They rose together, stiff and sore, and began widening the crack they had made in the stone until it was just wide enough for them to get through. Talia took the lead at first, sword clearing debris, but soon realized she needed the Diviner's instincts. The blind woman guided with a certainty Talia couldn't match, sensing shifts and weaknesses in the stone where Talia saw only darkness. This was the first time she noticed the clicking sound she made with her tongue. Talia couldn't see it in the darkness, but the Diviner moved her head towards where she heard the sound return. Unnerved by the darkness, Talia made a makeshift torch out of her gauntlet by channeling her light magic to it. She was still learning a lot about being a paladin, so the glow only reached a couple of feet. In the dim light, she could see the contours of the diagonal beams that made a ceiling. Though the room was huge. Much too big to be a house.
"This isn't a house" She thought aloud.
"No, I can feel its contours. This was a temple" The Diviner said flatly, continuing her way, guiding the pair of them. More than once, the ceiling groaned above them, sand hissing down like a warning. Instinctively, they pressed back-to-back, breath shallow, waiting for the ruin to hold.
"Still think you don't need me?" the Diviner murmured in the dark.
Talia shot her a glare, even if the other woman couldn't see it.
"You'll get your thanks when we're out of here."
The Diviner's chuckle was low, warm, and frustratingly knowing. Eventually they found a staircase down, which made Talia question.
"Are you sure you want to be going further down.. Shouldn't we be going up?"
"The storm has changed the landscape above, my dear Wildfire.." The Diviner began, only to be interrupted by the Paladin.
"Don't call me that!'
She ignored it and continued "I told you already. Feel. The air isn't coming from above. It is coming from below."
She halted at a staircase, hesitant. Talia smelled an opportunity.
"What's wrong. The great all seeing one can't see what's coming?"
The Diviner only nodded.
"That's exactly it" she brushed the railing with her hand "It's wood. I can't feel if it is intact, steps are missing.. We could fall."
She turned to Talia, who now saw a fragile, exhausted woman. A shell of the proud and confident Elementalist she knew. That hit her harder than the storm had.
"Stop using your magic. I'll lead." She said self assuredly, and took the Diviner's hand, ignoring the flush of heat in both their cheeks.
When she took the first step on the ancient wood, it decided to remind her of the fact that she was still clad in full plate armor. Groaning and creaking under foot, the wood settled and still supported her weight. With a gentleness she didn't know she had, Talia carefully guided the blind woman along, showing her where the railing was. Whenever a step objected too much, she held a hand back to stop the Diviner behind her.
They suddenly came to a full stop.
"Don't tell me.." the Diviner sighed behind her "Some steps are missing".
"No.. I don't know yet." Talia replied hushed "I thought I saw something."
They decided to continue down further. But as they did, a pair of big, gleaming eyes – as dark as the setting they were in – looked down on them from one of the beams supporting the roof. Talia didn't see them and the Diviner was too exhausted to notice. She needed all her focus to not stumble and send them both tumbling down. When the steps seemed to hold them alright, Talia grew more confident. A mistake, as the step she had just landed her foot on, gave way. Startled and flailing, she grasped the railing. Flustered, she regained her composure, as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn't almost taken the rest of the staircase at an unwanted accelerated pace. She straightened her back like the proud paladin she was.
"Ahem.. Sorry" she muttered "It's so dark in here I can barely see a thing".
Looking back, she stared straight into the Diviner's deadpan expression.
"Oh no.." the Diviner feigned a shocked gasp "What a nightmare!".
Even exhausted she would never miss the opportunity for a good roast. Realising her screw up, Talia's cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"Sorry.. Sometimes I forget that you can't see."
The Diviner tilted her head, the faintest smile ghosting across her lips. "And sometimes I forget that you still believe seeing is knowing."
"You always talk like that," Talia muttered, stepping carefully onto the next board. "Do you practice sounding mysterious or does it just happen?"
"It happens when the world won't stop whispering," the Diviner murmured. "Places like this are never silent. Every wall remembers."
"Remembers what?"
"The people who built it. The ones who prayed here. The ones who died here."
Died. The word hung between them like dust in Talia's light. For a moment, Talia thought she heard something—like a sigh carried through the wood. She shook her head, tightening her grip on the Diviner's hand.
"Don't do that," Talia said. "Don't make it sound like the walls are listening."
"They are," came the quiet reply. "They've been waiting."
A shiver crept down Talia's spine. She opened her mouth to speak—but the next step didn't answer her weight. It cracked, groaned, then snapped, dropping out from under her. She let out a startled cry as her makeshift paladin torch flared wildly, briefly illuminating everything. Talia thought she saw bones below, and the shadow of what appeared to be a demon. She didn't have much time to think though. The Diviner lunged instinctively, catching Talia's arm just as her foot slipped into empty air.
"Got you!" the Diviner hissed, bracing herself against the railing.
Her muscles were already burning from fatigue, and now with the added weight of a fully armored Paladin.
"Don't let go!"
Her gauntlet light flickered, throwing long shadows across the stairwell. Beneath them, something moved—a slow, rippling shift, like fabric dragged across stone. The faint breathing she'd thought she imagined before now came from below.
"Diviner—"
"I feel it," she whispered. "It's not the wind."
The railing groaned. The boards beneath them moaned again, this time deeper, like something waking.
"We have to jump," the Diviner said suddenly.
"Jump?!"
"Trust me."
Before Talia could argue, the wood gave way completely. Together they fell through a cloud of splinters and dust. For a heartbeat there was nothing but weightlessness and the rush of air. It came to an abrupt stop when they hit the stone below. Talia felt the impact first. Even despite her armor, she still felt like being hit by one of Tan'thalon's automatons. She groaned, pushing herself upright, the glow from her gauntlet flickering weakly.
"Diviner?" she called out.
No answer came—only the faint drip of water, the echo of settling debris… and then, somewhere in the dark, the sound of something dragging itself closer.
"Diviner?"
The name echoed into the dark, swallowed before it could come back. Talia pushed herself to her knees, wincing. Her shoulder screamed in protest—she must've hit it first—but nothing felt broken. Too bad it was the same shoulder that had been struck by a chain when she first came to Tan'thalon. The faint glow from her gauntlet painted the stone floor in a sickly amber, revealing a wide chamber beneath the staircase. The air was damp and heavy, thick with the scent of earth and decay. It was like no living soul had been down here in ages.
"Diviner!" she tried again, louder.
A low groan answered her, not from the shadows but from her left. Relief flooded her chest as she crawled toward it. The Diviner lay half-buried in debris, her robe torn, blood trickling from a shallow cut on her forehead. Talia knelt beside her, shaking dust from her hair. She couldn't help but steal a few glances, gliding over the Diviner's features. Though she was mostly checking for injuries, she also lingered more than a few times and noticed from the tears in her robe that the Diviner was tanned all over. Aside from a few scrapes and scratches on her bronze skin she didn't seem to be in too bad a shape.
"Hey—hey, stay with me," she said softly, brushing grit from the woman's face.
The Diviner stirred, grimacing.
"I'm not dead. You sound disappointed."
Talia let out a shaky laugh.
"Hardly. You still owe me directions out of this tomb."
"Mm. Always so romantic."
But before Talia could muster a retort, the sound came again—soft at first, like cloth dragging over stone. Then closer. Wet. Heavy. She froze, every instinct screaming not alone. Slowly, she turned her head toward the far wall. The light from her gauntlet trembled, and in its faint reach, she saw the surface move. No—shift. The stone itself seemed to ripple, like a curtain stirred by breath.
"Diviner," Talia whispered. "There's something here."
The blind woman didn't answer immediately. Her expression hardened, and she pressed a trembling hand to the ground.
"Yes," she murmured. "Old magic. Bound to the temple… but it's been starving."
"Starving?"
"It smells us."
The wall peeled open. Not stone, not anymore—something slick and dark sloughed down, revealing a hollow space behind it. From within, eyes blinked—dozens of them, black and wet, reflecting Talia's dim light like oil. Talia instinctively drew her sword, the steel singing in the silence. "Stay behind me!" she barked, though she wasn't sure there was a behind anymore. The ground quivered beneath her boots. The Diviner rose unsteadily, her hand finding Talia's shoulder.
"Wildfire," she breathed, the old nickname slipping free again, "you'll need that light of yours now."
"I—"
The thing moved. The sound was indescribable—like meat and stone grinding together, like a breath exhaled through teeth that shouldn't exist.
"Talia!"
The Diviner's shout broke her hesitation. The paladin drove her magic into the sword, and light erupted—not the soft amber of her gauntlet, but a sudden, blinding flare. The chamber blazed white, and for a moment she saw it—huge, ancient, and wrong. Carved from the same stone as the temple, yet alive. Its eyes vanished into the radiance, its form recoiling with a shriek that rattled the dust from the ceiling. The light flickered out almost as quickly as it had come. The darkness rushed back in, heavier now, as if the air itself had turned to ash.
"You hurt it," the Diviner whispered.
"Not enough," Talia said, gripping her sword tighter. "Tell me how to kill it."
The Diviner tilted her head toward the sound of the creature retreating—though only barely.
"You can't," she said softly. "It's not meant to die. Only to remember."
"Then what do we do?"
"Make it forget."
Before Talia could ask how, the walls groaned again. The creature's eyes flared in the dark—angrier now. And this time, they weren't alone.
The air pulsed with a low, throbbing hum—almost like a heartbeat buried in the walls. Talia held her sword out in front of her, the fading glow trembling with her grip. The eyes in the dark blinked one by one, their motion strangely deliberate, as if they were studying her.
"Diviner," she whispered again, "what is that thing?"
The blind woman's face was turned toward the creature, her unseeing eyes wide—not in fear, but in reverence.
"A Keeper," she breathed. "Or what's left of one."
"A Keeper?"
"Long ago, before the storms, before your Orders, these temples were built as vessels for memory. Every prayer, every sacrifice, every life that touched this place—recorded, bound into the stone. The Keepers were its heart. They remembered everything."
"So… this thing remembers people?"
"It remembers everything," the Diviner said softly. "Every scream, every betrayal, every plea that went unanswered. Imagine being buried with that for centuries—unable to forget, unable to sleep. Now do you see why it's angry?"
Talia stared into the black, the weight of her sword suddenly immense. The eyes shifted closer, the sound of shifting flesh and grinding stone echoing around them.
"Then how do we stop it?"
"You can't kill memory," the Diviner murmured. "But you can take it away."
"You mean erase it?"
"No," the Diviner said, her voice trembling. "You have to make it let go."
She stepped forward, her bare hand brushing the air as though feeling the currents of emotion themselves.
"It feeds on what we bring here—our fear, our grief. If we give it nothing, it starves."
"You're telling me to not feel anything while a living nightmare crawls toward us?"
The Diviner smiled faintly.
"You're a paladin. You should understand faith."
The words stung, but they also grounded her. Talia forced herself to breathe, to let the adrenaline ebb just slightly. Her light dimmed further, pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat. The creature hesitated, its motion uncertain now. The sound of its dragging limbs slowed, like it was… confused.
"It doesn't know what to do," Talia whispered.
"Good," the Diviner said. "It's forgotten why it was angry."
For a moment, the chamber felt lighter. The air loosened, the walls stopped trembling. The eyes—so many of them—blinked once more, and began to fade into the stone, one by one, until only the faint shimmer of wetness remained. The chamber turned silent once more. Talia lowered her sword, her breath shaky.
"Is it gone?"
The Diviner exhaled slowly. "No. Just dreaming again."
"And when it wakes?"
"Then it will remember us."
The Diviner turned her sightless eyes toward Talia, her expression unreadable.
"And we will have to remind it what forgetting feels like."
Talia stared at her for a long moment before shaking her head.
"You know, I liked it better when you only made half sense."
The Diviner smiled—tired, but real.
"Then you're finally starting to listen."