Underland

The carriage drove along a black sea’s coast, towards the Verney’s lost lands.

Also called the Lightless Ocean, this immense body of clear water flooded half of the Domain of Horaios and many caverns mankind had not yet explored. Its presence had made this particular region the most fertile in the empire, with farmers and fishermen making up almost all of its working population. Some even called Horaios humanity’s granary.

It was also the largest of the Dark Lords’ dominions, so huge that it took weeks to ride from one side to the other. Earthmouth portals made traveling easier, but there were only so many of them. The Verney’s old lands were located in an isolated region to the cavern’s northeast, days away from the closest city; even the crystal lighthouses that illuminated the Domain had grown scarcer.

Marianne spent the whole ride examining pictures of the Verney family tree that Penhew gladly gave her. She knew something had eluded the inquisitors, and now that she could compare them with drawings of Valdemar and his mother, she could tell exactly what.

“Bertrand,” Marianne called out to her retainer through the carriage’s window.

“Yes, Milady?” Bertrand answered while keeping his full attention on the road. He had driven for hours now, showing no more signs of fatigue than their giant beetle carrier.

“How old was Lavina Verney when she perished?”

“Thirty-seven, according to official records.”

“And Sarah Dumont?”

“She was nineteen when the purge happened. Why is Milady asking?”

“Because they look too much alike,” Marianne said, as she compared the two pictures. Indeed, Valdemar’s ‘aunt’ looked almost exactly like an older version of his mother. As for Isaac Verney... “While Valdemar doesn’t look all that much like his father.”

The hair color was wrong for a start, and while he had the Verney look, Valdemar could inherit these genes from his paternal grandfather Aleksander. Valdemar had been a baby when the purge took place, but as an adult, the differences were too numerous to ignore.

“Lavina Verney was old enough to be Sarah’s mother, and never married as far as we know,” Marianne said. “It would explain the forged birth certificate.”

Noble families were extremely traditionalist, as Marianne could attest. Noblewomen were expected to remain virgins until they married, so Lavina Verney having a bastard would have caused a scandal and destroyed her chances to marry into the Oldblood.

“Is Milady suggesting Isaac Verney bedded his secret niece?”

Somehow, Bertrand said these words with such a flat, deadpan tone that Marianne couldn’t help but chuckle. “I don’t think he’s actually Valdemar’s father,” she replied. “Or at least, not if my theory is correct. I would expect Valdemar to be less robust if his family tree was a tangled vine.”

“But if Isaac Verney isn’t the father, who is it?”

That was the real question.

Aleksander Verney intended to let Valdemar inherit everything should something happen to him, which meant the so-called bastard was a lot more important than he appeared. Then there was the small matter of his unnaturally efficient metabolism, the magical signs that Lord Och detected, and the unnatural stench Bertrand noticed around him...

Was he even a natural Verney at all? He had the family look, but… Powerful biomancers could create homunculi and clones, and Valdemar exhibited abilities Marianne would expect to see in mutants. The Verney Cult had done so many terrible things, creating an artificial heir wouldn’t even surprise her.

“Let’s hope the inquisitors left a clue or two when they torched the family castle,” Marianne replied as she put the drawings aside in a compartment beneath her seat. “How far are we from it?”

“We can already see it, Milady.”

Marianne looked through the window.

The crumbling walls of the Verney castle awaited a few kilometers away from the road, standing over a cliff like a twisted black candle. Ancient crystal beacons along the shores allowed Marianne to see the fortress’ shadow. Its five broken towers reminded her of a wicked hand reaching for the skies. At its peak, it must have been a modest castle by imperial standards; fitting for a lesser noble, but unsuited for a wealthier household. Marianne’s mother would have derided it as a pauper’s den.

The castle’s cliff overshadowed a small fishing hamlet along the Lightless Ocean’s shore. It looked large enough to accommodate a few hundred souls, but no more. Lights came from the houses, like embers in a fireplace.

“Is this the village of Vernburg?” Marianne asked Bertrand, as she started to wonder if they had reached the right location. “Have we veered off-tracks?”

“I am certain that this is our destination.”

Then something was wrong. “Inquisitor Penhew told me that it had never been resettled.”

All the guards they met on the way said they would only find ruins, but the village looked perfectly normal. Lively even.

Bertrand sneered in disgust. “Milady, this place stinks.”

“We will go there and investigate,” Marianne said with a nod. With luck, it would just be squatters having taken over the ruins.

“That is not what I meant,” her vampire retainer replied. “The place smells like Mr. Valdemar. It’s the same stench all over the village.”

“Oh?” Marianne’s hand instinctively brushed against her rapier. “Approach it quietly, but be ready for anything.”

“As Milady wishes.” Bertrand had the beetle veer off the road, and they made their way to Vernburg in silence.

It took them less than an hour to get there, but the smell reached them first. If anything, Bertrand had undersold the stench of the place. Vernburg reeked with the odors of rotten fish, rats, and burnt oil. The streets were made of planks covering a muddy ground, dimly lit by faltering lanterns. Though they looked functional, the wattle-and-daub houses were in poor condition, their walls covered in dung. Marianne noticed rats crawling on the wooden roofs, some looking at the approaching carriage without any fear of man.

Bertrand stopped the coach at the town’s entrance, and Marianne didn’t wait for him to open her door to get out. She activated her psychic sight the moment she stepped away from her vehicle. Her senses were not as sharp as most sorcerers, but it should give her an inkling of the situation.

She only saw darkness.

An invisible crimson mist covered the hamlet, shrouding it from her magical sight. She couldn’t even detect the rats within its walls. A power eclipsing her own had taken over the village as its playground.

“Something interferes with my magic, milady,” Bertrand warned her.

“Mine too, which means a sorcerer is involved.” Marianne had hoped to find clues, but not something of this magnitude. “How far are we from the nearest guard station?”

“I would say three days. Our beetle is tired and needs rest.”

So they couldn’t expect to gather reinforcements and come back in short order. The fact nobody mentioned this phantom village bothered Marianne as well. The Knights occasionally patrolled this area, so why hadn’t they noticed something?

“Scout the outskirts in mist form, look for wards, and report back to me,” she ordered Bertrand. “I will send a messenger bat in the meantime.”

“As Milady wishes.” The vampire turned into a misty cloud and flew away, leaving Marianne alone. The noblewoman immediately looked into her carriage’s hidden compartments, where a black vampire bat with four wings slept inside a small cage.

Biomancers had enhanced these animals to fly nonstop for days and instinctively seek out the magical signature of the Knights’ beacons; the Dark Lords distributed them to their agents in case they ever needed to communicate quickly. Marianne wrote a small message on a parchment letter, attached it to the animal’s back, and then let it fly away.

Bertrand returned from his errands a few minutes later, more distressed than ever. “I have not detected any ward in the outskirts,” he admitted. “Although I noticed an abnormally high amount of wild rats in the area.”

And the Verney’s last patriarch was quite fond of those rodents. “Did you try to fly over the houses?”

“I did, but whatever obscures my sight also forces me to transform back whenever I fly too close.” The vampire’s jaw clenched. Bertrand did that when he was under stress. “I would have expected a Derro anti-magical device to be the cause, but it would disable the spell shrouding this village. I could not transform either on the Institute’s grounds before Lord Och altered the wards not to affect me.”

So the magic at work within these walls rivaled that of a Dark Lord’s fortress. “This can’t have gone unnoticed,” Marianne stated the obvious. “Did we interrupt a magical ritual of some kind?”

“I cannot say, Milady,” Bertrand replied while examining the houses. “However, one does not raise a full village in the blink of an eye. If these houses were burnt to the ground, it would have taken weeks, maybe months to rebuild.”

This conundrum gave her a headache. The sensible thing was to establish a camp nearby and wait for reinforcements, but what if they had stumbled into something they shouldn’t have? If a ritual was at work in the area, waiting for days would let it run its course. Marianne couldn’t let that happen.

“We go in and try to locate the mage behind the protective spell,” Marianne said. “If we face resistance, we retreat at once. Gathering information is our priority.”

Bertrand responded with a nod, his eyes briefly turning red. “Shall we split up to cover more ground?”

“Absolutely not.” Divided they would make an easier target. “Stay close to me.”

Marianne took a step forward, Bertrand following her like a shadow. The street planks creaked as she moved, and the noblewoman worried that they might collapse beneath her feet.

Though the village appeared empty at first glance, it didn’t take long for the investigators to meet one of the locals. An old man with a crooked back and dusty, tattered clothes cleaned the threshold of a house with a broom.

“Greetings, sir,” Marianne introduced herself. The old man didn’t raise his head to look at her, nor did he respond. “Forgive me for interrupting you, but is this Vernburg?”

Up close, the man reeked of rot and alcohol. The light of a street lantern reflected in his tired white eyes. “There are rats all over the shop,” he replied with a gruff voice. “All those dirty rodents, biting my fingers at night.”

“Sir?” Marianne asked, slightly worried by the answer. The man seemed… absent-minded.

Bertrand’s response was far less polite. “Milady asked you a simple question,” he said firmly. “Answer by yes or no.”

“I told the baron to keep his rat in check,” the old man replied. He didn’t seem to have registered Bertrand’s existence, and the baron’s mention left Marianne puzzled. “‘It’s not a rat at all,’ he said, ‘not a rat.’ Like that made it alright.”

Marianne looked up at the houses’ roofs, but to her surprise, the rodents had vanished. “Sir, are you talking about Baron Aleksander?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

“Doesn’t matter,” the man said, but his tone made Marianne doubt he was answering her question, “just have to wait until the egg hatches. Just a little longer, and it’ll be all over soon.”

Only then did Marianne notice that he kept cleaning the spot, over and over again. After watching his manic actions for a full minute, the noblewoman and her retainer silently walked past the madman.

While sparsely populated, the hamlet turned out to be far from empty. Marianne crossed paths with a few locals: a washerwoman cleaning clothes by the shore; old vagrants sleeping near a small, crumbling church dedicated to the Light; fishermen tending to their boats. The village appeared gloomy but unremarkable at first glance.

A closer examination revealed worrying oddities though. The fishermen tended to rotting boats unable to take to the sea. The washerwoman's clothes were full of holes. And the vagrants didn’t respond when Marianne tossed them a few coins.

None of them answered her questions, instead replying with inane nonsense. “Soon I’ll be young again,” said the washerwoman, “with perfect skin and juicy flesh.” “I wonder when Shelley will come back,” muttered a fisherman, but wouldn’t reveal who he was talking about. “We weren’t meant to be like this,” whispered a vagrant with empty eyes, “we’ll be our true selves soon.”

They looked alive. They had a heartbeat, and breathed as far as Marianne could tell. But they behaved like soulless automatons.

“They smell like Mr. Valdemar, Milady,” Bertrand warned her as they continued their search. “All of them. The odors are much weaker, but similar enough.”

“And they don’t seem to notice each other any more than they pay attention to us,” Marianne said as she looked through a house’s window. She saw three bowls on a table, full of mud and worms. “Zombies?”

“They breathe,” Bertrand replied with a frown. “Although…”

“Although?”

“Their blood smells wrong to my senses,” the vampire replied. “It feels fake, for lack of a better term. Same for the odors of fish, alcohol, rot… only the rats and Mr. Valdemar’s stench appear genuine to me. It reminds me of the homunculi Lady Mathilde raises in her lab.”

“Then they’re artificial creatures?” That would explain their near-mindlessness. “Is this a biomancer’s work?”

“To clone an entire village would take too many resources for a single biomancer,” Bertrand pointed out. “Such an operation would require a Dark Lord’s backing.”

Marianne remained silent a moment, as she tried to make sense out of this mess. What was going on here?

“Does Milady want me to rough one of them up?” Bertrand asked. “This would be quicker.”

“No violence, please.” Besides the fact that it was just plain wrong, she had the feeling it would escalate into something far worse than a muscled interrogation. “Do you smell anything else?”

Bertrand closed his eyes. “I sense a strong odor of dried blood at the town’s center.”

Dried blood… Valdemar’s stench… rats everywhere…

“This place was once a den of cultists worshiping a dangerous Stranger,” Marianne said. “Could it be that one of their rituals had a delayed effect and warped reality? Could it be possible to transport a village through time?”

“I do not know,” Bertrand replied. “That seems unlikely.”

“This whole scenario feels unlikely.” If the cult had permanently damaged reality in the area, why hadn’t the Knights quarantined it? Either the place must have appeared completely normal when the last patrol checked up on it, or the force that obscured Marianne’s arcane sight had managed to hide the truth for years. “Let’s check the town’s center.”

She had the feeling many things would become clearer once they checked this area… and hopefully, they wouldn’t have to resort to violence.

Bertrand walked through the streets with the confidence of a bloodhound on the hunt, and their path led them through a small graveyard behind the old church. A dozen tombstones were erected in the backyard, and Marianne took a moment to examine them. To her surprise, almost all of them were blanks.

With two exceptions.

“Wait,” Marianne called Bertrand, as she examined these anomalies more closely. “Let me see.”

Not only were these two stones the only ones with words, but they each also had a hole dug before them. Though a layer of dust covered them, the carved epitaphs were clear and easy to read.

475-496 A.E.

She talked too much.

Bertrand Dugéclin

149-496 A. E.

Loyal to the bitter end.

Marianne immediately generated a layer of bone armor beneath her clothes, and called upon the Blood to strengthen her flesh.

“Milady.” Even the usually unflappable Bertrand spoke with worry. And he should be. Only Marianne and he himself knew his birthdate, which meant that whatever force wrote these words had read his mind without being noticed. “I strongly suggest that we leave.”

“Not yet.” Marianne looked around herself, but nobody seemed to be watching them. “Whoever you are, you do not frighten me. I shall not be intimidated.”

Only silence answered.

“Stay hidden then,” Marianne said with a shrug. “I will get to the bottom of this anyway.”

Though she remained steadfast, Bertrand’s hand never left his longsword’s pommel and his eyes remained red as blood.

The vampire retainer led the duo to the center of the hamlet, a nearly empty plaza with an old well at its center. Unlike the rest of the village, the structure was made of strong grey stones and large enough to pull an ox through. A young woman in her early thirties sang a tune to herself next to the well, oblivious to the strong smell of dried blood coming off from it. At this distance, the odor choked the air so much Marianne struggled not to pinch her nose.

“Oh, hello!” The woman greeted the investigators with a smile, spooking Marianne. It was the first time a villager acknowledged their existence. “Are you visitors?”

“Of a sort,” Marianne replied, examining the woman carefully. She was pretty with doe-eyes, and wore her light brown hair in an outdated bun. Her light dress was out of fashion, and she didn’t carry any weapon. Marianne knew better than to drop her guard, however. For all she knew, the woman might be the sorcerer behind everything. “Is this Vernburg?”

“Why, yes it is,” the woman replied with a look of concern. “Are you lost?”

“No, no, this… this is the place we were looking for.” Marianne sensed Bertrand tense up behind her, as if he half-expected the mysterious woman to attack them. “What is happening here?”

“What do you mean?” The woman seemed genuinely puzzled. “Are you from Saklas too? I recognize the accent.”

“Yes, indeed.” Marianne wasn’t sure what to make of her. Either that woman was an amazing actress, or she was another absent-minded denizen of this town. “What’s your name?”

“Mona,” the woman replied. “Happy to meet you.”

A chill went down Marianne’s spine. “Would you happen to be a nurse?” she asked, her hand tightening around her rapier’s pommel.

“Yes, how did you know?” The woman’s eyes lit up. “Oh, are you knights? Did you come for me?”

Marianne didn’t know how to answer, so Bertrand took over. “Yes,” he lied. “We are knights investigating your disappearance.”

“You shouldn’t have,” the woman replied in an innocent way that Marianne found more and more eerie. “It’s all a big misunderstanding.”

“You weren’t kidnapped?” Marianne found the courage to ask the dead woman. Not a biomancer, she thought, a necromancer.

“In a way. I was very frightened when the masked men seized me after work, but they brought me to the baron instead. He was such a gentleman. He said I hadn’t been abducted, but chosen. That I had a destiny. Me.” Mona chuckled to herself, oblivious to the sinister tones of her words. “He gave me beautiful jewels, and said I would have more if I did my job well. Such a kind man. His rat frightens me though. Its face is almost like a human’s. Creepy dirty thing.”

“Baron Aleksander Verney?” Bertrand continued the interrogation with firm focus, while Marianne tried to make sense out of the situation. The woman in front of her looked too alive to be an undead. Even a vampire had telltale signs, if you knew where to look. “What was your destiny?”

“He asked me to take care of his grandson,” Mona answered to Marianne’s surprise. “He’s growing unruly, and his mother can’t calm him anymore. I took care of old Paul, so I could take care of a little boy. The baron was very happy that I took the job, as Crétail is a very important child. The previous two maids weren't good enough for him, so they were fired.”

“Crétail?” Marianne asked in confusion, doing her best to ignore the ‘fired’ part. She had the feeling the maids faced the same gruesome fate as Mona herself. “You mean Valdemar?”

“Valde… mar?” Mona squinted at Marianne. “What is that?”

“Valdemar Verney. The baron’s grandson.”

Mona frowned while trying to remember. “I’m sorry,” she apologized after a few minutes. “I never heard of a child with that name. Are you sure the name is not Crétail?”

“Yes.” Baron Aleksander’s testament explicitly named Valdemar as his heir, not ‘Crétail.’ What was going on here? Was this all a ghastly prank of some sort? “Who is this Paul?”

“Old Paul,” Mona answered with a sad sigh. “The doctors at the asylum thought he was mad, but they were wrong. He came from another world, but nobody understood him. I taught him a few words in our tongue when I brought him his meals. Poor man, he didn’t deserve it… I asked the baron if he could help, and he said he would. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

The more Marianne listened, the less it made sense. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“The baron said old Paul wasn’t alone. Pierre, they called him. The other man.”

“Pierre Dumont?” As odd and insane as this encounter sounded, it might give Marianne some clues.

Mona’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Yes, that was his name,” she confirmed. “I never met him, but they say I will meet him soon. He’s a very important person.”

Marianne was about to question her some more, when Bertrand unsheathed his longsword. “Milady, the roofs,” he said with an alarmed voice.

Marianne looked up.

Dozens, hundreds of rats were silently crawling on the houses’ roofs around the square. The black-furred beasts varied in size, some of them almost as large as cats. They glared at Marianne and Bertrand with bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes.

Marianne tried to look for a human-faced one among them, but found none. However, she could sense an inhuman intelligence in their gaze.

“So that’s how it is…” Marianne muttered to herself as she grabbed her rapier in one hand and her pistol in the other. Ignoring the puzzled Mona’s confusion, the noblewoman pointed her firearm at the rodents. “Whoever you are, attacking us will be an affront to Lord Och of Paraplex. We will fight, and even if you prevail, others know we came here. You won’t be able to cover your tracks.”

The rats answered with a maddening chitter.

They’re laughing, Marianne realized. Since she had very little time ahead, the noblewoman took a few seconds to glance into the well.

The pit went on and on into pitch-black darkness. Though Marianne couldn’t see the bottom—if it had one—she could smell the odors of burnt blood all too well. Using her psychic sight up close, she grew certain that the strange power clouding it came straight from this black abyss.

There’s something at the bottom, Marianne realized in horror. The source of all this madness.

A rift in space and time to an eldritch realm? A magical artifact? Maybe a living creature controlling the rats on the surface?

“Is something wrong?” Mona asked, utterly oblivious to the situation happening around her.

“Excuse my boldness, Miss Mona but…” Marianne tried to find the right words as she looked away from the well. “How can I say this…”

“Say what?”

“I think you are dead,” Marianne admitted.

Mona blinked in confusion. The words didn’t seem to have registered. “What do you mean?”

“You were killed almost two decades ago by the Followers of the Grail,” Marianne said, while the rats stopped chittering all at once. If anything, their silence felt twice as threatening. “Your bones were found in the Verney Castle’s ruins.”

“The Followers of the Grail? What, that silly church?” Mona giggled. “Why would they need me to make a cup? They made their grail long ago!”

Somehow, Marianne found that answer more horrifying than all the others. “Miss Mona, don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?” Mona grew more and more agitated, while Bertrand looked for a way out. But though they made no move to attack, the rats had them surrounded. “Why are you saying these awful things?”

“Crétail? Do you remember this Crétail?” Marianne asked, trying to get any answer she could. She was close to uncovering this mystery. She could feel it in her bones. “How does he look?”

Was that Valdemar’s true name? Something linked to the grail? Marianne knew she didn’t have much time left before something terrible happened.

“Crétail? He’s a sweet child. He’s a very sweet child…” Mona began to shake. “He… he likes the music box very much. He likes the music, but…”

“But?”

“He’s a very unruly child. But he’s sweet, he’s…” Mona held her head with her hands, her eyes widening. “That’s the blood they said. He can’t help it, he was born wrong. There’s something wrong with him, it’s not his fault if he’s like this… and he’s hungry, he’s always hungry...”

To her horror, Marianne noticed something crawling beneath Mona’s skin. The dead woman’s back started to grow, to burst like a bag too small for its content. “Mona?” Marianne asked, instinctively preparing a basic healing spell. “Mona, calm down, it’s going to be alr—”

White tentacles erupted from inside Mona, tearing the skin like a cloth.

Marianne took a leap backward before the squirming appendages could catch her and fired a shot midair. The bullet hit the monster in its eyeless face, causing it to screech with its triangular, fanged mouth. No blood came out of the wound, but its tentacles thrashed around in pain all the same.

The monster might have looked vaguely humanoid at a distance, but white as milk and utterly featureless save for a gnawing maw. Both its hands and legs ended in sinuous tentacles instead of fingers, and they quickly lunged at Marianne like a net. Bertrand swiftly intervened and cut one of its arms with his sword. Marianne shot the monster in the chest while it wailed, sending it falling into the well.

There was no trace of blood or flesh left from Mona; only dry skin which the horror had worn like a suit.

Marianne ground her teeth, her pistol's tip smoking. “What was that?”

“A Qlippoth,” Bertrand warned with a scowl, as they heard more screeches around the hamlet. The rats echoed them with a chittering cacophony, like twisted hosts inviting other monsters to a feast.

The villagers were coming.

“Bring it,” Marianne replied while cocking her pistol.