Before there was Velvora, there was a house. Before the cult, there was a promise. The Hollow Bastion remembers both.
Sector 3 was rot wrapped in light.
It buzzed with broken neon, where graffiti glowed brighter than lampposts, and the bones of the city's past jutted out like rebar through the flesh of time. Officially, Sector 3 was "unregulated urban terrain." In reality, it was a graveyard — one that hadn't realized it was dead.
But even among the ashes of the forgotten, the Hollow Bastion remained more rumor than ruin. No satellite pinged it. No map traced it. And yet, Asher, Rosa, Lucien, and Mia now stood before a tunnel that should not have existed.
They had followed the catacomb map — carved centuries ago, sealed beneath the Regulation archives — until it led them to a buried steel hatch beneath a crushed subway car.
Mia's fingers trembled slightly as she scanned the glyphs welded onto the metal."Old spiritual script. Pre-Compact era. Definitely pre-Velvora."
Lucien leaned closer. "It's still active. This place doesn't just remember… it listens."
With effort, the team forced the door open. Cold, dry air hissed out like breath from a dying mouth.
The descent began.
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The House That Devours
The tunnel twisted like it was trying to forget its own shape. After what felt like an hour — or maybe minutes, time was breaking again — they reached a stone archway carved with eerie precision.
At its crown, a plaque of blackened brass read:
"The House That Remembers. The Door That Devours."
Lucien exhaled slowly. "There shouldn't be air this deep underground…"
Asher ran a hand along the wall. The stone pulsed faintly. Warm. Alive.
Rosa stepped first through the threshold.
The moment she crossed, reality stuttered.
Colors lagged. Sound stretched like a scream underwater. Their shadows splintered in three directions at once.
And then — stillness.
The Hollow Bastion stood in perfect condition.
Pristine white walls. Gold-edged archways. Candles that burned without wax.Tapestries hung like witnesses, woven with scenes of masked figures watching cities crumble.
Even the chandeliers — bone-white and glistening — throbbed softly, like beating hearts.
Rosa's voice was barely a whisper:"…This place is alive."
Mia reached out — and the moment her hand touched the wall, she screamed.
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A Flood of Memory
Mia dropped to her knees, gasping, pupils blown wide.
Inside her mind:
A woman with silver eyes, writhing in agony on a stone bed, surrounded by masked cultists whispering lullabies in reverse.
A stone altar, shaped like a reaching hand, soaked with ages of blood.
And finally, a whisper, low and furious:
"Your city was not built on hope. It was built on obedience. On bones. On offerings."
Asher caught her before she collapsed."We move fast. No splitting up. Not in here."
They pressed on, deeper into the living maze.
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Lore of the Jailers
They entered a grand study that smelled of old books and older regret.
Lucien found a locked desk. With a spell and a snap, it creaked open — revealing a cracked leather ledger, bound with golden stitching and skin-like parchment.
He read aloud:
"The founding of Velvora was not a blessing, but a burden.We were the fifth gate. The final mouth.The Keepers of the Hollow Bastion were not kings.We were jailers."
The words hit hard.
Rosa's eyes widened."So all this time… Velvora wasn't made to expand. It was made to contain."
Asher's jaw tightened. "Each city... each one of the five. They weren't built to thrive. They were built to seal something in."
Mia, pale and shaking, added,"If we're the last mouth, then the others have already opened."
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The Portrait That Watches
In the next hall — a dining room with silverware set for a feast long forgotten — hung a massive oil portrait.
A noble family in black stood solemnly, their faces faded, blurred by time and spiritual decay.
All except one.
At the center — a pale young man with white hair and a faint, knowing smile.
Lucien stopped cold."…That's Father Mordein."
"No," Mia whispered. "It looks like him, but… younger."
Rosa pointed to the engraving below:
"Mordein Iscariot – 1st Warden of Velvora. Martyr to the Five."
Rosa's breath hitched. "He wasn't the cult's founder. He built the city to stop them."
Lucien's hands trembled. "Then something must have twisted his legacy…"
Asher took a step back. "Let's move before the house decides we've overstayed."
And then — the portrait blinked.
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The House Speaks
The air turned thick. The light dimmed to blood-amber.
And a voice, ancient and wet, rolled across the hall:
"If you have come this far… you carry their stench.You are not jailers.You are successors."
The walls groaned.
The floor buckled as if inhaling. The chandeliers above revealed a horror — the ceiling wasn't wood.
It was masks. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Sewn together. Silent. Watching.
Lucien's voice cracked."RUN."
The Hollow Bastion closed its jaws.
Corridors stretched. Doors slammed. Stairs warped into spirals that led nowhere.
And from the collapsing halls crawled creatures — malformed bodies, half-wrapped in masks, whispering in languages that no living soul had ever spoken.
One hissed Mia's name.
Rosa dragged her through a collapsing corridor. "Keep moving!"
Lucien fired a flash glyph — it exploded in color and delay, buying seconds.
Asher turned last. He pulled a reality bomb from his coat — an unstable artifact made of failed memories — and hurled it.
The moment it hit, the mansion howled.
Time fractured.
They stumbled into the tunnel they'd entered through. Coughing. Bleeding. Torn and shaken.
As they crawled out of the hill overlooking Sector 3, the Hollow Bastion behind them…
was gone.
Not destroyed.
Not hidden.
Just… erased.
Rosa stared at the sky."Five cities. Five locks."
Mia hugged her knees. "Then we're not the only ones infected. Just the only ones that still remember."
Lucien's tone was ice."If the others fall, the world's over before it knows it started."
Asher stood, shoulders squared."Then it's our job to wake the rest."
[End of Chapter 102]
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Chapter 103 – "Lucien: Before the Masks"A deep dive into Lucien's backstory — his childhood in a forbidden quarter, his forced initiation into the Phantom Regulation Unit, and the moment he first heard Velvora hum. Before he was a mystic, he was a sacrifice who escaped the altar.