After two long nights of surviving in this doomed place, group couldn't help but wonder, are they really lost?
They didn't dare to voice their concerns and just followed Lybid.
On the third day of circling, passing through same paths, crossing through overgrown bushes they heard the bell.
It rang once—faint, distant, and slow. Not from any direction they could place, but from everywhere at once.
They hesitated, but this time Methodius led the group forward.
When they found the ruins, it felt less like discovery and more like revelation.
The remains of the old church leaned into the fog like a dying man, its wooden beams half-consumed by moss and rot, yet the bell tower still stood tall, blackened by weather and time. No one had lived here for years—decades, maybe longer. And yet...
Candles.
Dozens of them.
Lined along the broken altar, their wax still melting, the scent of myrrh and smoke fresh in the air.
Yurko put the lantern on the ground lighting up the hall.
"Someone's been here," Maksym muttered.
"Recently," Kyi added, touching one with a finger. "Still warm."
"I hear voices," Lybid's expression turned solemn, "This place was once a chapel. One of Rod's first sanctuaries in these woods. They share stories… it vanished after the Great Sealing."
Lybid moved slowly through the nave, past broken pews and vines climbing over what was once stained glass. The murals had faded, but not completely. Images of saints and angels warred with other, older symbols—roots, moons, and black suns scrawled over divine faces.
"But the murals and rituals…"
Methodius crossed himself after noticing a shadow with two horns that hang supposedly over the Mara's image.
"Something fought here," she whispered. "Faiths, or fears."