The entrance to the Loomhollow catacombs wasn't hidden. It was worse than that—it was fashionably disguised.
A marble staircase inside an old silk museum, cordoned off with velvet rope and labeled "Exhibit Closed for Seasonal Realignment."
The kind of sign you ignore if you're Void. Or if you're Ezekiel and you've simply given up trying to argue with reality.
"Shouldn't we be more subtle?" Ezekiel whispered, ducking past a sign that said "DO NOT DESCEND. REALLY."
"No," Void said.
"Any particular reason?"
"Subtlety is for people who haven't already been branded as prophetic anarchists by three separate kingdoms."
Frederick said nothing. He was clutching Collapsey in one hand and a glowing rune compass in the other, and honestly, that was probably for the best.
⸻
The staircase spiraled downward. The air thickened.
Dust turned to threads.
Not metaphorical—actual threads hung in the air like floating strands of memory.
Ezekiel waved his hand through them. They shimmered, vibrating faintly.
"Are these… enchanted?"
"No," Frederick muttered. "They're alive."
Void said nothing. But the way he moved slower, more deliberately, said enough.
These were the Residuals—leftovers of unfinished laws, severed magic patterns, memories of spells cast and forgotten. They drifted here, beneath Loomhollow, where castoff intentions settled like dust.
"Charming," Ezekiel muttered. "Like walking through a haunted tailor shop."
⸻
They emerged into a vast underground chamber. The walls were stitched—again, not metaphor—stitched with fabric that pulsed slightly. Patterns moved. Some screamed. Softly.
In the center stood a loom the size of a cathedral, its base surrounded by broken mannequins, half-woven robes, and banners that glowed with half-formed ideologies.
This was the Loom of Fate.
"Huh," Frederick said, squinting. "I thought it'd be… shinier."
"It's asleep," Void replied.
"Looms can sleep?"
"This one can."
Ezekiel stepped closer and immediately gasped as one of the threads snapped toward him, coiling around his wrist. His eyes flickered white for half a second, before Void severed the thread with a gesture.
"Do. Not. Touch."
"Noted!" Ezekiel choked, rubbing his arm. "Very loud mental screaming, by the way."
⸻
Void placed his hand on the frame of the loom.
The room pulsed.
The group was hit by a wave of sensation: visions from ancient Loomhollow, back when the guilds were united, and the Loom was used to regulate reality's probabilities—guiding fate, gently, to ensure balance.
But something changed.
Someone tried to rewrite destiny using their own thread, weaving their life into the pattern. It backfired. The Loom rejected them.
And now, all it does is wait.
"For what?" Frederick asked.
"A new threadcrafter," Void murmured. "Or… a new mistake."
⸻
Suddenly the chamber trembled.
One of the guilds—likely tipped off by someone who enjoyed making Void's life harder—had found their way in.
Dozens of velvet-clad enforcers marched in, led by a towering woman whose cloak left trails of illusion.
"You are trespassing," she said. "This place is forbidden."
Frederick leaned toward Ezekiel and whispered, > "Told you someone was going to shout it."
"Loomhollow belongs to the guilds," the woman continued. "The Loom of Fate is sacred. It cannot be touched."
Void tilted his head. "You've been trying to touch it for centuries."
"That was different."
"Of course."
Ezekiel, who had absolutely no qualifications for this kind of confrontation, decided this was the moment to try diplomacy.
"Look, we're not here to break the loom or conquer fate. Just… investigating."
The woman snapped her fingers.
The enforcers drew enchanted needles the size of daggers. Some of them glowed. One had the word "STITCH" etched along the handle in gold.
"Well that went well," Frederick muttered.
⸻
As tension mounted, the Loom pulsed again.
It had awakened.
Threads shot from it in every direction—grabbing enforcers, yanking them into suspended weaves where they screamed wordless truths.
The woman leader's cloak burned into light. She staggered back.
Void stepped forward, his cloak rising like storm-woven wings.
"You're not worthy," the Loom whispered.
"I'm not here to be," Void whispered back.
He walked toward the Loom and placed a single thread of his own—grey, ancient, crackling with destruction—onto the fabric.
It accepted him.
Only for a moment.
Then the Loom shattered the thread, not in rejection… but in fear.
⸻
The enforcers fled. The leader collapsed.
The Loom pulsed one last time, and then went dark.
Void turned back to Frederick and Ezekiel.
"We're not done," he said. "This wasn't the Loom of Fate."
"WHAT?!" both of them shouted.
"It was a prototype. A trial loom. The real one… is buried beneath the Forgotten Spire."
"And let me guess," Ezekiel groaned, "that's in the middle of a desert ruled by insect people who speak exclusively in riddles?"
Void gave him a long look.
"No. But now that you've said that, it probably is."