Once the White Dragon had been downed Horatio could take in this one last underground dungeon-chamber properly.

It truly was vast, hollowed out of the subterranean rock so that many hundreds of creatures could fit in it, and stretching up to a high ceiling far above their heads. More of a cavern than a chamber, really.

Unfortunately as usual it was filled with hundreds of cultists and monsters. Most of them were gathered in an enormous circle several rows deep facing inwards towards the centre of the room, and the cultists were all joined in an unsettling bass chant which barely had a melody to it, being mostly a continuous, low single note that only changed every few moments.

At the centre of the circle, in a wide space all his own where the floor was marked with bright burning orange lines describing the shape of some strange demonic symbol, stood a hooded, robed man holding his hands out as if in prayer.

‘That’s the Leader of the Cult,’ said Ursula, pointing at this man.

If the Cultists had noticed them fighting the chamber’s guardian, they did not show it. They were preoccupied with their chant, and whatever they were doing with the symbols inside the circle.

The nearby monsters had definitely noticed them, however, and some of them charged towards them now.

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After they’d cleared out some more of the monsters, Horatio was able to see some other things that were going on in the chamber amidst the mass of people and beasts.

At the far end of the chamber there was a massive iron cage built against the wall, with vertical bars–a prison.

And those weren’t monsters standing or sitting behind the bars.

They were people.

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People, gripping the bars with fear or sobbing in despair. Men, women and children. Some of them spotted the party on the other side of the chamber at its entrance, and began to wave frantically at them and call for help.

‘NO!’ cried Ursula all of a sudden. She had seen the people too. ‘We’ve got to help them!’

She darted forwards to strike out on her own through the mass of monsters that lay between them and the cage, heedless of whether anyone was going with her or not.

Walter put out a hand and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back for her safety. ‘Hold on, there!’ he said.

‘Don’t you understand?’ cried Ursula urgently, tugging against him. Her words came out in a rushing frenzy. ‘They’re about to perform a ritual! This is what happened to my baby, who the Cult forced me to have and then took from me! They took him and slaughtered him in order to summon a powerful demon! My baby boy! You need great energy to summon up a demon from Hell—and summoning Brax himself will require the most of energy all—energy that’s released when someone dies! That’s what they’re doing now! They’re about to sacrifice all those people in order to complete the ritual to summon back the Demon King!’

‘Alright,’ said Horatio, beating Alex to it, ‘that’s our next objective, then. We need to get over there and free those people to stop them from being killed and the Braxians from completing their ritual. But don’t go it alone, Ursula. We’ve got to keep working together.’

‘How are we going to get over there,’ said Ceres, ‘with all those Braxians and monsters in the way?’

‘How have we done anything in this place?’ said Horatio. He gripped his sword tightly. His arms ached, and his legs, and his chest, and he was drenched in sweat from the heat of the magma and the battles on the way down the pit-dungeon, but he still had some strength left him in yet. He wasn’t going to give up now, having come this far. ‘We’ll have to fight our way through,’ he said.

There were a lot of Braxians and monsters in here, though. This chamber would be the scene of their greatest victory. Or, more likely, their last stand.

‘Don’t go straight through!’ said Primus. ‘If we go around the edge of that circle, we’re less likely to distract the Cultists from what they’re doing, if they aren’t already aware of us.’

‘Got it,’ confirmed Horatio. ‘Come on!’

They formed up, making three ranks of four as they had become accustomed to doing, with Ross and Helen serving as the rear-guard for this particular foray, and began to run along the edge of the chamber, taking the longest but safest route to the metal cage on the far side, and were immediately beset by monsters on the way.

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