**⚠️ WARDED STAIR** — The stair down to Floor 3 is warded. It will not yield to any hand below the mark of Level 3. You are Level 2. You land the killing stroke. The Exile Champion folds — bone and shadow scattering across the stone. Silence returns to the chamber, save the crackle of dying torches. Black water laps at your greaves, cold and still as a tomb. Candles drift past on unseen currents, their flames guttering but never dying. The walls are mortared with yellowed bone; dust falls like ash from the ceiling above. Ahead, the passage splits—one corridor rises toward dry stone, another descends into deeper waters where the candlelight fades.