The sky churned, the clouds turning a sickly green and the roar of distant thunder echoing on the horizon. It was the sky of the demon realm that dwells beyond this world; the world into which the Hylden were cast. The seer was putting her plan into action. By now, William was opening the gate between dimensions. Being the candidate for the Pillar of dimension and the decedent of Baal himself he had the power to open the pathway between. It was this power the seer had been waiting for all her life.

Even from this distance, I could feel the enormous strain carving a hole in reality was putting on William. The bound between vampiric father and son was strong especially just after the transformation and in some small way I shared in his burden.

Unfortunately I could not be there in person to help him. I had my own chore to do and time was running out.

The lake of tears lake before me. A colossal body of water that stretched half of Nosgoth's length from the southern shores to the northern mountains. Within, somewhere, lay a lost Hylden city. Flooded long ago during the ancient war it remained trapped beneath the waves, undisturbed for eons.

Within Vorador had assured me, lay the device required to open the canister.

I merely hoped Janos had been correct and the cure, once exposed to the air, had the potential to cure all the vampires in Nosgoth.

I attached the brass container to the leather sling around my chest, tucking it underneath the Reaver blade near my imperial banner. I need both hands free in order to swim. I was sort of out of practise in the sport.

I tested the water with my toe to assure myself that the immunity to water the Leviathan blood had given me was in valid. My skin did not burn on the touch and I broke into a run, wading out until the water lapped around my waist.

Contrary to popular belief vampire are required to breath. I had no idea how long I would have to remain down there and taking the biggest breath I could manage, I dived into the water.

The lake was dark and murky and even my eyes were not able to penetrate the gloom. I quickly cast a brief spell of magical illumination and that ceased to be a problem. Weeds and algae lined the lake floor with the faint silvery flash of a water snake passing in the midst. The water was almost completely devoid of fish and any that happened by seemed malnourished and sickly looking; showing just how much the pillar's decay had effected the geological process in Nosgoth.

As I swam further and further down, I had the penetrating feeling that I was being observed.

And not by the fish.

The first signs of the ruins I was looking for came when I happened across several pieces of rusty, jagged metal half buried in the weeds. They led off in one direction and I followed them, coming across half collapsed sections of pillar and even a statue of a Hylden warrior heroically holding a cracked stone sword aloft.

I crossed over the edge of a precipice and in the gorge below was what I was looking for.

The flooded city lay below him, towering constructs of a fusion of metal and stone stood directly in the surface; leading up towards the surface; their peeks almost touching the waves. The streets of this place were cracked open in fissures, their buildings crumbled and strangled by the weeds.

I swam down to investigate and as I descended, that annoying feeling that I was being watched intensified.

I knew better than to simply put this down to nerves and paused to feel the surrounding environment telepathically, searching for any lurking observers.

All was mostly still but out the outer edges of my awareness I did feel the faint brush of someone other being, moving swiftly through the depths to evade me.

Something here was watching me.

Umah's face flashed into my head, reminding my intently that I had work to do. Let whoever found me interesting watch if they so wished. If they tried to interfere I would deal with them.

I passed underneath a half fallen arch of stone that might have served as the city gates at one time and down through the street. I did not know precisely what I was looking for. Hylden architecture was too foreign from what I was used to seeing for my to understand. Vorador, being an avid scholar on the subject, had told me I was looking for a big building there their laboratory would be.

I had seen such a laboratory once before at the Hylden city the Sarafan lord had used as his base. This building would be set apart from the others and large enough to conceal the Hylden's arcane science.

The buildings at the centre of the city seemed like the place to start looking.

Reaching them was no great task. Getting inside however proved to be a more difficult endeavour. I found no doors or windows, only a never ending sheet of curved and riveted metal. I tapped the side of it with my fist, listening to the ring inside. The walls were too thick to rip through. They had to be to remain standing when compressed by this much water.

On the verge of turning away I noticed something in the ground near the base of these towers. It was a circular plate plated horizontally along the ground. Most of it was covered in reeds and I could see this was my way inside.

Just above this was a smaller wheel with hand grips. This, I summarised was the handle. I took hold of it with both hands and began to pull. Even under the water I could hear it groan in protest. The metal had been sitting comfortably for thousands of years and did not seem anxious to get moving now.

"Kain!" I heard Raziel call out. I glanced up just in time to see three large slimly green tentacles with suckers coating their undersides rise up from fissures in the ground and tower of them. One of them came crashing down towards me in an attempt to crush me under its weight.

The water slowed my reaction time down and it was only by luck I managed to unsheathe the Reaver in time and slash the tentacle across its front. There was a powerful flash of light as the wound slid open in the slimy flesh.

A foul green liquid poured out of the wound and intermixed with this I heard the agonising screams of tormented souls.

Dozens of men, woman and children fleeing from the wound in a vain attempt to escape their captor. The Wheel of Fate.

The other two tentacles came crashing down and swimming up I avoiding their strikes. Understandably, I was at a disadvantage fighting underwater. I had no experience with such circumstances and found that the weight of the Reaver in my hands was throwing my off balance.

A laugh from a familiar voice echoed up from the depths and five more tentacles came smashing their way up through the ground, screaming towards me as if the water friction wasn't a factor.

Rebounding of the tip of one as it tried to strike me down I swum down through the water as fast I could. My lungs were burning inside my chest, reminding me that I could not hold my breath indefinitely. I pushed the Reaver's sword tip into the short gap between the porthole doorway and the ground. Using the blade was leverage I began forcing the thing open.

I was aware this was not what the ancient had in mind when they crafted the Reaver but needs must.

The door refused to budge at first, remaining steadfast like a stubborn mule but it could not compete against the material the Reaver was made out of.

It was about then I discovered why the door had been so reluctant to move.

There was an air pocket behind it.

As the oval door swung open, a thick bubble of air blew upwards forcing me backwards and several of the tentacles to recoil.

Then the water rushed in and helpless to avoid it, I was sucked inside. The tentacles lashed after me, slamming themselves against the entrance but they were all too large to fit inside.

"Come Kain, come down to the depths!" The voice of the Elder echoed at me from out of the darkness.

The force of the current too strong to fight against I found myself torched down through unseen dark tunnels until I was thrown out of the water and into open air.

Before I had chance to take a breath I was found myself slammed hard against the cold metal surface of a wall. The breath was knocked out of my lungs and I fell back onto the floor.

I gasped out, calling more air into my lungs.

Despite the throbbing pain in my head I pushed myself up, feeling the water rise around me. I was in a large metal room which the tunnel I had just been thrown out of was filling up with water. A door lay in the far side, marking the only other point of exit.

Ignoring the protest my lungs made at further exertion I waded over to it.

Apparently the Hylden were Aware their city was due to be flooded and had made some preparations for it. These doors were air tight and reinforced to withstand high water pressure, purpose built for aquatic conditions. I unlocked the door and stepped inside, pushing it shut against the water behind me against the air pocket. The airtight door hissed at the seal was remade.

I spat the water out of my mouth and shook some of it out of my hair.

"You travel in the deep vampire, through the endless darkness that pulsates beneath the world of men." The voice echoed through the metal corridors. "It is here I reign supreme."

Reacting instinctively I drew the Reaver blade. Even my eyes could not penetrate the darkness that stuck to the everything like a spiders web. Unleashing the blades elemental power of fire, the Reaver became a beacon of light; illuminating my way and revealing the presence of three Shades attempting to sneak up on me.

The Reaver slashed forward, stabbing one of the dark phantoms through the throat. A half silenced gurgle escaped it before its body dissipated into a cloud of smoke.

The other two came charging at me, only to follow their first with a single swipe of the Reaver across their mid sections.

"Mere shadows given form? Is that the best you can do?" I asked, glancing around in case any more were waiting in ambush.

"These are merely the Material servants." The voice continued as I advanced down the empty wet corridor that stank of rust. "These are nothing compared to the forces I have gathered in the Spectral Realm."

"Where they can do you no good."

"I'll see to that soon enough."

The shadows in one corner drew themselves up as if manifesting, three glowing violet eyes standing out in a mass meant to resemble a head. Claws made of darkness racked themselves at me. I blocked them with the razor edge of the Reaver, before bringing the claymore around.

The creature doubled back from the blow, before despite its injury attacked again. I dodged, then drove the blade through its head. With this final blow it disputed, the darkness of the shadows vanishing with it to reveal a set of metal mesh stairs heading down.

"I've been meaning to have a conversation with you for some time now." I stated, proceeding down the flight of stairs.

"I can't image we would have anything worth discussing." The reply drifted out of the dark shadows.

"I have been to Midgard." I told him. "I have seen the truth there. I have seen the hands of those who crafted Vampire, Hylden and Man alike. I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me what you know of this parent race?"

A low chuckle escaped the unknown.

"Ah, the parent race. One can not begin to calculate how much time has passed since the last of their number faded into the wheel."

As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I stopped at the sight of the large corridor before me. The walls were metal just like the rest, but cracked and broken in placed where something of large size had pushed through.

Across the ceiling, clinging to it like creeper plants, were slathering green tentacles. A piece of rock clinging to a massive eyelid moved aside and a large blue eyes stared down at me from above.

"Perhaps I 'should' illuminate your dark mind vampire, so that when the end comes you will know the history upon which I draw."

"That is unusually generous of you." I remarked, ignoring the stare of the eye and carrying out. The tentacles on the roof all moved in my direction one by one briefly then turned away. "I expected you not to even consider it."

"It is of little consequence whether you are aware or not as ultimately it would do you no good. Even as we speak, the clans of your former self are on the verge of being crushed, as is the rebellion the Cabal tried to put into effect in Willendorf. Before this night is done any organised opposition to my Sarafan Order will be gone."

I let my head roll back and I laughed out loud, the sound echoing though the subterranean metal halls.

"So… now that Moebius is no longer divining the future for you, you must rely of open warfare and oppression to achieve your goals?"

"If I must."

The ground underneath my feet trembled and four tentacles burst through the metal, fragments flying into the air as they emerged. They slammed down on the floor as I reached for the Reaver blade and with one sharp tug, pulled the ground upon which I stood down with them.

"Eons before Vampire, Hylden or Man set foot on the earth; Nosgoth was a dead husk of a land. A volcanic barren continent of ash and rock, the only life forms being microscopic bacteria." The Elder told me as I descended, further and further down into the dark abyss.

"It was then that a race of beings who called themselves Norse came here, escaping the mistakes they had made that destroyed their own land."

I came to an abrupt stop, the floor piece crashing into a solid object far below. The tentacles withdrew, sliding back into whatever crevice they had crawled out off.

I was now standing before a wide metallic studded ramp that lead upwards into an adjacent chamber made of stone. Keeping the Reaver firmly in my grasp, I carried on forward. Here and there I noted smaller blue, octopus-like, eyes staring at me.

"They were a foolish, vain people; who truly believed their advanced science was the answer to everything in existence."

The chamber was clearly not of Hylden design. The markings covering the walls, ceiling and floor were completely foreign to me. I hadn't seen them in either Vampire of Hylden ruins. It was a form of rune language that had long been forgotten by the world.

Judging by the forced entry I suspected the Hylden had been excavating this place before their city had been flooded.

There was a large door at the far end. Engraved on the surface of that door was the symbol of an eye.

"Using that science they had attempted to alter fate itself, by trying to do away with death. Tried to make every living thing Immortal."

The door slid open, pulled adrift by tentacles within the stonework and I had to hold up a hand to shield my eyes from the flash of light that leapt up at me.

"Behold their folly."