The first chain strike reached them before the source did.
Metal struck somewhere far below the corridor.
CLANG!
The blow travelled through the black stone beneath Kael’s boots. Dust slipped from the ceiling, while the pale lines inside the walls dimmed, brightened, and pulled tight against the cracks.
Every survivor flinched. Renn caught the count cloth before it fell from his burned fingers, although the sudden movement made him cough against his damaged throat.
"The sound came through the floor," he said. "Whatever made it is nowhere near us, but the stone carried the blow all the way here."
Vaela kept one hand beneath her injured wrist and watched the pale lines shiver. "The last blow shook dust loose. The next may drop bars or stone. Keep your hands off the walls."
Jaro had gone pale. He backed away from the nearest line and nearly stepped on Marit’s foot. "Anything loud enough to travel this far should have stayed where it was. I cannot tell how far below us the source is, so watch the floor as carefully as the walls."
Orrek adjusted the chain across his body without lifting his ruined shoulder. "I will keep the loose links away from our legs. Someone else should watch above us, because this arm will not lift quickly if the ceiling joins in."
Another blow rolled up from below.
CLANG!
The air changed before the echo faded. Kael drew one thin breath that scraped his throat, followed by another so heavy it forced his teeth together. Patches of pressure moved through the corridor like gusts, although nothing stirred his hair or clothes.
Far beneath them, metal groaned against metal.
HUM!
Cold pressure brushed through Kael’s bones. He had felt the same pull near the cracked link. It belonged to Ivara, the prisoner who had never stopped testing her cage.
Kael neither heard nor saw her. Metal carried the repeated blows through the connected walls until they reached his people.
"The chained woman is fighting again," Kael said. "Her cage is carrying the strain into this passage."
Vaela moved closer to Marit and the weakest survivors. "Assume the strain belongs to her escape. Keep everyone low, and watch anything loose enough to catch skin."
A pale bar dropped across the corridor ahead. The pressure from below struck it before it locked into place.
CRACK!
White fragments burst from the bar and spun through the air. Each piece trailed a thin shape like a chain link made from light. The first loop caught a tool handle. Another wrapped around a torn blanket. A third seized Marit’s sleeve and dragged her backward.
Orrek caught her forearm with his working hand, but his boots slid across the stone.
SCRAPE!
"It has my sleeve!" Marit cried. She twisted toward him, which pulled the cloth tighter around her shoulder.
"Hold still for me," Orrek said through his teeth. "The pull is in the cloth, and I need your arm before it decides otherwise."
He released the sleeve and grabbed bare skin above her wrist. The bright loop snapped through the empty cloth.
RIP!
Marit fell against his chest. Pain crossed Orrek’s face when her weight struck his shoulder, but he kept his feet until Kael reached them. Kael braced both bodies with one arm and drove his other hand into a crack in the wall.
Marit stared at the torn sleeve hanging from her elbow. "I felt it pulling through the cloth, and for a moment I thought my arm had already gone with it."
Vaela checked the red mark around her wrist before guiding her toward the middle of the group. "Your arm is still here, but the next loop may catch skin. Keep your sleeves close, and do not reach for anything the corridor takes from us."
The pressure grew heavy again. Old injuries throbbed across the group. Renn bent over the count cloth, Vaela’s wrist shook against her ribs, and Orrek’s shoulder sagged despite his effort to hold it level.
Jaro watched another bright loop hook a discarded strap. "Old crews also named this chain weather. Broken restraints could send pulls through connected rooms, although I never heard of a prisoner making enough to fill a passage."
Vaela guided Marit between herself and Orrek while watching the next loop gather near the wall. "Move before the next pull reaches us. Keep loose sleeves close and protect your throat with your forearm."
Kael stepped to the front. The corridor lurched sideways beneath him, pulling knees left while the next breath dragged chests right. Two survivors fell. Renn dropped beside them and clamped the count cloth between his teeth so he could catch both wrists.
His knuckles struck the floor three times.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
"Nine is down, and twelve is slipping," he rasped after taking the cloth from his mouth. "Twenty-one are still alive, but I cannot hold both for long."
Kael planted his feet between the fallen survivors and the next moving patch.
The chain weather struck him like a falling gate.
BANG!
Darkness closed around the edges of his sight. The pull reached through muscle and scraped along his marrow. Each distant blow shook his body a moment later, forcing his bones to follow the cage’s rhythm.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
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≫ HOSTILE RESONANCE PRESSURE DETECTED: Chain Weather Crossload
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +2
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▶ AWAITING HOST COMMAND
====================================================================
The two shards opened inside him while the pressure continued to bend the corridor. The pull had reached his marrow, and every distant impact was knocking his thoughts out of sequence.
Kael sent one shard into Primordial Marrow Layer and one into Mind Soul Anchor.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
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≫ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
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▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +2 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Primordial Marrow Layer -> 26
- Mind Soul Anchor -> 31
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≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Chain-weather marrow drag stabilized.
====================================================================
Heat drove through the center of his bones. The ringing stopped first, and his thoughts stopped skipping whenever the distant chains struck.
Kael exhaled and leaned into the pressure. His weight sank through his boots, cracked the stone beneath them, and opened a narrow pocket of calmer air behind his body. Bright links struck the edge of that space and broke into dust.
CRACK!
"Stay behind me and keep hold of one another," he said. "The floor will pull at different times, so move when Renn calls your number rather than when the air feels safe."
Renn wiped blood from his mouth. "I can keep the order, but the people near the back need another voice. My throat will not carry through all of this."
Vaela took the rear call while Orrek gathered the loose straps and tools against his chest. Jaro warned them whenever the pale lines brightened beneath a foot. Their pairs bent and widened around each fall, stopping long enough to lift anyone who slipped.
Kael advanced one step at a time. Each footfall pressed a deeper mark into the floor, while the protected space behind him widened just enough for the twenty-one to follow. A loop caught his forearm and shattered. Another reached around his ribs, tightened once, and broke when he kept moving.
The white lines along the walls stopped trying to block the pressure. They bent into it instead.
Vaela noticed first. "The room has changed what it is doing. Those lines are guiding the loose links toward the passage ahead."
Jaro stared at the growing curve above the exit. Pale links crossed one another and formed a ring broad enough to hang over the whole corridor. "It is making a command knot. Old route crews called one that shape a protocol crown, but they were never supposed to build themselves."
Renn counted the last survivor across. His voice failed on the final number, yet his fingers completed the count against the cloth and confirmed all twenty-one.
Kael remained between them and the forming ring until Vaela pulled the last injured woman clear. The chain weather weakened behind them, but every fading gust fed the pale structure ahead.
Far away, Ivara Thane knelt inside a cell crossed by chains. A pale brace had grown over the cracked fourth link near her left wrist, spreading like a hard white flower around the damaged metal. Every tightening petal drew more blood from her hand.
The resistance that returned through the cage did not belong to the white rooms. It carried the weight of a stranger who had refused to shake when her chains reached him.
One link near her shoulder trembled.
CLINK!
Ivara pressed two fingers against the trembling link. "Someone is still moving on the other end. Keep carrying the blows, and I will keep giving you more."
The link warmed beneath her fingers. A weaker tremor returned through the brace, proving the distant resistance had survived the last pull.
Blood gathered at the end of her finger and fell.
DRIP!
The dark bead flattened against the floor beneath her hand.
Back in the lower passage, the new ring settled above the route split. Pale lines carried the remaining chain pulls into its outer rim. Thicker cords descended from the center and tightened over the survivors’ shoulders before anyone touched them.
The survivors felt the change before Jaro finished staring. Shoulders drew inward. Breathing slowed. Orrek stopped joking and shifted closer to Renn without being asked.
Vaela tightened the wrap around her wrist. "The next pressure is different. It does not want to throw us across the floor. It wants our bodies to obey before it hurts us."
Kael watched the crown brighten above the dark passage. "Face it together. Stay close enough to hear your own names, and keep the count moving."
The twenty-one gathered behind him. With his shard reserve empty, Kael stepped toward the waiting crown prepared to break whatever tried to command them.