v0.43.1 21 October 2026

The trials, remade in steel, fire and stone

• The world

• The pendulum blades are forged steel now. Each crescent is a real blade shape: thick along the spine with a fuller groove, then a long bevel down to a hair-thin edge, its horns sweeping up to points. It hangs from an octagonal iron arm, clamped between riveted cheek plates, on a hub and axle carried by a forged bracket (or a black oak beam bound in iron over the Blade Walk's pit).
  • Polished, and it shows: a new steel shader. Down in the crypt there's no sky for metal to reflect, so the material carries its own surroundings (dark floor, a bright line of torchlight, a dim vault) and mirrors them, strongest at glancing angles. The scene's own lights add the sharp highlights, so the blade flashes as it swings.
  • Details: the honed edge glints cold and bright, the fuller and spine are a touch darker and rougher, fine scratches run along the steel, and there's a smear of old blood near one horn.
  • The crypt's corridor blades get the same blade, and the spike traps' spikes are polished steel too.
• Living fire. A new flame shader replaces the cones: crossed planes whose shape comes from rising noise, so the fire licks, splits and tears into wisps, white-hot at the root through yellow and orange to a red fringe. Every flame is offset by where it stands, so no two burn alike.
  • The Fire Run's jets roar up as broad columns over the whole grate, and the grate's bars glow red-hot while they burn. The grates are cast iron now: a bolted frame with round bars.
  • The Order of Flames: each brazier burns with real fire and its note's coloured flame leaping out of it. The rune before it is carved into a stone disc and inlaid in its colour.
• Braziers, everywhere: the brazier prop is a forged bowl with a rolled rim on three splayed legs with clawed feet, heaped with glowing coals and alive with fire. That includes the trials' dais braziers, the depths, the Sanctuary and the tutorial. The cold ones are the same bowl, rusted, with ash and a skull.
• The Crumbling Stones are rough-hewn rock columns falling away into the dark under uneven slabs, with grit round the edge. Decoys are split by jagged cracks across the top and down their sides. A stone puffs dust when it starts to crack, and when it goes, chips of rock tumble into the pit after it.
• The Rune Floor: bevelled, carved tiles with an engraved border. A burning rune throws a soft blue light on its stone.
• The Watchers' plinths have a bronze ring and four carved quarter marks.
• New code: (TrialArt) builds and caches the blade, its fittings, fire columns, stone columns, tiles and the shared materials.

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