The passage was dark and narrow, only illuminated by a few candles placed on the walls. It didn’t go for too long, since at the end after a few steps, a set of stairs leading down could be seen, hardly illuminated by the candles.

The helmets on Natalia and Marcus formed shortly after going into the passage and they started quietly walking into it, with Marcus at the front and Natalia behind him due to how narrow the space was and neither of them wanting to be standing shoulder to shoulder. Eden and Kent followed just as quietly, with Kent appearing like a walking shadow.

Marcus looked down the stairs. They were just as narrow as the passage, and the steps would wind down in a spiral, making it impossible for him to see for how long and how far they would go. He shrugged his shoulders and decided to go down the stairs, same as the people behind him.

Luckily for them, the stairs didn’t really go down for that long, for only after what seemed to be a couple of turns, they were at the end of the stairs. They lead to a much wider hallway, illuminated by more candles. At the side of this hallway, a few wooden doors could be seen, all closed. And at the end, they could see a couple of large wooden doors which were being closed by what appeared to be the robed man that had talked to them at the church.

Marcus chuckled when he saw the door closing with a loud sound. “Seems like we’ve found something interesting!”

Natalia ignored him and looked at the closed doors. “And there seems to be more than just that place.”

“What do you want to do?” Eden asked with a hushed voice as she stood right behind Natalia.

There was no response from Natalia as she decided to walk past Marcus and go towards one of the closed wooden doors at the side of the hallway. The door itself didn’t have any distinctive features besides just being a polished piece of wood with a handle. She looked at it from top to bottom and then at the sides of the doors before she placed a hand on the door.

“Ouch! That’s loud!” Eden exclaimed as she covered her ears.

“Hm?” Kent turned to look at Eden, “What are you talking about? There’s no sound here besides us talking.”

“Natalia’s making a—”

“Not so loud!” Marcus interrupted her by placing a hand on her mouth, which made Eden look with a confused expression before he took his hand off.

Natalia also took her hand off the door, and like her, Eden also removed her hands from her ears. “Natalia was making an extremely loud sound just now when she placed her hand on the door.”

There was a confused face on Kent. “Madam Natalia was quiet, she just placed her hand on the door.”

“Well that’s interesting,” Marcus said while looking at Eden.

“Sorry,” Natalia responded while looking at Eden as well, “I was scanning the room behind the door to make sure there was no danger.”

“How were you scanning the door with such a loud sound?” Eden asked this time.

“It’s… a few of the perks from these armors…” Natalia vaguely responded, leaving Eden with the same confused expression on her face.

Natalia decided not to elaborate as she placed her hand on the handle and opened the door in a swift and soundless motion. Behind the door there was a small room, its walls made out of stone, and in it, only a small bed, a library and a small desk were all crammed inside, leaving only enough room for someone to walk to the bed and desk with but one step, while only taking a couple of steps to leave the room.

“Do you think these are all rooms?” Eden asked when she looked inside.

“I think so, yes. This place could very well just be the living quarters of the Inquisitors, and that big door could likely just be a dining hall,” Kent responded while pointing at the large double door at the end of the hallway.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out!” Marcus responded as he approached the large double doors, with Eden quickly catching up with him, her curiosity making her move even faster than Natalia did.

But just as they were a few steps to the door, it started creaking open.

Marcus quickly grabbed Eden and rushed over to one of the other closed rooms, opening and closing the door in the same span of time as the large double doors were slightly opening. Natalia quickly moved into the room she had opened, with Kent moving behind her like a shadow before quickly and quietly closing the door behind him.

Inside the room where Marcus and Eden had jumped into, the same as the other room Natalia had opened could be found, only that the arrangement of the room was slightly different, and the amount of books present on it were less. They didn’t look into what was inside the room for long as Marcus went ahead and placed a hand on the door.

Seeing this action, Eden quickly pushed his hand down, making Marcus turn to look at her. She couldn’t see his expression but she could feel the glare that was behind that helmet.

“You’re going to do that loud thing that Natalia did, right? It’s better if you don’t, maybe someone like me is walking out and they can hear it too. Let me have a listen instead,” she whispered to Marcus.

He didn’t think too long what she said and moved aside without saying anything, pointing with his hand at the door. She swiftly moved to it and placed one of her ears to the door and closed her eyes to focus on the sounds coming behind it.

Meanwhile, at the room that Natalia and Kent took to hide, Natalia decided to do the same thing to the door, only to be stopped in a similar fashion by Kent, and him shaking his head. She looked at him for a moment, and from that simple look Kent understood that she was questioning his actions.

“If there’s a Fen, like Eden is, they’ll know that something weird is coming from this door,” he whispered his response, walking over to the door. Natalia took a step back and allowed him to get closer to it before Kent continued, “I’ll have a… ‘look’ at what’s going on.”

From Kent’s feet, the shadows that obscured his shape started pooling at the floor. The shadowy pool that formed at his feet started moving—seemingly by itself—to the base of the door. Kent closed his eyes and concentrated.

Behind the closed doors, in the wide hallway, someone was walking by. Their steps were light but not quiet, as the sounds each step could be heard across the quiet hallway. Eden focused on what she heard.

“It’s one person… their steps are… small…” she whispered.

In the other room, Kent only focused on what he could ‘see’ as he furrowed his eyebrows with his eyes closed. “I see… the shape of a woman… she’s alone…”

Natalia and Marcus nodded but didn’t say anything as they waited for Kent and Eden to give them any information that they needed.

There was no change in the pace of the woman as she slowly made her way across the hallway, eventually reaching the same stairs that they took to walk down there and go up the stairs, her steps and her shape going even further and further away from the people hiding in the rooms.

“She’s gone now,” Kent said, removing the shadow from the floor and making it run up his feet to obscure his shape again before he looked at Natalia. She nodded and moved over to the door, slowly opening it to make sure there was no one behind it before she finally completely opened it and walked out in the hallway again.

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“I think they’re gone now… and I think that Natalia just walked out of her room as well,” Eden said to Marcus before she slowly opened the door, where she saw that Natalia and Kent were now walking towards the closed double doors.

Now that she was sure the space was safe, she opened the door wide and walked out to stand close to Kent and Natalia. Marcus walked shortly after, going instead for the large double doors.

“Do that thing you did, listen in and tell us what you find,” Marcus said to Eden while he looked at the doors.

“You should also do the same,” Natalia followed up, directing it to Kent instead.

They both nodded and approached the door, with Eden placing her ear to the door and Kent dropping the shadow to the bottom of the door, same as they had done when they were hiding in the side rooms.

“Oh! That’s pretty interesting!” Marcus commented when he saw Kent’s shadow drop.

“Give me a second…” Kent responded as he focused on the door.

Eden also closed her eyes and focused on whatever she could hear behind the door. A few seconds passed and Kent finally stepped away from the door, turning to look at both Natalia and Marcus with a shake of his head.

“I couldn’t see anything special beyond the door. All I could see was a small space in front with what seemed like a railing, and at the side was what I guess were a set of either stairs or just a drop down,” he said.

“What about you, Eden?” Natalia asked this time as the girl was still holding on to the door.

Eden hummed with her eyes closed for a moment before responding, “I’m not too sure… I think I hear chanting… or it could be singing?” she removed herself from the door and contemplated it for a second. “What I’m sure of, is that there’s quite a few people in there, but they’re not close to the doors.”

“Cool, let's open it up and see what’s up,” Marcus responded, quickly taking a step to the doors and holding on to the knob.

Kent and Eden moved to Marcus’ back, while Natalia instead chose to stand at the side of the doors, taking her weapons out in the process. Marcus looked back at her for a moment and she nodded to him, after which he quietly and slowly opened the door. He peered inside for a moment. He could see that there was indeed a sort of balcony just behind the door as Kent had described, but everything seemed to be dark, if not for a white light that was coming from what was presumably the floor below.

“It’s clear,” he whispered before completely opening the doors.

Natalia followed up by swiftly moving into the room, her weapons and stance ready to strike at anything, but there was indeed nobody inside. Behind her, Marcus, Kent and Eden quietly followed up, looking around the few things that they could see.

There was a short distance from the railing. The floor was just simple wood and at both sides of this balcony were indeed a set of stairs. Marcus stealthily moved to the railing, and tried to look down from it without giving away his position in case someone was on the lookout.

What he saw below were a group of people, all dressed in the same red robes as the man that had greeted them at the church, but they were all standing in a circle, holding hands and chanting. In the middle of the group there was an intricate drawing of a circle with several symbols decorating the inside, and from this circle, bright white light, with a few specks of white particles, was torrenting upwards, illuminating the otherwise dark room.

At the side of this circle were a couple of people, their backs facing the balcony, so Marcus couldn’t really see their faces or who they were, but judging by the general shape of their bodies, these were one man and a woman. The man was standing with his arms at the back, and a hood covering his face, just like the other people who were chanting in the circle, while the woman had her head uncovered, revealing her graying hair.

The robed man standing next to her leaned on her slightly, it seemed like he was whispering something to her for a moment before he stood up straight again. She didn’t outwardly respond to whatever he said for a few seconds, but then she suddenly turned and looked up at the balcony where Marcus was spying on them.

It was Gregoria, and her eyes were burning with a similarly intense white light as the circle. Marcus quickly recoiled to hide from her sight, but he knew that she had noticed him from the smirk on her face when she turned, and he could also feel it, how those burning eyes had pierced right through him.

“Shit!” he quietly exclaimed to himself and the people around him.

“What happened?” Natalia whispered in response.

“I think we’ve been detected,” Marcus confessed with a shake of his head.

“What?!” Eden exclaimed, her eyes wide. “How?!”

“That old cunt… the one that was interrogating you earlier, she turned and definitely looked at me,” Marcus responded with disappointment in his voice.

“Maybe… she didn’t get a good look. We should withdraw and forget about this,” Kent suggested, taking a few steps back towards the door.

Natalia agreed with a nod. “I think it’s for the best,” she looked at the glowing light coming from below. “And it seems like they haven’t reacted yet, so lets—”

“Don’t just hide up there!” Gregoria shouted from below, and the light from the circle started dimming right after. “You’ve invited yourself into the Gods’ house, surely you don’t intend to leave without sharing a few words with me!”

Marcus clicked his tongue in response. “Fuck!”

Eden bit her lip and looked distressed, knowing that there was no longer a way back out. While Natalia and Kent simply looked at the floor, thinking whether or not they should reveal themselves or if Gregoria already knew they were up there.

“Am I going to have to go up there to fetch you all?!” Gregoria shouted again from below, the light from the circle now almost gone, leaving the few torches on the hall as the only source of light.

Marcus stood up and walked over to the railing, his hands raised in surrender. “Alright! You caught me!”

Gregoria looked at him, a slight smile on her face which was then turned to slight surprise when Marcus jumped down from the railing, landing with a loud crashing sound a few meters away from her.

“That was not necessary,” she said.

“It truly wasn’t,” Natalia continued as she was walking down the stairs from the side, with Kent and Eden following right behind her. “It seems like you don’t intend to fight us right away, judging from the fact that you’re not attacking us now that you know we're here.”

Gregoria smiled slightly at Natalia, and didn’t respond as she waited for everyone else to stand closer to her in the hall. The robed people behind her weren’t acting or doing anything besides look, same as the man standing next to her.

“I expected something like this to happen,” Gregoria said once they were close enough for her not to raise her voice too much. “And I’m happy to have you here… Knights from another world.”

The group was taken aback since none of them remembered ever talking about Natalia and Marcus’ origins, much less that they were from another world. Natalia and Marcus turned to look at both Eden and Kent, who despite being unable to see their faces, knew that they were wondering if they were responsible for this. However, before they said anything in defense, Gregoria lightly chuckled, forcing everyone to once again turn to look at her.

“There was no confession from anyone regarding what I said. Don’t you remember what I said about knowing your true natures?” Gregoria continued, and her eyes burned white once again for a few seconds before dimming back down to normal.

“That… thing… you’re doing with your eyes…” Natalia pointed out as she tried to focus on Gregoria’s eyes.

There was a slight nod from Gregoria. “That’s right. The Gods’ Eyes allow me to see the true nature of people. So it was easy for me to see that you do not belong to our world,” she said, pacing to the side to look at Natalia. “At first I wondered… ‘Could they be Gods taking a mortal form?’ but… there was no real magic coming out of your bodies, and the Gods wouldn’t be that sloppy if they wanted to mingle with the mortals. After all, all humans, elves and dwarves carry a hint of magic,” she stopped and turned to pace in Marcus’ direction, “and looking at you better, I realized that…” she stopped somewhere in the middle where she was standing before to look at them again, “Your artifacts, your true nature, and the place you’ve suddenly appeared, means that you come from the Scorched Gate.”

Everyone stood quiet for a moment that didn’t last long as Marcus cut the silence with a whistle. “Amazing. There’s someone with a brain here, and it’s a nun of all things,” he said, only to stop and look at Gregoria for a moment. “How did you notice me up there?”

“Ah, that. I had Father Rogier waiting at the church for you, and he was specifically sent to entice you to invade the lower levels of the church,” Gregoria responded, looking at the side at the stoic robed man with half his face covered, who only did a slight bow to the people.

“So that weird act up there was just that? An Act?” Eden asked.

“It was not an act, but the things that I said were carefully thought out,” the man responded with the same monotone voice from before.

“I can see that you’re not hostile to us. For what reason did you wish to have us here?” Natalia asked this time as she carefully looked between all the robed people standing behind Gregoria, the man standing next to her and finally the old woman herself.

Gregoria considered her words for a moment as she looked between Marcus and Natalia, not paying any attention to Eden or Kent. She swapped between the two of them a few more times until finally she turned around to look at the magic circle painted on the floor.

“The world—this world—is stirring. There are changes coming to it, whether they are from the Gods or something else, I don’t know, but I know that we must be prepared,” she said, turning around to look back at the people, “which is why we’re trying to do it with everything we’ve got—no matter where it comes from—for as long as it can be used for the better of the people, it will be used.”

There was some silence after Gregoria spoke. Natalia raised her chin slightly after a moment and looked at the old woman. “So, you wish to… ‘use’ us to fight or something like that?”

Gregoria shook her head. “No, the fights that we have to face and the ones that you’ll have to face are not up to me to decide. It shall be fate the one that places those who will fight you in front of you,” she said before turning to look at Marcus. “I simply wish to give you something that will aid you in the future, and hopefully, save more lives in the process.”

“Oho! A gift then!” Marcus mocked as he crossed his arms.

Gregoria nodded, turning then to look at the robed man standing next to her. “Bring the Skeletal Grand Demon skull here.”