The twisted visions appeared in every single mirror and tried to break Adria, but she held on to the final thread keeping her sanity. A slight but growing hatred of running away ever again. One vision, one single mirror, though, made her arms shake: Adria, weaving her hands in strange patterns, raving gibberish, and torturing poor folk with sorcery.

How did the spirits know?

Or was this her own mind not letting her forget the sins of the Auditorium of Sorcery?

Could La’Var, who was trying to get her to her feet, whispering into her ears how this was a game and it would get worse, see those visions?

Adria choked on her tears. In her mind, she was no worse than the Liar and the visions in the mirrors further proved it. She could’ve done a thousand things differently. She could’ve not gone through with learning sorcery in such a crooked manner. In the least, she could’ve used the sorcery to try to stop what was happening down there, but she went along with it and accepted the blood on her hands.

She wouldn’t get the peaceful life, away from adventures, which she craved. She didn’t deserve it.

If I could go back, I’d do everything differently, Adria thought. Oh, why didn’t I see it then?! It’s like something was covering my eyes!

Then, as an idea crossed her mind, her breath stopped.

She opened her eyes and turned to La’Var and smiled reassuringly.

The hunter sighed, endless worries about her leaving his tense muscles.

Adria got to her feet and turned to the mirrors, eyes locked on the illusion of her being a torturer. She didn’t bother explaining anything to La’Var – wasting a second would cost too much. And if she failed, they’d move along and if she was right, the hunter would understand.

In the mirror, she gleamed with pleasure. The prisoner shook violently. Blood streamed down his skin. He looked around for help or a passerby in the dark torture chamber. His eyes locked on Adria. The real Adria. Goosebumps covered Adria’s. She grew dizzier, but she wouldn’t look away.

She focused on the prisoner’s eyes. The details. The thickening veins. The dilating pupils.

“These spirits didn’t jinx something in that brain of yours, right?” La’Var said, pulling her on the shoulder. “The catacombs are in that direction.”

Adria shook her head.

I can’t change what happened, but I can face it and accept it, she thought. The thoughts came from her heart, but she didn’t fully believe in them yet. The guilt and regret didn’t let her. At the same time, she focused on something else. The spirits aren’t doing this to play games. They’re trying to distract me. They don’t want me to see something.

Finally, Adria caught it when she moved her focus away from the prisoner.

Through the cracks of the mirrors she’d smashed, eyes stared and blinked. She took a deep breath. And she threw a fist at another mirror. Shards rained. A dark mist of floating eyes, beyond the walls of the chamber of reflection, revealed.

Adria turned to a confused La’Var with a grin.

Yes! I don’t have to explain myself!

She let the hunter try to understand what she had a minute ago then stepped towards the mist. The eyes blinked. The veil retreated a pace.

Something was off.

Adria stopped, taking a deep breath. There wasn’t any sorcery in the air or playing with the magic in her blood. There was a slight sense of ghastly mischief in the air, like the candles were about to flicker and someone was going to laugh in the walls. But even stronger than the presence of ghosts was death in the air. The same that chilled Adria to the bones passing the fields of corpses at the base of Black Ice Bastion.

La’Var inhaled deeply then fell to the floor and sniffed the cold stone.

The hunter raised his head: his eyes were glowing and he had the same grin Adria did. He pointed at the veil.

Adria dashed through the black mist of eyes. It vanished. Beyond, stood a hall of black pools with floating sarcophaguses and stone bridges littered with ash, bones and skulls.

“I wasn’t going to say this now because we were supposed to wander aimlessly around dark tunnels for an hour… But welcome to the catacombs of Saint Goblin’s Inn,” La’Var said. “Oddly quiet. When I was here, all hell was breaking loose.”

“I feel the spirits recognize me and don’t really want to show themselves with me around.”

Adria took the first step on a crumbling, arched bridge. La’Var grabbed her by the shoulder.

“How did you know?”

“Because they got themselves killed doesn’t mean they’re idiots. They don’t only play games. I saw something off in those mirrors and realized they could be trying to distract us by making us run away from them.”

La’Var nodded, his face curling in the manner of a teacher realizing his student has outgrown him. He let go of Adria and she hurried across the bridge, towards a platform with a black lamp post.

First things first, we need some light

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A tile slipped underfoot and fell into the black water below. To avoid the same fate, she hopped away and… A tile clicked. Within the old bridge, mechanisms began working. Adria’s heart dropped. As she hopped back, trying to see what she’d stepped on, all at once, lanterns all over the catacombs came on. Then, their white lights turned crimson.

“I thought we needed some light,” Adria said. “But I didn’t want this.”

“You go hunt a rabbit and you might

get a wolf on your trail. Even if you don’t catch the rabbit, still must deal

with the wolf.”

Within the sarcophaguses floating in the black pools, corpses rattled and scratched. Now, the hunter drew his sword and Adria wielded the bone dagger. A strange wind touched the fingers gripping the knife’s handle. The sarcophaguses snapped open. Skeletons, mummies and ghouls sat upright.

“When I was here in the day, the spirits got into my head with visions and sounds.” La’Var tried reassuring Adria, but his voice wavered. “There was no this, though… If you’re right, they really, really want us turning around.”

“This has to be the source of the inn’s possession then.”

“We’ll see their true forms when we end up at the source. For now, we must go on and deal with their show.”

The risen stared while Adria and La’Var trekked towards the center of the catacombs. They came across goblin footprints in the cover dust and followed them. At the same time, a black haze covered the ceiling. As the heart of the catacombs—an eroded statue of a cloaked man—came into view, ropes came down from the ceiling.

On one of the ropes, a ghoul hung, draped in cloths, skin rotting into a dark brown playground of worms and other critters.

The putrid smell of death and disease, which had been locked up and let to fester for eons, overwhelmed every other scent. Adria coughed, grabbing her nose, while La’Var raised up his blade. Fear infected Adria, spread throughout her body. But the hunter by her side fought the disease away.

The ghoul raised his decaying hand. The finger swung at Adria then La’Var.

“Hmm, you shouldn’t have gone down here. Nothing good. Nothing alive,” a raspy voice said. “Only death and forgotten gods, and broken dreams.”

“Enough with the games, spirit,” La’Var began. “Let’s get down--”

“We didn’t come looking for treasures or anything good, or anything even alive” Adria cut in. “We’re in the business of catching spirits and we know some have made this a new home for themselves.”

“Hmm… Spirits, yes, we’ve seen those,” the ghoul said. “Odd, young little things. It was a pleasure watching them, but they’re disgusting. They have way too much power for their own good and none of the wisdom to use it well and right.”

“Where did--” La’Var began and, again, was cut off by Adria.

“You’re old, right? And nothing ever happens down here so the spirits must’ve been quite the entertainment.”

The hunter grunted. Still, Adria didn’t intend to let the hunter speak. He had experience and knowledge, but he wanted to get straight to the ghosts. Adria knew this wasn’t only their work. Black Ice Bastion taught her that an infinity of strangeness existed beyond her or a simple goblin’s comprehension.

This ghoul was one of the things beyond. And she’d be damned if she didn’t get as much out of it as possible.

“Sure, even though over the years there we’ve witnessed quite a lot, these phantoms are a fine sight for our rotting eyes. A quick break from our eternal suffering.”

“Eternal suffering?”

We had lives. Each one of us. Beautiful, yet short lives. And for whatever disgusting we reasons we had, we decided to waste our precious moments praying and worshipping the gods. Fools. Utter fools we were.” Pain entered the ghouls voice. “A short second of joy and beauty, and freedom and we spent it all begging those creatures in the skies for more, instead of enjoying what we had. We could’ve died. The gods could’ve not listened to our prayers. That would’ve been a fair fate. But we got the worst punishment imaginable -- the gods listened. And, if that wasn’t enough, at the end of our puny existences, they gave us what we asked for. They gave us eternity.”

“An eternity locked in a sarcophagus deep underground?”

“Indeed. I cannot speak for the others--and they cannot speak for themselves, as well--but the moment I took my last breath, and my heart stopped, and the blood in my veins stilled, I felt the hands of the Twenty Gods grasp me. I was by all means dead. Yet I was held in this plain of existence and made to feel everything. At first, it didn’t seem all that terrible, but it grew into the most terrifying horror, a suffering no words could explain.” The ghoul took a deep pause. “You need to know this. No human has been here in hundreds of years. You’re my last hope. I pray to you. Put me out of my misery.”

Frustration leaving his face, La’Var lowered his sword and looked at Adria then stared into the half-blind eyes of the ghoul along with her. She could feel the dead thing’s hopelessness and misery. He was serving a never-ending sentence of suffering. Only she could stop it.

Adria looked around, gazing into the eyes of the ghouls sitting in the sarcophaguses. Unlike the rest, one of the ghouls was dressed in silver knight’s armor. An ashen haze hung around it. She recognized it as the same spirit matter that had flowed from the possessed pint and walked to the edge of the platform they stood atop.

As she leaned for a closer look, the insides of the sarcophagus rumbled.

The ghoul wasn’t sitting in its casket: it levitated above a dark pit into which water fell. At the bottom, light flickered faintly.

A passage, she thought. That has to be where the spirits live.

“Please,” the armored ghoul croaked inside its helmet. “End it.”

Adria stopped.

“What happens if I listen to your prayers?” she asked. “Will we be able to pass through there?”

“We will be grateful. You will be like gods in our eyes. But we do not know what will happen. Perhaps the gods will let go and we will quietly wither away. Perhaps the gods’ grip will tighten and we will be dragged into the skies. Perhaps you will be able to pass, perhaps not. It is unknown,” the hanging ghoul rumbled. “We just know that you must curse us and the twenty gods and the rest is up to fate.”

We either pass through and exorcize the ghosts or relieve these ghouls of their suffering, Adria thought and couldn’t decide. It should’ve been an easy choice, but she couldn’t make it. What if I was trapped in Black Ice Bastion forever? And the only one who could free me was a passerby who would have to sacrifice a chance to save their livelihood?

She turned to La’Var for answers, but the hunter shook his head. He’d come to the same understanding as she had and been paralyzed by the decision as well.

A minute of silent contemplation passed.

Adria shut her eyes.

“Curse you, ghouls! I curse every single one of you and your decrepit gods, who shall be cursed too!” Adria shouted. “I hope you die. I hope the afterlife you get into brings you the most suffering imaginable.”

The ghoul hanging from above groaned then whispered.

“Thank you. We’re forever grateful. Call for us and we’ll help from beyond.”

Out of the black haze above, ropes emerged and tied around the necks of the ghouls. While rising, they choked and gasped. The eyes of the statue in the heart of the catacomb ignited. Flames spread to the platforms, crumbling bridges and even the black water.

La’Var grabbed Adria and dragged her backwards.

For a moment, before turning and running away, she could promise on the inn that she saw a glowing face of incomprehensible beauty within the statue’s eyes.