The air in the Subchamber of the Selenic Cathedral didn't merely hang; it drowned. Ten fathoms below the sun-scorched streets of Luminast, it pressed in with the greasy, saline weight of the deep ocean. Luminescent coral, harvested from blasphemous reefs whispered to belong to the Thrice-Drowned King himself, grew in grotesque, branching fans across the vaulted ceiling, casting a sickly blue-green pallor over everything. The light pulsed faintly, like the slow, dying heartbeat of a leviathan. High Inquisitor Vareth stood motionless before a basin carved from a single, colossal pearl, its milky surface swirling with currents of shadow and silt. He wasn't looking at the basin, but through it, his void-black eyes – pupils replaced by swirling galaxies of drowned stars – fixed on some unseen horizon beyond the Veil's fractures.
His robes, stiff with salt crystals and embroidered with silver thread depicting chained serpents swallowing their own tails, rustled like dried seaweed as he breathed. A circlet of blackened coral, sharp enough to draw blood, sat heavy on his brow. Around him, the Subchamber hummed with the low thrum of suppressed power and terrified reverence. Lower Inquisitors, clad in simpler grey robes, moved like phantoms between obsidian desks, their faces pale masks beneath deep hoods. The air tasted of brine, incense gone rancid, and the metallic tang of spent void-energy.
"High Inquisitor." The voice was a rasp, barely audible above the chamber's deep-sea murmur. Sub-Inquisitor Gorval approached, his posture bent in submission that bordered on pain. He clutched a scroll case of bleached driftwood sealed with wax the colour of clotted blood. "A transmission. From the... the Depths."
Vareth didn't turn. A single, long finger, its nail blackened and ridged like a shell, tapped against the pearl basin's rim. The swirling shadows within coalesced momentarily into a shape – a crown of weeping coral, eyes like abyssal vents. Then it dissolved. "The King's voice is a tide, Gorval. It ebbs and flows, but its weight is constant. What does the Tide bring today? More whispers of crumbling reality? More pleas for offerings we cannot spare?"
Gorval flinched, his knuckles white on the scroll case. "No, Your Eminence. It is... a request. Concerning the fugitives." He hesitated, the unspoken names – Kael, Aria – hanging heavy and dangerous in the damp air.
Finally, Vareth turned. His gaze, when it settled on Gorval, wasn't merely intimidating; it felt like the crushing pressure of the deepest trench. Gorval swayed, fighting the urge to kneel. "Fugitives?" Vareth's voice was soft, almost melodic, yet it cut through the chamber's drone like a shark's fin. "Such a small word for such large disturbances. The Bloodprice gambler, accruing sigils like a miser hoards coin, each one a scream against the Divine Ledger. And the Saint touched by rot, daring to burn memories rather than submit to purification. They fray the Veil with every step. Speak the Tide's request, Gorval. Do not make me fish for it."
Gorval swallowed, the sound loud in the sudden stillness that had fallen over the nearby Inquisitors, all pretending not to listen. He broke the blood-wax seal and unrolled the parchment within. It wasn't paper, but a scrap of toughened kelp, inscribed with glyphs that seemed to writhe like eels. "The Thrice-Drowned King... requests... observation. Spies are to be placed upon the paths of Kael and Aria. Their movements, their choices... are to be noted. The Tide finds their... defiance... interesting."
Silence. The pulsing coral light seemed to dim. Vareth's galactic eyes narrowed infinitesimally. "Interesting," he echoed, the word dripping with venom. "The Architect of Drowned Realms, He Who Waits in the Deepest Fracture, finds the gnawing of rats upon the foundations of His prison interesting." He took a slow step towards Gorval, the salt crystals on his robes scraping like tiny bones. "And what do you think, Sub-Inquisitor Gorval? Do you find their defiance interesting?"
Gorval trembled. "N-no, Your Eminence! It is blasphemy! A cancer!"
"A cancer," Vareth agreed softly, stopping mere inches from Gorval. He reached out, not for the kelp scroll, but to trace a glyph upon Gorval's sweat-beaded forehead with his shell-like nail. It burned cold. "A spreading rot. And the Tide suggests we merely... watch it fester? To note how the infection spreads while the body sickens?" He chuckled, a sound like stones grinding together underwater. "The King's perspective is vast, Gorval. Oceanic. He sees currents we cannot fathom, plays games on scales that would shatter our minds. But we..." Vareth's voice hardened, losing its false melody, becoming the crack of glacial ice. "...we are the Chalice of the Veiled Law. We are the surgeons charged with excising the rot before it consumes the patient. We do not observe tyranny; we eradicate it."
He snatched the kelp scroll from Gorval's nerveless fingers. Holding it up to the pulsing coral light, he stared at the writhing glyphs. "'Observe their movements'," he read aloud, his voice echoing in the vaulted chamber, silencing even the phantom rustle of robes. "A gentle suggestion from a patient Leviathan. But the Veil does not suggest. The Veil shatters. It rains down chaos, spawns abominations, drowns hope in ichor. That is tyranny, Gorval. The tyranny of broken laws, of unraveled reality."
Vareth lowered the scroll. His galactic eyes blazed with cold, fanatical fire. "If the Shattered Veil itself visits tyranny upon this world, then we shall be its instrument. We shall answer the Tide's 'request'... but we shall answer it in the language this crumbling world understands." He crumpled the kelp scroll in his fist. It dissolved into foul-smelling sludge that dripped onto the polished basalt floor. "Hear my command, Sub-Inquisitor. Relay it to the Judicators, the Hunters, the Whisperers in the Ash."
He drew himself up to his full, imposing height, the coral circlet gleaming darkly. "You are not to merely observe Kael and Aria. You are to hound them. You are to be the jagged stone in their boot, the poisoned draft in their cup, the shadow that deepens with every step. Harass them. Corner them. Force them to spend their stolen power, to burn their tainted memories. Let them feel the weight of the Veil's collapse pressing down upon them, moment by agonizing moment. Scatter Fleshspawn in their path where rifts are thin. Whisper their location to Veliwarden packs. Let Judicators clad in coral make 'inspections' where they shelter. Make every alley a potential ambush, every refuge a fleeting illusion." His voice rose, echoing with the fury of a storm-tossed sea. "Cause tyranny for them, Gorval. Just as the shattered Veil has caused tyranny upon this world! Drive them to the brink. Let despair be their constant companion. And when they are broken, bleeding, and out of tricks... then we observe what remains for the Tide. Then we see if their defiance remains... interesting."
Gorval stared, horror warring with zealous fervor in his eyes. "Y-yes, Your Eminence! Tyranny! It shall be done! Every resource—"
"Every disposable resource," Vareth corrected icily, turning back to the pearl basin, dismissing Gorval with a wave. "Do not waste our true strength on vermin. Use the rabble. Use the desperate. Use the damned. Let them feel the Bloodprice's bite, the rot's chill. Now go. Let the hunt begin."
Gorval scrambled backwards, bowing repeatedly, before vanishing into the gloom like a startled crab. Vareth stared into the swirling pearl basin. The image of the coral crown flickered again, stronger this time. Vareth's lips curved into a smile devoid of warmth. "Watch, King of Drowned Depths," he murmured to the abyssal presence. "Watch how the Chalice pours out its justice. The rats will scurry. And we will see what terrors they lead us to in their desperation." The galactic swirl in his eyes churned violently, reflecting the cold, pulsing light of the blasphemous coral above.
The "fresh" air of Luminast's outer districts tasted like ash and despair after the cathedral's crushing depths. Kael walked with a deliberate, heavy tread, the Godclimb a familiar, leaden weight against his hip. Its presence felt more ominous than ever after the encounter with Veyis and the storage ritual. Six sigils burned on his forearm now, the newest one – a jagged, broken chain – throbbing dully with each heartbeat. He could feel the years they represented, a phantom noose tightening with every step. Beside him, Aria moved like a ghost. Her steps were hesitant, her gaze distant. The fissure on her collarbone was encased in Veyis's unnatural blue ice, but the cost was etched deeper into her being. Her form flickered at the edges, translucent one moment, solid the next, a side-effect of tearing doubt from her mind to fight the Thrice-Drowned King's pet. Her eyes held a hollow look, haunted by the absence of her mother's voice.
They navigated a maze of crumbling tenements, the skeletal remains of what might have been a market square generations ago. The fractured light of the Veil bled weakly through the perpetual ash-haze, painting everything in shades of grimy grey. The usual sounds of a dying city – distant shouts, the skittering of unseen things, the groan of unstable masonry – were muted, replaced by an oppressive silence. It was the quiet of a tomb, or a trap. Kael's hand never strayed far from his dagger, his senses straining against the unnatural stillness. Aria flinched at every shadow, her Veil-Less senses likely screaming silent warnings he couldn't perceive.
"Something's wrong," she whispered, her voice thin, frayed. "The Veil... it feels... watched."
Kael nodded grimly. The encounter with the massive Veliwarden creature still echoed in his bones, the memory of its chains shattering stone. Veyis's laughter, promising the attention of the Thrice-Drowned King, felt less like a taunt and more like a prophecy unfolding. "Keep moving. We need shelter before dusk. Somewhere defensible."
They turned down a narrow alley choked with debris and the stench of decay. Halfway down, a figure detached itself from a deeper shadow. Kael reacted instantly, shoving Aria behind him, the Bloodprice's embers flaring hot and dangerous in his chest before he brutally suppressed them. Seven sigils. Too many. Too close to the edge. He drew his dagger, the steel glinting dully.
The figure stepped into the thin light. Not a Judicator, not a Veliwarden. A woman. Her clothes were sturdy but worn, patched leather and faded wool, practical for the streets. Her dark hair was pulled back severely, revealing a face that was sharp, intelligent, and etched with deep lines of hardship. Her eyes, a startlingly clear grey, darted past Kael to Aria, then scanned the alley mouth behind them with urgent intensity.
"Don't speak," she hissed, her voice low and rough. "Don't draw attention. Follow me. Now." She didn't wait for agreement, turning and slipping deeper into the alley's gloom with surprising speed.
Kael hesitated, suspicion warring with desperation. A trap? A Judicator ploy? But Aria's hand gripped his arm. "She... she feels different. Not Church. Not... whole."
The woman glanced back, impatience flashing in her grey eyes. "If you want to live to see the next Veilquake, move your feet!" She vanished around a jagged corner of collapsed brickwork.
Kael exchanged a look with Aria. The hollow fear in her eyes mirrored his own suspicion, but beneath it was a spark of something else – a desperate, fragile hope. They were hunted, exhausted, and running out of options. With a curt nod, Kael tightened his grip on his dagger and followed, pulling Aria after him. The woman led them through a dizzying labyrinth of back alleys, service tunnels choked with refuse, and even through the hollowed-out husk of a burnt-out warehouse. She moved with the uncanny certainty of a rat that knew every crack in the walls, pausing only to listen intently or gesture sharply for silence. The oppressive feeling of being watched intensified, pressing down like a physical weight. Twice, Kael caught glimpses of hulking shapes moving on the rooftops far above – too large for street thugs. Judicators? Veyis's "Hungerborn"?
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of tense navigation, the woman stopped before a seemingly solid, soot-blackened wall at the dead end of a fetid alley. The only feature was a heavy, iron-bound door, warped by heat and time, looking like it hadn't been opened in decades. Kael tensed, expecting an ambush. The woman turned, her gaze locking onto his, then flicking to Aria.
"You carry the weight," she stated, not a question. "The Debt and the Rot. We know." Before Kael could react, she placed a hand flat on the grimy wood of the door and chanted, her voice low but resonant with power that prickled Kael's skin: "Via ante me patet."
The words struck Kael like a physical blow. Latin. The sacred, forbidden tongue of the Selenic Cathedral, used in their highest rites and darkest curses. His suspicion flared into alarm. He grabbed Aria's arm, ready to bolt, the Bloodprice surging dangerously close to the surface. Five years. Ten. Just to burn this trap down. "Church!" he spat, the word a curse.
The woman spun around, her expression fierce, not fearful. "Look before you leap, Bloodprice!" she snapped. With a sharp, deliberate motion, she tore open the front of her worn tunic, revealing the skin just above her heart.
Kael's breath caught. Aria gasped.
There, burned into her flesh with savage, indelible artistry, was the Mark of Blasphemy. It pulsed with a faint, sickly silver-black light, visible even in the alley's gloom. It was exactly as described in the darkest Church warnings: an interlocking rune – one part a brutally shattered chain link, defying divine law; the other an inverted eye, staring blindly at sacred truth. The skin around it was scarred, angry, and wept tiny beads of dark fluid that smelled faintly of ozone and brine. It was a brand of ultimate heresy, a guarantee of exile and a slow death by reality's rejection. No Church agent would bear this. No trap would use this as bait.
Kael stared, the Bloodprice's heat receding, replaced by a cold shock. This woman was damned. Like them. Perhaps worse. Her grey eyes held his, defiant, challenging. "Satisfied? Or do you need to feel it scream?" She touched the brand lightly, wincing as a faint, discordant whisper seemed to emanate from it.
Shame warred with lingering caution. Kael forced himself to lower his dagger slightly, though his guard remained high. "Who are you?"
"Lira," she said, refastening her tunic with quick, efficient movements, hiding the terrible brand. "And we don't have time for introductions out here where the walls have ears that belong to the Coral Crown. Come. Or stay and face what's hunting you." She placed her hand on the door again. This time, it didn't just open; it dissolved. The heavy wood, the iron bindings, seemed to fray into threads of shadow and ash, revealing not a room, but a yawning darkness that swallowed the weak light from the alley. A cold, earthy draft sighed out, carrying the scent of damp stone, unguent herbs, and something else – the faint, collective hum of suppressed power.
Lira stepped into the darkness without hesitation. Kael looked at Aria. Her flickering form seemed momentarily steadier, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and desperate hope. He saw no trap now, only sanctuary, however terrifying. With a final glance down the empty, watchful alley, Kael took Aria's hand and followed Lira into the dark.
The passage was narrow, low-ceilinged, and plunged them into absolute blackness after the first few steps. Kael could only hear Lira's footsteps ahead, the rasp of his own breath, and Aria's shallow gasps. The darkness pressed in, thick and cold, seeming to sap the warmth from his bones. It felt like descending into the belly of the earth itself. The path twisted, turned, occasionally sloping steeply downwards. Kael's senses strained, the Bloodprice embers flickering uneasily, reacting to the oppressive stillness. He felt the sigils on his arm pulse in time with the faint, discordant whisper emanating from Lira's hidden brand ahead.
Just as the claustrophobia threatened to choke him, the tunnel ended. They stepped out not into another tunnel, but into a vast, impossible space. Kael blinked, his eyes struggling to adjust after the utter dark.
They stood on a ledge overlooking a cavern of staggering proportions. It wasn't natural; the walls bore the tool marks of immense, ancient excavation. Great, rib-like arches of fused bone and dark metal soared overhead, supporting the impossible weight of the city above. The source of light was neither Veil-fracture nor torch, but massive, bioluminescent fungi clinging to the walls and ceiling, casting a soft, eerie blue-green glow that mirrored the coral in the Selenic Cathedral, yet felt profoundly different – ancient, organic, defiant.
Below them stretched a makeshift settlement nestled within the cavern's embrace. Crude shelters fashioned from salvaged timber, scrap metal, and heavy canvas huddled together. Fires burned in contained pits, their smoke drawn upwards by cleverly hidden vents. The air, though cool and damp, was fresher than the alley's stench. But it was the people that held Kael's gaze.
Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Moving with quiet purpose or huddled in small groups. Some bore visible wounds – arms in slings, faces bandaged, limps pronounced. Others seemed physically whole but carried an aura of deep exhaustion or haunting vacancy. And many, like Lira, bore the Mark of Blasphemy. Kael saw the jagged runes on forearms, throats, even one across a forehead – each pulsing with that same faint, sickly silver-black light. He saw men and women whose veins glowed faintly crimson beneath their skin – Bloodprice users, like him, their sigils visible and numerous. He saw others whose forms flickered at the edges, like Aria, their presence seeming to warp the light slightly – Veil-Less ascenders. Some radiated heat; others seemed to absorb the light around them. The hum Kael had sensed was the collective thrum of their suppressed, outlawed power, a symphony of defiance vibrating in the cavern's bones.
"This," Lira said, her voice losing its harsh edge, replaced by a weary pride, "is the Veil-Touched Underground. Sanctuary for the Shattered Chain. Refuge for those the Church brands monsters." She gestured broadly at the cavern. "We are the refuse of Luminast, Kael and Aria. The heretics, the debtors, the rotted. But we are not prey. Not yet."
Aria swayed, her eyes wide as she took in the sight. "So many..." she breathed.
"Survivors," Lira corrected. "Fighters. Each step taken against the Veil's decay, each defiance of the Church's lies, earns you a place here. If you're strong enough. Or desperate enough." Her gaze settled on Kael, then Aria, assessing. "The strongest among us? Vejis. He walks Step Five: Rebirth. What that entails?" A faint, almost reverent shudder passed through her. "Only the Five Elders who guide us truly know. His power... it reshapes the darkness."
Vejis. The name landed like a stone in Kael's gut. The alchemist. The nihilist. The manipulator who gave Aria the letter. "He's here?"
Lira nodded. "He sent me. Said the Debtor and the Saint would be stumbling through the Ash District, trailing Veliwarden stink and Church spies. Said you needed... guidance. Or a swift end. Depends on his mood, honestly." She offered a grim smile that didn't touch her eyes. "I'm Lira, of the Hollow Sword. Welcome to the edge of the world."
The weight of it all – the sanctuary, the blasphemous congregation, Vejis's ominous presence – crashed over Kael. Exhaustion, deeper than physical, settled into his bones. Aria leaned heavily against him, her flickering form trembling. "We... we need to rest," Kael managed, his voice hoarse. "Somewhere quiet."
Lira nodded, understanding. "There's a nook near the West Wall. Used to be a storeroom. Quiet. Private." She pointed towards a cluster of shelters built into the cavern wall. "Ask for Marta. Tell her Lira sent you. She'll see you settled."
Kael murmured his thanks, already turning to guide Aria towards the promise of stillness. But Lira's voice stopped him, sharp and clear despite the cavern's hum.
"One more thing, Bloodprice." She met his eyes, her grey gaze intense. "Vejis wants to see you. Tomorrow. At the Whispering Nave." She paused, letting the weight of the name settle. "And he was very specific. Bring the Godclimb Archive. Don't be late. He dislikes tardiness almost as much as he dislikes... well, everything."
Before Kael could respond, demand answers, or voice the surge of suspicion and dread that filled him, Lira melted back into the shadows near the tunnel entrance, leaving them alone on the ledge overlooking the sanctuary of the damned.
High above, on the soot-grimed streets of Luminast, the air vibrated with the deep, mournful chime of the Grand Clocktower striking six. BONG... BONG... BONG... The sound rolled over the rooftops, a metallic dirge signaling the unofficial curfew. As the last reverberation faded, the streets, already sparse, emptied with practiced speed. Shutters slammed. Doors bolted. The desperate and the damned vanished into the cracks of the crumbling city.
Into this sudden stillness stepped a figure. He emerged from an alley mouth opposite the one Kael and Aria had vanished down hours before. He was tall, unnaturally thin, draped in a long coat of a grey so deep it seemed to absorb the fading light. No hood obscured his face, yet his features remained indistinct, blurred as if seen through polluted water. He moved with a silent, predatory grace, his boots making no sound on the frost-rimed cobbles.
He stopped precisely where Lira had torn open the path. His head tilted, not looking at the wall, but through it, down into the earth. A faint, dark aura shimmered around him, not light, but an absence – a localized deepening of shadow that seemed to pulse in time with the distant thrum of the Veil-Touched Underground. It smelled of cold stone, deep earth, and something faintly electric, like ozone before a storm.
He stood there for a long moment, a statue carved from living shadow in the deserted street. The unnatural aura intensified, swirling around his feet like ink in water. Then, a sound emerged. Not quite a voice, more a vibration felt in the teeth and bones, a whisper that bypassed the ears and resonated directly in the skull. It was devoid of emotion, yet carried the chilling weight of absolute certainty.
"Found them."