The first stolen number came from the wall behind Renn.
"One."
Another voice rose through the floor near his feet.
"Two."
The cracked bowl in the boy’s hands whispered the third. Clear fluid had dried along its rim after the last chamber, and the pale residue now moved in small strokes that wrote across the clay.
Renn forgot to breathe. Every voice sounded like someone he had counted, yet each number carried a cold pull against the survivor he had touched while saying it.
The chamber was using his count to find the people connected to it.
The boy hugged the bowl against his chest. His arms shook hard enough to rattle the broken rim. "I did not tell it anything. I kept both hands over the crack."
Vaela crouched beside him without touching the bowl. "I know. The clear fluid came through the crack before you could stop it. Keep the rim away from your skin while we work out where the writing leads."
Jaro leaned close enough to see the moving marks. "I could throw it against the wall, although the fluid might spread farther and the boy clearly intends to keep his dinner bowl."
The child turned away and covered the crack with one arm. Orrek shifted his chain beneath the injured shoulder and told Jaro to watch the seams while Vaela examined the writing.
Jaro moved to the nearest white line without another joke, keeping his body between the wall and the child.
The pale writing stopped for half a breath.
Kael might have smiled if a ring of white fingers had not closed around Renn’s boots.
CLACK!
The linked fingers rose from the floor and caught the count cloth around Renn’s wrist. They did not cut him. Each pale fingertip pressed against a knot and pulled, forcing the cloth toward the stone as though the people behind those knots already belonged inside the chamber.
Renn dragged at his wrist. His damaged throat gave him little more than a rasp. "It has the cloth. I cannot pull it free."
One of the survivors reached for him, and the wall answered in the man’s frightened voice.
"Four."
Kael crossed the room. Invisible weight struck every hand holding another person. Orrek nearly lost the sleeve gathered in his fist, while Vaela’s blade scraped toward a wall seam as if the chamber could take her knowledge through the metal. Jaro’s mouth opened, but no sound followed.
The bowl flashed again.
"Five."
A cord of linked fingers shot toward Kael’s marked palm. He dropped below it and drove his knee into the floor beside Renn.
BOOM!
Stone buckled under the finger-ring. Three of its joints burst apart, freeing Renn’s boots, but the cloth remained trapped beneath the remaining fingers.
The Sovereign Root opened as the chamber pulled at every bond the survivors had made through touch. Kael chose the three exact attributes he needed before the stolen count could finish.
Velocity Movement Authority. Primordial Marrow Layer. Mind Soul Anchor.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRESSURE DETECTED: Counted Contact Extraction Ring
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +3
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +3 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Velocity Movement Authority -> 38
- Primordial Marrow Layer -> 28
- Mind Soul Anchor -> 33
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Contact Continuity Surge Confirmed
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
The chamber’s pull no longer reached him as a shapeless force. Kael felt it tighten first around his wrist, move into his shoulder, and travel toward Renn through the trapped cloth. His strengthened marrow held the strain inside his bones while Mind Soul Anchor kept every stolen voice separate from the living person it imitated.
Kael caught the count cloth before the ring swallowed it. The white fingers dug into the knots and tried to pull each one into the floor.
He ripped the cloth free.
RIP!
Three pale fingers remained attached. They wriggled against his palm until he crushed them.
CRUNCH!
White fluid ran between his knuckles. Renn took the cloth with both hands and bent over, coughing until Vaela steadied his back.
"Count everyone again," Kael said. "Use their voices before the chamber takes them."
Renn looked across the frightened faces. His jaw still shook, but he touched the first knot and forced the word through his damaged throat.
"One."
The first survivor placed a hand on the shoulder beside him. A woman answered with her name instead of repeating the number, and Renn moved to the next knot.
"Two."
The wall opened a mouth to copy him. Kael punched through the speaking seam before it formed the word.
BANG!
Stone burst inward. A pale tongue made from linked fingers recoiled behind the broken face of the wall.
Renn kept counting. Every number travelled through a real touch before the chamber could steal it. A palm closed around a sleeve. Two fingers found a wrist. Orrek braced three frightened people against his free arm, and Vaela laid her blade across a seam before it could reach the child beside her.
The chamber expected clean marks, fixed rings, and numbered skin. Mud, blood, torn cloth, and hands that changed position gave it too many paths to follow.
Six mouths opened across the walls. Kael reached the first before it could speak and drove his shoulder through the opening.
BOOM!
Stone folded around his shoulder. His heel broke the second mouth, and his elbow drove the third into the wall. Two finger-rings climbed from the floor while he struck, so he tore them loose and used one against the fourth.
CRACK!
The bowl flashed in the boy’s hands. A white probe pushed through the crack and touched his palm from inside.
The boy screamed and tried to release the bowl, but the probe had already curled around one finger.
Kael reached him before the white line could climb into his wrist. He drove his thumb through the crack, pinned the probe against the inner curve, and broke it.
SNAP!
Clear fluid sprayed across the boy’s hand. Vaela caught the bowl before it fell and wiped his palm with her sleeve.
"Look at me," she said. "Move every finger once, slowly. I need to know whether the thing left anything beneath the skin."
The boy obeyed. His smallest finger trembled, but all five moved.
Orrek knelt near him and kept his chain between the child and the floor. "Your bowl has caused enough trouble to earn a name. You can choose one after we leave this room."
The boy stared at him, uncertain whether the offer was serious. A small laugh escaped before he could stop it.
Renn heard the sound. His next number came more clearly.
"Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one."
Each survivor answered through touch or voice. The wall copied the final number a breath later, but its delay was enough. The linked rings lost their grip and collapsed across the floor.
SPLAT!
Pale fingers broke into white fluid and dead nail fragments. Renn checked the knots again, touching each one while he found the person behind it.
His knees weakened before he reached the last knot. Kael caught his shoulder and kept him upright while the survivors closed around them, leaving enough room for Vaela to watch his breathing.
"I heard every voice," Renn said. The words scraped his throat, but he kept looking at the people instead of the walls. "For a moment, I could not remember whether I had counted them first."
The ash-lipped man held up his wrapped palm. "You did. I remember because your hand was colder than mine, and you apologized before touching me. The wall did neither."
Renn pressed the final knot beneath his thumb. His breathing steadied when the person attached to it answered.
Vaela returned the bowl to the child after inspecting his palm. "Keep a piece of cloth between your skin and the crack. The fluid needs contact before it can write anything new."
Jaro crouched on the child’s other side. "I can carry the bowl when your arms tire, although my knowledge of dangerous cookware has proved less useful than expected."
Orrek kept watching the walls while the boy pulled the bowl closer and smiled despite himself.
Renn listened to the stolen voices that still whispered behind the stone. "They sound cleaner than I do. None of them have to fight for the words."
Vaela moved closer and checked the fresh blood on his lip. "Yours catches before some numbers and breaks after others, so I listen for those places when your throat needs rest. The copies make the sound, but they never check whether anyone answers."
Three survivor voices spoke the same number from beneath the floor.
"Six. Six. Six."
The people flinched. Kael stamped where the voices met.
CRACK!
The floor split over a cluster of pale throats arranged around a wheel of finger bones. Clear veins connected them to the bowl’s residue, Renn’s cloth, and the dark spots where survivors had touched the stone. The throat wheel had needed flesh, sound, and fluid to make its copies, but it had never possessed their memories.
Jaro stared into the opening. "I preferred blaming the bowl. Whoever shaped this wheel gave it too many throats and far too much patience."
The boy laughed again, louder this time. Several survivors joined him before the fear could stop them.
Deep beneath the broken wheel, a larger set of lungs began drawing air through bronze-lined channels.
CHUFF! CHUFF! CHUFF!
The next breath made every moving limb feel heavier. Renn retied the cloth while Orrek placed his hand over the final knot long enough to steady it. Vaela watched the twitching throats, and Jaro stayed beside the child without pretending the choice was accidental.
The survivors held their changed grips without waiting for another order. The chamber had tried to steal their contact, but all twenty-one had chosen to keep it.
Another dry breath pulled through the floor.
CHUFF!
The lungs below had abandoned Renn’s count. Their next breath was waiting to punish every body that continued moving.