The dark halls of the factory weren’t much better than the swamp outside. Rusted beams jutted out from the walls like exposed ribs, and the air felt heavy, thick with years of moist, moss and neglect. Every step I took was careful—testing the floor before putting my full weight down. Running blindly here? That’d be the last mistake I’d ever make. These weak, crumbling floors didn’t care how much you wanted to stay alive—they’d swallow you whole without a second thought.

The sound of water dripping somewhere in the distance echoed in the vast emptiness. The occasional creak of strained metal or the groan of the wind through cracked windows made it feel like the building itself was alive, watching me.

Keeping low, I scanned the ground for hints, anything out of place. The grime was disturbed—lines cut through the dust, like something had been dragged. It didn’t take much imagination to guess what: a body, carefully pulled along with a blanket or tarp to minimize injury. I wondered for a second—why not just use a wheelbarrow? The answer came to me just as quickly. A wheelbarrow would’ve been too heavy, and in a place like this, concentrating that much weight on a tiny point like a wheel could’ve sent the whole floor crashing down.

The footsteps alongside the drag marks told the rest of the story. One set—light, deliberate, steady. Whoever this was, they knew the terrain and moved cautiously. Not someone fleeing in a panic.

It was tempting to pull out a chemical stick to get a better look, but I couldn’t afford to give myself away. Unlike that bloodhunter with her glowing eye, I didn’t have the luxury of drawing attention. My style was more... subtle. Sure, I wasn’t completely useless in a fight, but if I could avoid it? Yeah, I’d take that route every time.

Maevra’s words echoed in my head: If you find yourself in a fair fight, kid, someone made a mistake. And it was probably you.

And she wasn’t wrong.

As I continued deeper, my mind wandered back to the last twenty-four hours. The first clue had come from the Etherium recycling plant. Lisa and another night worker, a guy named Benny, had both vanished ten days ago. The manager, a slimy guy with too much sweat and not enough patience, had been tight-lipped. Said they’d probably run off together. But the way his eyes darted when I asked about the night shift told me he was hiding something.

No blood. No sign of a fight. If something had happened there, the place was clean—too clean. Ten days was plenty of time to scrub away evidence.

From there, things had gone south. Fast. A visit to Lisa’s parents had been the cherry on top, with accusations, bribery, and me telling them where to shove their "bonus."

My thoughts circled back to Benny. The manager at the recycling facility had mentioned his name—said he and Lisa were close, but who knew what that really meant. Maybe he was just another working stiff who’d gotten caught up in something bigger than himself. Or maybe he wasn’t the victim at all. Could’ve been a rejected boyfriend who took things too far, or even a co-conspirator. Hell, maybe the manager was right, and the two of them had run off together for reasons I couldn’t even begin to understand.

I couldn’t rule anything out yet, but the description of Benny - a short skinny guy with brown mess for hair, and the light footsteps fitted too well together. I had a bad feeling about this...

The hallway opened into a massive chamber, the largest I’d seen so far. Rows of corroded vats rose from the floor, surrounded by piles of decaying landfill that looked like they’d been dumped there decades ago. Rusting scaffolds crisscrossed the upper levels, and I found myself on one of the old walkways.

The metal beneath my boots felt as sturdy as wet paper, and the railings were long gone, leaving a stomach-turning drop to the concrete below. I stopped, crouching low as I scanned the scene.

There.

On a raised platform at the far end of the hall, I spotted him. A short figure, his features faintly illuminated by the glow of a magical circle etched into the concrete. Intricate runes lined the edges of the circle, their shapes twisting and curling in ways that felt both deliberate and unnerving. He stood just outside the circle, clutching a boney necklace in both hands.

Undead.

The signs were subtle, but once you knew what to look for, they weren’t hard to spot. His glamoured appearance—normal to the untrained eye—couldn’t fully mask the faint Etherium-filled veins tracing beneath his pale skin or the unnatural stillness in his movements.

And the size matched. This was Benny. Or, more accurately, a glamoured undead who fit Benny’s description.

The undead. They moved among us, hidden in plain sight, relying on glamour magic to pass as mortal. Those who kept their heads down and earned enough to pay for glamour services, Etherium shots, and the occasional necromantic rejuvenation could scrape by without anyone suspecting a thing.

But not all of them played by the rules.

The Iron Laws made it clear: no supernatural creature—undead or otherwise—was allowed to reveal their true nature to mortals. No feeding, no hunting, no slipping up. Most followed those rules, but I’d seen the ones who didn’t. The kind who preyed on society’s forgotten—homeless folks, the elderly, vulnerable women. The worst ones? They fed on kids.

I swallowed hard, my stomach twisting.

At the center of the circle lay Lisa’s motionless body.

The bloodhunter’s words echoed in my head. Someone was casting dark magic here, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out who.

My grip on the railing tightened as a rush of rage and panic threatened to boil over. This filthy undead had her. He was going to sacrifice her for some dark ritual.

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The Adventurer’s Guild had rules about these things—rules written in ink and blood, carved into the bones of those who thought they were above them. The Rules of Magic were simple, but ironclad: no dark magic on mortals. Period. And necromancy? It wasn’t just dark magic—it was the king of dark magic, the absolute worst of the worst.

Anyone caught breaking that rule had a short life expectancy. Or unlife expectancy, in Benny’s case.

I almost acted on instinct, but something held me back.

The runes.

They weren’t right. No, they were wrong—inverted. Like someone had taken a soul-binding ritual and flipped it on its head. It wasn’t an exact match to the necromantic spells I’d seen in the past, but it wasn’t far off, either.

I forced myself to calm down, taking in the scene with detached focus.

Three trinkets lay inside the circle at the points of a pentagram: a cheap, girly purse wallet, a cellphone in a gaudy protective case, and something I couldn’t quite make out. The candles were cheap, too—the kind you’d buy at Walmart for a kid’s birthday party.

The "arcane materials" scattered around the circle? Baking soda, table salt, and—was that ketchup?

My jaw tightened as I took it all in.

This wasn’t some grand necromantic rite, It wasn’t even competent magic. This was desperation.

I looked at Benny again. His skeletal frame trembled, his hands clutching the necklace so tightly it looked like he might break it. His voice cracked, but the words of the spell came out steady, driven by pure determination.

And then I saw her.

Lisa’s neck was bent at an angle no living person could survive, the deep bruise marking where it had snapped. My chest tightened. She wasn’t unconscious. She was dead.

The pieces clicked into place, each one colder than the last.

"He’s trying to resurrect her," I whispered, the words heavy in the stale, stagnant air.

As I kept my focus on Benny, something else caught my eye—a faint glow, barely visible behind him. She was looking at him, her glowing eye narrowing as she observed the whole scene and decided something, and it seemed that it wasn't something good... The glow flickered, then dimmed entirely as the bloodhunter replaced her eyepatch, the light disappearing like a dying ember. She moved with a predator’s silence, drawing a silvery blade from her side, the weapon glinting faintly in the candlelight and it was clear - she was triggered by something she saw. And if I didn't do anything - Benny was minced meat .

I could’ve let her kill him. Could’ve let her slice through that pathetic excuse for a necromancer and walk away without another thought. But something in me hesitated.

Benny wasn’t the bad guy here. Or, if he was, he didn’t know it yet.

I stepped back, scanning for something sturdy enough to hold my weight. The railings above were barely more than rust and bad memories, but there was a beam jutting out near the platform that looked promising—by this factory’s standards, anyway.

Pulling out my trusty cord-and-hook device, I grinned despite myself. This thing was far from perfect, but it got the job done. Sometimes.

“I mean, Batman uses this small gun that shoots a hook connected to a cord as well, and it can pull him up like nothing, sure, but either Batman weighs as much as a squirrel, or that tiny gun has some serious magic built into it. As for me, the best I can do is climb up things the hook can latch onto—or drop down from high places without breaking something. Most of the time, anyway.”

I aimed the hook at the beam, fired, and watched as it latched on with a satisfying clink. Testing the tension, I grabbed hold and slid down toward the lower level, keeping my eyes on the platform below.

The landing wasn’t perfect. A loud crack echoed through the chamber as the rusted walkway above me gave out, sending a cascade of debris crashing down. I rolled to the side just in time, my hat miraculously saved in the process.

“Smooth, Eric. Real smooth.”

Shoving the hat back on, I straightened up and tried to look like I hadn’t just botched my dramatic entrance.

“Benny!” I called out, waving like we were old friends. “Long time no see, buddy!”

The necromancer flinched, his trembling hands gripping the boney necklace tighter. The bloodhunter paused mid-step, her silvery blade glinting as she shifted her attention between me and her target.

“And you!” I said, turning to her with the same forced cheer. “Planning to figure out what’s going on here before or after you kill good ol’ Benny? Just wondering.”

She exhaled through her nose, closing her eyes like she was praying for patience. Without a word, she stalked toward me, her normal eye darting between me and Benny as if deciding which one of us to kill first.

It gave me a chance to see her clearly for the first time. Her white hair, pulled back into a tight braid, shimmered faintly in the dim light. Her icy-blue eye, sharp and unyielding, scanned me with surgical precision. Her skin was smooth and flawless, marred only by faint charred marks radiating from the edges of her eyepatch—barely visible unless you were looking for them. Lovely, really, when she wasn’t using that creepy eye of hers.

She stopped a few feet away, her blade steady in her grip. “This creature,” she said, her voice cold and clipped, “is clearly using necromancy on a mortal. A taboo the Guild cannot allow.”

“Sure,” I said, adjusting my hat. “But it must be hard to see with just one eye. That’s not a mortal he’s working on.” I gestured toward Lisa. “She’s dead. You can leave the ‘-al’ off. It’s just ‘mort’ now. Get it? Mort? No? Forget it. Anyway—he’s not killing her. I think he’s trying to bring her back.”

She tilted her head, her expression hardening. “It doesn’t matter. Necromancy is necromancy. I’d prefer to kill just one necromancer instead of two, but if you insist on standing in my way...” Her blade shifted slightly, the faintest threat in the movement. “Something bad is about to happen. The dark magic in this place is spiraling out of control, and whatever this... thing is doing, it’s going to end poorly.”

I froze for a moment, her words sinking in.

Sensing magic—feeling the Ether around me—wasn’t exactly my strong suit. Sure, I could do a few neat tricks: track things, cloak myself, even whip up some serious damage if the need arose. But identifying the ebb and flow of magic in the air? That was wizard territory—Guild geeks who spent their lives buried in grimoires and arcane scrolls.

Me? I was more of a “point and shoot” kind of guy. If this freak could see the magic with her creepy glowing eye and was saying things were spiraling, then maybe—just maybe—I was in way over my head.

The thought curled in my gut like a bad meal. This wasn’t my usual kind of job. I wasn’t just dealing with a kidnapper or an amateur spellcaster. Whatever was brewing here, it was big. Bigger than me. And yet, here I was, standing between a desperate necromancer, a girl I couldn’t save, and a bloodhunter with a blade that probably had my name on it.

I hesitated, glancing between Benny, Lisa, and the bloodhunter.

The scene flickered in my mind—Lisa’s mother, sitting in her pristine mansion, spitting venom about her own daughter. “She’ll get herself killed one of these days, lying in some ditch. All that work we did, sending her to the best schools, giving her the life she didn’t deserve—it’ll all go to waste if she stays away from us.”

My jaw tightened.

“I can’t let them be right,” I whispered to myself. “This crazy killer be damned...”

I stepped forward, sliding between the bloodhunter and Benny, drawing my weapon from beneath my poncho. The device looked like an oversized pistol, but its real nature would be revealed soon enough.

“You’d better finish up quickly, bonesack,” I said, my voice steady. “Or this crazy bloodhunter might miss your explanations.”

Inwardly, I added, Because she’s going to wipe the floor with us both very soon...