The cool air that greeted the company after the inferno of the Pump Room brought no relief; it brought a shiver. They had moved past the pressure door and descended a long flight of spiral stairs carved into the living rock, arriving in a section of the monastery that the ancient maps called The Ossuary of a Thousand Tears.
Here, Imperial architecture ceased to exist. There were no bricks or wooden beams. There were only bones. Thousands—perhaps millions—of femurs, tibiae, and skulls had been stacked with geometric precision to form walls, columns, and arches. Once, this had been a pious decoration, a memento mori for the monks. Now, under the influence of the corrupted Spring, the ossuary had changed.
"The walls... they are sweating," Tristan whispered, bringing his torch close to a wall of skulls. From the hollow sockets of the craniums oozed a thick, black liquid, like tar, pooling in channels on the floor. The smell was not of active rot, but of stale moss, damp earth, and wet animal fur.
"Silence," Lothar the elf hissed, stopping short. His pointed ears twitched. "We are not alone."
Geneviève raised Vespers' Light. The sword's aura, usually steady, flickered—as if the darkness of this place were heavy, physical, capable of suffocating the light. "What do you hear?" she asked in a low voice.
"Hearts," Elara replied, aiming her bow toward a dark side corridor. "Large. Slow. And footsteps that make no sound."
Geneviève looked around. The Ossuary was a labyrinth. Narrow corridors intersected at sharp angles. There were dozens of niches where something could hide. "Diamond formation," Geneviève ordered. "I take the front. Gaston and Tristan on the flanks. Elves in the centre to cover our backs and above. Move."
They advanced. The sound of their boots on the black-slime-covered floor was obscene: Sclop. Sclop. Suddenly, a sharp crack echoed to their left. The sound of a bone snapping under massive weight. Gaston spun around, levelling his crossbow. Nothing. Only a corridor of grinning skulls.
"There!" Tristan shouted, pointing upward.
Above them, clinging to the vaulted ceiling made of giant ribs, was a shape. It was vaguely humanoid, but its proportions were wrong. The arms were too long, the legs bentbackwardsd like a dog's. The creature let itself drop.
It did not hit the ground. It landed on Lothar. The elf was swift, rolling away at the last second, but the beast's claws shredded his camouflaged cloak. The creature straightened in the light of Geneviève's sword, revealing its nature. A Skinwolf. It was no classic werewolf. It was a nightmare of flesh. It looked like a man who had donned the hide of a giant wolf, but the skin had fused with the flesh beneath, stitched together by living scars and pus. Shreds of human skin still hung from the beast's flanks like forgotten clothes.
The beast roared—a sound that was half-howl and half-scream of a tortured man—and lunged at Geneviève.
"Contact!" Gaston yelled, firing. The bolt struck the Skinwolf's shoulder, but the flesh closed around the projectile, engulfing it without bleeding. Regeneration. The Skinwolf struck Geneviève's shield with a force that made her already strained shoulder groan. Geneviève responded with a thrust. The sacred blade scorched the beast's flesh, preventing immediate regeneration. The Skinwolf shrieked anleapt backwardsrd, vanishing into the shadow of a side corridor.
But it was not alone. From the niches, the ceiling, and the floor itself, where bone-traps were hidden, four more monsters emerged. It was a pack. And they were hungry.
"Back! Against the wall!" Geneviève ordered, realising they were surrounded in the centre of the corridor. They pressed themselves against a wall of femurs. The battle exploded in a cramped, claustrophobic space.
Elara loosed arrows at blinding speed, aiming for eyes and throats—the only vulnerable points that seemed to slow the monsters. Tristan, terrified but determined, held off a smaller beast with his sword, parrying blows that would have shattered a tree. Gaston used the butt of his crossbow as a mace, smashing the snout of a Skinwolf trying to bite his leg.
Geneviève was the fulcrum. She faced the Alpha of the pack, a creature ten feet tall with runes of Nurgle carved raw into its furry chest. The clash was brutal. There was no room for elegant fencing. The Alpha tried to snap at her head; Geneviève jammed her shield into its mouth, locking its jaws. She felt the beast's teeth scrape the painted metal. With her right hand, despite the pain of her previous burns, she brought down Vespers' Light. She sheared through the monster's forepaw. The Alpha howled and recoiled, the severed limb sizzling as it tried to regrow in real-time, weaving threads of flesh like red cobwebs.
"We cannot kill them here!" Elara shouted, nocking the last arrow from her quiver. "They regenerate too fast thanks to the proximity of the Spring!"
Geneviève understood. The magic of the place nourished the monsters. They had to move. Or find a way to break the bond. She looked ahead. The corridor ended in a large circular archway. "Run for the archway!" she ordered. "I'll hold them!"
"I won't leave you!" Tristan cried.
"That's an order, squire! Move!" Geneviève unleashed a burst of Sacred Aura. The light momentarily blinded the Skinwolves, accustomed to the dark of the ossuary. They took the chance to run. Gaston dragged Tristan away. The elves covered the retreat by throwing flasks of alchemical fire that created a temporary wall of flames.
They ran headlong, slipping on the black slime, while behind them the pack howled, crossing through the fire with skin that burned and regenerated instantly.
They burst through the archway and found themselves in a circular hall—an apparent dead end. Geneviève arrived last, turning and preparing to block the entrance. But the Skinwolves stopped at the threshold. They snarled, drooled, and clawed at the stone, but they did not enter. They seemed... afraid.
"Why did they stop?" Gaston panted, doubled over.
"Because there is something in here they fear more than you," Lothar replied, pointing to the centre of the room.
The hall was a chapel. At its centre, suspended over a black abyss by iron chains, hung a reliquary of crystal and gold. Or rather, what remained of one. The crystal was cracked. Inside lay the withered finger of a saint. But around the reliquary, the very air was distorted. A figure stood before it, his back turned to them.
He was no demon. He was a man. Or had been. He wore the tattered vestments of a Grail Damozel—a male prophet, a thing exceedingly rare and, to some, heretical. He held a staff topped with a rusted bell. He turned slowly. He had no eyes. The sockets were sewn shut with copper wire. From his mouth came no words, but a swarm of flies.
"The Keeper of the Threshold," Geneviève murmured, feeling the Grail within her react with violence—not with heat, but with a polar cold. "It is he who maintains the immortality of the beasts."
The Blind Prophet raised his staff. The bell tolled. DONG.
The sound was not heard by the ears, but by the bones. The dead embedded in the walls of the hall began to vibrate. Bones detached from the mortar. Skeletal hands began to form out of nothingness.
"Welcome," said a voice in all their minds. "To the house of those who cannot die, but desperately wish to."
Geneviève gripped the hilt of her sword. Her burned hands throbbed. Outside, the wolves waited. Inside, the dead were waking. There was no escape. Only through.
The sound of the rusted bell (DONG) did more than just reverberate; it vibrated the spinal cord of every member of the company. It was a "wrong" sound, a dissonant note that induced immediate nausea and vertigo.
From the walls of the circular chapel, the bones did not detach individually. They fused. Femurs, ribs, skulls, and vertebrae aggregated, rolling across the floor like snowballs made of calcium and death, assembling into three Ossuary Golems. They had no human form. They were shapeless masses of skeletal limbs with dozens of skulls embedded in the "flesh" of bone, each clattering its teeth in a rhythmic cacophony. Click-clack-click.
"Circular formation!" Geneviève shouted, her voice struggling to rise above the buzzing of the flies pouring from the Blind Prophet's mouth.
The Golems charged. They did not run; they rolled and uncoiled like solid tidal waves. Gaston fired an explosive bolt into the first mass. The explosion shattered a dozen ribs, but the bones magnetically pulled back together, reforming the creature in seconds. "They don't die! They put themselves back together!" the sergeant cursed, drawing his short axe to parry a giant skeletal arm trying to crush him.
Tristan found himself face-to-face with the second Golem. The monster tried to engulf him within its body of jagged bone. The boy screamed, swinging his sword like a windmill, shattering skulls, but it was like trying to empty the sea with a spoon.
Lothar and Elara, the elves, realised the Golems were merely puppets. "The puppeteer!" Elara cried. "Aim for the bell!"
Elven arrows whistled toward the Blind Prophet suspended over the abyss. But as the arrows neared, the swarm of flies surrounding him thickened, forming a black, buzzing shield. The arrows hit the wall of insects and fell, useless.
The Prophet laughed—a gurgling sound—and rang the bell again. DONG. This time, the soundwave was visible: a circle of green distortion. It hit Geneviève full in the chest. The paladin was hurled back, her boots skidding on the stone floor, stopping a meter from the central chasm. She felt the Grail within her rebel, as if she had swallowed poison. Her blue aura flickered, threatening to go out.
"Why do you resist?" whispered the Prophet's voice directly into Geneviève's mind. A tired voice, ancient, full of dust. "Father Nurgle offers peace. The peace of stasis. Stop burning. Stop suffering. Become stone. Become dust."
Geneviève rose with difficulty. Her burned hands ached as she gripped the hilt. She looked at the blind prophet. She saw beyond the corruption. She saw a man who, centuries ago, had prayed to the Lady for salvation from a plague, and who in desperation had listened to another voice. A voice that promised he would not die. And it had kept its promise, in the cruellest way possible.
"You have no peace," Geneviève replied, her voice regaining strength. "You only have duration. And I am here to break your clock."
Geneviève did not charge. She knew the shield of flies was impenetrable to physical matter. She sheathed Vespers' Light. Gaston looked at her with terror. "Maiden! What are you doing?"
"Cover me!" she yelled.
Geneviève took off her helm. She let it fall to the floor. Clang. She wanted her voice to be pure. She began to walk toward the Prophet, through the chaos of the battle, ignoring the Golems that Gaston and Tristan were desperately trying to keep away from her.
Geneviève inhaled the foul air of the chapel deeply. She closed her eyes. She did not use a canonical prayer. She used a battle cry that was also a hymn. "FOR THE LADY AND FOR THE FALLEN!"
It was not just a voice. It was Kiai. It was divine power channelled through vocal cords. A shockwave of white light erupted from her mouth. Sound against Sound. Light against Entropy. The sacred scream hit the shield of flies. The insects weren't simply blown away; they were disintegrated by the intensity of the sonic purity.
The black wall vanished. The Blind Prophet stood exposed, naked in his corruption. The bell in his staff, struck by the counter-resonance, cracked.
Geneviève did not waste the moment. While the Prophet staggered, dazed by the light, she drew her sword again in one fluid motion. She sprinted. Sheleaptd across the abyss separating them. The Prophet raised his staff to defend himself, but he was slow and old. Geneviève sheared the staff in half. The bell fell into the void, silenced forever.
She landed on the Prophet's small suspended platform. He raised his eyeless face to her. "Thank you..." he whispered, with a voice that this time was human, not demonic.
Geneviève did not hesitate, but she did not strike with hatred. She plunged the blade into the monster's heart with the precision of a surgeon. "Rest," she said.
The Prophet's body slumped. The instant he died, the magic holding the room together collapsed. The Ossuary Golems crumbled into piles of inert bone, nearly burying Gaston as he was about to be decapitated. The buzzing of the flies ceased.
And from outside, in the corridor, came howls of excruciating pain. The Skinwolves, deprived of the life-link with their keeper, were suffering the weight of centuries of wounds all at once. Their immortal bodies rotted in seconds. Screams, then silence.
The company gathered at the centre of the room, panting and covered in bone dust. "Is he dead?" Tristan asked, poking the pile of bones with his foot.
"He is free," Geneviève corrected, wiping her sword on the fallen prophet's cloak.
Suddenly, the chains holding the central platform and the reliquary began to move. With the Keeper's death, the mechanism had unlocked. They were not rising. They were descending. The entire circular floor of the chapel began to sink into the well below like a massive stone elevator.
"Get to the centre!" Geneviève ordered.
The platform descended into the darkness, leaving the Ossuary behind. They descended for minutes that felt like hours into the deepest belly of Crow's Peak. The air became colder, but also damper. They heard the sound of rushing water. An underground river.
"The Spring," said Elara, lighting a magical torch that shone with blue light. "We are at the roots of the mountain."
When the lift stopped with a dull thud, they found themselves in an immense natural cave. Before them stretched an underground lake of water as black as ink. And at the centre of the lake, on an island of slick rock, stood the cult's final defence.
It was not a monster. It was a mirror. A massive mirror of polished obsidian, thirty feet high, framed by glowing runes. And in the mirror, something moved, but it did not reflect the cave.
"Do not look at the surface!" Lothar warned, covering his eyes. "It is a Mirror of Sins!"
Geneviève looked at the black water. She had to cross it to reach the island. "We are at the fifth stage," she said, feeling the weariness seep into her bones. "Prepare yourselves. Here we will not fight with swords, but with our nightmares."
The underground lake was a slab of liquid obsidian, motionless and perfect. There was no shore; the stone platform upon which they had descended was the only safe point in a sea of darkness. A hundred meters away, the island holding the Mirror pulsed with a sickly violet luminescence.
"I see no bridge," Gaston said, kicking a pebble into the water. The stone did not splash. As soon as it touched the black surface, it hissed and dissolved like a sugar cube in boiling tea. "Acid," the sergeant growled. "Or worse. Concentrated Chaos water. If we fall in, not even our teeth will remain."
Geneviève approached the edge. She felt the black liquid react to her presence. The water receded before the Grail's light, creating a small depression on the surface near her boots. "We don't need a bridge," Geneviève said, understanding the nature of the trial. "Faith is the bridge. Elara, Lothar—stay close to my back. Tristan, Gaston—hold onto my spaulders. We must walk together."
Geneviève stepped into the void, above the black water. She did not sink. The Grail's aura pushed away the corrupted liquid with violent, repulsive force, revealing for an instant the rocky bottom a meter below. Geneviève stepped down. The black water formed shimmering liquid walls around her, waist-high, but it did not touch her. It was like walking in a moving bubble of air.
"Move," she ordered. They advanced into the lake. It was a terrifying experience. They walked upon the slimy floor while the acidic sea tried to close over their heads, held at bay only by the luminous will of a weary woman. Whispers began to emerge from the walls of water. "Murderers..." "Cowards..." "Failures..."
Gaston turned pale, gripping Geneviève's shoulder so hard it pained her. "That's Baldrick's voice. Do you hear it?"
"Do not listen, Sergeant!" Elara shouted. "It is the water reading your memory!"
They reached the rocky island panting, the water closing behind them with a famished snap. They were dry, but their souls were damp with fear.
The island was smooth as glass. At itscentrer, the great Mirror of Sins dominated the scene. The frame was made of petrified flesh that seemed to scream. The reflective surface did not show their faces. It showed... something else.
Tristan looked and saw himself, but older. He wore a crown of rusted iron. At his feet lay mountains of peasant corpses. The "Mirror-Tristan" smiled with cruelty, cleaning his nails with a bloody dagger. The Tyrant.
Gaston saw himself, but his body was decomposing, riddled with worms. Around him, the spirits of the soldiers he had sent to die pointed at him in accusation. The Guilty Survivor.
The Elves saw the Forest of Athel Loren in flames, and themselves lighting the fires while laughing, corrupted by the pleasure of destruction. The Sap-Traitors.
Et Geneviève? Geneviève looked into the mirror. She did not see a peasant girl. She did not see a noble knight. She saw a warrior in red armour covered in spikes and runes of Khorne. Her "twin" had yellow eyes and gripped two axes dripping with fresh blood. There was no light in her, only an infinite and joyous murderous fury. It was what Geneviève feared most: that her skill in dealing death was not a duty, but a pleasure. The Butcher.
From the mirror, the figures did not merely stare. They emerged. Like oil separating from water, four Shadow Doppelgängers materialised upon the rock. They were solid. They had the same weapons, the same speed, but no moral inhibitions.
"Kill them before they speak!" Geneviève yelled, drawing Vespers' Light.
The clash was a mirrored nightmare. Gaston was charged by his undead twin. The sergeant parried an axe blow with his crossbow, but the enemy's strength was inhuman. "You're only alive by luck, old man!" the Doppelgänger snarled with Gaston's voice. "You should have died at Mousillon!"
Tristan duelled the Tyrant. The boy wept as he parried fierce, expert blows. "I am not you! I protect the weak!"
"The weak are fodder, little boy!" the Tyrant laughed, grazing his face with a shallow cut.
The Elves fought a deadly dance against their corrupted counterparts—black arrows against white arrows clashing mid-air.
Geneviève faced the Butcher. It was the hardest fight of her life because the Butcher knew every move of the Kensai. Geneviève attempted a high thrust; the Butcher deflected it and responded with a kick to the knee. Geneviève rolled away. "Do you hear how the blood sings, Geneviève?" the Butcher whispered, her voice sensual and terrifying. "Stop pretending to be a saint. You love the sound of breaking bones. The Lady uses you, but the Blood God would love you."
The Butcher attacked with unheard-of ferocity, a storm of blows that forced Geneviève into totaldefencee. Geneviève's shield dented under the strikes. She felt anger rising. She wanted to kill this thing. She wanted to silence it. And in that anger, the Butcher grew stronger, faster. Geneviève understood. She feeds on my violence. She could not defeat her dark side by fighting with hatred. She would become it.
Geneviève did an unthinkable thing. She lowered her sword. The Butcher charged for the final blow, aiming for the neck. Geneviève did not parry. Instead, she closed her eyes and extinguished her rage. (Kensai: Inner Void). There was no hate. There was no fear. There was only duty. Steel is cold. Water is calm.
The Butcher's blade stopped a millimetre from Geneviève's throat. The Doppelgänger trembled. Without the emotional fuel of Geneviève's hatred, its form began to waver. "I am not a butcher," Geneviève said, opening eyes that glowed with a peaceful, terrible light. "I am the scalpel that removes the cancer."
Geneviève did not strike with her sword. She reached out her left hand—the burned one—and touched the chest of her copy's red armour. "And you do not exist."
She discharged all the power of the Grail in a single touch. The Light invaded the Shadow. The Butcher screamed—a scream of frustration, not pain—and exploded into black smoke.
Freed from her duel, Geneviève turned toward the mirror. It was the source. As long as it was intact, the other shadows would remain. She sprinted toward the black glass slab. "TRISTAN! CLOSE YOUR EYES!"
Geneviève charged her strike. Vespers' Light became incandescent white. She struck thecentrer of the mirror with a liberating cry. CRASH. The sound was like a thousand windows breaking at once. Shards of obsidian flew everywhere. The moment the mirror shattered, the Doppelgängers of Gaston, Tristan, and the Elves vanished into thin air, leaving the true heroes wounded and shocked, but alive.
But victory had a cost. The shards of the mirror fell into the black lake. The water began to boil violently. The island began to shake. From the depths of the lake, awakened by the destruction of its magical toy, something colossal began to emerge.
"It wasn't over," Lothar gasped, watching the water rise like a liquid mountain. "The mirror was the lid."
Geneviève looked at the vortex opening in the water. "Off the island! Toward the exit on the opposite side! RUN!"