The Lunar Hall is one of the most powerful, yet also most dangerous of the Halls. It draws its strength from lunar power and is therefore entirely dependent upon it. To enter it during a New Moon is immensely difficult; conversely, during a Full Moon, it often opens itself to travelers.

During a New Moon, its shimmering beauty is dimmed, and wide fissures gape in its mosaic floor. During a Full Moon, it glows with silvery splendor, becoming more spacious and accessible. Unfortunately, few can bring themselves to leave it during the Full Moon, for its self-centered power is vast. The Lunar Hall focuses primarily on visual perceptions. Touch and hearing are greatly numbed within, while taste and smell do not function at all.

The Scent – The first thing a perceptive individual will notice is the Hall’s “scent”: a sort of a vague feeling of the Hall drawing near. The air pulsates with more abundant lunar energy while the surroundings in the direction of the Hall begin to display barely perceptible changes. However, both of the phenomena are nothing more than manifestations of Hall’s proximity. Some perceive neither the energy nor the changes but sense the Hall being “just around the corner”. They can walk on for hours, smelling the scent, yet never reaching anything else. After all, on a bright night, the scent comes entirely automatically, but the Hall is sometimes active and sometimes inactive, which is when the scent does not spread further into the Antechamber.

The Antechamber – Once you feel the trees and the forest floor stop in their movement, once they stiffen and adopt a silver shimmer, it is the sign of the Antechamber drawing near. The trees keep on transforming until they become slim pillars, their branches resembling a rib vault, while the forest floor covered in leaves turns into a mosaic of silver, and all the animals disappear. The pillars then gradually lose the vault until only low stumps remain – like in a ruined temple of ancient gods. In this space, the eye distinguishes only two colours: silver, which glows and blinds, and black, which is an eye-crushing, absolute darkness. For he who glances into the dark beyond the pillars of the Hall, feels as though he has gone blind, seeing darkness deeper than the one in the world of mortal men. The Antechamber, too, has its snares. Every glimmering cobweb sparkled with crystals of moon-metal, every dark veil, every falsely cast shadow and every irregularity in the mosaic can be a deadly trap, which devours a man like the mow of a monster. The end of the Antechamber reveals the first moons, or moon-runes.

The Threshold – Where the pillars are nothing more but ornate bases, where the Hall is but a moon-illuminated plain, a grand ascending staircase appear. Its steps are long and low, resembling the auditorium of a long-abandoned amphitheatre. The stairs climb up hundreds of steps until the Moon draws near, twice as big as before, its cool face taking up one-eighth of the sky. Where the staircase ends, the Hall begins.

The Hall – Whoever reaches the top of the Great Steps sets eyes on the Hall’s noble beauty. In great heights above stretch the ribs of the vault with wide spaces between them, letting in the moonlight. The massive ornate pillars tower majestically into the unexplorable shadows just below the vault. The Hall is not a monolithic changeless space; there are multiple places located at a distance from one another: palaces, fountains, ponds, crypts, quiet squares, magic obelisks, statues and much more.

The Inner Sanctum – In the holiest sanctuary at the very center of the Hall, its secret is hidden. There lies the knot of lunar forces, and there dwells the Mistress of the Hall. That is perhaps also the only vulnerable spot. The Sanctuary is a profound mystery, for no living soul has beheld it and returned.

The Dwellers – Little is known of the beings that inhabit the Lunar Hall. Death’s-head hawkmoths and spiders live in the Antechamber and on the outer edges; in the depths of the Hall dwell the Guardians and Medusae, though little is known of them. No one knows if there is but one Medusa or many, nor whether the Guardians have individual consciousness or merely a collective sense. The beings of the Hall often master the lunar runes—Lunas—to a degree far exceeding the abilities of an ordinary sorcerer; thus, it is wise to avoid them. Their intentions tend to be guileful and cold.

Runes-Lunas – These are singular signs that carry a strong charge and find resonance in the human soul. Whoever perceives a Luna absorbs it, and it fills the corresponding part of their aura and mind with energy. He who then masters the Luna gains, through that sign, very free access to phenomena related to it. Lunas are found in the Antechamber and the Hall. While Pre-lunas and Lunas appear in the Antechamber, Arch-lunas can be found in the Hall itself. Their manifestation usually takes the form of glowing signs on columns or the floor, though they may manifest as flowers, ornaments, beings, or in countless other ways.

The Lunar Hall

Vathila Melittar Vinair

The face of the moon, in runes arrayed,
Even unwanted heavens above us stayed.
In the temple of your chest, the fire dies,
Alone to the Hall, my spirit hies.

Mistress of Fullness! Mistress of New!
A wounded kestrel, an owl anew,
When for some reason you know me no more,
I’ve no reason to linger on this shore.

The drums have ceased, the song fades away,
What once warmed me, burns me today.
I look back in peace, with no regret,
Silver on my face, and a strangeness set.

Serpents coiling, a Medusa’s dance,
A drop of mercury in a trembling trance.
I depart, my tracks o’er the bridge subside,
Toward other pleasures and joys I glide.