The basement structure wasn’t quite what Cris had been expecting judging from the surface appearance of the tavern a floor above.

For one they had a better selection of wines than was offered but he supposed that their clientele who paid enough to enter down below the tavern after passing through a tunnel and then several guarded underground rooms to enter a faux luxurious style room with tacky wallpaper and matching gold painted furniture which was peeling expected it.

Chap quality makes people feel satisfied.

In a way he would have felt more at home here, his own furnishings in his home were old but good quality, they had been repainted and varnished several times but he had never been one of the richer nobles. Not since his own mother had chosen to abandon him to the care of the main house servant at the tender age of eight years old and then decide to remarry to one of the Lords of the city.

‘Is this it? This is the place where the rogue trainee priests come down to give their own prayers and reinforcements of purity magic from the Goddess? I appreciate the fact that you gave me half my scrip back but was there a need to take my only weapon away from me?’ asked Cris as he decided to sit down on a particularly plump looking armchair with red velvet backing and caved wooden edging

The room itself wasn’t overly large, a dozen feet in each direction with a single entrance door and a smaller enclosed curtained area at the back which fenced off the space. There was a dampness in the air similar to the alleyway but it was covered over with the smell of strong perfume.

The use of purity and light magic within the area had been used so much even on a smaller level he could sense it literally embedded into the atmosphere using his aura.

Nothing like on the scale of a temple of the Goddess but closer than he had been for at least a year since he had dropped out of his studies of his own accord. The sensation was nostalgic and brought back a few memories but Cris wanted to focus on his immediate survival.

So far, he’d been threatened in a back alley of a tavern, forced to take a kiss, then cover himself with a heavy cloak clearly contaminated from corruption and then enter the tavern guarded by two figures in front and one following closely behind

‘Thinking….thinking doesn’t win wars. Action wins wars. Killing...is….killing...kill…’ said the voice behind Cris.

The sound was harsh as though the person talking was trying to remember how to talk clearly. Given the extent of corruption magic Cris was overly surprised, it was mostly balanced out but on the verge of tipping over from what he could detect using his trained magical aura senses.

He wasn’t going to turn his head, all he knew was that the one who was called Richter was slowly becoming more aware and talkative when they’d passed through the last tunnel and final door into this room. Likely the borrowed powers of the Goddess were countering the corruption which ran deep in him.

‘Enough. Were you given permission to speak freely soldier?’ asked Agnes.

Her words were responded to with a slow shake of Richter's head from side to side before he simply stood in place, as though an automaton or a golem waiting for further instructions.

She had taken a type of sofa which spread out allowing her to lie down and stretch out her limbs. Underneath her heavy woollen cape and hood she was wearing an armour in a style he hadn’t seen before.

Similar to leather in that it enclosed her entire body but it fit far better, closer to skin tight but not entirely revealing of her curves. The outfit was mostly black with several golden patches, her legs and arms were covered and one of her hands wore a single black glove.

‘Taken a good enough look...Johan?’ asked Agnes as she sprawled herself out and settled into a groove in the sofa, letting her long legs dangle off the edge as one arm was thrown across her chest.

Cris examined the room, using his aura sense to detect exactly how much purity magic had been used inside the confines. The strongest traces of it were based around the closed curtained off area at the back, any sources of minor corruption had mostly been eliminated or at least blocked off from entering the area.

The curtains themselves were heavy thick matching pairs, enough to block out the lights that shone from the ceiling. Cris couldn’t tell what if anything was behind them. For all he knew it was a butchers table and this was all an elaborate stage for individuals infected with enough corruption that they had become cannibals and lost all sense of mortality and order.

‘Go and wait inside. The usual practice. Marley will be back with us shortly, I’ll stay here and keep an eye out. Go on soldier, we’re not fighting right now. The war isn’t over but you can stand down and recover. We need you at fighting levels. Go.’ said Agnes as she made a series of gestures on her hands intertwining her fingers before clapping them together.

The one called Richter, still covered in a brown leather cape and hood turned his attention towards Agnes. He slowly nodded his head forwards before he turned his entire body towards Cris.

Wondering whether the figure was finally going to speak, he just stood there before shifting back in the direction of the curtained area and shuffled with heavy and deliberate steps across the red soft carpet flooring.

When Richter had been looking at him Cris was certain he saw a flash of two deep blue lights within his hood. They hadn’t been eyes but more like a lamp that had been turned up to a high brightness before being dimmed down again.

Then again the augmented were meant to have been experimental soldiers who had died or been recalled during the post-war period when the true nature of the magical corruption had become apparent after the Dark Lord had been killed.

The voice of the woman called Agnes drew Cris back from his thoughts. He knew that most of his education had been provided from the Church of Light and Purity when he had been enrolled as a final favour from his mother. He was lacking in knowledge in many areas.

‘You look good enough to eat. Joking. Once you get to know Richter a little better, you’ll understand how much he loves to play the drama queen. Not relation at all to her blessed Majesty of course. We all love the Queen and her King Consort after all, especially when this place is likely connected via sound tubes and a few people love listening in despite being paid more than enough for complete privacy.’ said Agnes.

Cris had the impression that her last words weren’t directed towards him but they made sense near enough.

When he’s been a student anyone caught either making a mockery of the Queen or her husband were usually given a light beating before routine and dull punishment duties were allocated for a week.

He turned his attention towards the decor of the room. More than a little had been spent here, likely to create a decent impression for what was a semi-illegal place to conduct business.

The flooring of the room was covered in a rich, red and soft carpet that was partially fraying where it hit the walls, the ceiling was lit in a bright chandelier with enough alchemical lights to keep the place brightly lit for a long time without any need for replacement.

In short, he realised that this room had resources spent on it, more than the tavern above their heads would make from selling cheap drinks and even cheaper forms of entertainment.

Agnes lay down on the long couch sprawled out with both her hands tucked behind her head and her legs folded upright.

‘Relax a little, we can begin when Marley returns. And if he doesn’t return then we’ll begin anyway. I told you, paying customers are directly under our protection. What happened earlier was just a little threat to put you in the right frame of mind. Of course, if you didn’t happen to give a display of your magical abilities then...I’ll leave that to your imagination shall I, Mister Johan Seiner?’

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Trying his best to settle into the red velvet chair Cris couldn’t help but fidget a little. None of the guards along the way had uttered a single word to any of them when they had walked through, they’d simply pushed open doors and held them open as they walked through.

Likely, it was just a usual event of taking a trainee priest down to do a service and then bringing them back out safely. He scratched his fingernails on the armrest of the velvet chair to find it was covered in a thin layer of dust.

Unless this place was also used as a source of entertainment for other purposes then channelling light and purity magic into those corrupted enough to want to pay for it’s removal or halting effects on the body didn’t make a lot of sense to him.

Cris had truly believed in the Goddess once when he’d been a student, it was only when he’d begun to raise questions, too many questions with both his tutors and fellow students that he’d been given a choice.

As for now he believed that the Goddess was real, anybody inside the city or within miles away in the countryside could see her avatar hung in the air visible above her main temple. Her powers were clear as was the corruption that blighted the living and the land to various amounts.

There was a rough noise from behind the curtain as something heavy was dropped onto the floor, from the sound of it, behind the curtain there wasn’t the same soft red carpet which filled the rest of the underground room floor. No, it had been a solid noise, one which drew his attention in the otherwise quietness of the room.

Given that Agnes was either asleep or doing a decent impression of it and not interested in talking to him and Marley was still on his way down here Cris considered the rules the Goddess had established in the city.

He’d only been a young boy when the war with the Dark Lord had ended in it’s defeat and relatively sheltered in a minor noble’s small estate with his mother and old grandfatherly house servant Alessandro.

His time as a student had given him enough of the rules though and how the Goddess chose to interact with mortals through her affiliated followers and leaders and obviously Queen Averill herself given that she was head of the state church.

The Goddess had never forbidden gambling, alcohol or other sources of recreation which humans tended to enjoy. Despite her obvious levels of power she and her priesthood. d who followed her only followed strict rules regarding corruption magic and any cultists stupid enough to try and harness it.

He’d been permitted to see a few before they’d been killed out of sight or brought into the Asylum of Light or it’s old name of Kirkbride Castle.

‘I can hear you thinking from here boy. It’s exhausting to try and relax a little in a safe and comfortable environment when you keep fidgeting with that chair. Would you prefer to walk around and pace the room a little? Richter will be ready when he’s ready. I do plan on sticking to our deal. Marley is taking a lot time though, I bet the rogue decided to head back to the tavern above us for a drink or he got caught up in a gambling game with High Heeled Alice. Not someone you want to meet though, you’re a little young for her tastes.’ said Agnes.

She pulled herself upright and planted her hands on her knees stretching her neck a little before placing her hand on the sofa and pushing herself to her feet. Cris heard an audible groan from the piece of furniture as she pushed down hard on it. A quick reminder of her actual strength.

Stopping himself from looking directly at her strange armoured suit covered body he focused his attention on the same curtains which Richter had entered. Another heavy thud resounded in the room, similar in volume to earlier before Cris talked to Agnes without taking his attention away from the curtained area at the back of the room.

‘No. I’d prefer my questions answered but I understand that I still need to treat your...friend there. Why don’t you find the local trainee priest or priestess who needs extra coin to pay for their studies? I might even recall a few who are still working there and do a better job than me. My abilities regarding purity and light magic are better focused on finesse not amounts of power. This situation doesn’t make sense.’ said Chris as he resisted the urge to stand up and run for the wooden doors that led out of the room.

Likely, the two guards who had opened the door were still there. Not that any of them were armed with weapons he had noticed, not visibly.

Without his own white metal dagger he couldn’t do much, not that trying to fight against two men would go well for him. He’d had some combat training, enough to boost his confidence but not so that he could go out and pick a fight and hope to win. It had been a large part of the reason that he had agreed to come along to this place.

A voice came out from behind the curtained area, different to the earlier harsh tones which had mentioned killing. This was smoother, softer and the clear voice of a young man, only a few years older than Cris’s eighteen years of age.

‘I’m ready Commander. Prepared for vital infusions in anticipation of combat. Readiness holding steady. Balance maintained.’ said Richter.

Rather than wait for Agnes to tell him, Cris decided to take action of his own initiative and stood up from the red velvet chair on which he had scored a few lines across the armrests using his fingernails.

He shook his head and remembered that when they had taken his white metal blade away they had also removed his instrument of channelling his light and purity magic into a manageable form.

The consequences of using it hands on had been deeply imprinted on him when he’d been a student and he’d prefer not to have his mind become more rigid and focused than it already was. All magic had a price, corruption or purity and he didn’t want to pay more than he had to besides a good dose of soul and physical exhaustion.

‘Agnes, I need a channelling tool. You took my knife away, which I’m going to need back after this, to make myself clear but I’m not going in there to try and boost your friend with my bare hands. I’ve at least heard the rumours of the Blessed and I’ve not interest in becoming one, no matter how much the church loves them.’ said Cris as he folded his arms.

Beneath his shoes, the red carpet was comfortable enough but likely it hadn’t been cleaned, the same as the dust on the chair armrest or the long couch which Agnes had lay upon. In his eyes, this room was comparable to the kingdom, an attempt at vanity while underlying issues were ignored.

‘A tool. You either provide me with a tool with I’m heading out of those doors. Going along with all this doesn’t mean that I have to accept. I’m not a slave or a thrall of yours, we have no visible contract beyond a verbal one.’ said Cris as he turned his head and attention to the wooden entry doors into the room.

The chandeliers above their heads dimmed for a moment before the room fell into complete darkness and then lit brightly back up. Even though it only been less than a second, Agnes had immediately changed her pose and posture. One of her feet was forward and the other behind her as she stood sideways.

‘Cris. Get inside that space with Richter. Without Marley here I’m not going to be able to keep you secure and deal with this.’ said Agnes as her face became expressionless.

A breeze pushed into the room as one of the doors opened creaked open and a smell of decay and wafted in.

Hesitating for a moment, his stomach began to turn as a sense of corruption magic stronger than most he had experienced outside of being in the immediate vicinity of a cultist or standing on the walls of the city struck into his aura senses.

Agnes reached into an unseen pocket on her outfit and pulled out a small glowing stone before bringing it to her lips and speaking into it

‘Marley, Richter, the location is compromised. Initiate burn protocol, repeat. Initiate burn protocol. Agnes out.’

As the other wooden door began to creak open, Agnes pressed both her feet to the floor and burst forward, both arms pumping as she slammed into both doors with outstretched hands and pushed them shut. A raw force behind the doors cracked part of the wooden frame as it opposed her movements.

‘...How do you know my name?’ asked Cris. ‘I never told you my real name.’

He was still stood, standing in front of the red chair as another burst of corruption magic expanded it’s way to his senses, the embedded residual purity within the walls and furnishings managed to keep it far enough away from his aura to avoid throwing up.

There were figures beyond, corrupted enough that he could sense their movements and see their outlines in his minds eye. More than a few from the feeling of things and they were active and trying to force their way into the room. The smell of decay in the air only grew as they continued to increase in number. Robed figures. There was something about them that irked Cris.

Wrong. They move wrong. Not like humans move.

The chandelier on the ceiling began to fluctuate again as the alchemical lights exploded in short, raw flashes of light and the room plunged into darkness. Cris experienced a painful impact on his head and upper shoulders as he collapsed to the floor and began to rapidly lose consciousness.

The last experience he felt was the softness of the red plush carpet on the surface of his skin as screams of fear and anger echoed into his ears and his eyes unconsciously closed themselves in the absence of a light source.

‘We will find you. Cris, you need to survive. We will find yo-’ shouted out Agnes.