Sunlight refracted through the Rift's sheet, turning each droplet into a lens. Moving closer was like walking toward a stained-glass window alive.
Kai first prodded water temperature, cold but not glacial. He crushed a stalactite chunk to test acidity, neutral. He tossed in a shard of rope fibre, it vanished behind spray and re-emerged unsigned.
He tied a lifeline to a boulder, and led Shadeclaw through. Water pounded his body but parted easily. On the far side they emerged into twilight lit by soft cobalt glow. The clap of water muted behind as if thick drapes fell across a theatre door.
Here the tunnel sloped upward and widened. Walls pulsed with bioluminescent star-fungus, veins of lime quartz wove like ghost-rivers.
"Everything I hoped," Kai murmured. The air was warm, geothermal venting. And the faintly musical hum of that subsonic ore vein seemed to vibrate Session runes inside his own plates, promising endless reserves of rich material.
