The dark swallowed them the moment they stepped beneath the fallen stone. For a few paces, there was nothing but the cool press of underground air and the scrape of boots on old rock, and then the passage widened and a soft pale light rose to meet them, and the dungeon showed its first face.
This was no tomb like the last one. Where the Rhapsody of the Dead had been black stone and wailing dark, this place was cut from bone-pale rock, veined and smooth, catching the faint light and holding it. Tall columns lined a broad descending hall, each wound about with roots gone hard as iron over untold years, and the walls between them carried long carved battles worn nearly featureless by time. Somewhere far below, water moved. And through it all ran a low steady hum, not a voice but a held note, as though the dungeon itself were a struck bell still faintly ringing.
