Alex arrived in a grand hall, its vast expanse forged from dark red and gray stone, veined with streaks of gold that shimmered faintly in the dim torchlight. The chamber exuded an oppressive aura, thick with the weight of something ancient and sinister. At each of the four corners, elevated on blackened platforms, loomed towering pillars that stretched toward the ceiling like skeletal fingers grasping for the heavens.
A sickening awareness crept over him as he felt the energy radiating from the pillars. They pulsed—not with magic, but with life. Or rather, with death. Thousands of souls, writhing in eternal torment, were trapped within them. He could hear the whispers, the faint echoes of agony lingering on the edges of his mind.
His gaze snapped forward to the immense metal door at the chamber’s end, its surface etched with infernal runes that pulsed with malevolent energy. Before it, a shimmering projection flickered to life, taking the form of a dwarven woman.
Her auburn hair, tousled into soft waves, framed her face, and her sun-kissed skin bore intricate black tattoos that traced elegant patterns across her forehead, curling around her neck like creeping vines. Her deep-set amber-brown eyes gleamed with a quiet defiance, yet they were burdened by the weight of countless battles. Faint lines marked the corners of her eyes, the subtle etchings of a life filled with hardship and fleeting triumph.
She wore armor of exquisite craftsmanship, bronze and silver plates fitting snugly over her sturdy frame. Gold filigree adorned her breastplate, its delicate yet powerful patterns hinting at noble lineage or unwavering devotion to a cause now lost to time. A soft leather collar lined the high neck of her armor, while polished pauldrons reflected the chamber’s dim light with a subdued sheen.
As Alex approached, the projection lifted her gaze to meet his, a bittersweet smile playing at her lips.
"You came. Such a shame." She bowed her head slightly before her expression twisted, and her voice reverberated with eerie finality. "Curiosity killed the cat. It won't be so kind to you."
Alex’s keen hearing picked up a distant rattle of chains. The sound sent a shudder through the projection, and she winced as though struck by an unseen force. Her gaze darted over her shoulder, fear stark in her amber eyes.
"The jailor will hear us. I shouldn't be talking to you. I must go. It’s not kind to me."
Alex took a step closer, his voice steady but laced with concern. "Maybe I can help you be free of whoever’s hurting you."
Her eyes locked onto his, searching, hoping. "I hope so. But it is a faint hope—just like me." She let out a soft breath, her shoulders slumping. "I can’t leave. Only suffer. But I’m supposed to do that in silence. Everyone here hates me for what I am."
She paused, then lifted her chin slightly, fire flickering behind her sorrowful gaze. "I am the thing that kills you, and the only reason you're alive. Maybe by a promise, undone by the truth. A handshake, a hug, the first beat of a newborn's heart. I am Hope. What little of her remains."
Her voice wavered for a moment before steeling itself. "A guttering candle in a universe of night. I'm not much of a friend to anyone anymore... but I could use a friend myself. Do you want a friend? To guide you through this madhouse?"
Before Alex could answer, her expression shifted. Panic. Fear. Her eyes darted wildly, her breath quickened. "Shhh. I hear the jailor. It hears me. It’ll call Raphael. Make every question count. Make some of them count twice."
Alex clenched his fists, knowing time was slipping through his fingers. "I need to find the Orphic Hammer. Can you help?"
The woman raised a trembling finger and pointed at him, her expression a flickering shadow of both amusement and despair. "Discovered an ancient gith prince in need of a savior?" she asked with a playful lilt to her voice, though her eyes told a different story—one of suffering and exhaustion. "The Orphic Hammer is the perfect tool for breaking all infernal chains."
Her words sent a ripple of realization through Alex. 'The hammer was the key to releasing Orpheus from his prison, but I already did that. If Hope knows about it, then Raphael surely does too.' His jaw tightened as the implications settled in.
"Clever," Alex muttered, piecing it together. Voss had been desperate, willing to deal with a devil for that very tool—Raphael had been the only way to free Orpheus. 'At least until I showed up.'
Hope’s projection flickered, as if the very mention of the hammer disturbed the forces binding her. Still, she pressed on.
"Hope can help," she whispered, though a quiet tremor ran through her voice. "The hammer is here, in this House—it’s..."
A sudden rattle of chains echoed through the chamber, followed by a blood-curdling scream, not aloud but in his mind. Hope’s image trembled violently before vanishing for a moment, only to reappear—shaken, frantic. She looked around slowly, her voice a whisper.
"Shhh... quiet... It hears me." The words dripped with fear, her form crouched as though she were hiding from something unseen.
Alex remained still, waiting, watching.
Then, she straightened, exhaling sharply. "There it goes…"
Her posture was tense, but determination flickered behind her pained eyes. "Everyone here is mad—" she continued, her voice brittle. "Even you, especially me. That makes them dangerous. But it also makes them stupid. I'll make you seem as ruined as the rest of the people here. A simple glamour to make you a terrible wretch."
Hope raised her hands, and a dim light enveloped Alex. He felt a shift in his clothes—a new texture against his skin. Looking down, he found himself clad in frail, tattered garments, crudely stitched together like a servant’s rags.
"Now whisper your questions, little wretch," Hope instructed. "But very quietly. And very cleverly. Concentrate."
Alex leaned forward, barely murmuring, "I need to find the Orphic Hammer. Where is it?"
Hope’s head snapped up, and suddenly she screamed the answer, her voice twisting with madness.
"THE SAME PLACE YOU'LL FIND YOUR SORRY LITTLE SOUL WHEN RAPHAEL RIPS IT OUT!"
Then, just as quickly, her tone turned eerily calm. "In the Archive. Down the corridor, past the debtors. Oh! The debtors... they won’t like you. But I like you. I know I do. I think I do. I hope I do." Her voice cracked, her smile barely holding together her breaking composure. "I just need to ask one question, and I’ll know for sure."
Alex steadied himself. "What is it?"
Hope took a trembling breath, then—
"Can you save me? PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!"
The sheer desperation in her voice shattered something inside him. It wasn't just a question—it was a plea, a final tether to something she feared she had already lost. Her hands clasped together, her eyes bore into him, burning with something raw and fragile. Hope.
Alex exhaled, his resolve hardening. "If I can, I will. What do I need to do?"
Hope smiled at him.
"All right. You have to listen very, very closely. I will say this only once. Find the key. Take the hammer. Smash my chains. Find the key. Take the hammer. Smash my chains. Find the key. Take the hammer. Smash my chains. But be careful. Once you take the hammer, the fire will come. And Raphael. You must run, run, run, run." She laughed, a deranged, hollow sound before regaining her composure. Then, her gaze snapped to him, filled with pure fear. "But don't forget me. Please, please, please. I don't want to burn. Not again."
Alex heard the sound of rattling chains, and the projection dissolved into a fine red mist, vanishing as if it had never been there at all.
His chest burned for a brief moment—the chromatic orb embedded within him pulsed, absorbing the illusion magic that had once cloaked him. Whatever spell Hope had cast to disguise him, it could have been used to track him as well. He couldn’t take the risk.
Shadows coiled around him, thick tendrils of darkness wrapping his body like a living entity, forming a new armor over his frame. The fabric of the void itself draped over him, an assassin’s garb woven from the essence of night. The chest plate was sleek obsidian, etched with silent, writhing runes that shimmered when he moved. Gauntlets of shadow melded seamlessly with his hands, their edges sharp as midnight blades. The boots, forged of interwoven black leather and woven void-thread, allowed his footsteps to vanish into nothingness. A hood, thick as the veil of a moonless night, descended over his head, swallowing his features in pure darkness. To anyone looking upon him, he had ceased to be a man—he was the specter of death itself.
He turned his gaze toward the massive iron doors that now lay open before him. He stepped forward, and before his foot could meet the ground, his form vanished into the shadows, slipping through the darkness like a phantom.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Moving from shadow to shadow, Alex pushed his senses to their limits, scanning every inch of his surroundings for traps. The air was thick, oppressive, heavy with an unseen malice.
He crossed a short bridge. A white mist curled from the depths below, rising like ghostly fingers reaching for him. He could hear the cries of agony, whispers of despair from the damned souls trapped beneath. A pit of suffering, endless and inescapable.
He pressed on.
From his perch on the ceiling, he looked downward.
The sight was eerily familiar.
It was the same infernal dining hall where Raphael had first summoned them, only now it had decayed into something grotesque. The grand round table, once a lavish display of excess, was now a mockery of its former self. Skeletal remains sat slumped in their chairs, their hands still frozen in mock gestures of conversation. The food had long since rotted, now little more than blackened husks, crawling with vermin. Some chairs had been shattered, others overturned, their splintered remains littering the bloodstained floor.
His gaze moved toward the fireplace.
A lone figure stood there, draped in crimson robes, its back turned to him. A broom dragged listlessly across the floor as it moved in slow, mechanical strokes. The air around it was thick with the scent of rot and dust.
Alex narrowed his eyes.
It was undead.
But something about its robes was familiar. Not from his own memories, but from Ketheric’s.
A thin tendril of necrotic energy slithered outward from Alex’s fingers, unseen and silent, stretching toward the skeleton. He felt it before he saw it—
A mind, or what was left of one.
And something inside it stirred.
Morfred's memories flooded into him.
Before the Shadow-Cursed Lands were overcome by Shar's curse, this skeleton had once been a Selûnite named Morfred. He had worked at Reithwin Town's mason guild, under the great general Ketheric Thorm.
The town had originally been home to many Selûnites, including Ketheric and his family. It was Morfred who had designed and constructed Moonrise Towers, a grand temple devoted to Selûne, a beacon of worship and faith.
Then, tragedy struck. After the death of Ketheric's daughter, he had turned to Shar, raising an army of Dark Justiciars and purging the town of every last trace of Selûne’s presence. The faithful had been hunted down, driven into hiding, and executed.
In time, only two Selûnite leaders remained—Morfred and his brother, Halfred. Alongside a dwindling band of devoted worshippers, they had fought to preserve what little remained of their faith.
Desperate to stem the tide of darkness, Morfred had sought any means to halt Ketheric's growing power. That desperation had been noticed. Raphael had approached him with an infernal pact—his soul, in exchange for the utter destruction of the Dark Justiciars.
And Raphael had honored the deal.
Yurgir and his merregons had descended upon the Justiciars like a plague. They had butchered them, leaving only a single survivor. With his army decimated and the Harpers pressing the attack, Ketheric had unleashed the Shadow Curse in a final act of desperation. The land had become cursed, twisted, lost to darkness.
Morfred had perished soon after. His soul had not found peace. It had been claimed, bound to the House of Hope, trapped within its gilded prison for eternity.
Alex looked at the skeleton before him—the wretched remains of the man who had once been the architect of Ketheric’s downfall.
This man… this skeleton… had sacrificed everything to see Ketheric fall. And yet, in doing so, he had unknowingly driven Ketheric to embrace Myrkul’s power.
'You will bask in the Moonmaiden’s light soon,' Alex whispered, sending forth a tendril of energy to soothe the tormented soul.
Still cloaked in shadows, he drifted away from the hall, silent as death itself.
Another door—massive, metal, etched with infernal runes. Not impenetrable.
His gaze locked onto a sigil near the lower-left corner of the door. A weak point. He extended a flicker of magic, unraveling the seal with careful precision. The door groaned open.
A long hallway stretched before him, lined with ornate wooden doors. To his right, the hall curved onward, deeper into the unknown.
A woman stood next to the far door, sweeping absentmindedly.
Alex moved past her without a sound, slipping beneath the wooden doorway like a wraith.
And as he crossed the threshold, he knew—he was getting close.
Before him stretched a vast chamber, lined with stone pedestals arranged in a solemn, deliberate formation. Each pedestal bore an artifact of varying significance—a rusted trinket, a gleaming breastplate, an intricately crafted sword, a potion shimmering with unknown magic. Yet, his gaze remained locked on the warhammer at the farthest end of the room.
The warhammer’s form was a perfect fusion of elegance and menace. The shaft, forged from polished yet battle-worn metal, bore the marks of countless conflicts. Long, sturdy, and perfectly balanced, it was a weapon designed for both devastating impact and precise control. The end of the shaft tapered into a wicked, bladed hook—a cruel addition meant for rending through armor and flesh alike.
But it was the hammer’s head that truly commanded attention. A jagged, crystalline core of deep, blood-red hues pulsed within a cage of razor-sharp silver spires. The translucent crimson crystal shimmered unnaturally, as though liquid fire swirled beneath its surface, shifting and writhing like a living thing trapped within an unbreakable prison. The metal framework encasing it was darkened steel, sculpted into wicked, interlocking spikes that gleamed under the faintest light, giving the weapon an aura of malevolent grandeur.
Before he could move closer, his gaze drifted to Hope, standing by the door through which he had just passed. Her sharp eyes swept the room with urgency, scanning every shadow and artifact.
There was no one else in the chamber, so he rose from the darkness and spoke.
"Hello again, little mouse," Hope said with a smile. But then she faltered, her expression shifting to one of panic. "The price for speaking is steep, but I must give warning. The prize is ahead, but you can't take it yet, and even if you could, you mustn’t. Trigger the alarm, and Raphael will come swooping home on wings of malice to rip out your soul." She snapped, her voice rising. "IN THIS HOUSE, THIEVES ARE MELTED LIKE BUTTER AND SPREAD ONTO TOAST."
She froze, catching herself, struggling to regain her composure. "Shhhh... I'm doing it again. I'm doing it again."
"Wait for me," Alex responded before vanishing into the shadows once more, slipping beneath the doorway and into the main hall. From Morfred’s memories, he knew where Hope was.
Drifting along the curved walls, he moved unseen.
Debtors of Raphael surrounded him—souls of all races, all ages. Some crawled on all fours like animals, others danced in endless, forced revelry. Laughter echoed through the air, some of it joyous, some of it maddening, some of it hollow and broken.
He reached the end of the curved hallway. A metal door loomed to his right—this one would lead back to the dining hall where he had met Morfred. His gaze, however, fell downward, toward the metal hatch embedded in the floor.
Faint runes shimmered along its surface, a simple magical lock—nothing extravagant, merely a deterrent.
Alex placed his hand against the hatch, absorbing the magic, feeling it unravel beneath his fingers. The runes flickered and died. With a firm grip, he lifted the hatch and dropped down into the abyss below.
The descent was long—twenty meters at least—before he landed gracefully, soundlessly, upon a metal platform. Before him, a massive iron wall loomed, a single heavy door at its center. Above it, a grotesque devil’s head had been carved into the metal, its maw stretched wide in a silent, eternal scream.
Behind him, an arid, scorching wind howled.
He turned to face the abyss.
The infernal plains stretched out before him—a landscape of agony and ruin. Towers of blackened stone loomed in the distance, their jagged peaks piercing a sky choked with crimson smoke. Rivers of molten rock carved paths through the cracked and tortured ground, their fiery currents illuminating the skeletal remains of ancient creatures, half-buried in the obsidian sands. The air shimmered with heat, distorting the shapes of the damned as they toiled under the merciless sky.
He turned back toward the door, his senses sharpening as he felt the gathering of magic.
A soft glow materialized before him, and another projection of Hope emerged, her form flickering, fragile yet defiant.
"You found my prison . My body is held in chains just beyond . Presumably , you intend to chew throught the chains , cracking your teeth like eggshells , It won't work ! The Hammer is the only thing capable of shattering the chains . " Hope said panicked .
He walked past her and placed his hand on the door . The metal door opened up .
Before him, standing on a floating platform, was Hope,—her true form at last revealed. She was suspended in the air by tendrils of infernal energy, her body taut with strain, but her head remained lifted, her gaze locking onto his. Defiance burned in her eyes, despite the torment she had endured.
Alex followed the writhing tendrils of energy to the right, where a red crystal pulsed—similar to those used to imprison Orpheus. Below it, a massive, infernal engine belched green flames, its monstrous power keeping the entire floating island aloft. Another identical engine roared on the left, stabilizing the impossible structure.
His gaze swept the area. Chains stretched from the ceiling, anchoring floating platforms in a precarious network of pathways. Statues dotted the space, grotesque figures frozen in twisted agony. And then he saw them—the architects of this grotesque display. Two Spectators hovered above, their many eyes darting, ever-watchful. A small swarm of imps flitted about, cackling as they patrolled their domain.
Alex raised a hand. The netherstone embedded within the chromatic orb in his chest pulsed, and in an instant, the Spectators vanished, locked away in a small dimension created by him. The imps screeched in alarm, but before they could react, Alex conjured a fan of shadowed daggers, sending them flying in an arc. Each dagger found its mark, and the imps fell, lifeless.
With the sentries gone, he turned his focus back to Hope.
He leapt to the rightmost platform, landing with silent precision. Placing his hand on the glowing red crystal, he siphoned the infernal energy from within. The surface darkened as its power drained away. The entire floating island groaned in protest, tipping slightly to one side as the right engine faltered. The flames sputtered but did not die out, yet.
Wasting no time, Alex jumped to the left platform and repeated the process. The second crystal dimmed, and the infernal tendrils restraining Hope unraveled into nothingness.
With a gasp, she collapsed to her knees, her body shaking. But the moment of weakness was fleeting. She pushed herself up, standing tall as Alex landed beside her.
"Free," she whispered, as if she could scarcely believe it. Then, her voice rose with sudden exhilaration. "I never thought I would be, never believed I could be, but I hoped—oh, how I hoped! Heads will roll!" She let out a triumphant laugh, a sound of pure, unshackled joy, before taking a deep breath to steady herself.
Then, her expression shifted to something more self-conscious. She studied Alex carefully before speaking again. "But first, we must address the hollyphant in the room. I can see how you're avoiding looking at me. I must be so terribly mutilated after all these decades of torture. Don't hold back. Tell me how bad it is."
"You look normal," Alex said simply.
Hope tilted her head, skeptical. "We both know that's not true, but... thanks for being so kind."
"Seriously," Alex insisted, his eyes scrutinizing her closely. "There's nothing wrong with you. Physically, at least."
She threw him a side-eye, amusement flickering through her features. "I hope that was a compliment."
Hope took a steadying breath before turning, surveying the platform with new clarity. Her sharp gaze locked onto something at the edge of the platform—a weapon. She strode toward it, picking up a metal staff, its surface humming with contained magic. Without hesitation, she slung it across her back, securing it in place.
"We'll carve our way to the entrance hall and chop Raphael into pieces." She balled her fists, grinning. "That’s the hopeful version, of course. The more likely version is that we're the pieces and he’s the one doing the chopping."
She turned back toward the metal wall, her keen eyes landing on the open door ahead. A fire kindled in her expression, a look of pure determination.
"Onward!" she declared, and without another word, she leaped from the platform.
Alex watched her for a moment. Then, with a final glance at the dying infernal engines, he followed her trough the door .