment, nor the careful shadow of kohl, can mask the way sorrow and sympathy pull at his expression, pull at the corner of his eye, defying the mask he so carefully applies. "You speak so very morosely. Our last outing was a bit on the somber side, but it was hardly anything like this. I assure you, there's nothing to worry about-- and I assure you, I am happy to come with you."

And with that, Kvasir takes her hand, all too happy to step forward into the silver-lit shadows of the cavern, already scanning ahead for any signs of what may lie ahead. It is not difficult to see, mercifully [1], but there is little to find for quite some time as they walk, waiting to see the signs of whatever Lunala has promised--

until the distant outline of a door catches his eye.

"...well, that didn't take long," he murmurs. "There's some kind of door up ahead-- and... writing. All around it."

---

[1] Night Vision

Cirice appreciates that Kvasir is with her more than she can say. She doesn’t want to acknowledge that she’s apprehensive about the desert, nor that she fears what they find below the sands, but he doesn’t have to hear the words to know it to be true. She wished that she could have taken her friend home instead, to see the sea and the bamboo, to that familiar place full of warmth and nostalgia. Instead he’s here with her, braving his own apprehensions to aid her. When this was over she would like to take him somewhere better, somewhere bright and welcoming, not a dim and dismal cavern.

Kvasir calls her attention to the door ahead and in the darkness it was no trouble to see the writing. Carved into the stone in looping elvish writing was a warning, “The Moon’s light holds back the dark of the night, lest all be lost to the abyss. Be not seduced by the darkness. Heed these words and silence the whispers.” written, over and over again, in every elven dialect. Cirice reads it aloud to Kvasir with a thoughtful look. The door itself is a simple stone slab, with the same phrase carved in its center only once and nothing else upon it, notably no way to open it.

“Perhaps whatever is housed inside is something that produces light? Hmm… But how to open the door…” She runs her palms over the solid stone surface, looking for anything that might not belong but coming up with nothing. At least there was no hole to remove her eye… “...Maybe its a clue? Not light from within, but light we bring?” She rests her hand on the carving in the door as the runes down her arms flare with violet light. Soft, silvery moonlight pours from her fingertips into the indents in the stone¹. The words begin to glow, brighter every second and once every letter is glowing merrily the door shifts slightly and begins to descend slowly into the floor. Cirice steps back and watches it, glad the answer was so simple and something she could manage. She looks at Kvasir again with relief. “Well that wasn’t too bad. On we go I suppose.”

Behind the door a wide cavern opens up, revealing a crumbling circular building with a marble dome that seems to have shifted, the whole structure having tilted askew. Bioluminescent moss clings to the stone and marble, fed by water dripping down from stalactites at the cavern’s roof. It is clear this place was lost innumerable centuries ago, perhaps dating back all the way to when the gods themselves strode the world. It was likely once beautiful and now it sits crumbling and forgotten beneath the sands.

“Wow…” Cirice whispers, “Just… wow..” She wants to stand and admire the temple, to bask in the fact that she’s the first cleric to set eyes upon it in generations, but the pull gets more insistent, urging her forward with growing intensity. She steps forward into the cavern, her feet moving of their own accord as she takes it all in. As they near the temple it is easy to see the lunar motif carved into the felled columns that line their path. Cirice reaches out a slightly trembling hand and traces the phases of the moon as they walk, her fingers leaving a trail of silvery moonlight in their wake¹.

---

1 light

There is something deeply, unfathomably wrong about all of this.

Elvish is a language Kvasir knows to some degree-- he has to, considering how prevalent it is in the land of his birth. Most of his father's patients spoke common, at least, but there were always those rare exceptions, and Austri Sigurros was a meticulous man, always aiming to fill in the cracks whenever he found them, hammering every bit of knowledge he deemed necessary into his son as well. He does not remember those lessons well, can speak it better than he can read it, but the knowledge still lingers on his tongue, some fragments of the elvish script in its myriad forms engraved upon the walls at least slightly comprehensible to him. Cirice, thankfully, knows it well, able to parse the words of each and every scrawling against stone, able to piece this puzzle together.

But as she calls upon moonlight to push them forward, her Goddess's light and promise singing in her heart, Kvasir is left with a question; why would ancient ruins in the White Sand Sea bear the script of the elves...?

It is not a concern he voices, not as enchantment lights up Cirice's fair face, but a deep unease sits within Kvasir's ribs, wound tight around his heart like wires. If this is some ancient temple of Lunala's, and the worshippers who constructed it were elvish, then why is it all the way out in Zeinav? How has it eluded discovery for so very long? Hell, not that he can trust what he does and does not remember, but why do none of these scriptures sound even a little familiar to him...?

Kvasir shudders as he steps forward, the deep chill of the cavern's own ribs wrapping around him, seeping through cloth and skin, getting acquainted with his bones. The pulsing in his skull grows all the more intense, a second heartbeat in his head, a symphony of creeping whispers setting in, hushed beneath the backdrop of water dripping, of the echo of their footsteps. The scene before them is beautiful, yes, but...

...

"...Cirice. Wait."

He stops in his tracks, arms wrapped around himself.

"...I... uh," he falters as soon as those lilac eyes land upon him, his resolve immediately crumbling. "...don't you... think we should write down some of what we've found so far...? That inscription, perhaps? Lu-- Mother Moon may appreciate it, yes?"

It takes no small effort of will to stop her feet from moving forward, to halt and turn to look at Kvasir. “Hmm… You’re right perhaps we should record this find so others can know about it and see for themselves. I’m sure there are many across Charon who would be excited to come and restore this temple to its former glory.” She sets her pack down and rifles through it until she brings out a small journal and hastily writes down a description of the door and the temple itself. She thinks about going back and getting a rubbing of the carvings but instead she writes a brief yet detailed description of the mechanism for opening the door, just in case the door is shut if someone tries to return later. “There, now we can move forward, right?”

She shoulders her pack again and bounces in place impatiently. “This is so beautiful… Should we collect some of the moss for you? We could totally do that! I don’t know if its medicinal but maybe if its like suffused with Mother Moon’s magic it would be more potent? I don’t know.”

Leaning in closer to him she bounces up to kiss his cheek, “Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little pale…”

It takes quite a bit of effort for Kvasir to properly rein in his unease as he watches Cirice scribble away in her journal, piecing together little notes on the terrain, on the temple that lays before them after this winding cavern path, on the strange mechanism that they'd had to solve to access the place to begin with. It's a lucky thing that she hadn't seen through such a feeble veneer; sure, making note of things like these is important, vital to moving forward, but... really, he just needs a moment to get his bearings.

Ever since they'd crossed the threshold down into this strange place, the pulsing behind his eyes has grown all the more unbearable, gold settling in a hazy aura around the edges of his vision, as though threatening to take his consciousness entirely. Staving it off is... difficult, requiring every feeble bit of resistance he can muster, and a moment of respite in this continuous descent down into the moon-touched shadows feels like a balm against his brain.

Distantly, he thinks he knows what this is. There is nothing else it could be, after all.

He does not want to think about it.

Kvasir snaps back to focus at the feeling of Cirice's lips against his cheek, one of her usual gestures of comfort, of affection-- he thinks she may have said something about moving forward, perhaps a word about moss, but he cannot be sure. Either way, even with that gentle concern sitting in her eyes, he lifts a hand and forces an awkward, feeble chuckle, as if he can laugh the influence of the Archivist King away.

"I'm quite alright, Cirice, I promise," he says quietly. "This is important to you. I'm here to ensure that you see it through safely. One or two minor stumbles of mine shouldn't stop us."

As though to prove his point, he continues walking down that winding way, continuing to head toward the weathered maw of that strange marble carapace, past stone and sand and clumps of glistening moss.

"Let's find out what this temple holds, yes?"

The further they trek the more concerned Cirice gets for Kvasir. He brushes her worries away with reassurances and marches forward, but she sees the slight tremble to his ears, the waiver of his steps and the paleness of his cheeks. And yet he presses on for her sake.

She stands there, fighting against the haze of excitement and entice of the unknown allure of the temple, to marvel at her friend. Regardless of his own discomfort he’s willing to support her esurient need that drags them further inward.How lucky she is to have made such a loyal and caring friend… She’s met many such wonderful people on her travels, learned to rely on them and have them rely on her, and been in greater danger than the ruin as heretofore proved itself to be, but she’s not sure how many have been as truly self-sacrificing as Kvasir. Gerhart the kind and gentle hero certainly, and Cyran, a second, doting father, who had protected her in her last trip to the great sea of sand. Friends collect around her like grains of sand these days, filling her life with a calming presence like the zen garden at her parent’s home. Will this journey rake across them and leave them unsettled or will it take them along the ripple-like flow?

Her reverie is broken when she notices Kvasir nearing the gaping doorway of the ruin. Now is not the time for such preoccupation, she needs to move forward. She can dwell on such thoughts when they’re back at the Desert Rose having tea together. Her legs ache from inaction, as if the very draw she’s been feeling took its toll from inaction. She catches up to her friend’s side at a bouncing run.

“You know… You’re not stumbling. You’re really steady and strong and I can’t thank you enough for joining me here. I love you Kvasir, you’re very important to me. Thank you for being here with me now.” She gently rubs his arm as the runes on her face begin giving off a soft lavender light¹. “Let me take the lead. I don’t want you to get hurt for my sake.”

Stepping into the ruin a strange feeling settles over Cirice. Her skin prickles in gooseflesh, the hairs on her arms standing on end. Something feels… Heavy, oppressive. Like the weight of this discovery and its importance taking its toll. Or perhaps it is the presence of a massive marble statue of a lithe female form with arms held out as if awaiting an embrace, an inviting smile upon her lips. The likeness of Lunala stands, cracked and crumbling in places, in this place dedicated to her welcoming the visitors in. It is clear that there was a lot of care and craft put into creating this sculpture and the fact it was lost to time seems almost a crime.

“Wow…” Cirice breathes, “Its like… She’s looking right at us… Isn’t she beautiful?”

She steps forward in awe towards the feet of the goddess on her plinth, reaching out to grasp the extended hand. A finger immediately breaks off at her touch. “Oh no, shit!”

---

1 Night Sight

Even though his skull feels as though it threatens to fracture apart like it did all those years ago in the endless valleys of the White Sand Sea, as though bone will yield to light, as though he will yield to divine will here in the depths of someplace forgotten, the sincerity poured into Cirice's words is one more anchor in the sandstorm, a tether to the earth. Her touch is as gentle as her words, the feeling of her gloves fingertips through the fabric of his shirt oddly soothing-- it is not enough to truly fight off the pulsing in his head, but it is something. It is peace, however strained, however watered down it has become through the filter of sand and shadow.

His memory of meeting Cirice is one he has clung to, stubbornly detailing it in his journal in careful penmanship, sure to note her earnestness and contagiously high spirits. Despite the horrible circumstances that kept them together in that little village in the Marsh Flats, they had solved things, and walked out as friends; ever since, she's been a steady background presence in his life. She may not always be physically about, but just as the shadows that fall over the moon on those darkest of nights do not bleach it from the sky, she does not fade from the pages of his life so easily.

"...I'm happy to follow where you lead, Miss Cirice," Kvasir says, letting his pace slow just slightly so he can properly trail behind her as she steps forward beneath the archway, where moss winds and tangles its way out of old crevices. "But I am never far behind."

Some of his unease returns as soon as they wander forth, step beneath the shadow of an imposing statue, marble eyes unseeing and yet capable of parsing the secrets of the world, the fine details of contours and strands of hair and other human things carefully molded into place. A knowing, expectant smile graces her carefully-sculpted face, as though she anticipates any and all who behold her, her arms outstretched in silent, easy welcome. Though plantlife breaches through old stone and moss clings stubbornly to whatever it can, this statue is miraculously devoid of any such things-- she is the one figure here that is not overgrown.

Something about her is wrong.

"...yes, Cirice, she's lovely," he says anyway, taking a shallow breath as he turns to study the rest of the area. The atmosphere feels heavy, dizzying, only worsening the longer he stares at those blank eyes, so he will merely focus on anything else.

There are pale mushrooms starting to sprout from beneath where water drips, white as the moon. Kvasir isn't sure he's ever seen anything quite like them, frankly; they match no specimen he's ever collected, align with no notes he's ever scribbled. He's already moving to get his botanical index, ready to scrawl down some potential notes and a hasty drawing when the sound of crumbling stone and Cirice's panicked cursing pauses him in place.

"...ah," he sighs as soon as he sees one of those stone fingers on the ground. "Maybe we should just... avoid touching things? It's probably best to just observe."

“But….” Cirice scoops up the fallen finger and tries to re-attach it with magic. Stuck back in place in its proper place, there is a curious discoloration that colors the marble where it is mended, like a taint. She frowns at that, unsure why that would happen and not trying to read too far into it. “You’re probably right… Back home when something breaks like this we’d repair it with molten gold. To celebrate the flaws. Though I think silver would be more fitting here.”

She takes out her own notebook and makes a very crude drawing of the statue and a detailed description of the inside of the temple itself. She tries to observe like he suggested but the draw pulls her further. She steps past the statue, turning to admire her from another angle and she finds a partially collapsed entryway leading to a shadowed hallway. Stepping into the gloam she hears the scrape and slither of snakes fleeing from her path and shudders, but she doesn’t stop. The hall leads deeper and deeper into the temple, the path treacherous as it rains down debris on her head, dust settling in Cirice’s hair.

“Careful… This place looks like it could collapse at any moment…” She warns, coughing, “Look, stairs…” On either side of the hallway there are murals but Cirice isn’t paying attention to them in her haste forward. As she passes, a black mold-like substance spreads across the murals, discoloring them and making the images dark and distorted. Something within the temple is reacting to their presence. Or perhaps just that of Cirice.

At Cirice's mention of a very particular form of reparation method, Kvasir... pauses.

He is not overly familiar with the finer details of the Crescent Isles' culture; he knows its flora and fauna above all, knows the simpler customs, knows the basics of what is polite and what is not, but he is hardly well-versed in the minutiae, in the practice with greater significance. But oh, this is familiar; a celebration of the transience of perfection, of fragility embossed with gold, a brazen way of repairing something without trying to pretend it was never broken. Kintsugi-- that's the local terminology for it, if he remembers right. It is a kind practice.

"...Ah, yes," he murmurs, rising to his feet from where he'd been crouched on the ground, still strangely detached. "I've heard of that. I... I have to say, it's a fascinating process. You're correct, though. Silver would probably match the aesthetics of this place far better."

While Cirice doodles a rudimentary sketch of the statue and scrawls some notes about this area, Kvasir lets himself fall into a bubble of contemplation, weighing on the concept for perhaps a bit longer than he should. There's a kindness in believing something can be made better after it's been broken; it is not unlike the concept of plaster against bone, of a crutch to ease the way. One forges beauty, the latter forges strength, pulling shattered fragments together and begging them to stand a second test of time and trial.

It is easy for marble and bone and clay to find stability once more in the stitching of molten gold.

He wishes it was so easy for the soul.

Kvasir shakes free of such macabre thoughts as soon as he hears the distant sound of debris falling, immediately jumping into action to find where Cirice went. It does not take long to find her, her skirts dusted with chalk, haloed all in dust like an angel of the ruins, something dire and yet so determined in her face.

She lays forth a warning, but still, she does not stop.

"Cirice, ah-- right..." he sighs, already moving to follow along behind. Kvasir tries not to focus too heavily on the way the murals distort around them, as though this whole place is alive, its jaws closing in on them both as they wander the pads of its tongue. They just need to do whatever it is Lunala sent Cirice here for and get out, and then they can go home and drink tea and Kvasir can spike his with orange liquor and pretend this did not happen and that he cannot still feel the oppressive burn of divine light in the back of his skull.

He will walk forward and follow, and he will pretend this will not lead to his fall.

“Kvasir I think I found a staircase!” Crice calls back to him eagerly throwing up a wall of light bending around above her to keep the ceiling from falling down on top of them¹. The deeper inside they go the more precarious and unsturdy the temple seems. As if it is finally letting itself crumble after untold centuries of hanging on. As if whatever is housed within is sapping the life from the place… Cirice waits for Kvasir to catch up with her, holding out her hand for him so they can head down together. The stairs are rounded with age making the descent steep and tricky. “Its down there… Do you feel that? Its like a cool breeze rising up from within.” Indeed there is a draft buffeting them from below, playing with their hair and clothes. There's a tinge of anticipation in the air, a dread. “It isn’t far now!”

The darkness around them is oppressive, clawing at the corners of their vision like hands trying to hold them back from whatever lies within. Even with dark vision the bowels of the temple seem dim and dismal. The grandeur slipping away into austere walls the deeper they go. At the bottom of the staircase they find a short hallway and another door not too terribly different from the first. But this language is not once Circe recognizes or understands. Something ancient and possibly forgotten. Winding its way around the entrance like twisting snakes and sealing off their path.

“What is this…. I don’t know what it says… It isn’t elvish…”

---

1 Wall of light

Whatever it was that Lunala asked Cirice to find within this temple, Kvasir hopes to every deity that exists that it is worth all of this.

As far as ancient ruins in Zeinav go, these have been remarkably tame; there have been no monsters, very few traps, only a few simpler puzzles along the way-- hardly as harsh or dangerous as some of the stranger, more dangerous forgotten mausoleums and temples that lurk in the shadows of the sands of the desert can be. Even so, despite the fact that there have been no vast dangers waiting for them down here, Kvasir cannot help the deep sense of wrongness that has permeated through this whole area as they've traversed it, as they've stood in the shadow of statues and read over ancient inscriptions. Any danger has lurked in the background, hardly interested in stepping into the forefront, but still he feels uneasy.

And yet Cirice remains as bright and chipper as ever, lilac eyes aglow even as debris threatens to rain upon them, even as the halls become so uncomfortably dark that Kvasir can feel his very instincts screaming in protest that this is wrong, that he should be able to see, that they need to turn around. Her voice is soft and kind and brimming with excitement for the fact that the end is near, and... and he cannot rob her of that joy.

"...Y-Yes," he says with a fragile smile. "Almost there, now."

The light building in the corners of his brain only burns brighter, as though kindled by rubble, by rot.

He cannot spare a thought for it.

Kvasir is dizzy by the time they arrive at the next door, his vision blurring, gold seeping into the edges of his sight as he stares up at the inscription overhead. It is in a language he cannot know and yet does, the words lost to time and yet plain for him to read. He does not think before he speaks in a voice that does not sound like his anymore but he knows must still be, the words lethargic and slow.

"...it says... 'The Vault of Forgotten Deities.' I think..."