Alex, Amanita, and Astarion stepped through the door that Cazador and his spawns had fled through. Their pursuit led them to an office elevated slightly above the rest of the chamber, but instead of stopping, they turned right, drawn to something else entirely.
Before them stood a dais—an unsettling contrast to the palace’s usual architecture.
Crafted from both dark and white marble, its sharp, angular metal inlays gave it an unnatural, almost alien appearance, as though it had been carved by hands unfamiliar with the natural flow of stonework. The metal gleamed faintly under the dim torchlight, etched with intricate patterns that almost seemed to pulse.
“This must be the entrance to the halls beneath Baldur’s Gate,” Amanita murmured, her crimson eyes scanning every inch of the dais with deep scrutiny. Sensing their expectation, she continued, her voice taking on a thoughtful cadence. “I’ve never been inside, but I’ve read enough to know a bit about them. It was the master vampire, Donnela Szarr, who reopened the vast blue-green halls and brought them under our control. But what is the history of this subterranean expanse, and how far back does it go? Not even Donnela the Architect knew for certain. I speculate that the Depths were originally dwarven-built by exiles from Bhaerynden, though I admit I am no scholar of dwarven history. ‘Though deeply delved, the halls were certainly more of an outpost than a city,’ Donnela wrote, ‘though if it was established as a facility over a mine—what were the dwarves mining here?’”
She paused, the mystery hanging in the stale air around them. “It always puzzled me—how did these abandoned depths go undiscovered for so long beneath a great city like Baldur’s Gate? Were they deliberately hidden by some kind of persistent glamour that finally wore off? We may never know.”
Alex’s gaze drifted toward the dais, a faint pull, almost imperceptible, resonating deep in his core. Something was calling to him.
Without a word, he stepped onto the platform. He would find out soon enough.
The others hesitated only briefly before following suit.
Alex pressed a small plate embedded in the platform’s center, and without warning, they began to descend—a long, near-endless descent.
The walls passed them in shadowed blurs, flickering torchlight catching on the elaborate dwarven carvings lining the shaft. The weight of the ancient structure pressed down around them, heavy with forgotten secrets. When they finally reached the bottom, the sight that greeted them stole the breath from their lungs.
“This is clearly dwarven architecture,” Alex observed, his voice filled with restrained awe.
“What in the Hells…?” Astarion muttered, his usual air of practiced detachment slipping away. “I never knew any of this was here.” He had expected some rotting, rat-infested dungeon. But this… this was something entirely different.
The hall stretched before them—colossal and untouched by time, yet aged and fractured. Built from polished dark and white stone, golden metal was laid in precise, sharp angles into the walls and floor, forming patterns almost reminiscent of electrical circuits. The towering pillars loomed like sentinels, their bases cracked with age, yet still defiant against the weight of centuries.
Yet the place was not whole. Some stone bricks had chipped and cracked, and in one corner, a section of the ceiling had collapsed, leaving behind a pile of rubble. Water dripped from above, the sound echoing hauntingly in the vast emptiness.
Amanita's gaze wandered, appreciating the craftsmanship, before settling on a golden metal gate to the right. She turned to Alex expectantly.
“You can open it,” Alex said simply.
With a light push, the door creaked open, but what lay beyond was a bitter disappointment.
The path ahead had been utterly destroyed, leaving only an abyssal chasm yawning before them.
‘I wonder if this is simply the toll of time… or if something else caused this,’ Alex thought grimly, his eyes narrowing as he took in the sheer emptiness beyond. On the other side of the chasm, only simple stone remained, barren and unremarkable.
Yet hanging from the ceiling, swaying gently from rusted chains, were metal cages—crafted from the same golden alloy as the inlays in the floor. Whatever had been imprisoned here, their fate had long since been decided.
They stepped back and returned to the main hall, pressing onward.
Three gates loomed before them.
One to the right—leading to nowhere. They had already seen the chasm beyond it, stretching into darkness.
"I can feel a cluster of undead up ahead," Alex murmured, his piercing gaze locked on the gate before them.
"Good. That means Cazador is close," Astarion responded, stepping forward with renewed determination.
But he stopped short when he noticed Alex and Amanita had not moved.
Alex's expression darkened as he turned toward another gate to the left. "I can feel a soul behind this one—tormented, fractured, and very, very old."
Without hesitation, Alex walked to the left gate, his fingers brushing over the aged metal. A light push sent it creaking open, revealing a short bridge extending over a vast, abyssal chasm. At its end loomed another imposing gate.
On either side of this gate stood a pair of gargoyles, their stone bodies so intricately carved they appeared poised to pounce at any moment.
The party moved forward cautiously, stopping before the gate.
"Amanita, can you give me the ring again?" Alex asked, noticing the same hollow indentation in the center of the gate.
Without hesitation, Amanita handed it to him. As soon as Alex placed the ring in, the gate swung open with a heavy groan.
A wave of putrid, musty air rolled out, assaulting their senses.
Another short bridge stretched ahead, leading to a small, dimly lit chamber. Furniture draped in dusty cloth lined the entrance, the silhouettes of forgotten objects casting eerie shadows on the walls.
Alex took the first step inside, the others following cautiously.
To the left, an old wooden desk stood covered with aged books, their spines cracked with time. To the right, a small bed lay untouched, its sheets yellowed with neglect.
But none of that held their attention.
At the far end of the room, resting almost reverently on a raised platform, lay a skull atop a velvet cushion.
It was unlike any ordinary skull. Stripped of all teeth except for two elongated fangs, it exuded an ominous presence. Clutched between its fangs was an ancient scroll, parchment dry and brittle with age.
Amanita and Astarion hesitated a step behind Alex as he cautiously approached the skull.
The eye sockets flared to life with an eerie, eldritch gleam.
A pull—faint, yet insistent—tugged at Alex’s mind. An invitation. A demand. A desperate plea to witness the memories locked within the skull.
Urgency radiated from the remains, an almost tangible force pressing upon him.
Alex turned to his companions, his voice quiet yet firm. "The skull wants to show me its memories."
"Then what are we waiting for? We don’t have all day," Astarion said, crossing his arms, though a flicker of curiosity glinted in his crimson eyes.
Alex turned to Amanita. She studied the skull, hesitation flickering across her face before she looked at Alex. "Can I see them too?"
Without hesitation, Alex reached for her hand, his grip warm and steady. He then extended his other hand above the skull, his fingers hovering just over the cursed bone.
"Ready?" he asked, his voice a murmur in the quiet chamber.
Amanita inhaled deeply, steadying herself before giving him a firm nod.
The moment Alex made contact, reality shifted.
Darkness enveloped them.
The memories of the Vampire Vellioth unraveled before them, ancient and vivid. They saw him standing over a trembling, mortal Cazador, his lips curling with satisfaction as he bestowed his cursed gift upon him. They witnessed Cazador’s transformation—his body writhing in agony as immortality overtook him. They watched Vellioth mold his fledgling into something more, something monstrous, whispering the ancient rules of vampiric existence into his ears like a father imparting wisdom to a child.
Vellioth's first lesson was always to dominate. Allow none to be your equal.
Cazador had learned this lesson the hard way when he had dared to reach out to a former friend, a brother-in-blood whom he had once trusted. Vellioth had found out. And Vellioth, in his twisted, monstrous wisdom, had turned it into a lesson.
"Compassion is a blade turned inward," Vellioth had said, his voice a cold whisper in the dark.
Cazador had been forced to kneel, his limbs bound in chains of shadow, his eyes wide with helpless terror as his old friend was dragged before him. The man had struggled, pleaded, fought against the unseen force that held him in place. But Vellioth had merely laughed—a deep, guttural sound that echoed in the chamber like a predator savoring the kill.
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With slow, deliberate movements, Vellioth had sunk his fangs into the man’s throat. It was not a quick kill, nor a merciful one. He drained him slowly, drinking in his life, savoring the agony that twisted his face, the way his body convulsed in helpless protest.
"Watch," Vellioth commanded. "Learn."
And Cazador had. He had watched as his friend’s body went still, his once vibrant eyes dulling into empty voids. Watched as Vellioth let the drained husk collapse to the ground like a discarded toy.
"This is the price of weakness. You will remember it."
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Vellioth's second lesson was that power comes from solitude. To share power is to invite betrayal. To trust is to be weak. And to be weak… is to fail. And failure meant death.
Cazador had tested this lesson once. He had thought himself clever. Thought himself strong enough to rebel.
Vellioth had shown him just how wrong he was.
For eleven years, Cazador had suffered impalement. A thousand silvered spears driven through his body, his flesh burning with an agony that never faded, never dulled. The magic kept him conscious, kept him aware of every searing moment, every failed attempt his body made to regenerate.
And Vellioth had watched, amused, waiting.
"You will not die," Vellioth had murmured one night, tracing a clawed finger along the exposed bone of Cazador’s wrist. "Death is a mercy you have not earned."
For eleven years, Cazador had endured. And when at last Vellioth had deemed his lesson learned, he had pulled him free.
Cazador had collapsed to the floor, his body barely able to move, his voice hoarse from screams that had long since faded into whimpers. And Vellioth had leaned down, his voice like silk wrapped around steel.
"Do you understand now?"
And Cazador had whispered, broken but resolute, "Yes, master."
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Vellioth's third lesson: Do not act in haste. A near immortal has time to plan, time to act only when others will pay the price of action.
Cazador had taken this lesson to heart.
And in the end, he had turned it upon his master.
Vellioth, smug and ever-watchful, had not seen the moment coming. When Cazador struck, it was not with rage or desperation. It was with precision, with purpose. He had learned well.
As Cazador drove the dagger deep into Vellioth’s heart, their eyes met. And Vellioth—Vellioth had laughed. A laugh full of pride, of amusement, of finality.
Cazador had boiled the flesh from his master’s skull, leaving only bone. And then, in mockery, he had clamped Vellioth’s own Schooling Scroll between his lifeless jaws, as if to remind him of his own lessons.
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The skull’s eyes flashed a final time, then its jaw sagged open in silence.
Alex reached out, his fingers brushing against the brittle parchment held between the fangs. Slowly, he pulled it free, unfurling the scroll.
It was a compendium of horrors, a list of foul rites and unspeakable rituals. Death, twisted into something useful. Death, made into something… more.
The Rite of Perfect Slaughter. The Liturgy of the Dead. The Sacrament of the Damned.
Each more vile than the last, each detailing ways in which the soul, the body, the essence of existence itself could be consumed, twisted, or repurposed. And all of them shared one thing in common:
Sacrifice.
The greater the offering, the greater the power granted in return.
Alex’s gaze drifted to the final entry.
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The Rite of Profane Ascension
Oh, piteous dead! Oh, ravenous dead!
Immortality is your gift, but darkness is your prison and hunger its gaoler.
The Rite of Profane Ascension will release you. Walk in the sun. Suffer not from hunger. Grow your power beyond anything you imagined.
A pact has been made with the Lord of Hellfire. Deliver unto him seven thousand souls, each bearing an Infernal mark, and you shall be free of your chains. You shall know true power.
Deliver the souls. Speak the words.
Ecce dominus, Has animas offero in sacrificio, Nunc volo potestatem quam pollicitus es mihi.
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Alex exhaled slowly, his grip tightening on the scroll. The weight of what lay before him settled deep in his bones.
This was the truth of Cazador’s plan.
And it had to be stopped.
Alex cast a glance at Vellioth's skull, watching as the last fragments of the ancient vampire's fraying soul faded into oblivion. The air in the chamber grew lighter, as if some unseen weight had been lifted, yet the sense of unease lingered, thick and suffocating.
He turned to Astarion. Before Astarion could speak, Alex reached out, placing a firm yet gentle hand on his head. Power surged between them—memories, raw and unfiltered, flooding Astarion’s mind.
Astarion’s crimson eyes widened, his breath hitching, and then—
A snarl ripped from his throat. Fury radiated from him like heat off a forge. His fangs bared, his expression contorted in rage.
"What did you just show me?!" Astarion spat, his voice shaking with emotion. He shoved Alex hard in the chest. "Do you think—do you actually think—that showing me how much he suffered would make me sympathize with him?" His voice was venomous, his entire body trembling with pent-up fury.
Astarion jabbed a finger against Alex’s chest, his sharp nails barely restrained from tearing into flesh. "He had every chance to change! Every. Single. Chance. And what did he do instead? When I pleaded for him to stop skinning me? When I begged for him to stop making me eat rotten carcasses like a starved dog?" His voice cracked, the raw pain behind his words barely contained. "He is a monster!"
Astarion took a staggering step back, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his entire form vibrating with fury. "Whatever he was before—whoever he might have been—I do not care!" he roared. "I will have my revenge. I will kill him for what he has done to me."
His breaths were sharp and uneven, his rage simmering beneath the surface, threatening to spill over like molten steel. He glared at Alex, waiting for some kind of response.
But Alex simply looked at him, his expression unreadable, unwavering. He had expected this reaction, had braced for it. Astarion was drowning in his pain, but Alex had only tried to show him the truth—not to force forgiveness, but to prevent him from becoming the very monster he loathed.
The realization dawned slowly in Astarion’s mind, cutting through the haze of his fury. His hands, still shaking, fell to his sides. He swallowed hard, running a hand through his silver-white hair before turning his back to Alex. The silence between them stretched, heavy with unspoken words.
Finally, his voice came softer, strained but composed. "Let’s… let’s just finish this," he murmured. "We can talk more later."
Without another word, he strode forward, his steps purposeful yet laced with a lingering tremor.
Amanita, who had been standing just behind Alex, reached out, intertwining her fingers with his. She squeezed his hand gently, grounding him. The memories of Vellioth had shaken her too, but she could see the weight Alex bore. "You did the right thing," she whispered, offering him quiet reassurance.
Alex’s gaze lingered on Astarion’s retreating form before he nodded. Without another word, he and Amanita followed after him.
The middle gate revealed a long, hall stretching for dozens of meters. The oppressive silence was broken only by the distant, ragged breaths of the imprisoned. From left to right, gates lined the corridor, each concealing the hollow-eyed faces of the damned.
From the darkness, countless pairs of glowing red eyes peered hungrily at them, flickering like embers in a dying fire.
"Are those..." Amanita's voice trailed off, horror creeping into her tone.
"Yes. The seven thousand souls Cazador will use for the ritual," Alex confirmed, his voice grim.
Astarion barely breathed as he whispered, "And all of them are spawns."
Amanita placed a trembling hand over her mouth. "Those poor people..."
They walked forward, the suffocating weight of despair pressing down on them. The imprisoned spawns clutched at the bars of their cells, watching with a hunger that was not just for blood, but for freedom—for release from the wretched existence forced upon them. Their skin, pallid and sickly, bore the signs of starvation. Some had long since lost the ability to think beyond their hunger, their gazes empty, their once-human souls buried beneath years of torment. The scent of decay and neglect was almost unbearable, saturating the air with an overwhelming, cloying rot.
Then, from one of the leftmost cells, movement.
A man emerged from behind a dozen other spawns. Even through the grime and blood that clung to his skin, his beauty remained, a tragic remnant of the man he once was. His gaze locked onto them, and something flickered within his crimson eyes—recognition.
"You," the man rasped, his voice raw, yet tinged with an emotion far more painful than hunger. "I know you."
Astarion froze as if struck by lightning.
His head turned, slowly, stiffly, as if his body resisted the motion. His sharp features contorted, caught between disbelief and dread.
"You’re the one from the tavern," the man continued, stepping closer to the gate. "You smiled and joked and got me drunk."
The pain in his voice cut through the stagnant air like a blade. The spawns around him shifted, sensing his turmoil but not understanding it.
Astarion’s breath came short. His throat tightened.
His voice, when it came, was barely more than a whisper. "You—no. You're dead."
"You called me so many things," the man said, his voice almost wistful, but thick with sorrow. "My name sounded like a lyric on your tongue."
Astarion’s crimson eyes widened, the world narrowing to the space between him and the man behind the bars. His lips parted, his breath shallow. He didn't want to say the name, but it left him anyway—soft, reverent, broken.
"Sebastian."
Sebastian pressed his hands against the cold metal of the gate. "You remember me."
Astarion lifted his gaze, meeting the tortured expression of the man before him. "You were handsome. Shy. You’d never been kissed."
Sebastian gave a small, trembling nod. "You taught me how. And then you destroyed me."
He reached through the golden bars, his fingers scraping against the jagged metal, skin splitting open, blood smearing the surface—but he didn't seem to care. His arms stretched forward, desperate, shaking.
Astarion took an instinctive step back.
Sebastian's voice cracked, the anguish spilling forth, unrestrained. "Why? Why me?" His breath hitched, and suddenly, his knees buckled. He collapsed against the bars, his forehead pressing into the unyielding metal. His shoulders shook as sobs wracked his frame. "I didn’t deserve this."
A heavy silence followed, suffocating in its weight.
Astarion stood frozen, his lips parted slightly, but no words came. There was nothing he could say—nothing that would make any of it right.
The past had finally caught up with him, and it was looking him in the eye through the bars of a cage.
"They're my conquest," Astarion admitted, his voice strained with agony. "I pursued them, seduced them, then led them to Cazador. He told us he was feeding on them. But he lied. He turned them—every last one of them—into spawns. He stockpiled them, harvesting their souls for this cursed ritual."
Astarion’s words were abruptly cut off.
"How long?" Sebastian’s voice was hoarse, trembling with something deeper than anger.
Astarion blinked. "What?"
Sebastian rose to his feet, his movements slow and deliberate, like a man pushing through centuries of suffocating darkness. "How long have I been down here?" he asked again, his crimson eyes locked onto Astarion.
Astarion hesitated, as if saying the truth aloud would make it even more unbearable. "One hundred and seventy years." The words left his lips like knives piercing his dead heart. "You were one of my first."
Sebastian’s breath hitched. "My family… my friends… they’re gone…" His voice cracked, and something in him snapped. His crimson eyes flared with fury. "You took them from me. You took everything from me!"
Alex, watching the scene unfold, stepped forward and placed a firm hand on Astarion’s shoulder. "Do not worry. We will set you free."
Sebastian scoffed bitterly, his fists trembling. "Free? We'll never be free while that monster lives."
"That’s why we’re here—to destroy Cazador," Alex assured him, his voice steady.
Sebastian let out a hollow laugh, shaking his head. "You can’t. It’s not possible. He’s too strong... too cunning. No one has ever come close."
"We will find a way," Alex said with unwavering certainty.
Something flickered in Sebastian’s gaze. A glimmer of hope, fragile but not yet extinguished. "And then? What happens to us?" he asked quietly, the weight of his words pressing into the silence around them.
"I will turn you back into humans," Alex declared, his voice firm, unshaken.
The spawns stirred. Murmurs rippled through the cells, disbelief and yearning intertwining in their hollow voices.
Alex’s gaze never wavered. "I already turned Dalyria back."
Silence fell like a thunderclap. The spawns stopped their restless murmuring, their glowing eyes locked onto him with something new—something dangerously close to belief.
Amanita, standing at Alex’s side, tightened her grip on his hand. Her fingers dug into his palm—not out of anger, but out of something unspoken. He had not told her. He had not shared this secret. He had kept it from her, whether by choice or circumstance.
She looked up at him, searching his face for answers. But she did not speak. If Alex had chosen not to tell her, there had to be a reason. And she would wait to hear it.