Chapter Six: The Dreaming Dark

The tunnels had changed again. Raven saw it clearly now as she and Koric descended past the second level, following the gladiators’ trail. The walls rippled with patterns that seemed to shift when viewed directly. The air itself felt thicker, more resistant, as if they were walking through liquid stone.

“We seal it all off,” Koric said, his voice tight with forced confidence. “Every tunnel below the second level. Use the old support beams to cause controlled collapses. It worked during the arena days when sections became unstable.”

Raven’s hand brushed her crossbow, though she knew it would be useless against stone itself. “How many access points?”

“Three main ones, maybe four if—” He stopped, holding up his lamp. Ahead, the passage split into twin corridors that definitely had not existed yesterday. “This is wrong. These tunnels…”

“They’re multiplying,” Raven finished. Fresh marks scored the walls of both passages, the patterns familiar yet twisted into new configurations. “How do we seal something that’s growing?”

The sound of distant singing echoed up from below, the gladiators’ voices distorted by the strange acoustics of the transformed tunnels. They took the left passage, following the sound. Their lamps seemed to illuminate less space with each step, as if the darkness itself was becoming more solid.

“Here.” Koric knelt, examining the floor. “Some of them were being dragged. See the marks?” His fingers traced grooves in the stone that looked suspiciously like claw marks. “But what was doing the dragging?”

They pressed deeper, passing more branching tunnels that shouldn’t exist. The air grew warmer, heavier with each level they descended. Raven found herself checking behind them constantly, unable to shake the feeling that the passages were shifting after they passed.

“Koric?” She kept her voice low. “The support beam idea. For sealing the tunnels. Where are they?”

“Junction points,” he said, studying the wall marks as they walked. “Where the main passages intersect. If we can bring down enough of them…” He trailed off as they entered a larger chamber.

The room had once been a storage area—Raven recognized the rusted hooks in the ceiling where meat had hung during the arena days. Now the hooks writhed like living things, and the walls… the walls were moving. Patterns flowed across the stone surface like water, forming and dissolving in endless cycles.

“Marcus!” Koric’s shout made her spin.

The old gladiator stood in a corner, his back to them. But when he turned, Raven saw that his skin had taken on the same flowing quality as the walls. Patterns rippled across his flesh, matching the stone’s rhythms.

“The song,” Marcus said, his voice harmonizing with sounds that came from the walls themselves. “Can’t you hear how beautiful it is now?”

He took a step toward them, and Raven saw that his feet had begun to merge with the floor. The stone was claiming him, or he was becoming stone—she couldn’t tell which.

“We have to go.” Koric grabbed her arm. “Now!”

They fled deeper into the tunnels, the sound of Marcus’s laughter following them. More passages appeared and disappeared around them, the very structure of Arcmire shifting like a living thing.

“This way!” Koric pulled her left at a junction, then cursed as the passage split again. “No, wait—”

“Koric!” But he was already moving ahead, and in the moment she hesitated, the tunnel between them changed. Where there had been a straight corridor, now there was only a solid wall of flowing stone.

“Raven?” His voice came through the stone, muffled but panicked. “Don’t move! I’ll find another way around!”

“No!” The patterns on the wall were starting to reach for her, trying to pull her into their dance. “We stay together! Just… just think! The old ways, remember? Your tunnel marks!”

A moment of silence. Then: “Count to ten. When I say ‘now,’ put your hand on the wall. Like we used to do in the arena when we couldn’t see. Trust me.”

She counted. The patterns swirled faster, becoming almost hypnotic. The stone felt warm under her palm, alive.

“Now!”

A surge of something passed through the wall—energy or memory or both—and suddenly Koric was there beside her, stumbling through stone that had become momentarily permeable.

“How did you—”

“The entity,” he gasped. “It’s not just changing the tunnels. It’s changing the rules about what stone is. We can’t seal this, Raven. We can’t contain it because it’s already inside everything. The whole arena is becoming… something else.”

A deep, unrecognizable sound bellowed from below. Their lights flickered and died, leaving only the phosphorescent glow of the patterns to illuminate the darkness.

And in that light, they saw the truth. The patterns weren’t random at all. They were a record, a history carved in living stone. Every fight, every death, every drop of blood spilled in the arena above—all of it captured and preserved. And now that history was waking up, becoming something new.

The arena wasn’t just remembering. It was dreaming. And its dreams were reshaping reality itself.

“We have to go back,” Raven whispered. “Warn the others. Get everyone out while we still can.”

But even as she spoke, they felt the stone shift beneath their feet. The way back was already gone, replaced by new passages that led only deeper.

The arena wanted them all now. And it had learned how to keep what it claimed.