The air was thick, humid, and laden with the smell of mold, dried blood, and despair... Drops of water echoed in the darkness like the ticking of a macabre clock, marking each second of agony. Deep within Fort Morten, a fortress carved into the bowels of the Black Mountains, only the sinister glow of a brazier and the ghostly dance of a solitary torch illuminated the nightmare scene.
Moving through the dark corridors like a shadow, the figure that seemed fused with the gloom crossed the fortress. Sophia. Her heart hammered with terrible pain. Her hair – a vibrant cascade of copper and crimson that normally resembled fire – was dull, dirty with earth and soot, falling in disheveled locks over her shoulders. Her face was pale as the moon; her nose and cheekbones looked like smudges of dark ink against her lifeless skin. A few more steps after descending a staircase, reaching what seemed like a dungeon full of cells, her large, moist eyes, the deep green of a summer forest, fixed on the scene before her with profound sadness.
"No... Simon!.."
"Oh, so you've arrived... I was expecting your visit," said a cold, guttural voice from a man sitting on a wooden chair, staring at her as if experiencing the most absurd boredom.
"Now, since such a magnificent guest has arrived, I cannot help but entertain," he said, waving his hand.
Immediately, a short man with a dark beard and a protruding belly grabbed Simon by his right arm – sprawled on the ground in a wretched state, covered in blood – snatched an axe leaning against the alcove wall, and struck a blow. The arm tore off like a rotten branch, gushing thick blood in a torrent across the floor.
Sophia choked, the scream trapped in her throat turning into a moan of horror. Simon's blood gushed in thick jets, brutal scarlet against the dark stone. Nausea rose like an acidic tide, mixed with impotent despair.
The man in the wooden chair leaned forward, finally revealed by the flickering torchlight. He was tall and thin, almost spectral, with features sharp as blades beneath skin of a cadaverous pallor. His hair, black as pitch, fell straight and greasy to his bony shoulders. His eyes, however, were the most disturbing: almond-shaped, a dirty yellow like sulphur, that shone with cruel intelligence and infinite boredom. He wore a faded robe of a once-rich red, now stained and frayed at the edges. A slow, reptilian smile stretched his thin lips.
"Ah, the reaction is always... delicious," he hissed, his guttural voice grating like stones being dragged. His yellow gaze swept over Sophia's trembling body with a lewd and inhumanly cold appraisal. "But calm yourself, Sophia. I know how difficult it must be to see your fiancé like this, isn't it? I admire your competence in getting here, I admit... but so predictable. Just like this boy. He was easy to capture too. We knew he would come trying to rescue those naive villagers." He made a negligent gesture with a bony hand adorned with a black iron ring. "He was merely... bait."
He rose from the chair with a sinister grace, like a spider unfolding its legs. He took a few slow steps towards Sophia, who instinctively recoiled, bumping into the cold, damp wall.
"Yes, bait for bait," he repeated, his smile widening, revealing pointed, yellowish teeth. "Because the true prize... is you, my dear." His yellow gaze pinned her, inescapable. "Sophia Veinhart. Daughter of the fearsome Kurtis Veinhart, right hand of the Velmorian general... our magnificent enemy." Sarcasm dripped like poison.
"Imagine the value of having the only daughter of such a figure... chained in my dungeon. An invaluable bargaining chip, don't you think? What wouldn't old Kurtis give to have his precious heiress back... *whole*?" A calculated pause, followed by an icy tone: "A pity I can no longer say the same for the boy. He is useless to me, and you'd better stay quiet there, or the next limb he loses will be his head."
"Good girl. Don't make this harder for him, right?" he mocked.
His eyes traveled over her slender body beneath the travel-stained clothes. His gaze became even more obscene.
"And beyond the strategic value," he continued, his voice lowering to a repulsive whisper, full of vile promises, "there are... other uses for such a beautiful flower plucked straight from the enemy's garden." He stopped a few steps from her, the smell of mold and death enveloping him like an aura. "This fortress is cold, my sweet. Frozen. And a creature so... warm... as you would certainly work wonders to warm my bed. It would be a... pleasant... distraction while we await your illustrious father's response." He let out a short, guttural laugh, a sound that echoed off the walls like the dragging of chains.
Before her, the pot-bellied man kicked Simon's unconscious body aside, the bloodied axe still dripping onto the floor with a horribly rhythmic sound, echoing the water drops that marked the agony in the dark. The Summoning Master extended a pale, bony hand, not to touch, but as a display of possession, his sulphur eyes consuming Sophia. The young summoner's initial sadness was now replaced by a frozen terror and an impotent fury that began to boil beneath the despair.
Sophia's voice broke in a ragged gasp:
"For the love of the gods... don't hurt him anymore!" Her knees buckled against the wet stone. "I'll do... I'll do anything you want! Anything! Just... for pity's sake... release Simon!"
Silence hung like a shroud. Then the sound began low – a throaty scrape that transformed into a booming laugh. The man stood, and the torchlight revealed ritualistic scars on his neck.
"Torgon." The name echoed like a tombstone being dragged. "I am Torgon, Lord of Morten and Butcher of the Black Mountains." His sulphur eyes swept over the dungeon's gothic arches. "And this fortress? My blood and bone. Guarded by two thousand summoners."
A theatrical pause as he adjusted his iron ring:
"Each one with Gold Rank beasts chained to their soul. Beasts that tear through armies like wet paper." His laugh cut the air again. "Your 'offer' is pathetic, girl. It's not what you will do... it's what you must do. An obligation, not a choice."
He spun sharply as six figures emerged on the staircase – black armor creaking, gauntlets studded with metal teeth. Torgon pointed at Simon with an indolent gesture:
"Resist, and my butcher will tear your fiancé apart. Starting with the fingers... then the joints... until only meat remains for my war hounds."
Sophia swallowed her panic. Her fingers dug into her own arms until they bled. An almost imperceptible nod – surrender written in the heave of her shoulders.
"Good choice," Torgon hissed as the guards seized her arms.
The last image Sophia saw before being dragged upstairs: the pot-bellied man kicking Simon's bloodied face, while the axe glinted under the ghostly torchlight.
*****
Time seemed to ooze like blood coagulating on the stones of that ancient fortress. Simon snapped back to consciousness in a blink of blind pain. Everything was fragmented: the smell of urine and rust, the endless dripping, the iron weight of chains on his lacerated wrists. His body was a map of bruises and cuts, the stump of his right arm wrapped in filthy rags that reeked of necrosis. He tried to focus his swollen eyes. The silhouette of the pot-bellied man swayed before him, wiping a cleaver with a dirty rag.
"Ah, the hero awakens," rumbled the voice, grotesquely cheerful. The man crouched, his face entering the circle of light from a nearby torch. An old burn scar covered half his left jaw, and his small eyes were black as coal, devoid of any spark of humanity. "Forgotten your old friend already, Simon? I introduced myself right at the start... when we began our little 'chat.'" A smile revealed rotten teeth. "Hogan. Butcher of Fort Morten. Pleasure... meeting you again."
Simon tried to speak, but only a hoarse grunt came out, blood and saliva dribbling down his chin.
"Glad you got some rest," Hogan continued, raising the cleaver to admire its edge in the dim light. "While you were napping, you had a visitor, y'know? Your little redheaded fiancée... what a looker!" He whistled low, obscenely. "Came all brave-like, begging for your life... offering everything in exchange." He leaned in closer, his breath reeking of rotten meat hitting Simon's face. "But you were so... indisposed. Poor thing was burning up, desperate..." His black eyes gleamed with malice. "Lord Torgon, he's a gentleman, see? Offered to... quench her fire for her. By now she's probably in his arms, wouldn't you think?" Hogan let out a raspy laugh.
The words pierced Simon deeper than any blade. An animalistic roar, hoarse and full of despair, tore from his throat. Summoning strength only pure hatred could grant, he lunged forward, chains rattling, and threw a weak, desperate punch with his left arm. It caught only air.
Hogan seized his wrist with a hand like a vice, as easy as grabbing a child. His greasy fingers squeezed the bones until Simon felt they would shatter.
"Ah, ah, ah," Hogan sang, shaking his head with false disappointment. "You just don't know when to quit, do you? But fire with nothing left to burn doesn't last long, boy." His smile vanished, replaced by a mask of pure cruelty. "Will you never learn? Remember your pretty little pets? Yeah... after I killed each one of 'em and ripped out what was left of your mana cores. One by one. 'Pfft'." He made a gesture with his fingers mimicking something disintegrating. "Nothing left inside you, and you still want me to take more?"
Simon struggled uselessly against the grip, his breath ragged with pain and rage.
"What more can I do? Ah... yes, how about something more... 'physical'? You've got such a nice face there." Hogan released the wrist. Before Simon could recoil, the butcher raised his other hand. A putrid, dark-green symbol slashed through the damp air. The space before them ripped open with a sound like tearing flesh, and from it emerged a repulsive creature.
It was a frog, but deformed, the size of a medium dog. Its skin was a mass of pulsating warts, black and yellowish, oozing a shiny mucus. Its eyes, like balls of pus-filled amber, fixed on Simon. The open mouth revealed a forked tongue and, deep in its throat, a translucent sac throbbed with a neon-green liquid.
"Meet my lovingly named 'Widow's Kiss'," Hogan said, stroking the creature's vile head. "They say it hurts less than it looks... but I doubt it."
Before Simon could react, the frog inflated its throat sac. There was a wet, guttural 'glub' , then a jet of thick, steaming, neon-green liquid shot out.
The acid hit Simon square on the left side of his face. It was like having his skin ripped off by a thousand white-hot needles, plunged into pure alcohol, and then thrown into a furnace. A rending shriek echoed through the dungeons, drowning out even the dripping water. The flesh sizzled and steamed where the liquid touched. He felt his cheek, his ear, his eyelid melt, blending into a horrific broth of skin, muscle, and blood. The smell of burnt flesh and rotten chemicals filled the air. Simon thrashed in desperation, shaking his head wildly, trying to scramble away, but the chains held him fast as the acid *devoured* his face, green droplets running down his neck and scorching paths across his already tortured chest.
Hogan watched, his black eyes blazing with pure sadistic ecstasy, his laughter rising again, mingling with the agonized shrieks that marked every second of this new hell.
*****
While Hogan reveled in Simon's agony, something stirred in the shadows. From the damp floor of the cell, a substance began to bubble. It was neither liquid nor solid, but a porous, black mass. It emerged silently, first as a coin-sized stain, then expanded with sinister voracity, absorbing what little light remained. Its surface was a landscape of pulsating micro-craters. It grew, forming a restless, dark pool like a portal to absolute void, and began to rise, shaping itself into a formless, undulating column.
Hogan and Simon noticed nothing. Not the abyssal silence that swallowed even the dripping water.
The first awareness came as a wave of cold—so intense the very air seemed to freeze. Simon, amid the searing acid pain, felt an icy numbness penetrate his bones. Hogan froze, his laughter dying in his throat, his greasy fingers trembling involuntarily.
Then, the torches went out.
An absolute, impenetrable, oppressive darkness fell upon them, denser than any known blackness.
It was in this icy, sightless silence that the voice arose. It came from no specific direction but emanated from the darkness itself, as if the shadows had gained life. Yet it remained calm, carrying a supernatural peace that floated in the air like a funeral chant entoned from the abyss's heart:
"You laugh so heartily, butcher... you must be having such fun." The words were soft, almost mellifluous, but the cold intensified with every syllable. "Forgive my intrusion... but that laughter awakened an ancient longing in me. For too long, I have found no cause, however fleeting, that makes me feel... even a spark of joy."
The black mass, now an indistinct silhouette taller than a man in the absolute dark, seemed to breathe in sync with the voice. The cold was a blade against the skin. Hogan released Simon's wrist, stumbling backward away from the voice, his once-cruel face now a mask of pure terror. He tried to scream, but his mouth moved in a soundless gasp.