Warband of the Forsaken Sons Chapter 39 : Supplicants of Greatness, a warhammer fanfic

I do not own Warhammer 40000 nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.

Author notes at the end of the chapter.

+++ IMPERIAL RECORD R626U-6I42N +++

+++ SYSTEM ELDUR +++

+++ WORLDS : ELDUR – MEDIEVAL WORLD +++

+++ POPULATION : APPROXIMATELY 10,000,000 +++

+++ GOVERNMENT SYSTEM : FEUDAL – GOVERNOR PRESENCE DEEMED UNNEEDED UNTIL FURTHER SOCIAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS IS MADE +++

+++ NOTABLE ASSETS : NONE – POTENTIAL FOR ASTARTES RECRUITING GROUND – RESULT PENDING FROM ULTRAMARINES CHAPTER +++

+++ IGNORANCE IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM +++

An army laid siege to the castle, fighting against daemonic horrors and raving madmen under a cloud-choked sky. From all across the Overlord's empire, men and women of power had come, heeding the call of their master. The summon had been simple : come to Castle Drachencraft and cast down its insane lord, or be executed as traitors for refusing to obey. Some had come out of fear of the Overlord's punishment, while others had been drawn by the promise of plunder and undreamed of knowledge. Regardless of their motives, they had come in their thousands, gathering in the hamlets surrounding the castle, planning their own assaults upon the lair of Gerion Drachencraft, the Betrayer. There they had banded together, forming alliances of convenience, and marched toward the castle towering over the entire region.

Anyone looking at the castle would have been able to tell it had not been built for war but for prestige. There were no ramparts, no battlements, no towers from which rained death. Only an assortment of various buildings cobbled together by their own expansion. By all rights the might gathered at the Overlord's command should have captured it long ago. Yet the things that Gerion had unleashed within his demesne had made a mockery of the efforts of the Overlord's vassals. The Betrayer had broken the Overlord's edicts limiting the research into daemonic forces, and in his work he had created a host of twisted abominations.

In the first days of the war, the Overlord's envoys had attempted to marshal the strength of thousands of warriors, gathering a great army that had marched upon Castle Drachencraft in ordered ranks. But discipline had broken as soon as the Betrayer had unleashed his first wave of sorcery, and very few of those thousands had returned. After those responsible had been executed for their failure, it had been determined that the Betrayer only reacted in person to massive assaults. Therefore, the way to victory laid in small teams, none of which would trigger his appearance on the battlefield. These squads searched for a way into the Castle, hoping to confront and slay the Betrayer, thus earning the Overlord's praise and the immense reward he had set for Gerion's head.

'Three years,' Aleric Heinrich muttered to himself as he looked toward the hateful structure from atop the observation tower, at the edge of the war-born village where he and his party had made camp for the night. The warrior wore an armor of black leather, with a sword and short sceptre hanging at his belt. His hair, black as the Overlord's soul, framed a face that was marked by the rigors of his duties. A nasty scar ran through his right eye socket where the claw of a particularly nasty beast had taken his eye, though the healers had been able to replace it with a yellow orb, the origin of which he knew better than to ask.

Three years, he mouthed again, in silence this time. Had it only been that long ? Somehow, it seemed that he had been doing this forever, the memory of every battle fusing with the others into an endless parade of horrors. But the passage of the seasons did not lie : it had indeed been only three years. Outside, beyond this land of shadows and madness, where sanity and reason still held sway, there had only been three harvests since Aleric had come to the Drachencraft fief. Sometimes, he hated all those who lived out there, free from the insanity and the horrors he and his comrades had to face every day in order to survive.

For three years, the gathered elite fighters of the empire had thrown themselves at the castle, and though some had managed to escape with their lives after slaying some greater minion of the Betrayer – albeit fewer with their sanity – they had yet to earn a true victory. The inner sanctum, which Gerion had not left ever since the siege had begun, had not been breached by any of the hundreds of expedition that had made the attempt. Entire parties were forced to guard the woods in the area, patrolling their borders to prevent the beasts that lurked inside from raiding the settlements and destroy the bases upon which the war effort depended.

Where was the Overlord, thought Aleric to himself ? Why had the master of Eldur, mightiest of sorcerers and warlords alike, not come there to deal with this atrocity ? Could it be that even the Overlord was afraid of Drachencraft's power ?

He shook his head. Treasonous thoughts would bring him nowhere, save to the gallows. Instead, he focused on more immediate concerns, like the fact that the sun – barely visible behind the curtain of clouds that almost permanently occluded the sky, granting blessed cover from its insanity – would set soon. He had spent almost two hours up here, watching Castle Drachencraft. It was time to come down, eat, and hopefully get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, he and his party would make another foray into hostile territory.

This time, Aleric was hoping to map the tunnels connected to the hidden entrance they had found in the previous expedition. It was unlikely there would be a passage into the castle proper – another team had tried that in the first year, and after they had been killed Gerion had set his minions on sealing the castle against infiltration from below. But the tunnels likely still held many secrets and valuables, and Aleric's party needed both. They were running out of credit in the strange, twisted economy that had developed around the war. Scraps of lore and plundered treasures were traded for food, weapons, armor, grimoires, and all manners of things that made life bearable on the frontlines.

The warrior descended down the ladder of the watchtower, and marched through the streets of the hamlet toward the inn where the rest of his party was waiting. He passed few others on his way – the village held perhaps fifty souls at all times, with an additional number depending on how many war parties were using it as a base at the moment. One of dozens of others just like it, Aleric knew that the hamlet could hold up to four hundred people, though the one time that had happened it had been almost impossible to sleep in the overcrowded chambers. Right now, there were only two parties besides his own here, each in their own inn. While they were all allies in the war, they were also rivals for the treasures of the Drachencraft estate and the attention of the Overlord. It was better for everybody if they remained away from each other, especially in places where alcohol ran freely and shortened tempers.

Aleric's party had set its quarters in a wooden two-storied building. As he grew close, the smell of food emanating from the inn reminded him of just how hungry he was. He entered, greeted by the innkeeper – a small, plump man with the pale face typical to all people of Eldur. He sat to one of the empty tables, and signalled for the innkeeper to bring him his meal, allowing himself to relax for a time.

The food was a stew, and while it was as bland as it was hot and filling – the only qualities that mattered in the Overlord's army – Aleric could almost feel the gold coins in every mouthful. Most of the supplies had to be imported from the rest of the empire, and that dramatically increased the cost. But it was better than risk eating something that had grown under the shadow of Castle Drachencraft. Not all beasts and plants of the woods were poisoned, and one could, with some experience, distinguish between those who were safe to consume and the others. Yet still, it was a risk most were unwilling to take unless there was no other alternative.

His meal over, Aleric put down his spoon and took a look around at the rest of the inn's main room. Apart from the innkeeper and himself, two of his party members were the only other people present. In a corner of the room, his great runic axe resting against the back of his special reinforced chair, Phores was staring right ahead, at something only he could see. A glass stood on his table, with a thin, hollow tube connecting the liquid to Phores' mouth through the small openings in his helmet's grill. This was how Phores took in all of his sustenance now, for he could not remove the helmet, or any part of his set of heavy, black armor. He could no longer speak, either, which was why Aleric had only been able to learn Phores' name and story from those who had known him before his current situation. Phores had once been a knight in service to the Overlord, and part of the first contingent sent to quell the heresy of Drachencraft. He had been among the army that had marched toward the castle as if it were any other battlefield. Then the Betrayer had unleashed his sorcery and his creations upon the army.

Phores had been bathed into the acidic breath of some kind of great lizard, wounded unto near death even as he cleaved the beast's head in two. His companions, grateful for his actions, had bore him away from the battlefield. The healers had managed to save his life, but their magic had carried a price : if Phores' armor was ever removed, he would doubtlessly die immediately. The acid still coursed through his veins, and exposure to the outside world would be lethal. Whether or not this caused the warrior any pain was something Aleric had no desire to know, but he showed no sign of it as he took part in their expeditions. Repairing his armor when it was damaged in battle took some imagination from the blacksmiths, but Phores was far from being the most difficult case they had had to work on.

The other person present in the room was very different from Phores. Urien was a man with a lady-killer's face and an easy smile, not that either were especially useful here on the frontlines. He wore clothes made of the hide of one of the beasts the party had slain months ago. At his own exacting specifications, the leather had been cut and assembled to resemble the latest fashions among the courts of the nobility. A pair of daggers hung from his belt, their sheaths covered in the runic script that contained their sorcerous power. On each of his nine fingers – the tenth had been lost to the poisoned kiss of a trapped lock – he wore a jewelled ring. Aleric knew that a spirit remained bound within four of the jewels, waiting to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting foe. The rings were his legacy, Urien said jokingly, but Aleric knew the truth. Urien, the second-born son of one of the Overlord's vassals, had stolen the daggers and the rings from his father's treasure before fleeing his ancestral home. Urien said that he had done so to avoid being killed by his elder brother, who suspected him of seeking to become sole heir to their father's domain. Knowing Urien's character, Aleric wasn't sure the brother had been wrong in his suspicions.

At the moment, Urien was idly playing with a deck of cards, shuffling the deck over and over and drawing cards from it seemingly at random, looking at each with a thoughtful expression before putting them back in the deck and starting again. Aleric considered joining the man for a chat, perhaps a game of cards before retiring to his room for the night. But before he could debate whether or not to spend an hour sharpening his wits trying to catch his partner's cheating, the all too familiar sound of an alarm tore him from his thoughts. Even as he jumped to his feet, followed by his two comrades, his mind analysed the tune and rhythm of the bells. Through a simple system, they told him and anyone with the knowledge of this settlement's codes where the attack was coming from and the strength of the foe.

'The eastern wall !' he shouted to his companions, knowing not all of them had bothered learning the alarms' code. 'Beastmen !'

'A bit of exercise before sleep, then,' laughed Urien, while Phores remained as silent as ever.

'Do not get overconfident,' warned Aleric as the three of them ran through the streets toward the battle, trusting that the rest of the explorers were doing the same – to do otherwise was to risk death for everyone in the settlement. 'Even a beast can kill you.'

Urien's only answer was his laughter. They heard the sounds of the battle ahead – the clashing of blades, the screams of pain, the braying of the beasts. The scent of burning wood reached them too, and the clouds above became lit by the fire spread by the invaders. Then they made the final turn, and the breach in the wooden wall became visible – as did the battle.

The silhouettes of the beastmen and the guards and explorers who had rallied to stop them were clear-cut against the background of several houses burning. There were more than a hundred of the creatures, braying and howling and snarling and chirping. Each was a hideous amalgamation of man and animal – wolf, goat, bear, bird, it mattered not. They were all monsters, either created in the flesh-labs of Castle Drachencraft or bred in the woods by the earlier specimens. Their minds still retained enough intelligence to wield weapons, but all that drove them were hunger for flesh and a deep-seated hatred of humans. They had formed tribes in the woods, led by the strongest and meanest of them all. Some attempts at diplomacy had been made – after all, the beastmen were victims of Drachencraft's madness. It would have stood to reason that they sought revenge against him. But that hadn't been the case, and the envoys had ended up in the tribes' cooking pots. The beastmen worshipped their creator as a god, and they would not betray him. And so, they had become the first line of defense of the Drachencraft estate.

The beastmen outnumbered the defenders greatly, and before Aleric's eyes, a pack of them detached from the main horde and began to charge in his direction. Neither he nor Phores or Urien even slowed down. With his sword in his right hand, Aleric lifted his sceptre with his left, and muttered a short incantation.

Like the beastmen, the sceptre was the product of Gerion Drachencraft's mad genius. Unlike them, though, it could be of use. It had been shaped from the bone of some creature far bigger than any human, engraved with hundreds of small runes and sorcerous glyphs. Aleric had taken it from the dead hands of a renegade sorcerer with a dozen faceted eyes on his face and a second mouth on his throat. Speaking the words that triggered it was difficult with his single mouth, as was ignoring the sickly feeling that spread across his left arm when he did. And once the battle was over and his blood had cooled down, he would feel the exhaustion of the fight threefold. But in his mind, the sceptre's power was well worth these minor inconveniences.

The beastmen at the pack's front were hit by the wave of invisible energy emanating from the sceptre. They stumbled, then fell, vomiting and twitching as their bodies failed catastrophically. The rest of the pack vaulted over them or crushed them under whatever they had for feet, too full of bloodlust to care. Aleric sheathed the sceptre once more – he had learned through bitter experience not to use the power of the artefact twice in quick succession. It had taken two weeks for the healers to restore his arm, and every single moment he hadn't spent drugged into a stupor had been pure agony. Instead, he seized his sword in a two-handed grip, and began to fight. His training in the Overlord's army, sharpened by three years of near-constant practice, allowed him to parry every blow from the beastmen. On his left, Urien was like a dancer, dodging all strikes that came his way while he cut throats and stabbed hearts with his enchanted dagger. And to his right, Phores was an unstoppable force, a rock against which the beastmen crashed and were cut down. Their primitive weapons hammered against the knight's plate, none of them penetrating the thick metal.

Aleric's sword trust into the snout of a wolf-headed monstrosity, before ripping his blade free and cutting open the bloated guts of an obese, pig-faced beastman. As their bodies hit the ground, a shadow fell over him. He blinked and looked up, to see a two and a half meters high beastman with a bull head, a mean glare, and a club of stone as long as Aleric was tall held aloft.

With a curse, Aleric jumped backward just as the club crashed onto the ground where he had stood seconds ago. There was enough strength behind the blow to cause him to lose his footing and fall on his behind. The minotaur towered above him, lifting its club for another blow. With a snarl, Aleric reached for the sceptre, determined to take the creature with him -

A bolt of sorcerous fire hit the beastman in the chest, leaving a smoking crater. For a handful of seconds, it stood still, blinking stupidly as it looked down upon the lethal wound. Then its eyes rolled back, and it fell. Aleric turned to see his saviour stride confidently toward the battle.

Merinia was clad in her sorceress' robe, the purple vestment billowing around her in the air currents caused by the fires. Black, silky hair fell on her shoulders, held away from her face by the golden tiara she wore. Her silver staff glowed with the power she had channelled from the Above Sea and into the spell that had felled the minotaur. On her right was a tall, somber man holding a crossbow, and on her left a figure covered in rags, with a hood patched together from a dozen pieces of tissue. Oris and Kelor, two of the most dangerous men Aleric knew – and that was saying something.

Merinia let loose more sorcery upon the remaining beastmen, and Oris calmly aimed and shot with his crossbow, while Kelor remained motionless at the sorceress' side. As the ragged man had pledged when Merinia had pulled him out of Drachencraft's experiment chambers, he would ensure no harm would come to her.

Aleric rolled to his feet, but the battle was already almost over. With the death of their bull-headed champion – doubtlessly the leader of their tribe – the beastmen had lost heart and were retreating. The defenders butchered them as they ran, but no one pursued them beyond the breach. Despite their stupidity, the beastmen were still vicious fighters, and weren't above leading those who thought them beaten into an ambush.

Once the beastmen were pushed back, the gathered defenders began to work on stopping the fire from spreading further. Chains were established, water brought and spells cast to appease the flames. It was all very fluid, very practiced – people who had never met before worked together in near-perfect unity. Such was the result of life in Drachencraft : here, more than anywhere in the Empire, cooperation was needed to merely survive. It was the one thing Aleric liked about the place. Unlike the rest of the empire, no one would try to backstab you here, not when you might be the only one standing between them and certain death the next day.

'Thanks for the save, Merinia,' said Aleric to the sorceress.

'It isn't your time to die yet,' she merely shrugged in reply.

Merinia had been the first companion that had joined Aleric when he had arrived in Drachencraft, mere weeks after the Overlord's proclamation. Since then, they had both saved each other's life more time than either cared to count, but manners were still important to Aleric. He might not be a noble like the sorceress or Urien, but he still fancied himself as no mere sword-carrying brute.

'You are wounded,' said a new voice just next to Aleric, and he startled. Somehow, Elexia had managed to get to his side without him noticing her approach. The wrinkled face of the alchemist was looking at his arm intently, even as her hands moved to mix the contents of two of the many flasks she carried on her person.

'Wounded ? What are you ...' he followed the alchemist's gaze, and found that his left arm was indeed wounded. A long, bloody gash decorated his forearm, and as soon as he saw it, the pain caught up with him and he winced.

'A flying stone from when the minotaur hit the ground,' explained Elexia. 'I am not surprised you didn't notice, what with you using this accursed sceptre again.'

'It worked,' Aleric began to protest, only to be shut up when Elexia forced the mixture she had brewed into his mouth. Reluctantly, he drank the foul concoction while the alchemist cleansed his arm. As the potion spread through his body, he felt the cut flare with sudden pain. He groaned as the accumulated pain of weeks worth of recovery coursed through his nerves in mere seconds instead.

'It might have worked,' replied Elexia, 'but you didn't need it. What's the point of using a weapon that shaves off your own life, anyway ?'

Elexia had never liked Aleric's use of the Drachencraft artefact. In her eyes – and, if Aleric was being honest, in the eyes of almost everyone who knew its origin as well – it was an abomination, and Aleric was a fool for using it. Then again, it wasn't as if the alchemist was entirely unbiased in her opinion. She wore on her cloak the emblem of the Phytean Order, a group of alchemists who had dedicated themselves to the quest for eternal life. Though the Overlord had bent them to his will, they had been allowed to continue their research, and many of the Lords of the empire had benefited from it, enjoying lifespans extended to centuries. It was said the Overlord himself had learned all of their secrets, that it was how he himself had denied the effects of time.

All Phyteans, on some level, sought eternal life – not just for themselves, but for all others they cared for. They always sought ways to extend their lifespan. The sceptre, which with each use consumed a little of Aleric's lifeforce and used it to spread a most abject death to his foes, was anathema to their philosophy. But in Aleric's eyes, it was better to sacrifice a few days of life as an elder than die immediately. Yet it would be pointless to say so to Elexia.

'Thank you for that,' he said instead between gritted teeth. The wound on his arm had healed, replaced by a pale scar, nearly indistinguishable for the others criss-crossing his flesh.

'Think nothing of it,' replied the healer, already moving on toward the rest of the battle, where more wounded waited for assistance.

Aleric watched her walk away, once again wondering how it was he could never detect her approach, despite the fact there was nothing special to how she moved. Behind him, Merinia and her guards reached him and his two other companions. All around them laid the corpses of slain beastmen, their faces showing more peaceful expressions in death that they ever had in life. Guards and explorers had fallen as well, giving their lives to protect the hamlet from the tribe, to preserve their haven from Drachencraft's darkness. Veterans of the campaign, slain in another engagement that had cost nothing to the Betrayer. There were thousands – perhaps tens of thousands – of beastmen in the woods, and they weren't even true servants of the Betrayer, just failed experiments turned to fodder. Drachencraft feasted on the blood of the warriors sent to destroy its corruption.

'Another glorious victory,' remarked Oris, his sarcasm as thick as his accent.

The next morning, Aleric was woken by an insistent pounding on the door of his chamber, back at the inn. Judging by the light pouring through the window, it was around two hours past sunrise – Aleric had slept in, his body recovering the energy drained from it by the sceptre's use.

'What is it ?' he called to the door, struggling to clear his mind from the fog of fatigue.

'A herald is here to see you,' came the reply in Urien's voice.

That simple sentence had the same effect as being suddenly doused in freezing water. Aleric's groggy eyes snapped open, his mind suddenly clear as crystal while his heart pounded in his chest. He leapt off his bed, and struggled to get dressed as quickly as possible. One did not make the heralds of the Overlord wait.

Less than two minutes later, he was running down the stairs. All the other members of his party were already here, kneeling in a half-circle around the herald. None of them seemed at ease, which was to be expected, but Oris was failing to conceal the slight trembling in his right hand. That, too, was to be expected. In the last year, the Lord granted rulership over his homeland had seized the opportunity granted by Gerion's rebellion, and had renounced his allegiance to the Overlord. The rebellion had been crushed mercilessly – the Lord had been no Drachencraft, and his armies no match for the Overlord's might. But a pall of distrust and suspicion had fallen upon all the warriors he had sent to the siege before turning, which included Oris. Personally, Aleric believed that this was foolish – the Lord had likely sent those he knew wouldn't follow him in his betrayal of the Overlord. Still, there had been enough … incidents that Oris' dread of the herald was justified.

The envoy was standing – Aleric had never seen one of his kind sit, or relax in any manner at all. He rushed to take his place near his companions, kneeling closest to the herald as the one the message he carried was destined to.

The herald was identical to all the others Aleric had seen before. He was tall, decked in black chain mail, and on his head was a heavy crown that completely hide his eyes from view but left his lower face – including his mouth – exposed. How the heralds could see anything, Aleric did not know, but they did not seem to be impaired by the strange helmets. Chosen by the Overlord himself, it was said that the heralds were former enemies of the master of Eldur, taken alive and reshaped by his own hand. All kinds of rumor existed about what was hidden behind their crowns. The eyes of a creature of the Above Sea, through which the Overlord could observe everything his agents saw. The broken and ruined visage of a fallen enemy, his eyes torn out and his mind controlled by sorcery. Or nothing at all, for the heralds were mere puppets with only the lower half of their head remaining, and it was the crown itself that spoke through the mouth. No one knew the truth, though. All that was known was that the heralds spoke with the Overlord's authority, and no one – from the lowest peasant to the highest Lord – could disobey them without terrible consequences.

'Aleric Heinrich,' said the herald in a sepulchral voice. 'You and your comrades have distinguished yourselves through your actions here, and elsewhere on the frontlines. And for that, you have been granted a great honor.'

A cold shiver ran down Aleric's spine. Being noticed by the Overlord's envoys could be a good thing, if you hadn't done anything that could be construed as a crime against his rule at least. But far more often, it was the first sign of great troubles coming.

'What is the Overlord's will ?' he asked, still on his knees.

'The Overlord has grown weary of the long siege of the heretic Drachencraft's domain. While he understands the difficulties of fighting the Betrayer's foul creations, he desires to bring an end to the siege now. His sorcerers have warned him that the Betrayer is preparing for a ritual of great foulness, one that must not be allowed to reach completion. To this end, soon, at his command, the explorers shall be brought together once more into an army, their ranks bolstered by new troops brought in from the rest of the empire. They will march onto Castle Drachencraft as one.'

'It's suicide,' blurted Aleric before he could stop himself. Behind him, he could hear Phores' armor creak and squeal as metal plates ground against one another, reflecting the unease of the one trapped inside. 'The Betrayer will ...'

'The assault is merely a distraction,' interrupted the herald, glaring at Aleric, who went silent. 'While the eyes of the Betrayer's lieutenants are upon the army marching on his castle, you and your allies shall infiltrate the estate. A path has been found that will lead you directly into the main building, where Gerion practices his forbidden sorcery. You will find him and kill him, and put an end to this war.'

'This,' continued the herald, tossing a sealed scroll at Aleric's feet, 'contains the details of your mission – where you will infiltrate the castle, and the timing of our planned assault. Memorize its contents and destroy it, for it cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of Drachencraft's agents. If you succeed, you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. If you fail, those of you who survive will wish they had fallen into Gerion's clutches by the time they have suffered the Overlord's full displeasure.'

The herald departed, leaving the party stunned. After a moment, Aleric shook off the stupefied paralysis, seized the scroll, and turned toward his comrades.

'Merinia,' he asked, 'have you done something that would make your father want you dead ?'

Like nine others explorers on the frontlines that Aleric knew of, the sorceress had the dubious honor of being a child of the Overlord. Born from one of his many brides, the only privilege she had received was the education she had been given in the sorcerous arts, learning from the best practitioners of the Empire. Like all of the dozens of children the Overlord had had over the years, though, she had been cast out of his castle upon reaching adulthood, expected to carve her own place in the empire with nothing but her own merits. Merinia had once confessed to Aleric that she had only seen her father three times in all of her life. Even so, the warrior's question still had merit. It wasn't unheard of for a child of the Overlord to get into his or her head that he or she could replace the Overlord as master of Eldur. Every time, though, the Overlord had learned of his child's ambition, and his response had been swift, sometimes brutal, sometimes subtle, always lethal.

Being sent into the heart of Drachencraft's power certainly seemed to fit the bill on the last one.

'Nothing I am aware of,' replied Merinia, frowning at the insinuation in Aleric's words. 'I think this might be just what it appears – an order given to us because we are the best suited for the task.'

'An opportunity to strike at Gerion himself,' muttered Kelor to himself. 'A chance at revenge, at long last.'

Hearing the excitation in the tattered man's voice, Aleric cast a quick glance at him, checking that he was still in control. Once he was sure Kelor was still in control, he returned his gaze to the others.

'We don't have much of a choice,' noted Oris, stating the obvious. Aleric nodded.

'Come,' he said, walking to one of the largest tables, breaking the seal on the scroll and spreading it on the wooden surface. 'Let's see what intel the Overlord's spies have gathered for us.'

That turned out to be quite a lot. Evidently, the agents sent by the master of Eldur to direct the war effort had been planning this operation for a long time. The scroll was divided in several sections, describing all that was known of the inside of the Drachencraft estate. How many had died to gather this information was something Aleric could only guess at, but he would not be surprised if the number was in the hundreds. While the entire territory was dangerous, nowhere was more lethal than the castle itself, where Gerion and his court of favorites held their most blasphemous rituals and experiments. Aleric's party had only been there once, on the exploration that had freed Kelor from his cage. What they had seen in these dungeons haunted them still.

But there was no denying the Overlord's command, even if it was issued by proxy. So the whole party studied the drawn maps and indications, engraving all the knowledge into their minds. The plan was for them to use a service tunnel that had been reopened over the course of many months of work, and kept unused so that the minions of Drachencraft wouldn't notice their castle had been breached again.

'This could work,' Aleric found himself saying. 'We have already fought many kinds of Gerion's creatures, and most of them will be busy dealing with the army. The problem will be the Betrayer himself.'

No one knew how powerful Gerion Drachencraft had become in the years since his treason. Before, he had been one of the greatest sorcerers in the Overlord's court. That was how he had been elevated to the title of Lord in the first place, and granted his estate by the Overlord. But in all the years of the siege, no one had managed to reach him – at least, no one who had returned to speak of what they had seen. Some of his servants who had been slain by exploring parties had held power such as only the Overlord's mightiest champions had possessed. And despite their minds being irrevocably twisted into madness, none of them had ever turned against the Betrayer.

Once more, Aleric found himself wondering if fear might be the reason the Overlord had not come to end the siege himself. And, once more, he crushed the thought down.

'We have two days,' he said, looking at the time written at the top of the scroll. 'No expedition for us today – we need to prepare. Fortunately, this scroll also includes an unlimited credit with all the war services. Merinia, go to the local spellcasters and get them to give you their best grimoires, trinkets, whatever you think will be useful to you. Elexia, the same applies to you – get us the best elixirs you can find. Phores, get your armor prepared and the enchantments reinforced and warded. There is no telling what manner of sorcerous interference we might run into in the castle, and I don't want you to fall apart.'

He looked at everyone assembled. Their expressions – those whose face could be seen, at least – were tightly focused, reading the exposed scroll intently. Even Urien had lost his smile in the face of the momentous task – and opportunity – presented to the party.

'What have I forgotten ?'

'Praying,' suggested Oris dryly. 'It will take at least three miracles for us to reach the Betrayer, kill him, and survive. Better get all the favor we can with the gods.'

That got a chuckle out of everyone around the table – except for Phores, of course. Piety in the Overlord's empire was a … rare and conflicted thing, at best. Every territory the Overlord had conquered had held its own faith – oftentimes several. The Overlord had not forbidden the worship of the idols, nor suppressed the religious beliefs of his subjects. But that was because he had not needed to.

The gods of Eldur had been cruel, powerful beings, whom their faithful served out of fear of retribution and hope of protection from other predators. The rise of the Overlord had proven them false – nothing more than posturing creatures of the Above Sea, each and everyone of them. The Overlord and his generals had fought and slain the arch-priests who stood against them, and sorcerers had banished the incarnate, self-proclaimed "divines". It was often said that the Overlord had killed the gods of Eldur – and added right after that it was good riddance. Only a handful of ancestral shrines remained in use across the continent. Apart from those, they were perhaps one or two temples whose priests had managed to avoid vengeful mobs coming to punish those who had taken their children as sacrifices.

The relationship between the people of Eldur and the gods had changed greatly as a result. Now they were called Neverborn, the children of the Above Sea – the roiling fury that had been shrouded from sight by the Overlord's dark clouds. And rather than receiving prayers and offerings, they were summoned and bound by sorcerers, forced into doing the bidding of mere mortals. Or, like the rings Urien wore, reduced into nothing more than weapons, tools for those they had preyed upon before the Overlord's rise. The man might be a ruthless tyrant, but it was hard to argue that his reign had brought better lives to those living under it.

'Keep up your training, but don't exhaust yourselves,' Aleric continued after the chuckles had died down. 'Tomorrow, we will move to the outpost closest to our target. We will scout the land the day after that. And then ...' he took a deep breath.

'Then, if the fates are willing and in the Overlord's name, we will take down the Betrayer.'

"I caught my first glimpse of the truth decades ago, when I was still a respected sorcerer at the court of the Overlord. For a long time now we had known about the creatures that dwell within the Above Sea – numberless hosts of monsters born of our darkest thoughts and desires, who hunger for our souls. By the Overlord's law, the summoning and binding of these Neverborn is restricted to only those who have proved their strength of will and dedication to the empire, lest uncontrolled legions bring ruin to our world. Even this is permitted solely so that when one of the creatures manifest itself onto our world, we know how to bind or banish it. I had followed this command obediently, and grown in power and knowledge in service of the Overlord, plundering the secrets of my rivals from their cold, dead hands. Then, one day, as I scried the Above Sea for information on the activities of one of my foes – whose name I now cannot recall, so petty such rivalries now appear to me – I saw that which I should not have seen, that which no mortal can see and remain unchanged. I saw the truth, and it showed me the first step on the path to glory."

Even here, beneath the earth, the party could hear the battle above. The assault had started mere minutes before they had entered the tunnel, just as the beastmen launched their first attack on the gathered host. By now that attack would have been crushed back, the beastmen retreating to bring more tribes into the fray. Yet the battle was still raging : the other, even more monstrous guardians of Drachencraft's woods had been roused from their lairs by the intrusion in their territory.

Despite the fact that the tunnel was tight, dark, and stank, Aleric was glad he and his comrades were there and not part of the assault. He did not mean to disparage those who composed it – they were survivors, each and everyone of them, honed by their time spent in the Siege. But as dangerous as the mission the Herald had assigned the party was, it was better than being up there. Aleric understood the necessity of the assault as cover, but the thought of how many would die not as explorers, not as warriors, but as bait, sat ill with him.

The tunnel's entrance had been located at the bottom of a rocky chasm, deep within the woods. If not for the map provided by the Herald, the party would have passed right next to it and never noticed it was there.

The jagged rocks surrounding them had quickly given way to earth, supported by wooden beams and planks. Every step disturbed dust, but despite its age the tunnel wasn't in any danger of collapsing. There were runes engraved onto the wood, which according to Merinia were preserving it from rot by suspending it out of the natural cycle of time. The sorceress claimed that such runes were known to the rest of the empire, and used widely for construction by the Overlord's subjects.

But even if the tunnel itself bore no mark of Gerion's heresy, it soon lead the party to a place that did. After a bit less than an hour of walking in the tight tunnel, with their torches providing the only illumination, the explorers reached an open space, the earth giving way to stone once more. Only this stone was smooth, polished by a human hand to form an artificial cavern about twenty meters high and hundreds wide.

And inside that space were the signs of Drachencraft's corruption. The stone that had been dug out to create the cavern had been sculpted into dozens of grotesque statues, carved into images of repugnant unions of humans and Neverborn. Each statue stood upon a pedestal, and their level of detail and the skill with which they had been crafted varied greatly from one horror to another. This was not the work of a single sculptor, but that of many, all trying to reproduce the terrible images haunting their souls.

'This place is more recent than the tunnel,' whispered Elexia, 'but it is still old. It must have taken decades to build all of this.'

'Then Gerion's treachery was planned for much longer than any of us thought,' replied Oris, his tone grim.

On the other side of the cavern from where the party had entered, Aleric could see a flight of stairs leading upward, sculpted into the very wall. He consulted his mental map of the estate, trying to locate their current position compared to the buildings above.

'There,' he said once he was reasonably certain of his estimation, gesturing toward the stairs. 'This should get us inside the castle itself.'

No one moved. The thought of walking between the statues was not pleasant. Each one appeared to be frozen mid-motion, as if it had been fighting when some mighty spell had turned it to stone. They looked as if they could start moving again at any time. And considering what else the party had encountered in previous expeditions, Aleric wasn't certain they would not.

'Merinia,' he asked, 'can you confirm those are just statues ? Not … guardians of any kind ?'

The sorceress frowned in concentration, and waved her hands before her as she cast a detection spell. Sparks of energy crossed the space between her fingers, forming elaborate patterns that vanished as the spell reached completion. She shook her head.

'These things are merely statues, Aleric. They echo with the madness of their sculptors, but they are harmless.'

'Nothing in Drachencraft is "harmless",' muttered Kelor. Merinia glanced at him.

'Well,' she admitted, 'remaining near them for too long would likely drive you mad. But they are not going to burst into motion and tear us to pieces.'

'There could still be traps,' warned Aleric. 'Let's go, but be careful.'

The party resumed its advance. While Merinia kept her sorcerous senses open for any sign of a threat, Urien stalked ahead, searching for more mundane dangers. But neither of them found anything, though Aleric had the distinct impression that the statues' eyes were following them as they passed. The cavern appeared to have been abandoned years ago, once the last statue had been completed. A thick layer of dust covered the stone floor, and some of the less well-made statues were missing extremities, whose fragments laid on the ground where they had fallen after breaking off.

Halfway to the stairs, in the cavern's center, they found what had become of the sculptors. In an open space, surrounded by a circle of statues looking toward the space, were dozens of skeletons – one for each statue in the cavern. The hammers and chisels they had used laid on the ground near the bodies, which were clad in the tattered remains of the clothes they had worn in life.

'How did they die ?' Aleric asked Elexia, his mouth dry.

The healer knelt before one of the skeletons, and began her examination. She picked at the bones, bringing them up before her aged eyes. When she was done, she moved to another skeleton, checking five of them in quick succession After a few minutes, she turned to one of the skulls, which she examined most carefully of all. When she gently replaced it on the ground, her expression was dark – and more than a little fearful.

'What is it ?' hissed Kelor, looking around, agitated. 'What did you find ? What killed them ?'

'A blade to the heart,' replied the alchemist. 'There are traces on the ribs that indicate so. But that's not what worries me. Their skulls … it's difficult to be certain, but the eye sockets all have signs of trauma. Aleric, I think they had all their eyes ripped out of their sockets. Furthermore – I think they did it themselves.'

Aleric looked at the mass grave again, and wondered at the story behind the cavern's morbid scenery. If everything Elexia had said was true, then this had happened years before Gerion had openly flaunted the Overlord's edicts and rebelled against the empire. For all that he found the statues around him revolting, there was no denying that all of them had been crafted with some degree of skill. He wondered if the guilds of sculptors across the land had remarked the disappearance of so many of their own, if anyone in their ranks had made the link between their fate and Drachencraft. And he also wondered what had happened to anyone who had made that connection.

'We need to continue,' he said finally. 'The only thing we can do for these unfortunates is avenge them.'

They left the bones of mad sculptors behind, and passed between their insane creations, before finally reaching the bottom of the staircase. There was one last statue there, apart from the others, and the party paused before it. There, shown standing straight while resting his hands on an ornate cane and looking straight at the stone daemons, was an image of Gerion Drachencraft himself.

The level of detail of the statue was astounding – had it not been for the fact it was twice the size of a mortal man, Aleric would have suspected Gerion had been frozen in stone and replaced by some doppelgänger long ago. The face of the Betrayer was noble, with a kind of aged, dignified handsomeness. Gerion was shown with short hair and a pointed beard, wearing not the robes of a sorcerer but a jacket marked with eldritch symbols. The design of his cane's pommel, visible above the stone hands, reminded Aleric of his stolen sceptre. For a moment, he thought he ought to pull the artefact out of his belt and smash it to bits. Was it not foolish to bring the Betrayer's own weapons and hope they would work against him ?

But he did not. There would be many obstacles on the path leading to Gerion. The power of the sceptre would be needed. He would discard it before they reached the Betrayer himself, but until then, he wouldn't deprive himself of so potent a weapon.

Next to Merinia, Kelor was snarling at the stone image of his tormentor, growing more and more agitate. The sorceress laid a hand on his shoulder, and whispered calming words in his ears, causing him to settle somewhat.

Then, in silence, the party began to climb the stairs, leaving the stone effigy of Gerion Drachencraft, looking down on the daemonic sculptures of the cavern.

"Amidst the roiling tides of meaningless chaos and the windows into potential futures, I saw a great behemoth of iron, a leviathan sailing the Above Sea, crushing all the Neverborn who stood in its path. At first I believed that this was yet another creature of this strange realm, a manifestation of the Neverborn no one had ever seen before. But as I bent my will to examining it more closely, I soon found out that my initial impression was mistaken. For this was a fortress, and within its walls there live beings of power greater than we can imagine, to whom the Neverborn we so fear are naught but servants. There was a pantheon of entities of nigh-infinite power, and before them I, so high in the esteem of my peers and master, was nothing. And so I lost any interest in my quarrels with my rivals, or with any mortal ambition in this world, and focused all my efforts to the scrying of this dread gathering of powers, seeking to understand more about them and how they had come to be. I learned much in the following years, about each of these mighty gods roaming the Above Sea aboard their great vessel – and that knowledge changed me forever."

The stairs led the party into an empty basement, and from there they emerged into what could only be Castle Drachencraft itself. Never before had anyone in the group made it this far – they had recovered Kelor in one of the outer laboratories, where the disciples of Gerion performed their abominable fleshcraft. There had been some explorers who had reached the castle in the last three years, of course. But the only one who had ever returned had done so as a new minion of Gerion, tortured out of his mind and implanted with limbs of twisted metal marked with fell runes. It had taken the combined efforts of four groups of explorers to put him down and end his rampage in the hamlets.

The grand corridors spoke of the former greatness of the castle, before the entire estate had fallen into disrepair as its master focused on other pursuits. Drachencraft was young, as such things were measured for castles – it had been built for its current demented master, not passed on throughout the generations by a noble family. But in the long years of his life before his betrayal, Gerion had filled its halls with the spoils of an existence well-spent as a sorcerer in service of the Overlord.

Portraits of associates and paintings of landscapes from across the empire hung on the walls, covered in dust. Cobwebs spread between the limbs of the statues of defeated foes and fallen friends. Tapestries woven from costly fabrics hang from the walls, depicting scenes from the Overlord's conquest of the world and the part Gerion Drachencraft had taken in several of those victories. And everywhere the eyes of Aleric fell, there were signs of the decadence that had seized this place.

The paintings had been defaced with blood and other fluids. Busts had been reshaped, granted new, infernal attributes. The tapestries had been torn and stitched back together, this time showing the downfall of the Overlord and all the armies of the world to creature weaved of pure black string. Blasphemous symbols had been painted on the walls, prayers and invocations to various entities dwelling in the Above Sea. The name of Gerion was repeated in many of those prayers, called upon for "blessings", the nature of which Aleric would rather not dwell upon.

They followed the path that had been marked on the maps brought by the Herald. If the intel was correct, then the path would take them to the central ritual chamber, where the Overlord's sorcerers had sensed the energy Gerion was gathering to perform his grand spell.

Sorrowful wails echoed in the distance, getting neither closer nor further away as the party advanced. Sometimes, Aleric could catch a glimpse of pale silhouettes at the edge of his vision, but the apparitions vanished as soon as he turned to get a better look at them.

'This place is haunted,' growled Kelor. 'The other victims of Drachencraft are still here – I can feel their pain.'

Aleric turned toward Merinia, a silent question in his eyes. The sorceress nodded.

'He is right,' she confirmed. 'There are spirits all around us, but they cannot manifest themselves at anything more than these … echoes. Whatever Gerion's pet did to them, it drained their soul from the strength a true manifestation would require. This haunting is the worst they are capable of.'

That was to be expected. With how many people had died in Drachencraft, and considering the circumstances of most of these deaths, almost the entire estate was stalked by vengeful ghosts. Once, the explorers had been able to call upon them for assistance, with sorcerers gathering them by the hundred and letting them loose upon the servants of the Betrayer. It had been hoped that the very victims of Drachencraft would be instrumental to the end of the siege and the Betrayer's execution. But that had all changed when Gerion's experiments had created what Merinia had called "Gerion's pet" and most explorers called the Devourer.

Whether bound Neverborn or spiritual construct, the Devourer was no threat to the living – who couldn't affect it anymore than it could affect them. But ever since the horned, multi-faced ethereal spirit had been let loose on the estate, the ghosts of Drachencraft were powerless, their identities and strength drained by the Devourer, leaving only weakling echoes behind. It wasn't a perfect process, though, and the Devourer couldn't be everywhere at once. But it had put an end to the dreams of hopeful necromancers among the explorers. Most of their power had been lost overnight, and many had died when their summons had failed, leaving them exposed to whatever physical minion of Drachencraft they had been facing.

Since the group held no spirit-speaker, however, encountering a cluster of un-devoured ghosts would have been problematic. Drachencraft had its own necromancers, and they were more than willing to bind the souls of their victims into slavery, shielding them from the Devourer in return for turning against those who had once been their comrades. It was even whispered that some ghosts did so willingly, betraying their cause in death to save their ethereal existence.

'Something is wrong,' said Oris. 'This has been too easy so far.'

Aleric would have cursed him for tempting the fates like this, if he had not thought the same.

'I think this might be the reason why,' came Urien's voice from where he was scouting ahead.

The room where the noble scion stood contained many chairs, all oriented toward the outer wall – except it wasn't a wall at all, but a giant panel of glass. Through it, the explorers could see almost all of the Drachencraft's estate. However, right now, the only thing worth seeing was the battle raging outside Castle Drachencraft.

As he tried to get a better view of a part of the battle, Aleric started as, suddenly, the image grew on the glass panel, as if the action had suddenly jumped closer. Now he could see the fighting in details, down to each blow and parry.

'This is enchanted glass,' he said in wonder, thinking of how generals across the world would pay a Lord's ransom for such an ability to look at the battlefield from afar.

The others also discovered the effect, and they started to use it to get a feel for how the battle was proceeding. Sadly, it was going as they had known it would : badly. The minions of Drachencraft had seen the attack coming, and they had unleashed their fury upon the gathered host. The army had broken apart under the strength of the onslaught, and the battle had devolved into a hundred smaller conflicts taking place all across the estate.

In the next few minutes of observation, Aleric saw many things he would rather not have. He saw a giant construct made of stitched corpses rip apart a dozen soldiers before ripping a sorcerer apart and plucking his right arm into its side. Seconds later, the limb twitched and started sending fireballs everywhere, having become part of the creature's blasphemous existence. He saw a renegade witch turn a knight's body inside out while he was wearing plate armor, the nature of her spell only becoming clear when the knight hit the ground and the armor fell apart. At the bottom of a lonely tower, he saw a trio of minotaurs with tentacles for arms brought down by a platoon of the Overlord's soldiers using spears to reach the beasts' throat – only for black beetles to pour out of the wounds in the place of blood. The enchantment in the glass didn't transmit sound, which was likely just as well. Aleric didn't want the soldiers' screams in his nightmares – they already had a broad enough repertoire.

He also saw the Betrayer's lieutenants, these figures of dread and hatred for all explorers that were whispered about in taverns after dark. There was the Shadow Man, a humanoid silhouette made purely of impenetrable darkness, with his hands down the throats of two unlucky souls. Elsewhere, the Wailing Mother's screams were tearing apart the brains of a group of fighters and ripping their souls from their bodies, before binding them into the ghostly queen's service. The corpses of more than thirty explorers laid on the ground before the Harbinger, a four-meters high creature with nine pairs of arms and twelve pairs of legs. He even caught a glimpse of the Devourer itself, slithering across the battlefield, hovering above piles of bodies for a time before moving away. And there were more – many more. The pits of Drachencraft always spat out more unique abominations with the power to claim dominion over the rest.

Around him, the rest of his party were seeing the same kind of things, looking on with morbid fascination. The battlefield was huge, stretching all across the kilometers of the estate, and no two of them saw the same scene. But only Kelor saw what all of them did not – what truly mattered. With the eyes of someone seeking the one responsible for his terrible fate, he looked all across the battlefield, making the glass before him flash with images. Then, he said :

'Gerion isn't there.'

Once he had said it, they could all see it too. Despite all the monstrosities fighting, the Betrayer himself had not taken the field. Kelor had searched everywhere to be sure, but it was quite certain that, had Gerion joined the fight, he would have become the center of it, as every explorer sought to kill him and end his madness. But there was no center to the battle – only a line, stretched out across the estate where humans fought monsters.

'He hasn't left the ritual,' mused Elexia, before waving her hand to the window in a gesture meant to encompass the whole battlefield. 'The Herald was right – the Betrayer must be working on something very important if this isn't enough to get him to leave it.'

'Then the plan is working,' said Aleric, before shaking his head. 'Alright people, that's enough enjoying the spectacle for now. We need to keep moving. Every second of this diversion is costing lives.'

"There is one among this pantheon who is closest in thoughts to us lowly mortals, though his form is that of a giant of steel wielding mighty weapons and striding the battlefield while towering above all others. He is the Son of a Dread Empire, and despite his aspect, his concerns are yet similar to ours. He cares about things like honor, loyalty, and duty, while the rest of this pantheon are driven by unknowable hungers and terrible ambitions. Of all of them, he is the youngest, and not yet departed from the trappings of the mortal life he once held. The others look down upon him in a fashion not unlike elder siblings amused by the folly of youth, knowing that in time, he will grow in power and shed the remnants of his former existence. Yet my visions of him bring me hope, for they show that a mortal might ascend to the ranks of the divine, if blessed by fate and welcomed by those already standing within the halls of power. Can I hope for such a glorious destiny myself, I wonder ? And how might the hand of the fates be … encouraged to favor me ?"

They heard the chanting long before reaching its source, and all of them immediately knew what it meant. Without the need for any signal, the party took a battle formation that had been honed many times against the type of enemy waiting ahead. Phores marched in front, followed by Aleric and Urien. Behind the three of them, Kelor guarded Merinia – and, if need be, Elexia – while Oris placed himself between the sorceress and the melee fighters. They did not charge in shouting, but they didn't try to conceal their approach either. When the human cultists of Castle Drachencraft celebrated their gods, it took a lot of noise to get their attention.

It had taken some time for Aleric to understand where the human minions of Drachencraft came from. Some had been servants of the Betrayer before his rebellion, swept along into his madness. A few were not human at all, but the creations of Gerion's mad alchemists. But there were far too many of them, and there kept being far too many of them despite all those the explorers killed, for those to be their only sources. Then he had learned the truth : despite all the efforts of the Siege's forces, there were still more cultists coming to Drachencraft from the rest of the world.

Gerion's heresy had spread like poison across the empire, and even the work of the Overlord's agents to root it out was not enough. Entire villages had succumbed to the false promises of lying prophets, abandoning the fields where their ancestors had toiled for generations in order to journey to Drachencraft. In cities, young men and women were deceived into thinking the Betrayer was some kind of righteous figure rising against the Overlord's tyranny, rather than a self-serving madman dabbling in forbidden powers that could destroy them all.

Then, once they did reach Drachencraft – which only a fraction managed, thankfully – they saw the truth of their master. It was unclear what the process involved exactly. The only explorers who had learnt that had been those captured and subjected to it, and they had been impossible to interrogate afterwards. But no matter the reason that had driven the would-be cultist to come to Drachencraft, he or she became a raving lunatic, worshipping Gerion as a god and screaming words that could shake the sanity of those unprepared for them. Nothing of their original personality remained, though some developed a new identity of their own, becoming leaders of their own twisted kind.

It was tragic, really – but that did not mean any explorer who had ever fought the deluded minions of the Betrayer had any pity left for them. The cultists liked to capture their enemies alive in order to sacrifice them to dark and forbidden gods, often in prolonged executions. It was possible to save a captured comrade before his death – in fact, it had been done many times. Whether the rescued would ever be able to live a normal life after the experience was a different story.

Aleric's party had been lucky enough to have never lost someone that way. But they had seen explorers who had been captured and brought back, as well as found the sites of old sacrifices. Their hate for all Drachencraft cultists was strong – and when they entered the Castle's temple, it grew stronger yet.

The temple had eight sides, and according to the plans given to the party, it had once been a private theatre. Row upon row of stone seats surrounded the central scene, more than a dozen meters below the party's entrance level. Cultists were scattered across the audience, standing rather than sitting, chanting their blasphemous chant as they watched what was taking place below. They wore dirty and torn clothes, decorated with the symbols of their dark masters. All of them had a weapon of some sort – a sword, a flail, a dagger, even a mere club in some cases. Theirs was a cruel faith to hungry divinities, and it often required violence – violence such as what was taking place below.

The scene of the theatre was a vision of horror. An individual who was whatever the cultists' equivalent of a priest was stood amidst twenty-four bleeding, skinned bodies that hung from various structures of wood and iron. To Aleric's dismay, the bodies were still twitching – the skinned captives were alive, even though the shock and bleeding should have killed them long ago. The priest wore pants made of the fur of some animal, and his head was covered by the skull of some unnatural creature with two pairs of antlers coming out of it and twisting together to form two horns. He was covered in blood from head to toe, and the blades implanted in the stumps of his wrists completed his aspect as a creature right out of hell. Even as the party entered, the madman was cutting off another layer of muscle from the arm of one of his captives with slow, almost loving care. He tossed the bloody morsel into the brazier that burned at the center of the scene, and the flames flared up in response to the offering while the chant intensified further.

Desperate to get his vision away from the scene, Aleric glanced upward, but he found no relief there. The room's ceiling had been painted into a mad artist's rendering of the Above Sea. There, amidst tortured humans, were depicted all kinds of Neverborn, looking down onto the congregation with hungry eyes. Like the statues they had encountered before, Aleric had the distinct impression that the daemons were moving when he wasn't looking at them directly.

There was a twisted symmetry between the painting above and the carnage below, and Aleric was sure that was intentional. He didn't know what the purpose of the ceremony was, if it even had one – but he knew neither he nor his comrades intended to let it continue.

The party burst into the theatre like the Overlord's own vengeful fist. The cultists on the upper stairs were caught completely unprepared, and were slaughtered in seconds. But as the explorers descended down the stairs, jumping from one level to the next with increasing momentum, the rest began to react, finally noticing the intruders in their midst. With bestial screams that would have made the creatures haunting the woods of the estate proud, the cultists charged the party. Aleric and his comrades had the upper ground, however, and both superior weaponry and training. They cut through the wretches like a Neverborn's claw through silk.

Because of his greater weight, Phores accumulated more momentum than the rest of the party in the charge, and he crashed down onto the scene with enough strength to send cracks running across the stone floor. As silent as ever, the knight rose from his knees to his full height, and began to stride purposefully toward the dark priest. What passed for the priest's mind was obviously too addled to know fear, for instead of doing the sensible thing and fleeing for his miserable life, he instead charged the knight.

Aleric saw the duel unfold as he and the rest of the party kept the cultists off Phores' back while he dealt with their leader. It was a tactic they had used many times in previous expeditions. The leaders of Drachencraft minions were often far more dangerous than their lackeys, and taking them down quickly was vital. Who in the group had the honor of facing the enemy champion depended on its nature and the circumstances, but in the present situation Aleric was quite certain any of them – even old, seemingly harmless Elexia – could have taken car of the priest. Still, Phores had been the closest and the first to move, so his claim on the madman's life had priority.

The horned priest ducked below Phores' first blow, and struck back with his two bladed appendages. But the blades failed to penetrate his recently re-enchanted armor, and they slid to each side, leaving a trail of sparks in their wake. Phores riposted by pivoting on his left foot, taking advantage of his failed blow's momentum, and kicking the priest in the ribs with his right leg. Aleric couldn't hear the bones cracking, but as the priest was thrown in the air by the strength of the blow he was certain the cultist had felt them.

Despite what must have been great pain, the priest rolled back to his feet, an impressive feet considering he had no hands to help him. But just as he rose, Phores moved in front of him and rammed his greatsword through his unprotected chest. The runic blade burst from the priest's back, spraying tainted blood all over the floor, where it hissed as it touched the vitae already spilled from the victims' bodies.

'The gods … are coming,' managed to wheeze the priest as life left him, staring into Phores helmet's eye-slit with something like religious ecstasy on his face. 'You cannot stop … them …'

Without showing any sign he had heard the madman's last words, the knight ripped his sword from the priest's chest, and let the corpse fall to the ground. In the rest of the theatre, the cultists, dismayed by the casual execution of their spiritual leader, were soon all slain by the rest of the party.

Before moving on, the explorers ended the suffering of the cultists' flayed victims as quickly and humanly as possible. They could not be saved – even if the party had been able and willing to abandon their mission to extract them, none would have survived the trip back to the healers in the nearest hamlet. In truth, they should have been dead long ago, and Elexia and Merinia confirmed that only the sorcerous nature of their restraints had kept them alive that long. They made a point of smacking the torture racks apart before continuing. Maybe the Overlord's agents could have made use of them – everyone knew the master of Eldur wasn't above using forceful methods of interrogation. If not, they would doubtlessly have sold well to some Lords. But that wasn't cash any of them wanted in their pockets. Even on Eldur, even in Drachencraft, some rewards just weren't worth it.

"In the flying fortress, there is a place filled with incredible wonders, forged in a vista worthy of our ancients' descriptions of hell. There priests of metal and flesh toil endlessly, directing the efforts of a legion of slaves made of a similar union. Together they craft the weapons used by the rest of the pantheon, under the direction of the Lord of Machines, a being with a clockwork mind inhabited by an inhuman hunger for knowledge and creation. This daemon-faced lord holds much knowledge of the secret patterns that bind all things in the universe together, but his expertise is in the making of war-machines and other tools of destruction. Himself is no different : endlessly he works on reshaping his own form to suit his own designs, replacing parts of his body with new ones forged by his own hands. Yet even as nothing remains in him of his previous form, his indomitable will endures, passing from one component to another, never weakening in its pursuit of lore and power. This shows us that the mind can withstand much, if it is strong enough, even the complete reshaping of the body that surrounds it. And there is only one way to find the limits of one particular mind …"

The architecture of Castle Drachencraft might be typical of the empire, Aleric had decided, but the arrangement of rooms was something right out of the mind of a madman. That was the only possible explanation.

The viewing room and the theatre had been connected by wealthy, if poorly maintained corridors. But now, though they were still on the same level of the castle, the walls around the party were bare stone, the air was cold and damp, and there was vermin skittering at their feet. Torches hung on the walls at regular intervals, casting shadows everywhere. This was a dungeon in the middle of the castle.

He glanced at Kelor. The rag-covered man was muttering to himself again. No doubt his mind was brought back to his own time in Drachencraft cells by their surroundings. For now, though, he seemed to still be in control, which was good. Aleric didn't want to …

A terrible scream echoed across the tight corridor through which they were advancing, coming from further ahead. Then another, and another, and another – then it was impossible to tell the screams apart, all mixing together into a hideous chorus of damned agony. One thing was clear, however : the source of the screams was getting closer with every second.

'Stand your ground,' called out Aleric, raising his sword in one hand and his sceptre in the other. Behind him, the rest of the party did the same.

They came in a shrieking, mindless tide, consumed by pain and madness. Once they had been men and women, explorers and inhabitants of the hamlets who had the misfortune of being taken alive by Drachencraft forces. Forbidden runes had been inscribed onto their flesh, drawn with ritual daggers and infused with sorcerous energy. The power of the Above Sea coursed through their veins, through their minds – causing the former to bulge grotesquely and the latter to shatter completely, until only the agony was left. The marks of chains and shackles were visible on their gaunt limbs – some even still wore lengths of chains that flung in the air behind them as they charged down the corridor. Aleric could only guess at why the insane prisoners were here. Had they been released in response to the party's intrusion, or had they been set free long ago once the sorcerers had been done with them, and they had detected the intruders in their lair ?

A bolt from Oris' crossbow struck the one at the horde's forefront in the forehead, and he went down, only for his body to be crushed into paste by those coming up behind him. It had not even slowed down, and Oris cursed as he loaded another bolt with a speed that few others on Eldur could match. But there were dozens of the experimented captives – Aleric doubted Oris even had enough bolts for them all. With Phores at his side, he raised his stolen sceptre, ready to unleash its energies as soon as the horde was the closest possible, in order to catch as many of the wretches in its area of effect as possible. He wasn't sure what result the relic's power would have on the rune-branded prisoners, but it was worth a shot.

But just before the horde reached them, another scream erupted, this time from behind Aleric. A shadow passed over him and landed between the party and the raving prisoners, clad in rags and bandages.

Kelor, Aleric had time to think before the man unleashed the power that he had been bestowed in the very same experiment chambers as the wretches he now faced.

Kelor's body burst through the rags covering it, growing in size with incredible speed, pulling matter and energy from the Above Sea to fuel its transformation. The scraps of tissue momentarily obstructed Aleric's vision of the transformation, for which he was grateful – though they did nothing to block the sounds of breaking bones and shifting flesh. When they fell away, Kelor was revealed in all of his terrible, dreadful glory : a monster born of the Drachencraft experiments, a true success of the insane fleshsmiths of this corrupt estate. But also one who had retained enough of his mind that he hated his tormentors more than anything else.

Though the corridor forced him to stoop, Kelor was still twice the size of even armored Phores. A pair of long, sharp horns rose from his forehead, curving above his elongated skull. Each of his hands had only three fingers – an opposable thumb and two black claws. His entire musculature had inflated, but combined with the increase in size he retained a lean, predatory aspect, rather than the grotesqueness of the wretches he faced. Though he was horrible to look upon, there was no denying the sense of completion that radiated from him. He was a finished product, not a failure.

And he tore through the captives. Even as they struck back with taloned hands, he ripped them apart with his great claws and fangs. In that moment, he wasn't a man, nor even a monster – he was a force of nature. Behind him, the rest of the party could only watch with mixed awe and horror. They remained frozen in place, weapons still drawn, as Kelor slaughtered his enemies and the battle grew further and further down the corridor and away from them.

After several minutes, the sounds of carnage finally faded. Shaking themselves out of their awe-induced trance, the explorers rushed forward. They found Kelor laying on a pile of dead captives, bleeding from more than a hundred wounds. He was not breathing.

It was difficult to read the monstrous face of Kelor, but some signs could still be seen. Every facial muscle was tense, locked into an expression of terrible agony. Kelor had not died well – he had died in pain and horrified of his own nature. His blood-shot eyes, whose pupils were now a cross, stared at nothing, while gore dripped slowly from the chewed half-corpse he held in his mouth.

Aleric reached out and, with some difficulty, closed the eyes of his dead companion.

'We will avenge you,' he promised.

Then, without any more words, the six remaining explorers departed the site of the battle. Aleric knew what everyone in the party knew, even if none had spoken it aloud : Kelor's spirit would not find in death the peace he had been denied in life. The power of Drachencraft would keep his soul bound to this world, to this castle of horrors. Only by slaying Gerion and shattering his power forever could the shade of his comrade be released, along with all the others trapped in the estate.

Such a course of thinking inevitably brought Aleric to the conclusion that they had to move quickly, and do what they had come to do soon. He really, really didn't want to find out just what form the ghost of Kelor would take. With the Devourer away from the Castle due to the battle raging outside … it was possible all they would need to do was hide while the shade of Kelor laid waste to Gerion Drachencraft. Possible, but not likely. It was far more probable that Kelor's ghost would be insane, and would rampage across the castle indiscriminately.

Great, he thought. Another unclear time limit until potential doom. Because just one of those wasn't enough.

"The Heir to the Empty Throne is prideful, confident in the strength of his blood. Shackled within his heart lies the echoes of a being far greater than he, yet who, despite his strength, was slain in a war so great we cannot hope to comprehend its scale. But these echoes still hold some of the potency of their source. Where he walks, shadows lengthen, whispering of madness and terror into the minds of any who dare approach. The fears of an empire fuel his power, and he feasts upon the souls of the weak. Yet even as his hunger drives him toward the nature of a monster, he craves the power of a lord, and in this struggle he is denied the full strength of both. There is a lesson to be learned there, about the dangers of power and the difficulties of binding it to one's will. All of us on Eldur seek power in order to fulfill our desires. But if the power we seek changes us, transforms us into a being of different desires, then what was the point of the sacrifices we made to obtain it ?"

There seemed to be no limit to the number of horrors dwelling within Castle Drachencraft.

Soon after leaving the body of Kelor behind, the party entered what had, at some point, been a library. High shelves still reached up to the ceiling, but their contents were scattered across the floor, thousands of books torn apart. Glancing at a handful of pages, Aleric found that most of them had been soiled as well, by water or less identifiable liquid. Still, he picked up enough fragments of sentence to put together that these weren't grimoires or occult books, but more mundane works of geography, history, and other natural sciences. These were not the containers of forbidden lore that sold for small fortunes in the hamlets, but even so, each book had been written by the hand of a gifted copyist. The party was quite literally walking amidst a staggering amount of wealth, wasted beyond recovery. A scholar walking through this room would either have burst into tears or suffered a heart attack at the sight.

They were advancing cautiously when the first of the library's inhabitants appeared. A thing emerged from between two shelves, marching slowly on seven human legs. Its body was long and horizontal like that of a dog, and the head that emerged at the forward end had two hollow sockets instead of eyes. Even so, it turned its eyeless gaze toward the party, and its mouth began to open, drawing in air.

Before it could scream, however, a crossbow bolt flew through its open mouth and deep into its skull, dropping it dead instantly. Behind Aleric, Oris reloaded his weapon. The swordsman allowed himself to relax slightly – then, as if to mock him, a scream of alarm rose anyway, this time from above the party.

He looked up, and saw another creature crawling atop the shelves. This one looked like a spider, if every leg of a spider had been replaced by human arms and its body by a head with the same eyeless sockets as the seven-legged monster. It was also skittering away, propelling itself across the wooden paths connecting the top of the shelves.

No matter. The creature had given its warning – it no longer mattered. The party fell into a circle, with Merinia and Elexia in the center. Oris still held his crossbow – though primarily designed for range, the weapon was sturdy enough to be used as a blunt instrument in close quarters, its structure reinforced enough to bash a skull in if it was used with enough strength. And Oris had proven many times that he had more than enough strength in his wiry frame.

For a few seconds, there was silence. Then the entire library erupted in a cacophony of monstrous shrieks, and flesh-shaped horrors emerged from every passage. Each creature was a new vision of horror, but they shared some traits. For one thing, none of them had eyes, only the ghastly pits the first two had displayed. For another, they were all made of various human parts, assembled without care for biology or sanity. A few displayed elements of otherworldly origin – Neverborn organs and limbs somehow fused to human flesh.

As Aleric fought, a perverse part of his mind found itself relieved by the sight of the daemonic hybrid. It meant that, at the very least, the foul experiments that had created these wretches had a purpose. Gerion had sought to bind Neverborn and human – the fact that his methods had been inhumanely cruel and abhorrent was only secondary, and had probably never occurred to the madman. But Aleric could not deny that, had sadism been the only reason for the carnival of horrors surrounding him, he would likely have lost his mind there and now, exposed to such evil.

The sound of an all-too human scream pierced the mayhem surrounding Aleric, and he twirled around just in time to see Urien die. The nobleman was being held by a pale-skinned abomination with a nest of tentacles instead of a head. The appendages were burrowing inside Urien's head, blood and brain matter dripping from his ears as they rampaged into his skull. As the tentacles withdrew, Aleric saw that they ended in small mouths – the thing had devoured Urien's brain. Enraged, he lunged forward, and his sword stabbed the creature through the chest. He turned aside to avoid the stream of white blood that burst from the wound, ripping his weapon free to parry a blow from a creature whose arms had been replaced by blades of bones. His strength still fuelled by rage, he pushed back the deadly limbs before plunging his blade through the creature's throat.

All around him, the rest of the party fought on. Lightning sizzled altered flesh, while Phores' sword cut through even the reinforced bones of some of the monsters. The things' biology was still close enough to human for Elexia's poisoned darts to affect them, though the venoms had … interesting effects on some of the most twisted creatures. A two-headed creature vomited purple blood from four mouths, while another simply exploded like a popped water bubble, covering all those around it in a red liquid that fell off clothes and skin far too easily to be blood.

Soon after Urien's death, Aleric lost his awareness of the battle surrounding him. Suddenly, he found himself standing amidst a pile of dead monsters, with the remaining members of his party to his side, all breathing heavily. His blade was buried in the head of something with dozens of nine-fingered hands coming out of a snakelike elongated torso, pinning it to the ground. But he could not recall anything between this moment and the explosion of the poisoned abomination. Somehow, despite everything else that had happened this day and all that remained to face, this scared him.

'Elexia,' he called, his throat sore. 'Have I taken a head wound ?'

The alchemist moved to his side began her examination. Her old fingers ran through his hair, seeking any injury on his scalp it might hide. After a while, she shook her head.

'None that I can see. No cut, no bruise. Why ? What has happened ?'

'I … I don't remember the battle,' Aleric admitted. Elexia merely sighed.

'That's not something to worry about. You fought well, even if you don't recall doing so. Your mind simply shut down your long-term memory to spare you from more nightmares. It's not uncommon, especially here in Drachencraft. All of my colleagues have seen it before, though we aren't sure if it happens on other battlefields or if it is another feature unique to the Siege. I am surprised you have never encountered that phenomenon before, to be honest.'

'I have,' said Oris. 'She is right, Aleric. It's nothing to worry about – unless you are also hearing voices ?'

Aleric forced himself to laugh at Oris' unusually poor joke, and looked back for Urien's corpse. He caught sight of a hand emerging from beneath several pale corpses, still clutching a familiar dagger. The sight brought to his mind the many times he had come upon similar scenes during previous explorations. It was common for exploring parties to leave behind the corpses of their fallen comrades – unnecessary burden were death sentences in Drachencraft. Leaving any weapon or other valuable was less common, but it happened, especially when the encounter that had killed the victim had ended in the party's hasty retreat. When the corpse was discovered by another party, it was standard procedure to loot it and then give it the last rites – burying or burning the physical remains to deny them to Drachencraft's servants.

While none of the party needed Urien's daggers, his rings could still be of use. At Aleric's command, Phores began to move the monstrous corpses out of the way. Merinia carefully removed the rings, placing them in a small pouch hanging from her hips. The power contained within them would be useful in the rest of the mission. If only Urien had had time to use one of them, he would still be alive – but such was life in Drachencraft. Even when you took all possible precautions, you were still at the mercy of a cruel twist of fate.

"If my successes on Eldur had led me to believe that I was a sorcerer of some talent, that misconception was crushed into dust when I beheld the pantheon's god of sorcery. Great chains bind this being to another, shadowed figure, one that I could not see clearly but that reeks of blood and intrigue. Other chains also reach out from him and to unknown entities, for he is the Dealer of Dark Bargains, the Pact-Maker. His knowledge and power are such that he can walk between worlds without the need for the flying fortress, and unleash forces capable of destroying these worlds. By debts and covenants he leverages his own tremendous might toward even greater achievements, all the while walking a dangerous line. That, after all, is what all of us lesser practitioners of the Art do. We risk our lives, our minds, our very souls, in order to become wielders of powers far greater than ourselves. We offer parts of ourselves to the entities dwelling in the Above Sea, and in return are granted that which we think we desire. But the truth is, we are only ever given that which the Neverborn think will serve their own designs …"

'I sense something,' said Merinia some time after the party had left the library behind. 'A powerful soul approaches, stepped deep in the dark arts of this place.'

She closed her eyes, and shivered before continuing :

'And he has sensed me as well. A sorcerer approaches.'

'Gerion ?' asked Aleric.

'No. He's … much weaker than I would expect the Betrayer to be, though still powerful in his own right. And I sense unease in him. Why would Drachencraft feel uneasy in the center of his power ?'

'I don't know,' said Oris. 'Because there is still some shred of conscience in his old, wretched soul ?'

Like the lesser cultists, the sorcerers who served Gerion Drachencraft came from all across Eldur. Some had been cultists themselves, who had shown some talent for the arcane – but most had already been practitioners when they had sworn themselves to Drachencraft's dark cause. Drawn by promises of easy power, they flocked to the Betrayer, hoping to share his lore and might. And in truth, Gerion was generous with both, giving his apprentices free access to his heretical research. The Overlord's agents had tracked the history of some of the most prominent sorcerers of Drachencraft, and found that they had been average students at best. Yet in Drachencraft, they had become powerful, capable of summoning great Neverborn and binding them to their will. And all it cost them in return was their sanity.

For all sorcerers who served Drachencraft were, without exception, mad. The knowledge Gerion had poured into their minds had shattered their psyche and tainted their souls. They were worse than the cultists – those were merely animals, seeking to shed blood and cause torment to satisfy their dark deities. The sorcerers, however, still possessed some spark of true intelligence, and were consumed by terrible and unknowable ambitions. It was them who led the dreadful experiments on captured subjects, them who performed dark rituals in their own private portions of the estate. When not directly commanded by Gerion himself, they were divided as well. There were stories – whispered where the Heralds could not hear – of explorers who had made a deal with such beings, escaping with their lives in return for taking action against one of his rivals for Gerion's favor.

Aleric's party had killed renegade sorcerers before. But it had never been easy, and they had already lost two of their number in this expedition. Yet he doubted there would be a chance to avoid the fight – if Gerion was about to complete some apocalyptic ritual, none of his minions would risk him being disturbed by intruders.

They finally faced the sorcerer several minutes after Merinia had first detected his presence. The party entered the room at the same time as the Drachencraft minion, both stopping in their tracks as they looked at each other. They stood in an abandoned dining room, on opposite sides of a long table that was still covered with dusty plates and silverware. There was no rotting food, though – cut off from the rest of the world and with thousands of mouths to feed, even Gerion wasn't insane enough to waste supplies.

The sorcerer wore a set of blue and bronze plate armor, with the emblem of a crescent moon with a single eye inscribed on his chest plate. The emblem was innocuous enough compared to some of the other heretical designs Aleric had seen in the Castle, yet its sight filled him with disgust and dread all the same. A ragged and torn cape of black velvet hang from the sorcerer's shoulders, covered in mud and blood. His face was pale and covered in scars, his head bald and his expression manic. A broken sword, its blade ending a few centimeters from its hilt, hung from his hip.

Aleric immediately noticed that the sorcerer was favoring his right leg, and that his armor was dented and spotted with drying blood. Like the armor had told him that this wasn't one of the ritualists or a wandering researcher, these signs told him the sorcerer wasn't a guard either. This was a battlemage returning from the battlefield outside, perhaps to report or to seek healing.

No words were exchanged, no threat or offer were made. Instead, the sorcerer snarled and raised his hands above his head, summoning his power. The shadows at his feet and across the room answered his silent call, seeming to boil like water – then dark, angular limbs emerged from them. Small creatures of pure blackness rushed toward the party, jumping over the table, scattering cups and plates in their haste.

Aleric rushed forward, his sword swirling around him, Phores at his side. Their blades cut apart the dark creatures, but more and more appeared, and not just from the sorcerer's shadow – every patch of darkness seemed to have become their spawning ground. Oris, Elexia and Merinia were swarmed with the shadowy minions even as Aleric jumped over the dining table, moving as fast as he could toward the summoner. If he could kill him, the flow would cease and they could deal with the remaining monsters –

A horrible scream came from behind him just as he was about to jump down the table. He flinched, and one of the spindly creatures took the opportunity to jump on his right arm and start climb up to his head. Instinctively, he rolled himself on the wooden surface of the table, trying to dislodge the creature, but it clung on and kept moving up. In desperation, he reached out with his left hand, searching for anything he could use as a weapon. After what seemed to be an eternity, during which the creature was almost on his face, his fingers closed around the hilt of a table knife. Feeling absurdly grateful to whomever had forgotten to clean up the table after its last use, he stabbed the shadow-thing with the knife, tearing it off him and pinning it to the table.

He raised his eyes from the creature's twitching form, trying to assess the situation, to find the source of the scream that had made him flinch. He soon found it, and his heart sank.

Elexia was dead. The alchemist's body was almost entirely covered in a swarm of the shadowy familiars, but there was no mistaking her state – he could see her hand, and no flesh remained upon it. Only bones, floating in the sleeves of her garment. He shuddered. Would that have been his fate too, had his hand failed to find the knife ?

As he scrambled back to his feet, Aleric saw Merinia reach into her pouch and produce two of the rings she had taken from Urien's lifeless body. The sorceress threw them, one to her own feet, the other above Phores' head. The knight was locked in battle against a tide of the creatures, almost invisible beneath dozens of them. Yet his armor was protecting him from their strange power.

As the rings hit the ground, Merinia raised her staff and pronounced a string of guttural syllables. Aleric had already heard these words – Urien had spoken them himself when he had unleashed the rings' captives in previous expedition. The swordsman supposed he shouldn't be surprised that Merinia had memorised the spell – he just hoped that recollection was perfect. Everyone knew the dangers of summoning Neverborn using a flawed incantation.

Multicoloured light burst from the two rings, and within that light appeared suggestions of predatory shapes. For a terrible instant, it was unclear whether or not Merinia had succeeded in binding them – then they fell upon the shadowy creatures, ripping them to pieces with glimpsed claws and fangs. Hideous un-sounds of pain and shadow being torn apart echoed in the room, soon joined by the screams of the sorcerer himself. The daemon bound within the second ring battled against the arcane defenses of the mage of Drachencraft, and the power bound by the wealth of Urien's family proved superior. The sorcerer screamed amidst the twirling colors, then fell silent. His armor hit the ground, scattering to pieces.

Of the sorcerer himself, there was no trace, no body. Whether the daemon had devoured it entirely or dragged him, alive or dead, into the Above Sea, Aleric did not know. Between the release of the two rings and the party's own efforts, soon the room was cleansed of the last shadowy creatures. Victory was theirs – but they had lost another member.

With heavy heart, the party resumed its march, bereft of their sole healer. Their chances of success were growing more slim with every encounter with Drachencraft's defenses, but they would not stop. They refused to stop. Duty and vengeance – and fear of the Overlord's retribution – drove them on.

"The Child of Loss is pale, carrying human hatred within an inhuman mind. Hers is the madness born in the soul of the innocents who are carelessly trampled by the strong, all that they knew and loved forever destroyed by the whims of those who think themselves beyond the reach of divine retribution. Her power could crack worlds apart, but the insanity that burns through her mind denies her the kind of focus that would require. She is bound to the Dealer of Dark Bargains, pacted to his side until he grants her the revenge they both crave. The Dealer has covered her in invisible chains, restricting her power so that she does not slay the leviathan by mistake. Yet still, in the lightless depths depths, her laughter echoes, and drives hordes of celestial servants insane. Their eyes burn with images of an antediluvian city razed to the ground by an empire that dared to claim it ruled all that could be ruled, and they turn on each other, seeing not the faces of their friends and family, but the armor-clad conquerors who burned this city of timeless antiquity."

The four remaining members of the exploring team – Aleric, Phores, Oris and Merinia – arrived into some manner of temple, though it was different from both the statuary they had found underground and the converted theatre filled with insane cultists. It was empty and silent, a circle with two entrances opposing each other. The floor was covered in an eightfold star, each of the six points not pointing to an exit instead ending within an alcove carved in the walls. Within each alcove was a small obelisk of blank stone.

The room was on the marked path to Gerion's ritual chamber, but as they entered, Aleric couldn't help but wonder why the agents of the Overlord had traced a path leading through so many dangerous rooms. Could it be that the other rooms were full of even worse dangers ? That wasn't a comforting thought.

The moment the party set foot in the circle, all of them glanced at the alcoves. They had all seen the same thing – shadows moving in the corner of their eyes, vanishing as soon as they looked right at them. Yet as they looked at the alcoves, the phenomenon continued in all of the alcoves they weren't directly looking at.

'More ghosts ?' said Oris, holding his crossbow in a nervous grip. Its bolts wouldn't be of any use against spectral foes, but like the party's entire arsenal, the runes engraved in the weapon should allow it to affect them in a more direct manner.

'No,' replied Merinia. 'These are different from the echoes we encountered earlier. They are … angrier. More focused. More powerful.'

Untouched by the Devourer, Aleric completed silently. There were only two kinds of wraiths that fit that category : those bound to Gerion's service, and those the soul-consuming daemon hadn't gotten around to devouring yet. Aleric wasn't willing to gamble on which type they were about to encounter.

For a moment, he felt almost overwhelmed by despair. Already, three members of his party were dead. The map – which had proven surprisingly reliable – told him they were almost to their destination, but how many more battles would they need to fight to get there ? And would the survivors be in any shape to challenge Gerion himself, even if he was busy with the ritual ?

His thoughts were interrupted when silhouettes coalesced in the alcoves and began to advance. They were human silhouettes, complete with explorer's gear and detailed faces, but they were composed of translucent blue mist, and their eyes glowed with white, unforgiving light. Through each ghost, the obelisk could be seen – no longer blank, but instead covered in sorcerous runes glowing with the same light as the spectre's eyes.

Six ghosts bound into the service of Drachencraft, to defend this room from intruders. Six fallen explorers whose souls had been turned into weapons by the Betrayer. Would this be their fate should they fail in their mission ?

'Hold them at bay !' called out Merinia as she slammed her staff into the ground at the circle's center before beginning to whisper arcane formulas, arcs of power crackling along its length.

None of the three others expressed any doubt at her command – or, in Phores' case, couldn't express any doubt. They formed a circle around her, and prepared to fight the shades of those they would have once called comrades. This wasn't the first time they had done so – but every time was still as disturbing as the first.

The spectres carried ghostly echoes of the weapons they had wielded in life. Those Aleric faced were armed with a mace and a sabre, and they struck at him with as much skill and coordination as he would have expected from living opponents. They moved to flank him, but he struck first, ramming his sword into the head of the mace-wielding ghost while rolling out of the way of the sabre's downward strike. There was some resistance, though not as much as with a flesh and blood foe. The ghost shrieked as its hold over reality faded, returning it to a mere phantasm rather than a physical presence.

Aleric rolled back to his feet, and jumped, aimed at the remaining spectre. His blow was parried, and as the two withdrew for another exchange, he caught sight of what was happening to his comrades. Merinia was still chanting, and Phores was keeping his two ghosts at bay – but Oris was in trouble. Having already dissolved one of his foes by smashing its head in, he had exposed his back to a ghost who did not wield any visible weapon – but the dead did not need such implements.

Oris twitched as the spirit simply walked right through him, entered his flesh and vanished from sight. For a moment afterwards, he remained still, then Aleric saw him raise his crossbow, pointing it toward Merinia's unguarded back. His face was twisted in a horrified rictus, his eyes darting around in desperation, glowing with an eldritch light. His arms were trembling as he fought against the possession – but he was failing. The spirit wearing his body like a suit of armor was too strong, its hatred for the living too powerful.

Time seemed to dilate as Aleric considered his options. The crossbow wasn't aimed just yet – in but a few fractions of second, it would target Merinia's spine. It was unlikely the ghost could possess Oris for long. Already the esoteric symbols engraved on Oris' leather armor were burning as the spells contained within them fought to throw the spectre out.

But the ghost would still have time to kill Merinia before it was expelled. And without the sorceress, it was doubtful the party could triumph over the rest of the spirits, let alone Gerion himself. Aleric made his choice. He lurched forward, sword arm extended, and his blade pierced Oris' armor and bit deep into his flesh, cutting through his heart and reaching all the way to his right shoulder. The crossbow clattered to the floor, and the light faded from Oris' eyes as both his soul and the spirit possessing his body were cast from the corpse.

With a shout of exaltation, Merinia let loose a devastating spell that spread from her in a circle of cold light. All spectres caught in that ring screamed and vanished, their power dispelled by the sorceress' will. As the wave reached the obelisks, they crumbled to pieces, small rocks scattering on the ground. Silence fell upon the battlefield.

For a long, long moment, the three survivors remained still, as Oris' blood dripped from Aleric's blade. Then, without a word, they lowered their weapons, and continued their march.

No words could change what had happened, what had been necessary.

"Behind sealed doors, where even the bravest of the other gods dread to go, the Blood Champion with broken wings is bound. Even in chains, he still holds his great axe, the terrible weapon that fell countless gods in wars gone by. None are his match on the field of battle, save perhaps the Son of a Dread Empire, but he pays a terrible price for his power. He was once a god of war, but now he is only a god of slaughter, consumed by a thirst for blood that can never be sated. When his proud wings were torn, the last of his sanity fled, and now he must be bound lest he rampages across the leviathan, leaving naught but death in his wake. The chains that keep him were crafted by the Lord of Machines, and enchanted by the Dealer of Dark Bargains to be strong enough to hold him. Their cold iron cools his burning blood, granting him some measure of peace – but not nearly enough. His screams of mindless rage echo through the corridors, each a terrible promise of carnage yet to come. Such are the dangers of walking the Path to Glory, where even one misstep carries terrible consequences. But the promised rewards are so great, what man could refuse to take such risks ?"

They were so close now. Only one room remained between them and the ritual chamber, and they entered it with weapons raised, ready for anything. Surely this, the last line of defense between Gerion Drachencraft and his many enemies, would be the most challenging obstacle yet.

A long corridor led to the ritual room, ending in an archway decorated with images of daemons and humans cavorting together. Three pillars of black stone stood before the archway, covered in the same horrible scenery as the archway. A pair of braziers burned on the side of the arch, casting flickering lights upon the sculptures that made it look as if they were moving.

Atop these pillars, three creatures crouched like gargoyles, though they were unmistakably alive. They were humanoid, with a pair of feathered wings erupting from their back. Their skin was scaled and grey, their feathers a dirty white. Their hands and feet were adorned with vicious claws and their faces, which sported three eyes in a triangle on their forehead, were distorted by the fangs raising from their lower jaws.

Angels. Aleric felt an instinctive surge of mixed hatred and fear at the sight of the winged beings. In the time before the rise of the Overlord, many of the Neverborn who had preyed upon the people of Eldur had taken such guises, deceiving countless fools with benevolent disguises. Though these false gods had been wiped out by the Overlord's armies, the cultural scars remained. What had Gerion been thinking when he had created these things ?

Phores advanced ahead of Aleric and Merinia. The angel on the central pillar stretched out its wings and descended upon him, while its brethren did the same, flying through the air in downward arcs toward Merinia and Aleric.

His sword alone would not be enough for this, Aleric could sense it. These were Gerion's last guardians, the culmination of his blasphemous research. The air around them shimmered with half-formed visions of pain and destruction, ruin and torment. These things, whether they had once been mortal or birthed in the pits of Drachencraft's insane alchemy, were more than half Neverborn. With practiced speed, he drew the sceptre from his belt. He had not used it in the entire expedition yet. With Elexia dead, using it now was a risk, for he could not rely on her to heal the damage it would inflict upon him. But now was not the time to hold anything back, not when they were so close to their goal.

He aimed the sceptre at the angel coming down on him and spoke the words of power, speaking them faster than he ever had before. The invisible energies hit the winged being, and it shrieked and twisted – but so did Aleric. Something in the angel's nature had intensified the price of wielding the sceptre's power. Agony burned through every nerve of Aleric's body even as the angel came crashing to the ground, blood pouring from its mouth and eyes. He blacked out, his sword slipping from his hands, and fell, barely registering the sceptre exploding in his hand, shards of bone impacting against his armor, one of them cutting his cheek open.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Aleric surged back to awareness. Besides the corpse of the angel he had slain with the sceptre laid another, its flesh charred black by sorcerous lightning. Merinia was standing near it, laying heavily on her staff, breathing deeply, her face flush with the effort it had taken her to kill Gerion's creation.

Aleric forced himself to his feet, and, feeling dizzy, drew a small bottle from his belt and drank its contents. Immediately, his belly began to burn and his mind cleared as the potion did its work. Ahead, Phores stood over the broken form of the last angel, his greatsword running with the creature's blood.

'Good job, Merinia, Phores,' said Aleric. 'Come, we are almost ...'

His words died on his lips as the knight slowly fell to the ground. Blood pooled under him, pouring from the massive rent in his chest armor. For the first time in years, Phores' flesh was exposed to the outside air – at least for a few seconds before the convulsions stopped. Phores was dead. Now there were only two of them remaining.

Aleric turned to Merinia, and the sorceress merely nodded, her expression grim and determined. They needed to continue. They had gone too far, lost too much and come too close to their goal to turn back now. Together, they passed between the pillars and through the archway, and emerged into the ritual chamber at the center of Drachencraft Castle.

The ritual chamber was opened to the darkened heavens above. The ceiling had only been removed recently – there were still piles of rubble at the foot of the walls, where they had been swept away. Hundreds of candles made of red wax were spread out across the rubble, casting a ghastly illumination on the scene and filling the air with the scent of blood. The ritual circle took up the whole room, almost twenty meters in diameter, and was the most complex one Aleric had ever seen. Around it were thirteen figures clad in black robes, twelve of them chanting in low voices.

And there, at the spot of the ritual circle closest to the entrance, was Gerion Drachencraft, Betrayer of the Overlord. Unlike the other sorcerers, who faced into the circle, he was turned outward, looking at the two intruders. He looked just like his stone image down below the castle – a little older perhaps, with some wrinkles that either hadn't been visible at the time of the commission or that the sculptor had tactfully omitted. He even wore the same clothing his statue had, though with even more sorcerous runes and enchanted jewellery. Even to Aleric's mundane senses, the Betrayer radiated power. Merely being near him caused his skin to prickle, and looking upon him hurt his eyes. The only being who had ever had this effect on him had been the Overlord, when he had seen the master of Eldur during a military parade more than twenty years ago.

Now all that remained to do was for the last two agents of the Overlord, one swordsman and one sorceress, to kill him.

"And greatest of them all is the Dark King, sitting at the center of this circle of dread gods. His eyes peer into the infinite blackness of the human soul, seeing all that tries to remain hidden. He never rests, never sleeps, for his mind burns with immortal ambition and undying hatred.
Even among this brotherhood of betrayers, none dare raise their voices in defiance, bound by fear and loyalty alike. They all obey him, these beings of unspeakable might, for his is the will that keeps them together, united in their unholy purpose.
He looked at me as I wandered the halls of his domain in spirit, and saw me clearly, despite being no sorcerer, for a being such as he has no need for our own petty conjurings in order to bind the greater powers to his will. Then he called me by name, and commanded that I bow to him and prepare the way for his coming. And I knew that I could not deny his order, nor could I oppose him in any way.
For I had seen all the power that was at his command. The sorceries of our realm are as nothing to him and those he leads. The heavens themselves belong to him and his kind, and his conquest is inevitable. We cannot stand against this storm. His great vessel, which alone holds the power to destroy our world a thousand times over, is but one of the leviathans under his command, each led by another dark lord who yet bends knee to this King. The Construct of Soulless Iron, the Lords of Ash and Shadow, the Sinner and the Slaves to Ruin – they are all his followers, and their own servants are legion.
All we can do is join with this unstoppable power, which is what I have done. Soon my ritual will be complete, and the way will be cleared. At that time, what will you do ? Will you stand in futile defiance, or join me and kneel before the Awakened One ?
What will you do ... Aleric ?"

'GET OUT OF MY MIND !' roared Aleric, his sword pointed straight at the Betrayer. Next to him, Merinia startled, surprised by his outburst. He ignored her, his attention wholly focused on the one he had come to kill.

'You have been taunting me ever since we stepped foot in this tunnel,' he growled, slowly advancing toward his prey. 'Whispering in my ears, trying to infect me with your madness as your minions killed my comrades. But I deny you !'

Gerion looked down at Aleric, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, solemnly, he nodded.

'You are strong,' he said, his voice echoing unnaturally across the open chamber. 'You proved that beyond doubt by reaching this place, even slaying my last guardians. But now you show yourself to be strong in mind as well as in body. I thought I could turn you, make you see, and you have proven more strong-willed than any other that made it into my castle. But know this : everything I told you was the truth. The gods cannot be stopped. You can deny me, but you cannot deny them.'

'You are a coward,' spat Aleric, his agitation growing with every word. 'An old man too craven to fight !'

'Maybe I am,' conceded the Betrayer. 'But it changes nothing. They cannot be defeated, Aleric. Not by us. Perhaps not by anyone or anything.'

Aleric shook his head in disbelief. This was the man who had become the nightmare of the entire empire ? The source of all the evils that had befallen the region ?

'Coward,' he growled again. 'How many people have you killed because of your cowardice ? How many more do you plan to kill ?'

'As many as necessary for me to complete my objective. As many as must die to ease the coming of the gods and prove my loyalty to them. Service to them is the only path to survival for our people – and the path to glory for those strong enough to walk it.'

'You are mad,' Aleric concluded. 'Be prepared, Merinia,' he whispered, holding his sword in a two-handed grip. 'Cover me while I run for him.'

At the very least, thought Aleric, we need to stop the spell somehow. Whatever it is, it's got the Overlord himself worried, so it can't be allowed to reach fruition. Even if we all die, another team can be send later as long as the ritual isn't finished …

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden blast of agony in his back. His hands opened and his blade fell. For a moment, his mind could not register what had happened to him. Then, with the terrible clarity of revelation, he knew. Slowly, on legs that trembled with pain, he turned, looking at his last remaining comrade. Merinia stood with her staff in her hands, pointed right at him, glowing with the power it had just unleashed at Aleric's defenceless, trusting back. Her face was neutral, though he felt as if he could see a shadow of something – remorse ? exaltation ? he could not say – in her eyes. This wasn't like what had happened to Oris. She wasn't possessed. She …

'Merinia ?' he asked, his voice filled with the incredulity he felt at her betrayal. '… why ?'

The sorceress' reply was another lightning bolt that sent Aleric skittering on the ground. Blood filled his mouth – something had burst inside of him. He struggled, trying to raise to his feet, but with a flick of his wrist Drachencraft let loose a wave of energy that sent agony through every nerve of his body. His skin spilt apart, and his blood began to spill onto the floor, covering the runes – which flared with renewed energy as they drank his life away from him.

'If only you had seen the truth,' said Merinia, and now her tone was clearly full of regret. 'You could have joined us as we rose to the heavens and took our place there, among the gods.'

'These things you saw …' Aleric managed to say, even as his life bled away from him, '… they are not gods. Only monsters …'

'You will soon learn, my friend,' said Gerion, 'that there is no difference between the two.'

The incantation of the sorcerers had reached its terrible conclusion, and after a final shout, they went silent. Aleric saw the black clouds of the Overlord's spell of shadow break apart, and beheld the madness hidden behind them. He saw the roiling tides of the Above Sea with his mortal eyes, his dying mind finding patterns among the ever-changing chaos. He saw the great leviathan Gerion had talked about suddenly flare into existence above the castle. Despite the distance, he could make out an infinity of details – the towers rising from its main body, the hundreds of openings on its sides, the malevolent carvings that had grown on its metal skin.

'Look, Aleric Heinrich !' shouted Gerion Drachencraft, his face distorted by emotion and the unnatural light coming from above. 'They are here ! They have come, as promised !'

Then a pillar of light appeared in the center of the ritual circle. When the light faded, nine figures stood in the previously empty space. They were towering giants clad in black armor embroidered with gold. Eight of them wore tusked helmets, while the ninth went bareheaded. Gerion, Merinia and the surviving sorcerers prostrated themselves before these giants.

'I am Arken the Awakened One,' proclaimed the bareheaded figure, 'lord of the Forsaken Sons. You have served me well, all of you, and shall be rewarded.'

All sound faded from Aleric's ears, and his eyes finally closed. As death finally took him, he knew only despair for the fate of his people, of his world. His soul left his body and, strengthened by years of trial, was not immediately dissolved into the aetheric currents of the Immaterium. Instead, it was snatched by a daemon of Tzeentch, who brought the shrieking spirit to the Crystal Labyrinth. Aleric had proven his cunning when he had seen beyond the lies weaved around the mind of Gerion and the Overlord, as well as those who followed them. Now the Changer of Ways sought to reward this insight, even if Aleric had not asked for this boon. In the realm of the Architect of Fate, the soul of the warrior would be reshaped into an aspect more pleasing to the God of Change.

For though the minions of the Betrayer were deluded on a great many things, they were right where it mattered most :

The gods had come to Eldur.

Merinia had stood at the side of gods as the Overlord kneeled before them. That fact still caused her mind to reel, making her pause in her steps every time her thoughts returned to it. She had been standing while the Overlord had knelt.

For most of her life, her father had been a distant figure, a living god that was worshipped by all those she came in contact with. From the lowliest servants to the guards and the visiting Lords, even her mother and the other concubines – all had feared the Overlord's wrath and craved his favor.

Her mother had come from the western side of the continent, the one most recently conquered by the Overlord. She had been a clan leader in her own right, and had fought valiantly against the armies of the Overlord, just like the rest of her people. So valiantly, in fact, that the Overlord had abandoned the idea of subjugating them with pure military might. Instead, he had gathered he greatest sorcerers – Gerion had been one of them, young and naive back then. Together, they had performed one of the most powerful rituals ever cast upon the surface of Eldur. The details weren't clear, but the ritual had somehow erased the very identity of the people of Merinia's mother. Their name, their beliefs, their history – all had been wiped out. Writings had burned, carvings had been worn out by unnatural winds. Memories had vanished as soon as their owner had fallen asleep – many had gone mad as they attempted to deny themselves slumber in order to preserve their heritage. Even the names they had given each other were lost.

The west had fallen easily after that. Merinia's mother had been taken by the Overlord as a concubine – as a trophy, really. As the girl had grown up into a powerful sorceress of her own, she had truly begun to realize the scope of the Overlord's power, the influence he held over Eldur that allowed him to cast spells so potent. And yet, for all his power, the Overlord had knelt before the Awakened One. More, he had never considered fighting. This was the truth of the Siege of Drachencraft, one that had only been revealed to Merinia in the night before the final assault on the estate. Her room had been visited by a Herald, perhaps the same one that had delivered the orders to Aleric, perhaps another – it was impossible to know for certain.

The Herald had told her then that when she and her party confronted Gerion – and somehow the Herald had been certain they would manage to do so – she was to assist the Betrayer. It was the Overlord's will that the ritual Gerion Drachencraft was working on reach completion. Merinia, shocked into forgetting the dangers of questioning her father's command, had demanded an explanation. She had been shocked even further when the Herald had delivered one.

The Overlord and Gerion had been working together all these years. When the Betrayer had understood what his visions meant, he had shared them with his master. Together they had hatched a plan that would allow them to survive the coming of the gods, and, if they were lucky, even gain from it. The gods of Gerion's visions would come, and they couldn't be stopped. Therefore, they must be appeased. They sought warriors and power, instruments to use in their own, unfathomable wars. The Overlord's armies were many, but unsuited for service in the heavens – only the truly strong were deserving of such a destiny. And so, the Siege.

After sacrificing thousands of soldiers in an assault carefully crafted to end in seeming inevitable failure, the Overlord had sent his proclamation. Explorers were gathered from across the whole world, and sent to hone themselves against the traps and defenders of Drachencraft. The death toll of the first assault had silenced any doubt on this approach. The entire estate was a proving ground, where warriors worthy of joining the gods would cultivate their strength until the time Gerion had completed his research and found a way to call the gods to Eldur – or until they came of their own volition, whatever came first.

The final assault was nothing more than a great sacrifice and a way to winnow out the unworthy. The lives of those too weak to survive the battle would feed the ritual's power, and the gods would be brought onto Eldur. The team of assassins was but a way to reassure the leaders of other parties that there was more to the plan than another suicidal assault – and to provide the greatest of offerings at the precise moment of the ritual's culmination. And as the blood of Aleric Heinrich had been spilled onto the stones of Castle Drachencraft, the life of the defiant warrior had brought the last component to Gerion's grand design.

Now, Castle Drachencraft was all but empty. All of Gerion's creatures – his monsters and his apprentices – had been taken by the gods, brought into their celestial leviathan. The hamlets where the explorers had been based had also been emptied, with the gods marching into their streets and choosing those worthy of joining their armies. Some had fled from them, and thus proven undeserving, but most had remained, and awaited the gods' judgement. There had been no punishment for those who had not passed the test. They must merely return to whatever life they had before the Siege, with whatever loot and new strength they had gained from it.

But Merinia knew it was not over. In time, the events of the Siege would fade from memory. The coming of the gods would become nothing more than a legend. Maybe the Overlord would fall and be replaced by a new ruler of Eldur. His aura of invincibility had been shattered, after all, but he was still mighty – for a mere mortal. But whether he did nor not, eventually another sorcerer like Gerion would look into the Above Sea, and catch a glimpse of the gods. And the whole thing would start all over again. The cycle would feed the ranks of the gods' armies – and perhaps even provide them with new members of their ascended circle.

Such was the ambition of Merinia, as well as that of Gerion and his most learned disciples who had come with them. In time, the other chosen explorers would also seek it. The gods – who called themselves the Forsaken Sons – were immune to the ravages of age, and wielded power beyond their understanding, yet they had once been human. Their existence was a promise, a proof that it was possible to rise to such levels of power. Aleric had seen this, yet he had refused it – whether that was a sign of inner weakness or strength was something Merinia hadn't yet decided. The path would be difficult, but she had her sorcery, her mind, and the power of the two remaining daemon rings she had taken from Urien's corpse.

Hundreds of the best warriors of Eldur had been taken to the Hand of Ruin, the gods' great vessel. Soon Merinia and Gerion would be the first to receive the gift of the gods, to be remade in their laboratories so that they, too, would no longer fear the ravages of time. What the Phyteans had spent centuries trying to achieve, the gods could grant in moments. But first, they had something to do – one last service that could not wait, and the gift of agelessness would leave them stricken for some time. They stood with the Awakened One in a vast circular chamber. Apart from the three of them, the room was empty, yet filled with the echoes of some momentous spell. Chains hang from the ceiling, attached to nothing. Unpowered wards covered every surface. This place had once held something of immense power, something that the gods had sought to cage here. She wondered what it had been, and how it had escaped.

'What is this place, lord ?' asked Gerion, gazing at the incredibly complex wards with awed eyes.

'This,' replied the Awakened One in a low, thundering voice, 'was once the Oracle's Chamber. Here was held a powerful foe of our warband, a daemon of great cunning and might. It was bound by the sorcery of the Coven, but found a way to escape. Now this foe endures in a different prison, one that makes this place looks like a paradise. But this place is still filled with power, and the most apt for our purpose.'

'And what is that purpose, lord ?' said Merinia.

'On Eldur, Gerion designed a spell that allowed him to call out to me, to reach through the storm and touch my mind. It was how he offered himself to me, and how he eventually called the Hand of Ruin to Eldur. Now the two of you will prepare that spell again, together. You will call upon the power contained within this chamber to fuel it. And I shall use it to speak to one of my brothers.'

'It will take time, my lord,' Gerion dared to say. 'I will need to teach the young lady the proper incantations, and we will need to work together to adapt my designs to this place's particular energies. We will need hours – perhaps days.'

Merinia feared that this would anger the god, but the Awakened One merely nodded.

'I expected as much. Our work on Eldur is not yet complete – we are not ready to depart. You will complete this task before we go.'

Then he closed his eyes. His armor groaned as his body relaxed ever so slightly in it, servos locking in place, leaving the Awakened One utterly still. But he was not sleeping – Merinia could still feel his thoughts, roaring and raging inside of his skull – and outside as well. The energies of the chamber were reacting to his presence, suffusing his soul. In turn, his spirit spread outward, beyond the confines of his body and into the Above Sea. Tendrils of thought drifted across the openings in time and space left by the chamber's previous occupant.

The Dark King had called this place the Oracle's Chamber. Before, the name had likely come from the prisoner kept here, but now the only seer here was the Awakened One himself. The sorceress didn't know what her master saw in these waking dreams, and had no desire to know. She was not a goddess herself yet – surely such visions would destroy her.

While the god slept awake, Merinia and Gerion worked. Never before had the sorceress teamed up with someone as knowledgeable in the arcane as the so-called Betrayer. Her mentors in the Overlord's palace were but children compared to him. His mastery of the aetheric currents, his knowledge of the Above Sea, were unbelievable. Before she could hope to rise among the gods, she would first need to rise to his level.

It took them three days to complete their task. They ate the supplies brought by the half-flesh, half-machine servants of the gods, which somehow granted them the energy needed to forego sleep entirely. All the time, the Awakened One remained standing, eyes closed. By the time she drew the last rune, Merinia felt her vision swimming with otherworldly images. The energies of the chamber were infusing her own mind, now that she had opened herself to them in order to understand their flow. Her grip on her own thoughts was slipping – for the last few hours, she had been moving out of instinct, not reflexion. She suspected the same was true of Aleric – the chamber itself was guiding their actions, or perhaps it was the diffused spirit of the Awakened One.

'Lord,' she said at last, her voice little more than an exhausted croak. 'It is done. The spell awaits only your command.'

The eyes of the god snapped open, gleaming with a pale light that soon faded away. He looked at the circles, drawn around his own prone form so that he would be part of the spell's design, and nodded slightly. The two architects of the spell withdrew to the entrance of the room, determined to see the result of their work with their own eyes. No order came for them to depart. Either the Awakened One was granting them the boon of witnessing what was to come, or he merely did not care. As the god gathered his will and sent it down the arcane paths traced by the two sorcerers, the circles and runes began to glow.

The energies of the chamber were drawn into the spell. Yet all it could do was open a channel, a path for the communication to take place – it fell to the Awakened One to provide a destination for the call. The sorcerers had not known who it was their god sought to contact, nor how far away this being might be. They had known, however, that the greater the distance the more strain the spell would place upon it's living component, the source of the missing information – the Awakened One.

And whoever the Dark King was trying to contact was far further than Merinia could even conceive of. In her attuned state, the sorceress could sense the streams of energy more clearly than ever, and she was astonished at the pressure the spell was putting on the god. Any Eldur-born sorcerer would have been crushed by the demands of the spell, yet the Awakened One barely seemed to notice it.

In the center of the room, a great pillar of sorcerous fire burst upward. Then, as the spell reached its intended target, the flames twisted, and within them appeared a giant head that towered above them all. It was noble and proud, and bald safe for a topknot of black hair. The eyes burned with a fierce golden light that swept over Merinia and Gerion before focusing on the other god in the room.

'Commander Arken,' spoke the figure. Its voice was deeper even than that of the Forsaken Sons' lord. It echoed across the chamber and into the mind of the two sorcerers, burning at their thoughts like the fire of destiny itself.

'First Captain Abaddon ...' breathed the Awakened One, before shaking his head, and bending his knee to the apparition, and then saying : 'Warmaster.'

And as Merinia heard the words, and the respect – the submission – in them, she realized that the Awakened One, the master of a pantheon of gods, he who had brought the Overlord to his knees, still bowed to other, greater powers. Something broke within her at that realization, and she began to laugh without joy, falling to her knees, unable to stop trembling. The realization of her own insignificance burned her sanity away, and she finally understood why so many of the minions of Drachencraft had been mad. They had seen this too, seen how small they really were in the great scheme of things. Gerion still stood, watching in fascination.

Merinia kept laughing madly, her voice unheard above those of Arken and Abaddon as they discussed what was yet to come. It would be a long, long time before she stopped.

AN : and now, at long last, this chapter is done and so is the current arc. Man that thing was long and difficult to write.

I began writing this chapter months ago, back when I was still playing Darkest Dungeon and reading a lot of Lovecraft fiction to prepare for the Raven Guard Index for the Roboutian Heresy. I started with Gerion's visions of prominent members of the Forsaken Sons, and by the Gods, I wish I hadn't done so many of them. Writing the scenes between them was quite an ordeal.

As for Abaddon's appearance at the end - don't worry. I know many people don't like his character, but though I certainly do (I am very excited for the next Black Legion book by ADB) he is not going to have much of an influence in this fic. His appearance was more to give the chapter a fitting ending and to lay seeds for the next arc.

Speaking of ADB, he posted links to some amazing animation videos of his novel Helsreach on his blog. Search for the youtube channel of Richard Boylan, they are incredible.

I have said before that the next arc will be the last one in this fic, and that is true. But this arc is going to be a big one, and now that I am starting to plan it, I realize that it's very likely going to be long enough that there will be several arcs inside it, like the campaign of Parecxis had. After all, a Black Crusade is a complex endeavor ... Next up will be another chapter of this, or a short story.

If you have a suggestion, a comment, or a mistake to point out, please leave a review or PM me.

Zahariel out.