You’re brought into the Breath Hall, a sunken dome made of porous blackstone and laced with solar veins. The inside is cool. Earth-scented. Sacred.

You sit in a half circle with beings you can’t describe in a single sentence.

A translucent being with no visible mouth, but voice like vapor.
A centipedal engineer with fingers that never stop twitching.
A squat, wide-eyed grower whose hands hold more warmth than threat.
And a silent figure draped in reflective fiber—an elder.

Sabine speaks in a narrow band to you alone:

“They’ve already run three bio-profiles on you.
The one in the robe is scanning your nervous system in real-time.”

The elder finally lifts its head. A voice enters not your ears, but your thoughts.

“You build moons.
That is no small echo.
But we do not care what you can build.
We care why.”

You feel the attention of every being in the dome press inward.

You must speak.