“Someone possesses a penchant for slaughter.” Velton remarked as we stood amidst the butchered hallway. A mere short pace after the empty stone corridor from which we emerged, the carnage began. Long, jagged bodies were splattered everywhere, strewn across the floor and hanging from half-broken sections of false wall in equal measure.

Cold, dark air lay heavy with the stench of ichor and rot. Bodily disposal was obviously not high upon the dungeon’s list of priorities. The elf’s orbs of light pierced an otherwise encompassing darkness, shadows thrown far into the distance.

“Who shall be the torchbearer?” Tehalis growled. “Decide now.”

More symbolic than actually needing to hold a torch, I found once I had volunteered. The hallways here were high and vaulted, able to easily clear my bulk. Velton strode beside me as we stepped over old bodies. Le’rish nodded once as she slid past. The air shifted and the colors of her form changed, becoming dull and lifeless to match what lay around us. Heartbeats passed as I lost her void of scent into the gloom as well.

Daughter and mother brought up the rear, Tehalis also fading from sight to ensure we were not surprised from behind. This was far from her first dungeon delve, I gathered. The corridor of corpses turned a corner and led into another, this one filled with rubble. Methodically spaced holes came into view, punched into the walls. Curiosity compelled me to grab a section of the thin rock and rip it loose. Dead was the face that stared back at me, empty eyes still within the deepest slumber.

Any urge to plunge my claymore into the familiar form was stifled as I noticed the massive hole torn through its chest.

“Valencia.” Ishila offered from behind me.

Of course. A snort came as I stepped away and continued my way along the ruined path.

“Strange.” Velton commented as we turned yet another corner. “She caused all this destruction and never woke the dungeon. She must possess an absurd amount of knowledge about it.”

With little knowledge to back up either assumption, I chose to hold my tongue and continue onwards. An oppressive darkness cloaked us just beyond the light’s range, surrounded by a silence only broken by the sounds of our footsteps.

One dead corridor passed into the next, all a trail of destruction.

“Would you know where we are going, by any chance?” I posed to Velton.

“Not entirely, no.” The elf frowned. “But I am following the aura of darkness that stains this air. Keep on its trail, and we will find the heart of darkness soon enough.”

Claymore in hand and perpetually on edge, I nodded and chose to believe him. Death lay all around us, wrought by a fiendish hand. I would be thankful if we did not join their eternal sleep before the day had passed.

Tragedy nearly visited itself upon us, only stopped as I withdrew the blade mid-swipe. Le’rish had materialized directly before me, and in my surprise, I had lashed out at her. She regarded the withheld blow and sniffed.

“Chamber ahead. Removed the trap. Monsters likely inside.”

Short and clipped information conveyed, she once more stepped back into the gloom. Heart pounding away in my chest at the sudden shock, I nodded blankly and followed. True to her word, a doorway loomed, a slab of iron that somehow passed as a full door upon hidden hinges. Closed bear traps lay piled in the corner, removed from wherever they had been hidden.

“No mechanism.” Le’rish appeared again. “Garek?”

A look around to make the others were ready, I nodded, called the necessary skills to prepare for combat and rammed my shoulder into the metal. For a heartbeat, it attempted resistance. The next, it gave way. The screech of crumpled metal shattered the silence as I burst into the room, weapon at ready.

Swarmlings turned to face me, but they were of a sort I had never seen before. Metal, wood and corpses dropped from massive claws as they lumbered around, tiny eyes buried within wide, hulking forms. Only a heartbeat was available for me to take in an almost oval, bulky carapace that stood to nearly my height, with inverted mouths, bulky arms and thick legs. All covered in a jagged grey carapace.

Low screams rumbled through the air as the alert sounded almost instantly. One charged to meet me, arms outstretched, not a weapon in sight. Right into the claymore’s descending mass. The short, bulky head was caved in and shorn beneath the blade’s enchanted edge. I still stepped aside as the corpse’s momentum carried it forward.

Another roar followed a wild swing around as my blade missed a bulky swarmling by handsbreadth and ripped a pillar in twain. Rubble collapsed downward and struck the stocky monster’s back to stagger it ever so slightly. Just enough for me to kick its knee out. Downward momentum drove the claymore’s tip into the creature’s chest, out its back and through the rock below.

Force blossomed beside me as ethereal spears shot from Velton’s outstretched grip and lance through several clustered swarmlings. One staggered backward to my side, a double-fisted blow into ishila’s shield nearly breaking its own arms. It dropped to all fours and opened its mouth to fire a long, barbed tongue at the orc, only to crumple as Tehalis appeared before it and pulled both axes from its head.

The orc vanished once more and I continued my forward charge. Brutal Swing tore right through a swarmling as it pounced forward, top and bottom halves brushing against me. One appeared before me and latched on to either arm, firm claws holdings my sword arms down as its mouth opened.

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I caught a glimpse of sharpened teeth and something coiled deeper, then a bloody pulp as Head Smash blurred my perception downwards. The monster’s dead body clung to me, dead weight that refused to let go. The battle died around me as the final few were brutally cut down, only I left to extract myself from the monster’s grip.

One mighty heave and a roar later, I found the obsidian finger-claws refused to budge but were tightening instead. They could not pierce Ironhide, but I could feel the grip shrinking with every passing heartbeat. Placed perfectly upon my biceps, I did not possess the leverage to bring up the claymore and hack them off.

Velton appeared beside me and ended that problem for me. A translucent blade of force in one hand, the elf neatly slit off the creature's arms and let the dead weight fall. With a grunt, I moved one hand over, grabbed the fingers and began to pull. Nothing. For all my strength, it was akin to trying to pry open a badger’s bite.

Clear discs of force moved to assist me as Velton attempted help, but to no avail.

“What in tarnation?” The elf grumbled. “The hands simply refuse to open.”

“I gathered as much.” I growled. “Any other solutions?”

“Allow me.” He sighed and moved to grasp the stumps in either hand. “I am not well-versed in flesh manipulation, but I did learn some.”

“The nerves in these claws are deformed unlike much of what I have seen. They are not meant to open without having closed to a certain distance first. Rather crude, but effective.” There was a grudging admiration in his voice. I might have indulged his curiosity sooner were it not for my arms being the material clamped down upon.

“But they are nerves nonetheless, and can be puppeted as such.”

With that, the claws slowly creaked back open, their grip on my arm gone. Velton regarded the decapitated hands for a few moments and tossed them aside.

“These creatures appear to be made.” He poked at the bodies. “They are not the warrior-type we have been encountering at the fort. A worker breed, perhaps?”

The materials they had been carrying seemed to give credibility to that guess.

“We are not here to stand and guess the nature of these things.” Le’rish appeared once more, appearance gaunt in the floating light. “Onwards.”

This sentiment, I agreed with.

One room passed into the next, and within, there lay a different scene. The bodies of the warrior-type swarmlings lay upon stone slabs in neat rows here. A stench pervaded the air, one of ichor and chemicals. The masses did not stir as we approached. I saw why soon after. Sigils glowed beneath the bodies as they lay split open, all bearing identical wounds.

“Necromancy.” Velton wrinkled his nose beside me. “Someone is performing modifications on a large scale.”

Dozens of similar slabs stretched off into the distance, with every creature upon them in an identical state. Chest cavities sliced open, skin and shell peeled back.

“Kill them?” Ishila offered from behind.

“You cannot kill what is already dead.” The elf grimaced as he examined the sigils and bodies. “But I can dispel what keeps them frozen. Whoever did this has moved from corpse to corpse and performed the exact same procedure on every one. Attempting to implant something foreign within the bodies or modify them in some way.”

“Any idea what?”

“No. And may it die with them.” Circles of power glowed around his hands and tendrils snaked towards every altar of rock. The air filled with the sounds of creatures dying horribly as the sigils flickered out and the sheer shock of massive wounds proved enough the end the subjects. Most of them. A few retained enough strength to climb from their slabs, and I put them back into the dirt.

Again, Velton seemed to want to linger, yet Le’rish urged him onwards. The party moved forward from room to room, similar situations found in each one. By the third, the huntress simply decided too much time was wasted on dispelling the magic and that our concerns needed to be turned further inwards.

Another hallway of stone greeted us as the chambers of undeath faded to our backs.

“Prepare yourself.” Le’rish announced. “There lies something powerful behind that door.”

Once more I approached and made sure all Skills were brought to bear. I ensured the others were at ready and backed up. My shoulder rammed into the door at all speed, only for it to distort and warp beneath me. Teeth and tongues appeared from the surface as the liquid metal flowed to encompass me.

“Mimic!” I heard Ishila yell as I thrashed.

Sheer cold spread through the metal, the flowing liquid being frozen around me. Cracks ran through it, the teeth becoming brittle and tongues ripped off as Velton commanded the elements. Roar of rage in my throat, I twisted myself free and tore into the brittle metal. Incensed beyond reason, I tore the frozen mimic to pieces to reveal the actual door beneath.

“Well, that was only a matter of time.” The mage sighed. “Excellent thing we had you take the lead then. I dread to think what might have happened had touched it.”

“Le’rish didn’t detect it?” I glanced at the huntress.

“Do not fault her.” Tehalis stepped from the shadows. “They are dead to magic and most every possible form of detection. I would not have seen it either.”

“I do not lay blame on her, but merely a question.”

“Questions that can come later,” Le’rish growled, on edge. “Onwards.”

With that, I complied. This door too crumpled beneath my strength. With a heave, I toppled the ruined mass of steel inwards and stepped through, only to shield my eyes as unnatural light struck me.

Crude machines whirred within, giant tubes propped upright that overflowed with the scent of magic. Pipes transported liquid everywhere, dozens of rounded altars prepped with sigils and strewn with unholy accessories.

“What ungodly mockery is this?” Velton almost laughed as stepped within. “It is so..crude.”

A figure emerged from the darkness, a tall thin corpse-like creature with sunken eyes, pointed ears and, most notably, skeletal forearms. The flesh was simply gone, and in its place were iron constructs that held spools of the thinnest wire I had seen. An elf. And, if my knowledge was not incredibly mistaken, undead.

“You.” Ishila growled, eyes narrowed and weapon at ready.