The Ward of Four Mercies

The vault chamber is circular and cold, its walls fitted with black-green stones that drink torchlight and return it as a faint blue sheen. Four hand-shaped niches stare from the walls around a central pedestal of interlocked rune rings, while a bronze basin at its base breathes out a dim, steady glow like a slow heartbeat. Dust lies thick everywhere except on the ring grooves, where something unseen has recently traced a careful path. When the right symbol is turned, the stone gives a soft click and the basin brightens; when the wrong one is forced, the room answers with a dry scrape and a pulse of pale heat.