Underland

Valdemar hadn’t spoken a word in several minutes.

The facility’s engines gently thrummed underneath the central metal platform, clouds of steam swirling around the metal bridges connecting the room to other areas; those that had survived Marianne’s battle with the Pleromian at least. Although Lord Och had bested the creature and shattered its magic, its grisly handiwork remained. The eyes and guts of slain Derros remained hung among the maze of pipes above the platform, and their slayer…

Why is it still here? Marianne wondered as she glared at the odious sphere of blackened blood facing Valdemar. Both of them occupied the center of the platform and seemed locked in a mental duel of some kind. Though Valdemar stood on his feet, she could tell that his spirit had wandered elsewhere.

Merely gazing at the Pleromian’s remains filled Marianne with revulsion. Her enhanced sight perceived the true nature of the bubbles boiling on its surface as ghastly eyes flickering in and out of existence.

This is the same mud that poisoned Bertrand, Marianne thought grimly. Though Valdemar hadn’t touched it, his continued silence disturbed her. She was starting to wonder if letting him consume the Pleromian’s soul had truly been wise. “Lord Och…”

“Be patient,” the lich said without a care in the world. While Marianne had moved closer to Valdemar in case she needed to defend him from the slime, the Dark Lord observed the scene from a respectable distance. “Good things take time… and I have waited many years for this moment.”

Years? Was he speaking about the Pleromian’s capture, or Valdemar’s progress? Marianne briefly glanced at the Dark Lord of Paraplex, her enhanced senses picking up subtle movements she had never noticed before: bony fingers shaking almost imperceptibly; his mouth slightly opening to let out a pleased rattle; a feverish light flaring up in his empty eyes…

It wasn’t a look of curiosity, but anticipation.

He planned this, Marianne realized, much to her disturbance. He planned this before we even set out on this expedition.

“You overestimate me, Young Marianne,” the lich said, having read her mind. “When you will reach my age, if you ever do, you will realize that no wish ever comes true. Something unforeseen always ruins the best-laid plans of men and gods… but with time and preparations on your side, you will seize the opportunities as they come along.”

An opportunity for what? Marianne wondered, though she was wise enough not to speak out loud. She had already noticed the glass eyes in the ceiling watching their every move and listening to their discussion. The air was rife with tension. It can escalate anytime…

Holding her rapier in one hand and having reabsorbed her flail into her body with the other, Marianne was ready to strike at the first sign of provocation. She was under no delusion that the Derros would let them leave this facility without a fight.

“Mayhaps there will be a fight, but I expect our host shall prove wise enough to let us negotiate like adults,” Lord Och said as he observed his apprentice. “We are close to the–”

The Dark Lord didn’t finish his sentence, which Marianne immediately took as a warning.

Though Valdemar hadn’t moved an inch, his familiar was peeking out of his bag. The squid-like face of Ktulu glanced at its master for a while, before focusing on the puddle of black blood left by the Pleromian.

The creature was as eerily silent as its summoner.

Something is wrong, Marianne thought, her grip on her rapier tightening. She noticed the air bending around the black blood, the same way it did right before the Pleromian tried to skewer her with summoned blades. The noblewoman sensed the magic suffusing the air. Is the body reacting to the soul’s demise?

“What’s your scheme, apprentice?” Lord Och whispered, his head tilting to the side in confusion. Much to Marianne’s surprise, he sounded almost as puzzled as she was. “I wonder…”

A new voice echoed in the engine room, coming from several places at once. Marianne’s enhanced hearing noticed multiple sources hidden in the walls and pipes above them. Devices integrated into the machinery itself translating lightning into words.

“I detect unforeseen le-levels of occult eq-equations in your vicinity.” The voice sounded vaguely male, but broken, stuttering, and wrong. A normal person wouldn’t have noticed the difference with words spoken by a normal person, but Marianne also noticed a metal resonance similar to those produced by musical instruments in the background. “Ex-ex-explain yo-o-ourselves…”

“Lord Otto, you finally deign to speak with us?” Lord Och chuckled. “This is nothing that should concern you.”

So Otto the Demented was truly in this facility, or close. Marianne wondered if she would have a chance to slay him and behead derrokind’s government, but quickly squashed these vain hopes. In all likelihood, the mad king had probably put a safe distance between himself and Lord Och.

A short silence followed, but Marianne noticed movements among the pipes above their heads. She expected assassins hiding among them, before realizing that the metal itself was moving. The air simmered as the room’s temperature increased.

“The analys-sis of body-language indicates that you ly-y-ying to meeee…”

Marianne shuddered as she sensed an electrical current in the air. This time, refusing to be separated from Valdemar, she grabbed him by the shoulder with her free hand. Wherever he went, she would follow.

“Wake up,” Marianne whispered, her heartbeat quickening at the complete lack of response. She began to shake him up like a giant mushroom, to no avail. “Valdemar, you need to wake up!”

Only then did she notice that her friend’s shadow had subtly lengthened.

The Haunter that Valdemar had summoned as a protector now covered the puddle of blackened slime with its shade. Three crimson eyes flickered like candles on the false shadow’s surface, the Pleromian’s blood reacting to them by pulsating like a heart.

And Valdemar still wouldn’t move an inch. His pulse had grown so faint Marianne could barely hear it, his masked face gazing at nothing and nowhere.

“Lord Och, something is wrong!” Marianne warned the Dark Lord, who simply stroked his skeletal chin. The Haunter had completely covered the Pleromian’s remains in a blanket of shadows, the two eldritch darknesses becoming one. “Lord Och—”

“How bold of you, Young Valdemar,” the Dark Lord muttered to himself while sparks of lightning flared around his ancient bones. “To force my hand so brazenly…”

The Haunter’s shadow flickered, and it laughed.

Realizing the danger, Marianne pulled the unresponsive Valdemar towards the edge of the platform. The sorcerer fell backward, his familiar grabbing him by the neck while Marianne caught them both.

Her friend’s shadow returned to normal, but the Pleromian’s remains immediately underwent a horrendous transformation. The black blood coalesced into a large sphere over which grew inhuman eyes and fanged mouths. This protoplasmic ooze occupied the platform’s center, corroding the steel underneath.

Did you plan this too, Lord Och? Marianne thought as she lifted Valdemar, preparing to jump to safety. The sphere of black blood, however, didn’t make a move to attack. What now?

And then the mouths shrieked.

Marianne thought her ears would explode from the piercing cry, and it took all of her mental fortitude not to wince from the sudden increase in volume. The cry reverberated through the platform and then the walls.

Somehow, it drove the machinery mad.

The pipes above their heads swirled like snakes before falling down on the group below, breathing blazingly hot steam or boiling oil. Marianne sensed neither the presence of telekinesis nor hidden pulls moving them. As far as her senses were concerned, the metal suddenly started moving on its own in impossible ways to strike at the intruders.

Supremely unimpressed, Lord Och raised his hand at the ceiling and cast the same fire spell he used to destroy the Pleromian. His fingers unleashed a mighty fiery ray at the swirling pipes above the group’s heads, vaporizing them and melting a large hole in the ceiling.

However, the pipes were only a prelude. The engines screeched beneath the platform and the surface of the room’s remaining steel walls started to bend on its own. Marianne immediately recognized the signs of a haunted ground, but sensed no soul nor magic in the air.

Had the Derro somehow given life to metal?

The sphere of Pleromian blood soon stopped making a sound as it collapsed on itself. Space rippled around the phenomenon as it transformed into a growing speck of darkness in the fabric of reality itself, light and reality bending at its edges. The temperature dropped in its presence, the very heat siphoned away.

“Lord Och, what’s happening?” Marianne asked as she pulled Valdemar near the platform’s edge. Though the sphere of darkness’ growth was painfully slow, she noticed the air sucked into it like an all-devouring hole.

“He has learned from the best, Young Marianne,” the lich replied with a hint of genuine pride. “My apprentice had his familiar turn the Pleromian into a living breach between planes and then used the Haunter to tune it to its home plane. Soon, this entire facility will be sucked into a land of eternal darkness.”

A portal? Valdemar had created a portal? From her experience in Pleroma, Marianne knew that these kinds of breaches eventually collapsed on themselves after running out of magical power, but they were also highly unstable.

Otto Blutgang’s voice howled across the engine room at the betrayal. Lightning surged above Marianne’s head, but the breach seemed to interfere with the Derro’s teleportation technology.

“We need to leave now, Young Marianne,” Lord Och said as he began to levitate above the ground, using his fire spell to widen the hole he had opened in the ceiling. “Teleporting now would be risky, so I ask you to carry my apprentice to safety.”

He didn’t need to ask her twice.

Realizing that Valdemar simply couldn’t move by himself, let alone stand on his feet, Marianne sheathed her rapier before holding him with both hands; one beneath the legs and another holding the shoulders.

Now, Lord Bethor, the noblewoman thought as she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. I hope you didn’t mislead me.

The Blood flowed through her veins as it reshaped her flesh and shoulders. The material harvested from her spine-flail was repurposed into twin shapes growing beneath her skin.

And when the time came, they burst out of Marianne’s back like an insect from a cocoon.

The noblewoman suppressed a scream of pain as a pair of great batlike wings shredded her clothes and expanded. Five fingers of bones longer than her entire body protruded from her shoulders, bound together by a thin layer of skin. The rest of her skeleton had hollowed out from the inside and become as fragile as glass. Only the power of the Blood kept her in one piece.

Marianne opened her eyes while Ktulu tightly held on to Valdemar’s neck. “No place for failure,” she muttered to herself. “One, two…”

After gathering her breath, Marianne ran towards the platform’s edge and jumped.

The flapping of her wings sent out a mighty burst of wind, the blowback so abrupt that Marianne struggled not to throw up. Her entire body trembled with each movement, adjusting to the air current and density. She thought she would struggle every step of the way.

But it came easily to her.

Her enhanced sense of touch picked up each subtle alteration in the air, allowing her to naturally adjust her trajectory. Her eyes noticed any debris that might pierce her wings. Her ears sensed the presence of obstacles as sound rebounded off them, guiding her to safety.

Lord Bethor was training me for this moment, Marianne realized. All these hard exercises over the last weeks, all these harsh drills to tune her reflexes to her newly enhanced senses, all the spells she had learned had formed the foundation of a greater whole. It had afforded her a gift that so few could enjoy in this world of tunnels and stone ceilings; a privilege almost as precious as the light itself.

Flight.

And so, Marianne soared into the metal skies with a smile on her face.

Lord Och had created a path into the ceiling and she happily flew after him. The lich was melting a blazing path forward, incinerating anything on the way.

The orb had grown large enough to swallow the platform behind them. Tremors spread through the facility, causing pipes to explode in clouds of steam and bolts to fly off the walls at an arrow’s speed. Marianne dodged them all while dutifully following Lord Och.

“My, my,” the undead archmage said as he glanced at Marianne, his gaze wandering to Ktulu holding on to his partner. “When is the second child?”

Marianne’s jaw clenched as she sensed warm blood flushing to her cheeks. To outsiders, they must have looked like newlyweds.

“Why?” Marianne whispered to Valdemar as he seemed to regain consciousness. “Why have you done this?”

“He can’t…” Valdemar struggled to form words. Though he had won the mental contest of will with the Pleromian, it had left him shaken. “He can’t be allowed… to keep the portal… the price… too high…”

A mechanical echo reverberating through the corridors, a final curse. “You have chan-changed noth-th-ing, you tre-treacherous pack of lesser neu-neurons!” Otto Blutgang boasted. “I can reb-rebuild this infra-frastructure. It will take ti-ti-i-ime, but I am forever.”

“No…” Valdemar whispered. “You are merely… a long-term problem.”

His familiar, who had been silent so far, grew agitated. “Ktulu!” he squirmed incomprehensible words, his six eyes glancing in multiple directions at once. “Nyarlykrugu!”

The shadows lengthened in the corridors, flooding the factory with hunger. Even the famous Derrosteel melted into nothingness as easily as sugar in water, consumed by the void between worlds. In their escape, the group passed by golem and Derro corpses with bloodied tongues growing out of their flesh as interplanar creatures started to manifest within them.

The darkness was gaining ground on them.

But not fast enough to catch up.

Finally, Lord Och blasted his way past the fortified doors that had once sealed the facility from the outside world. The lich emerged into the reinforced tunnels of derrokind, closely followed by Marianne.

They were immediately welcomed with a hail of bullets, as cannons hidden in the walls opened fire on them. Marianne deftly avoided them, while Lord Och casually destroyed the devices by somehow collapsing space and crushing them to a pulp. The noblewoman noticed Valdemar gazing at the lich, probably in an attempt to figure out how his magic worked.

Marianne glanced over her shoulder, watching the darkness devour the facility’s doors before slowly starting to recede. It would take minutes, maybe hours before the breach collapsed on itself. By then only another empty cavern would remain.

“Was it worth it?” Marianne whispered to Valdemar, who seemed to have recovered enough to stop shaking nonstop.

“It delayed his plans at least.” Her calmness surprised him. “You’re not mad? I could have killed us all.”

“If you made such a drastic call, I assume you had your reasons,” Marianne replied calmly. She trusted his judgment. “I would prefer a warning next time though.”

“I couldn’t. He was watching us. I had to hit him in an unexpected way.”

Marianne sighed. “We will work on a hand signal of some kind.”

Leaving the ruins behind, the trio returned to the Knight of the Shroud’s camp. The crossroads of tunnels had turned into a fortified redoubt, using earth elementals to raise walls and trenches. Undead soldiers had arrived from Sabaoth to reinforce them and secure the region for the Empire of Azlant.

“I didn’t know you could fly,” Valdemar said as they finally landed near the camp. Knights immediately attended to Lord Och, but the lich dismissed them with a wave of his hand.

Neither did I, Marianne replied as Valdemar stood back on his feet and freed her hands. She clenched her teeth as her wings merged back into her flesh, leaving holes in the back of her clothes. “It’s easier than I expected,” she said, “but more painful than I thought.”

“Power always has a price of some kind,” Lord Och replied as he rejoined them, dusting off his clothes as if he had returned from a morning stroll. “I dare hope that you have something to show for this excursion, my dear apprentice? We came for a portal, and you destroyed it.”

“I… I know how portals work, somewhat. They create a resonance of some kind between various lifeforms on each side, but…” Valdemar held his head with his left hand, his familiar was unusually quiet. “My head hurts… I can hardly remember half of it.”

“What about the Pleromian’s soul?” Marianne asked, fearful how it might affect him in the long term. “Is it destroyed?”

“Not… not truly?” Valdemar put a hand on his stomach. “It’s inside me like digested food. I’m not sure what to make of this.”

“Obviously, you should finish your meal and throw out the waste.” Lord Och’s eyes flared with ghostly light. “Young Valdemar, how about the Pleromian portals?”

“I… I know…” Valdemar’s hand clenched into a fist, his voice turning bitter and angry. “I know you know.”

Though Marianne didn’t fully understand what was happening, the lich cackled with delight. “As my apprentice, it is your duty to learn what I know,” he replied, “and mine to know what there is to learn. As for what I know… do not think I missed the holes in your memories, my student.”

“Holes?” Marianne asked with a frown, Valdemar removing his mask to reveal the sweating face underneath. Black circles had formed around his eyes, and his skin had turned pale. “Valdemar, are you alright?”

“Intentionally damaging one’s own mind is quite the dangerous proposition, especially for an amateur mind-mage like you,” Lord Och said with amusement. “But I assume this is temporary, since the knowledge you gathered was too important to sacrifice. So where did you hide the information we sought? In your familiar’s alien mind?”

The lich glanced at Ktulu, who fearfully hid back in his master’s bag.

“I…” Valdemar shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not, apprentice, you erased your memory of your own plan. Perhaps you expect to naturally come across the information and recognize it for what it was?”

“This… Lord Och, forgive me, but this seems far-fetched,” Marianne said, standing up to Valdemar’s defense. “His memory loss could simply be a side-effect of fighting off the Pleromian soul.”

“My apprentice is many things, Young Marianne, but incompetent isn’t one of them. I know you don’t believe this is an accident either, and are just trying to lessen his punishment.” As always, the lich seemed more amused than insulted. “But I reserve such treatment for meaningful obstruction. This childish ploy will not keep me in the dark for long.”

Valdemar said nothing, glaring at his master. I need to know what he saw, Marianne decided, before immediately trying to cover up her thoughts so Lord Och wouldn’t read them. Damn it!

Lord Och chuckled. “So you have learned Lord Bethor’s lesson, and will try to protect your charge even against the likes of me?”

Marianne straightened up. “It is my duty.”

The lich examined her more closely. “It is not duty that motivates you, Young Marianne. You are too honest to lie to yourself.”

It took Marianne all her strength to keep a stony face as Valdemar looked at her in confusion.

“Anyway, let us return to Sabaoth to review what we learned and forgot.” The lich snapped his fingers as he walked away, expecting his acolytes to follow without a word. “We have rats to hunt and a Sabbath to prepare for.”