Garrick's intel was precise, haunted by every step he'd taken as a Templar guard. "The entrance is behind the altar," he rasped, tracing a map Lyra had drawn in the dirt floor of the Root Cellar. "Two guards. Shift change at midnight. Password: *'Lux Aeterna.'* But the real horror… is below."
Lyra cross-referenced his notes with stolen Church manifests. "Soul-binding reagents… children listed as 'processed'… Phase Three trials…" Her voice was tight with fury. "They're not just killing them. They're *unmaking* them."
Kael knew what they had to do. Not just sabotage. **Witness. And end.**
They infiltrated the Grand Cathedral catacombs at midnight. The air reeked of burnt sugar, iron, and something worse—the cloying stench of corrupted life. Garrick led them through passages only he knew, his **Soul-Thread** ability flaring with every step, sensing the residual agony in the stone. Elara mimicked a night watchman's cough to bypass a checkpoint, her **Void Echo** flawless. Bastian disabled sonic alarms with **Void-Forged wires**, his ruined hands moving with silent precision. Lyra navigated by memory of ancient drainage maps, her **Shared Void** shrouding them all in near-invisibility.
They found the nursery.
The chamber was vast, lit by sickly green alchemical lamps. Rows of glass cylinders lined the walls, filled with viscous, amber fluid. Inside floated children—dozens of them. Wires snaked from machines into their skulls, their eyes open but unseeing, glowing with a soft, white light. **Penitent Blades in gestation.** Their chests rose and fell, but there was no breath—only the hum of machinery.
In the center, a larger tank held a girl no older than ten. A placard read: **"Lissa — Oakhaven — Phase Three Complete."**
Magister Cael, the Head Alchemist, stood before her, adjusting a valve on the machine. "Final neural integration successful," he murmured, his voice clinical, devoid of humanity. "Her soul resonance is optimal. She will fuel the Archbishop's new armor."
Kael didn't hesitate. He gave the signal.
Bastian triggered the **Silent Collapse** charges on the support beams. Stone groaned, dust raining down.
Elara, from the shadows, mimicked Cael's voice with perfect pitch: *"Intruders in the east wing! Full alert!"*
Templar guards rushed away, boots echoing.
Garrick moved like a man possessed. He dueled the two remaining guards with brutal, guilt-fueled efficiency—disarming one with a wristlock, then driving his Void-Forged sword through the man's throat. The second guard swung a mace; Garrick sidestepped, grabbed the man's head, and **snapped his neck** with a sickening twist, his eyes fixed on Lissa's tank.
Kael faced Cael.
The alchemist turned, sneering. "You think you can stop perfection? These children are *elevated*! No more pain! No more fear! They are pure obedience!"
Kael said nothing. He pulled a vial of **Soulrot Tincture**—crafted by Lyra from Church-stolen necrotic herbs and Bastian's distilled void essence—and hurled it into Lissa's tank.
The liquid turned black on contact. Lissa's eyes widened—*human again*—for one heart-wrenching second. Then her body convulsed, black veins spiderwebbing across her skin. The tank exploded in a wave of corrupted energy.
Cael screamed as tendrils of necrotic magic lashed out, **peeling the skin from his bones**, dissolving his flesh into screaming mist. The other tanks ruptured. Penitent Blades collapsed, some dead, a few twitching, freed from their bindings.
Kael carried Lissa's small body out. They buried her beneath an oak sapling in the Iron Quarter, Garrick placing her charred doll gently on the fresh earth.
> **[QUEST COMPLETE: HALT PENITENT BLADE PRODUCTION (VERIDIA).]**
> **[REWARDS: VOID ARTS — SOUL-THREAD MASTERY, PUBLIC TRUST +12%.]**
> **[NEW STATUS UPDATES]**
> **KAEL: VOD +1, WIS +1 | LYRA: INT +1, VOD +1**
> **BASTIAN: STR +1, VOD +1 | ELARA: AGI +1, VOD +1**
> **GARRICK: VIT +1, WIS +2 (GUILT PROCESSING)]**
> **[GARRICK'S NIGHT TERRORS: REDUCED BY 60%.]**
That night, Garrick didn't dream of fire. He dreamed of an oak tree, growing strong in the rain.