In the space between heartbeats, the sisters found themselves torn from the familiar and cast into the Titan Realm—a domain where scale and silence conspired to unmake reason. The air hummed with ancient energies, thick with the weight of forgotten epochs, as though time itself had grown warped and heavy in this place.
They perched like fragile birds in Charon's skeletal grasp, his colossal fingers curled around them with unsettling gentleness. For once, the ferryman did not summon his customary shroud of mist, leaving the vast obsidian sea exposed beneath a star-choked sky. A chill wind coiled through the air, carrying not just salt, but something older—something that tasted of buried ruins and drowned memories.
Before them, the islands rose like the broken vertebrae of some primordial leviathan. Mountains clawed at the heavens, their peaks shearing through clouds as though the very sky were a veil to be torn aside. And yet, for all their impossible height, the heavens remained indifferent—no moon hung above, only the cold, watchful glare of countless stars, their light painting the world in pallid silver.
Then Charon sang.
His voice was the groan of shifting continents, the sigh of sinking cities. It resonated in their bones, this melody older than language, older than mankind. The sisters dared not speak, dared not breathe, as the song wrapped around them like a burial shroud. The sea, unnaturally placid, mirrored the stillness—until something stirred in the abyss.
A shadow moved beneath the waves.
Slow, deliberate, vast beyond comprehension, it rose. A creature—if creature it could be called—surfaced with the inevitability of a drowning corpse returning to light. Its scales were black mirrors, its single eye a yawning chasm that held the sisters frozen. For one terrible instant, they stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back. Then, with a ripple that sent no wake, it was gone.
Charon rowed on, undisturbed.
The sea grew cluttered with the wreckage of a lost age. Shattered columns of marble and porphyry jutted from the water like the broken fingers of drowned gods. Some leaned at impossible angles, defying gravity in their ruin. Others had been ground down to stumps, their edges worn smooth by patient tides. Beyond them, the shoreline bore the carcasses of a civilization built for giants—towering husks of stone that might once have been homes, their gaping doorways tall enough to admit titans, their empty windows staring sightlessly across the water. The trees that clung to the shore were gnarled and stunted, their roots coiled like the fists of starving men.
With a creak of ancient wood, Charon lifted his oar and pointed toward the horizon. There, where the black teeth of the mountains bit the sky, a thin thread of smoke curled upward—a signal fire in a world that should have been dead.
As they drew nearer to the next island, the ruins grew more grotesque. Buildings lay eviscerated, their innards spilled across the shore. Ships had been hurled into their sides like javelins, their splintered hulls fossilized in mid-collision. No gulls cried. No insects chirred. The silence was a living thing, thick enough to choke on.
And yet—
They were being watched.
Not from any one direction, but from everywhere at once, as though the very air had eyes. Nothing moved. Nothing followed. But the weight of that gaze pressed against their skin like a blade's edge.
The smoke grew thicker now, a smudge against the starscape. The island ahead was a graveyard of mismatched architecture—spires that might have been temples slumped beside squat, brutalist blocks, all crumbling in unison. Every structure bore the scars of time's teeth, their stones pitted and cracked.
At last, the harbor came into view—or what remained of it.
The once-grand port lay in ruins, its skeletal remains jutting from the shore like the ribs of a long-dead beast. Towering columns, now fractured and leaning at unnatural angles, had collapsed onto the remnants of buildings, crushing roofs and walls into rubble. The devastation was ancient, the silence absolute. No footprints marked the dust; no voices echoed through the wreckage. It was a place abandoned by time itself.
In the distance, beyond the shattered docks, stood the remnants of a colossal temple. Even in ruin, it was magnificent—its broken arches and fractured walls still imposing, still radiating a forgotten grandeur. A faint, flickering light glowed from within its depths, a lone ember in the darkness. Yet the harbor itself remained desolate, devoid of life.
Charon's boat slowed, then stilled. With eerie gentleness, the ferryman lowered the sisters onto the cracked stone of the pier. They bowed deeply in gratitude, and for the first time, Charon smiled—a slow, knowing curve of his lips. Then, without a word, he pushed off from the shore. His oar dipped into the water, and his haunting song resumed, drifting across the still air.
A moment later, green flames erupted along the edges of his boat—a ghostly, phosphorescent fire—and in the span of a breath, he was gone.
The air was cold but not biting, carrying with it the scent of salt and old stone. The sisters stood in silence for a long moment, taking in their surroundings. Then, Pheropyr turned to her sister.
"It's time," she said.
Pherodoro nodded. "Let's go."
Together, they stepped forward, picking their way through the wreckage. Despite the destruction, traces of the harbor's former glory remained. Fragments of intricate mosaics peeked out from beneath the debris, their colors still vibrant. Shattered statues, their features worn but still elegant, lay half-buried in the dust. The road beneath their feet, though cracked in places, was surprisingly intact—as if it had been built to endure even this.
It was clear this had once been a place of great wealth and culture. The artistry in the ruins spoke of a civilization that had valued beauty as much as strength. Yet now, the only remnants of its people were the broken weapons scattered across the ground—splintered spears, snapped bows, and dented shields, all left to rust where they had fallen.
As they neared the temple, its true scale became apparent. Even in ruin, it loomed over them, its shattered entrance rising nine, perhaps ten times the height of a grown man. The flickering light within pulsed faintly, casting long, wavering shadows.
Then, movement caught their eyes—a lone bird, soaring high above. Too distant to discern its size or kind, it wheeled in the sky, drifting on unseen currents. It did not fly toward them. It did not seem to notice them at all.
And so, with the ruins at their backs and the temple ahead, the sisters pressed onward—into the heart of the forgotten.
The Temple Approach
The sisters pressed forward, their footsteps echoing through the ruins as they ascended toward the flickering light of the shattered temple. The cracked stone steps groaned under their weight, sending small avalanches of rubble tumbling down the slope behind them. Suddenly, a deep, resonant thud echoed from within the temple's broken halls - not just one, but a series of heavy impacts that made the ground tremble beneath their feet. Dust sifted down from the fractured ceiling above as the rhythmic footsteps continued, too numerous and too powerful to belong to ordinary men.
Pherodoro's breath caught in her throat, her hand instinctively reaching for her sister's arm. She opened her mouth to whisper a warning, but Pheropyr was already moving, pressing a finger to her lips with one hand while drawing her short blade with the other. The elder sister's eyes burned with quiet intensity - *We observe first. We act second.*
Ahead, a jagged fissure in the temple wall pulsed with erratic orange light. The vantage point was treacherously high, the crumbling ledge barely wide enough for a single foot. Pheropyr motioned for Pherodoro to keep watch as she edged toward the opening, her back pressed flat against the stone. Below, in the temple's cavernous interior, something impossible moved with disturbing grace - a massive amphora, its ceramic surface etched with glowing sigils, skittered across the floor on eight spindly, segmented legs like some nightmarish fusion of pottery and spider. The monstrous vessel moved with eerie purpose, its legs tapping against the marble as it rearranged broken columns and shattered statues with terrifying strength, stacking them in bizarre configurations that made no logical sense.
Pherodoro kept vigilant watch, her eyes scanning the ruined courtyard behind them. Without warning, a distant building collapsed in on itself with a thunderous crash, its walls folding inward like wet parchment. The younger sister tensed, her grip tightening on her dagger - then froze completely as an immense shadow detached itself from the darkness behind her, blocking the moonlight.
Pheropyr, satisfied she'd seen enough of the impossible vase-creature, turned to retreat from the ledge - and every survival instinct in her body screamed in unison.
The hair on her neck stood erect. Her muscles coiled like springs.
Without conscious thought, her free hand closed around a jagged fragment of broken column - palm-sized, its edges sharp enough to bite into her skin. The moonless night offered no illumination, but her ears caught the nearly imperceptible whisper of leather against stone.
A footstep.
The barest intake of breath.
*"Shhhk."*
She whirled with viperish speed, the stone shard lashing out in a brutal arc. The impact sent a jolt up her arm - the unmistakable, sickening feel of striking living flesh. A man's voice cried out in pain as a shadowy figure reeled backward, crashing to the ground with a string of curses. "My nose! Ouch, my nose!"
Pheropyr was already moving to finish the threat when a wall of solid muscle interposed itself between them. A centaur - his bronze greaves gleaming in the faint starlight, his massive frame blocking her path completely - stamped a hoof against the marble with enough force to crack the stone.
"Peace!" the creature boomed, his voice rich and commanding. Pherodoro appeared at her sister's side in an instant, helping her regain her footing as the centaur continued, "At last you arrive! We've kept watch for your coming."
Behind them, the injured man groaned pitifully, blood streaming between the fingers clutched to his face. The centaur - Xanhipp, as he introduced himself - arched one eyebrow at the scene. "Alas," he sighed, "what fresh foolishness have you brought upon yourself now?"
The wounded man - a wiry scout in dark leathers - could only point an accusing finger at Pheropyr while making muffled noises of protest through his ruined nose. Xanhipp's tail flicked in amusement as he turned back to the sisters. "Come," he said, gesturing toward the temple interior where the spider-vase now stood motionless, watching them with unseen eyes. "The night grows cold, and we have much to discuss. There's broth warming by the fire, and answers to your questions."