Clinging to the Transvect’s rear in freezing wind, Vis waits for the anchoring point’s faint glint and jumps, landing inside Solivagus’s Seawall boundary. He confirms the attracting cuff is secure, drops a paired locator stone to mark the correct anchor for his return, then swims toward the island and makes landfall in darkness.

After drying by a concealed fire and recovering strength, Vis climbs the cliffs and pushes through the forest by torchlight, repeatedly detouring around gullies. At dawn his locator needle abruptly stops responding, threatening his plan to refind the precise anchoring point for the return Transvect. He presses on and reaches a sweeping complex of ruins dominated by a massive, red, glassy dome embedded in the mountain.

Examining the dome, Vis finds no seams, windows, or doors, only the Hierarchy’s symbol and a Vetusian inscription: “LUCEUM. OBITEUM. RES. REMEMBER, BUT DO NOT MOURN.” With time running short, he tests possibilities, then recalls Caeror’s message—“Luceum, Obiteum, Scintres Exunus.” The structure grinds open as the symbol splits, revealing a stairway descending into darkness. He enters and passes a corridor lined with naked men and women pinned in place by obsidian blades, mirroring the macabre displays seen near the Academy.

At the corridor’s end, a narrow platform projects over a seemingly bottomless void. The floor lurches, knocking Vis’s torch into the abyss; moments later the platform itself begins to descend. With visibility gone, his locator needle dead, and a narrow window to reach the return Transvect, Vis is carried downward into the unknown.