Places
The Undercroft
Beneath Kristov's Keep, the Library that hungers.
The Undercroft is the layered vault beneath Kristov's Keep in the south of Sultan, reached by stairs that no map records the same way twice. Where the Basilica above keeps a blessed library of light, the Undercroft keeps its dark twin: censured texts, sealed reliquaries, and the chained volumes of a Library that does not merely hold knowledge but feeds upon it.
The Library breathes. The chroniclers will not say this in plain speech, but the chains rise and fall by perceptible degree, as if the books themselves drew breath from the stone and the dark. What the Basilica's library blesses, the Undercroft corrupts. What the world above has forgotten, the Undercroft has not forgotten — it has kept, warped, and continued to feed.
Visitors are not permitted alone. Not for their protection, but for the Order's. The Undercroft is not evil as a man is evil. It is evil as rot is evil — patient, hungry, and certain of the wood it has already entered.
“The Library breathes. Do not visit it alone.”