The lift rapidly descended into darkness. The pit that it travelled through was perfectly circular, clearly built just for this device. Soon, the light of day from above no longer reached me. I could still see the gargoyles overhead, crowding around the hole to stare down at me, but none of them moved inside. Even when my eyes finally tired and forced me to blink, they only seemed to pace around the edge. Maybe, if they were possessed statues, the lift was covered with some kind of ward that kept the spirits inside them out.

Now alone and reasonably sure I wasn't in immediate danger, I sat down and counted the time that this descent was taking. It had already gone on long enough that I must have gone below the ground floor of the hall. So wherever the destination was, it was somewhere I didn't have any inkling about. I braced myself, constantly looking around for whichever way the exit would be.

It ended up being on my left. I held my breath for a moment as the crunching of gears below me came to a halt, and cautiously poked my head out of the arched exit. The foetid smell in the air hit me immediately. There was only a tiny passageway in front of me that seemed to dead end at a brick wall, but I could tell by the scent that it either was or was connected to the city's sewers. The stench made me gag, but I pushed myself forward and out of the lift.

There was a loud clank as my feet left the platform, and I turned back to see the lift briefly depress into the floor before more gears began to turn, and it rose once again, revealing the long poles that held it up and the intricate machinery below them. A lever on the wall was probably meant to call it back down, but if I needed to leave in a hurry, I'd be out of luck. Thankfully the platform should block the gargoyles from coming after me, if some magical force didn't already do so.

I shimmied through the narrow hallway that had clearly only been designed with humans in mind until I reached the "dead end". I could easily tell from the scent carrying through it that it was a secret door. Hoping it wasn't locked, I gave it a push. The stone scraped against the floor, but that was all the resistance it gave.

Outside was the sewer proper. It wasn't a series of overlarge pipes like I had heard about in some of the cities in the south; it was clearly a very old system, with a high arched ceiling above me and two walkways that lined the central ditch for the water. The passage extended to the right and left, turning opposite directions at both ends. There wasn't any difference that I could see between the directions, and I immediately feared I would get lost.

I paced back and forth in front of the door several times, glancing in each direction and trying to make up my mind about which way to go. I tried testing the air, hoping I'd be able to pick up some human scent, but anything that detailed was lost in the muddy mix of foul odours. But it did at least make me realise that that smell wasn't entirely sewage. The water in the trough was cleaner than I had expected it to be. The stink was coming from the left.

It wasn't much of a revelation, but it was something. I made my way around the walkway, choosing to forgo a light for now out of fear that there was flammable air in here. I wasn't interested in testing my fire-resistance right then. The passage turned right into a same-y looking hall, then left into another one lined with grates where water poured into the trough. I pressed on as the minutes passed, wary of every crackling shift of stone or splash of something dropping into the water. I didn't hear anything that sounded like movement, but the thought that there could be monsters, or fiends, or hostile spirits down here didn't leave my head.

At least, not until the passage opened into a chamber of bones.

The floor suddenly gave out in front of me as I turned into a right corner. The water from the trough spilled out four feet or so onto the flat floor of the square chamber below, where it lingered in a thin layer before flowing away into grates built into the lower walls. Another tunnel led into the chamber from the opposite side of the one I entered on, which seemed exactly the same from this distance. Sitting in the pool of sewage were three piles of bones. They were "only" a few feet tall with wide bases, but considering how many bones must have been fit into them, how many creatures would have had to die to make these towers, that was enough for it to be stomach-turning.

I hopped down to take a closer look at them. They must have been where the smell of rot was coming from, because some of the bones still had bits of decayed flesh stuck to them. They were large, too big to have belonged to sewer rats or other pests. They seemed about the size I would have expected for humans. Their deliberate placement dispelled any fleeting notion that this might have been a natural graveyard for some kind of large creature. They looked more like they had been dumped here.

I tentatively picked up a rib cage, holding it close to my face to try and get more of an idea of why they were here. The best I could find were small, straight nicks in the bone. Maybe made by a knife? It was like the meat had been carved off, like someone butchering a pig. Yet this rib cage was certainly human. Or…it was close. Some of the bones were fused together, and it was oddly distended at the front in a way that would have made ordinary bones snap. Fiend bones, then?

A centipede skittered out from seemingly nowhere, hissing at my hand where I held the remains, and I dropped the thing with a startled jump. A chorus of hisses erupted from the piles all around me as the bones all began to abruptly writhe with the hive within them. I didn't take time to figure out the ladder out, I just jumped up to the opposite tunnel, scrabbling my claws against the stone to pull myself up. I glanced back down at the pit, calming my startled breathing. The bones continued to move even after I had left, now visibly crawling with centipedes, worms, and flies. Bugs continually crawled out from between scraps of flesh, like they were spawning inside as fast as they could escape. The scene was grisly, and not helped by every shift of bone releasing more of the disgusting smell that was trapped in the piles. I backed away, deciding that there wasn't anything more I could get from the bone pit.

I was worried that those bones were the only thing of interest that I would find down here. The path onward was just a barren hall with grates pouring water from the walls, then a right turn into another hall filled with grates, only this one was a dead end without anything in the way of flowing water. I stopped at the corner and sat down, thinking over my options. I didn't want to have to go back through that pit, but I'd have to to get back to the lift, or to the other path that I hadn't taken at the start. Was trying to explore that way even worth it, though? If this place was a part of the sewers, any place of interest could be hidden down any number of branching paths, and it would take days to map them all out. Maybe the bones were really all the alchemists needed this place for? A place to get rid of the bones of dead fiends, maybe ones that were being used as test subjects….

But a dumping ground was such a trivial thing to go through all this effort for! Building that lift was no doubt very expensive and time-consuming, not to mention the fact that I didn't see, hear, or smell any signs of fiends inside Athanor Hall above ground. No, there had to be more here. The lift was hidden behind a secret door, maybe there were other things down here hidden the same way. It would take forever to scan every square inch of the walls for signs of a door, though, especially without a light. There didn't seem to be any signal to indicate an entrance anywhere around here, at least not one that was obvious. The only things in this hall other than the trough for the water were the grates.

Wait. The grates. All the other grates down here had water flowing through them. The ones in this dead end didn't.

I jumped to my feet and hopped over the waterway, kneeling down to get a better look at one of the grates. They were all made of rusty metal bars, arranged in a semicircular opening only a few inches high, situated in smaller troughs that led down into the main one at the centre of the hall. I would have expected there to be a steep watercourse on the other side of them. But the stones below weren't even wet, and on the other side of the grate, I could barely make out the outline of a room, with a table in the centre. And as I got closer, I picked up a sickeningly-sweet smell. Royal blood.

I traced my claw across the wall above the grate until it caught on something in between the bricks. It was a seam, running vertically up from where the edge of the grate ended. That was enough for me. I grabbed the metal and pulled out and up. The door was heavy, but it swung open easily enough after it stopped scraping along the floor. There wasn't any latch to keep it open, so I quickly darted inside and shut it behind me, leaving me in a lightless, sealed room. I couldn't help but smirk to myself, allowing a little bit of pride in my skills to flutter through my heart.

Away from the sewage, I risked sparking a light in here to see what I was dealing with, holding a small flame in my mouth. The room was bathed in orange and blue light, illuminating the grim scene. I didn't know what I expected from a place like this, but a huge fiend strung up on the wall was not it. It was clearly dead, its thin body flayed in multiple places. It had once had a jagged crown of antlers on its elongated head, but they had been sawed off and set on the table. A mortar and pestle sat next to them, filled with brown residue, alongside a vial of powder the same colour. Small silver-thread tubes, the same kind usually used for transfusions, were inserted with needles into the fiend's gut. At the other end of the tubes was a three-necked flask filled with a dark-purplish red liquid, and beside it, several more vials of the stuff, only differing by the apparent viscosity of the liquid inside.

I felt a pit of dread open in my stomach, but just to be certain, I opened the flask and one of the vials to test their scents. They were the same, only the vial clearly had alcohol and some herbaceous mixture added to it. But the overall scent was unmistakable. It was royal blood. Fiend blood.

"Okay…" I whispered aloud to myself, corralling my thoughts. So that's what they fused with the Serpent. That explained the corruption. But why did they need any more of it? And why was it being harvested in the place that the chasseurs were supposed to be? And…the vial smelled like alcohol. Was it…blood tonic? Made of fiend blood?

«Belfry!» I suddenly heard in my head. «What's going on? Are you safe yet?»

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«I–I think so,» I said. «Are you?»

«We lost them,» said Grace. «They just gave up, and started heading back towards the square. Did you get spotted?»

«There were constructs,» I explained. «The gargoyles are possessed. No humans saw me, at least. The alchemists had a lift that went into the sewers, and…it looks like they've been harvesting fiend blood in secret labs down here.»

«Okay,» said Grace. «We'll find our way to you.»

«It's a maze down here,» I said. «Unless you come through the hall, I doubt you could find me. And didn't you hear what I said? The alchemists are harvesting fiend blood. And making tonic out of it. You don't think that could be important?»

«I bet it's important,» said Grace. «But we need to focus on meeting back up right now. If the chasseurs are coming for you, you're in huge danger.»

«I'm pretty sure I've got a good shot at beating just two people, even if they do have guns,» I said, trying to put in a little confidence to lighten Grace's mood.

«No, you don't understand,» said Grace. «The chasseurs, they don't move like normal people. They're faster than they should be. Stronger, too. They must be empowered, like how we got the Key. We only barely managed to get away, and I'd put that down to luck.»

I glanced at the royal tonic. Was that what they used to empower the chasseurs? Regular tonic was able to heal wounds and illness and grant energy, but maybe making it with fiends' blood did even more. I was half-tempted to experiment, but that was a very stupid idea. I didn't want to end up cursed—well, any more than I already was.

«I doubt they'll find me anyway,» I said. «I didn't leave much of a trail. I doubt this is even where the chasseurs are actually stationed, unless there's another secret lift that goes even further down. There'd be no room for a force of any real size. You three find Walter, I'll try and meet back up with you in the square once I'm done investigating here.»

There was a pause. «Okay,» said Grace.

I narrowed my eyes at the dark room. She caved too easily. I suspected she was going to come try and find me herself, so I had to get out of here quick. I killed the fire in my mouth and slipped back out into the hall, before lifting up another one of the grates and trying a different room.

I went through three of the four grates on the side with no major differences between the labs inside. They all had fiends—or dismembered parts of fiends—suspended and connected to flasks harvesting their blood. The arrangement of the desks, shelves, and tables were slightly different, and none of the fiends looked the same, but there weren't enough alterations between rooms that I felt the need to investigate more thoroughly.

That is, until I opened the fourth grate. It didn't lead directly into a lab, but into a narrow passage with steps going downward. I could see flickering firelight at the end. I slowed down and stepped more softly as I approached.

The passage opened up into a massive room, only half-lit by nearly-melted candles scattered about small stands, each lying next to a bed. The air was dank down beneath the sewers, but the white canopies hanging over the beds still seemed dry and soft as they fluttered in the minute air currents stirred up by the heat the candles gave off. Metal racks stood next to a few of the beds, each suspending a glass jar filled with purplish royal tonic, connected to a silver-thread tube that hung limply from them.

It was all a little too familiar. This time, though, the tonic was royal blood rather than quickblood, and thankfully, the beds all seemed to be empty. When I pulled back the canopy on the nearest one, though, I saw empty manacles attached to the sides and foot of the frame, lying unused on a rough sheet that had clearly been torn and re-sewn many times.

I stepped back. I still couldn't be fully sure what the purpose of the tainted tonic was, but the déjà-vu from this room was painful. It could be that this was where they administered the royal tonic to chasseurs, but without any way to identify who had occupied these beds, it still required a few assumptions to come to that conclusion.

«I found some sort of…experimental hospital down here,» I said to Grace. «They're giving someone the tonic, but there's no sign who.»

«Great,» she said. An image materialised in my head, a branching path in the sewer hall, one that I hadn't seen before. «Right or left?»

I put my face in my hands. «Grace, I told you I would be coming back up. Get back to the surface. I'll meet you there, there isn't anything more for me to—»

I stopped, my thoughts cut short. My ears flicked upright, oriented towards the passage into the room. There were footsteps outside. Two sets. There wasn't any way the chasseurs had gotten here already, right? They would have had to come directly for me, without deviating or hesitating at all. But whoever it was, they were right outside, and it sounded like they were pulling back the door. I had to think fast. I darted towards the back of the chamber, scanning all over the walls, until I finally looked at the floor before me.

There was a small depression in the ground surrounded by ringed steps. It was circular, with a small seam around the edge, and an upright metal lever standing at the top of the steps next to it. "Damn it…" I whispered under my breath. I hated having foresight like this.

There was a scraping sound behind me as the hidden door was opened. I didn't have time to second-guess my options. Once again, I had to dive deeper in to escape. I jumped onto the platform and hit the lever with my tail, jerking it to the side. The lift jolted to life, falling a few feet down before the mechanism caught it and it descended slowly and steadily.

«Belfry?» Grace said fretfully. «Belfry, what happened? Is everything okay?»

«The chasseurs are here,» I admitted. «And I did find another secret lift. So I have a way out, it's just also going down.»

«I told you you were in danger!» shouted Grace. She didn't sound angry, just scared. «Hold on! I'll signal the others and we'll come find you!»

«Just don't get yourselves killed doing it!» I stressed.

She didn't respond, but I could feel her fear and anxiety. Combined with my own, it was almost overwhelming. I heard my blood roar in my ears, drowning out the clanking of the lift mechanism.

Something changed about the atmosphere just before the lift opened up into a new chamber. The air felt heavier, thicker, like it was made of both air and water at once. A pale lavender light suffused the room in front of me. It was massive, even larger than the hospital, and it looked like a natural cavern rather than one carved out by people. The walls and floor were made of rough stone, and the ceiling was covered in stalactites and dripping protrusions of rock.

Filling the centre of the room was a lake. The water was pitch black and perfectly still, like the surface of a dark mirror. It was impossible to tell how deep it was through the opacity. Four stone brick bridges arched over the water, meeting at a circular platform suspended above the lake's centre. Candlesticks holding purple blood candles stood at four corners of the platform, and a small plinth rose from the middle.

I didn't see any exits. I tentatively stepped off the lift, and with a clunk, the gears began turning the other way, lifting the platform back up. I closed my eyes and cursed myself repeatedly. That was so stupid that it might have just cost me my life. I had to find a way out of this cave now.

I rushed forward, climbing the nearest bridge to the central platform, hoping that from that vantage I'd be able to see something to give me some chance of escaping from there. As I drew closer, I could see more details about the platform. It was covered in a ritual circle, drawn in fiend blood. The lines were engraved in the stone itself, rather than simply drawn on, and connected far, far more glyphs than I was used to ever seeing in a circle. At the corners where the candlesticks stood, the lines lifted off the ground, blood suspended in the air as though it were completely ignorant of gravity, or painted onto an invisible pillar. The floating blood went all the way up to the ceiling, connecting the circle on the floor to another one on the ceiling, a circle made of just as many glyphs as the one on the ground. More lines spread out from the second circle, flowing back to pinholes in the ceiling, where they rose up and out of sight.

Oh, I thought. My heart seized when I realised where I must be. This is what those glyphs on the surface all led to. For about the thousandth time that day, I wished I knew as much about occultism as Emrys, so I could try and figure out what this ritual was supposed to do from the glyphs.

Unfortunately, despite that discovery, I couldn't see anywhere out except the lift, which had begun to slowly lower once again. I stalked down the bridge, settling into a fighting stance. I didn't have a choice. The only chance I had would be to get on the lift immediately after they got off. If that failed….

No. No, no, I just wouldn't fail. That's the bottom line. I breathed deeply, feeling the heat of fire grow in my chest.

The platform came into view, and I could see two pairs of black boots riding it down. I didn't wait any longer. With a roar, I let the fire out, in a torrent of blue and orange that filled the interior of the lift with flames. There was no way they could survive that. It had to have been enough.

A breeze blew past me, and a moment later something bit into my side. I growled, my fire abruptly cutting off, as I glanced to my right. One of the chasseurs pulled their sword back, adjusting their hat briefly before they turned nearly transparent, darting backward and lifting their pistol as their form became opaque once again.

"How…!?" I muttered before I realised the danger and leaped back, the bullet they shot barely whizzing past my shoulder. My momentum carried me right onto the blade of the other one that I hadn't seen. Razor-sharp pain dug into my rear leg, and I instinctively swung my tail to try and shake them loose. They drew out their sword, which I could see now was serrated with jagged, tearing edges, and ducked under my swing to slash at my tail, digging deep into my scales, cutting right past my armour like it wasn't even there.

I roared in pain and tried to backpedal towards the bridge. The two of them let me go, both holding their pistols up and firing in tandem, perfectly in sync. I tried to duck, but the angle of the bullets meant I couldn't dodge both. One hit me in a shoulder, and my arm lit up with fiery pain. I knew immediately that my bones were broken. The force of the shot shoved me back, the claws of my hind legs skidding across the stone until the stone suddenly disappeared beneath me.

I fell on my chest, the impact knocking some of the wind from my lungs as I desperately found imperfections in the stone to latch may claws into before I fell from the bridge. My shoulder screamed in protest as my weight was suddenly all held up by my arms. I looked back at the chasseurs, still advancing with their pistols up as they reloaded. I had a few seconds before they shot again, and I had no room to dodge.

I looked down. It could have just been the pain and bleeding, but it felt like the surface of the water was humming. Like it vibrated with some kind of energy. Almost like sound. A song, that I heard in my brain instead of my ears. I felt sick.

But it was the only option I had. Any chance I had at beating them had shattered along with my shoulder. Everything had suddenly disintegrated all at once, like this had been a trap from the beginning.

«Grace…!» I shouted in my head.

«Belfry!» she said back. «Are you hurt? I can feel you're hurt. What's going on?»

«They found me,» I said. «I'm going…I don't know where I'm going, but I'm sure I'll be able to get back to you. Just stay safe. Please!»

«Wait!» she said, suddenly terrified. «No, Belfry, don't—!»

«No time!» I said just as the chasseurs' pistols were ready again. «I'm sorry!»

I let go, and splashed into the dark water. It wasn't any easier to see from beneath the surface. In fact, I couldn't even see out. I was in an endless black void. I kept sinking, slowly, somehow not fearing that I would be able to hold my breath. My mind felt like it was going numb, and I could feel that humming now in the corners of my brain. Growing, slowly, along with a pressure that steadily mounted on my head.

I tried to twist around, find somewhere to go, but there was nothing around me. Not even water anymore. Nothing but an overwhelming presence. One that weighed on my mind, crushing all of my thoughts into nothing as the pressure consumed me. I felt like my head would crumple, until I didn't feel anything at all, and the world disappeared.

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