Titus had long since given up attempting to mentally map the maddening labyrinth.  He was too distracted by the eerie silence. It was not just the physical silence of this barren tomb, either. The aether had simply gone. The veil and that which lay beyond seemed to have vanished entirely, and the distant rumblings of his divine patron had been quieted. He reached out with his will and found nothing, but it was a different nothingness  from that which Absolom felt. The folds of heaven in which the goddess slept were still there, but the warmth and psychic signature were absent. Was She dead? Or was the truth behind her curious absence even worse?<br/><br/>Armored boots trod on ancient stone. Their brains perceived the passage of hours, maybe days, but their bodies did not. The lost host knew not hunger or fatigue, but it did know fear, for what sane man could travel into this strange realm without trepidation? At times, they walked in stone halls, the ceiling and walls beaded with cold condensation. At others, they walked across bridges through a void the color of bleached bone, slowing their march lest they fall and discover what lay in that void. All around, something scratched at the edges of their perception--ghost movements in peripheral vision, the passing whiff of rotten fear, the dreadful skittering of unseen creatures just behind those walls, the loving caress of some invisible companion. Titus had to intervene twice to stop attempted suicides.<br/><br/>At last, after what seemed like weeks of nonstop marching, the Legionnaires came to a change in scenery. At the end of a long, straight hallway, the stone floor gave way to ancient wood planks. The hiss of waves crashing upon rocks echoed in their ears. Stone walls terminated suddenly, leaving the soldiers in the open, utterly silent air. When he looked back, Titus did not see a twisting series of stone tunnels, bridges, and floating stairs. He saw only a hole in reality--an empty square of brick suspended in midair, and within it, the barrows that they had just navigated. At the end of the wood bridge lay a pitch-black island and on that island lay a ruined building. When the world was younger, the building might have been beautiful. Marble columns, arthritic and weathered, held up a ceiling of coral, and hunched, bipedal statues flanked the facade like faceless sentinels. Titus stepped into the inky darkness that lay within, taking note of the beams of un-light that seeped in from the cracks in the roof. Dusty, threadbare rugs lay neatly arranged in rows along the bare floor, and in front of each rug stood a squat wooden pedestal. At the end of the chamber stood an idol, its features worn smooth by the passing of millennia. A temple, then? Prayer rugs, laid out before pedestals on which to mount this dead faith's holy texts?<br/><br/>The paladin took a step forward and saw that they were not alone. Kneeling before the idol was a piscine figure, its build more slender and elegant than the brutish, bestial forms of the Deep Ones he knew. It stood and turned. Four glowing red eyes regarded the unannounced visitor. The merman seemed half-real, flickering between translucence and the solid opacity of a material, living being. As their eyes met, Titus' mind witnessed a rapid-fire series of sensation, images, and ideas. Subconsciously, he translated them, uttering their meaning aloud in hushed tones. He knew not their significance.<br/><br/>'The Last Church. We stand within the Last Church.'