The exchange had happened like this:

Arne – “She suggested using violence.”

Dia – *Unsettling smile getting bigger and bigger*

Arne – “Not that much violence.”

It kept playing at the back of his mind, something he was thankful for, so he didn’t have to occupy his mind with the constantly recurring image of a tender young woman with copper red hair slumped hideously against her still breathing sister. Yes, that was a blessing. And if Dia decided to go crazy in some way, that was even better, even more distracting.

The bell of the Black Academy had rung two hours a good while ago when Dia and Arne arrived at the Family’s house. Toog had already gone back there in the evening after they had made their plan.

Curiously, when they got there, it turned out the doors were open and several night lights were lit inside and two elegant braziers outside the entrance, too.

Arne and Dia exchanged a glance and walked in. A smiling young man approached them. He had been sitting resting his back against a column of the atrium and got up to greet them. He wore the same white robe as the other Family members did.

“Sister, brother, welcome.” The young man smiled brightly at them. “Are you new to the Family?”

Arne smiled at him, seeing behind him a rush of movement. “No, we are veterans of the joyful union,” he stated, grinning as Toog silently came up behind the young man and gave him an odd tap to the back of the neck. It was a sharp, precise jab, and the young man’s eyes rolled into his skull, and he collapsed between them.

“You’re teaching me that!” Arne stated and bent down to check the night caretaker’s pulse. He was still alive but seemed thoroughly comatose.

Toog shrugged. “There’s a closet over there.”

Arne hefted the young man onto his shoulder and carried him over to the small room for mops and deposited him there. Then he drew a dagger from his belt and quickly stabbed the unconscious watchman in the heart, letting the blade sit there. It was the most standard type of knife with nothing to link it to him.

He gently closed the door to the maintenance room and saw Toog staring at him, interested. “What? It bleeds less than an open wound. And you didn’t kill him,” Arne just said softly.

“You’re right,” Toog said, voice unreadable.

“He saw my face. Besides, I don’t want him to suddenly wake up and sound the alarm. If we get out of here undetected, we can toss the corpse in the street.” Arne pulled his hood up and then the mask from the hood down over his face, fastening it on the edge of his leather armour under the dark, nondescript jacket he wore.

Toog just shrugged and both of them followed after Dia who was waiting at the atrium.

“There are some people there,” Dia pointed to a door near where the maintenance closet was.

“That’s the dormitory for the faithful,” Toog said.

Then Dia turned her gaze at Arne whose face was hidden under the featureless black mask, ensorcelled to let him see through it.

Dia grinned. “That’s creepy, actually.”

“Thank you,” Arne gave her a little bow. “Kind of you to say.”

“It’s frankly also really weird, since the rest of us are just us. But I’m not judging,” Dia stated, judging him.

“We have no previous connection to each other and when this is over, I will, best case scenario, still be alive and living here. I’d prefer to not have my name, face or identity rubbed all over whatever this turns out to be.”

“Sure.” Dia shrugged. “Well, there’s some people over there, too” she pointed past the giggle-grope fountain. “I’d say about seven or eight. I’m guessing it is in the ritual room or the side chamber beyond.”

“I was in the ritual room earlier this evening,” Toog said as they bypassed the fountain. “It was empty.”

“Hang on,” Arne said softly. “We need samples.” He took a small vial from his belt pouch and filled it with water from the fountain. “Grab some of the oil rub, please?” he asked the others, nodding to the shelves beyond the fountain.

Dia looked at him, rolling her eyes. “This is dumb. We have gone here to kil–“

“Only if we meet resistance.”

“Does the doorman count as resistance?” Dia asked.

“Would you rather he wakes in the middle of things?” Arne found a bottle of the laurel scented oil rub and poured some into a sample vial which he placed in his bag. “There, done. That wasn’t so terrible, was it?”

Dia rolled her eyes and they continued into the deserted dining hall, lit by a few lanterns, and then to the doors of the ritual orgy room.

Toog turned the ring that served as a door handle and opened the door on silent, well-oiled hinges. The orgy room was lit only by a small oil lamp on the altar whose illumination didn’t reach anywhere near the walls. Arne let his fingers brush the small lightstone that had its own pocket in his belt. He was reluctant to make their presence known but if needed, he could throw it in the air, and it would illuminate the scene.

Toog grabbed one of the lantern night lights in the dining hall and walked silently past them into the darkness. At the end of the hall where the antechamber door was, Toog stopped, and Dia and Arne placed themselves in the darkness on either side of the door.

Toog looked at one after the other. Arne gave Toog a nod and silently drew his short swords. Dia held up her hands and indicated the number eight.

Toog opened the lid of the night lantern to admit more light and knocked on the door.

There was deep silence on the other side of the door. Arne didn’t expect anything to happen. He thoroughly expected Dia to be wrong or that it was simply a dormitory for the priests, and they could sneak around without them waking or silently slit their throats. And he suspected he would have to just pick the lock, or they’d have to go around and find a window. After all, what other thing than sleep would a bunch of eight priests of the Family be engaged in in absolute silence in a room where no light shone beneath the door in the darkest part of the night?

The door opened inward.

It was as if the person on the other side had been standing there, in the silence, in the darkness, just waiting for someone to knock so they could open the door calmly.

From where he stood along the wall, Arne couldn’t fully see the opener, but then the man took a step to stand in the doorway and the lantern illuminated him. He was young, handsome, dark-skinned and dressed in the white robe with purple embroideries that the Officiants on the altar dais wore. He smiled gently and patiently at Toog.

“I had a bad dream again!” Toog stated and took a step back.

The Officiant took a step forward drawing the door closed a little behind him, almost as if to make sure Toog saw as little as possible of the room beyond.

“It was about a monster that killed all the priests!” Toog blurted out in an almost childish voice, that seconds later turned into a small laugh.

Toog took another step back, the Officiant followed… and saw Dia.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Arne took a step forward, ready to end this before it got bad, but before he had a chance of reacting, Dia held up her hands, put a foot behind her as if to brace herself and… There was no warning or anything to see, but the Officiant sucked in a sharp, almost screaming breath and collapsed to the floor in a heap. From inside the room, too, Arne heard the sounds of people falling, heaving gasps escaping when their last breaths exhaled in death.

He looked at Dia and lowered his blades. A very slight, ethereal glow seemed to skirt underneath her dark skin in tentative golden ripples and her green eyes, that shouldn’t be quite as visible in the light from only one lantern, seemed to gleam just an unsettling bit more than they ought to.

Dia marched a few steps into the darkness towards the altar and held out her arms. A split second later, a loud crumbling crack and the sound of rocks tumbling was heard from the altar and the oil lamp on it fell down into a crack and shattered and the oil slid burning over the stone dais.

“Eight dead priests,” Dia just commented. “Enjoy.”

Toog and Arne stared at her for a moment, not sure what to say.

Dia stared at Toog. “A monster killed all the priests… Really?”

Toog just responded with a sputtered laugh and walked into the dark priests’ room, lantern held high to illuminate the walls.

The room was long and fairly narrow. There were sconces along the walls holding unlit oil lamps and there was no furniture. The only adornments were the five animal masks, cat, hawk, kittle, water horse and hyena, hanging on the wall. Except for the round pool occupying the last third of the room, carved into the floor. Steps led into the darkly glinting depths, the water’s smooth surface shining faintly in the light from Toog’s lantern. Along the pool’s circumference, five braziers were carved into the stone, each filled with what looked like lamp oil and decorated with twigs of laurel leaves.

Seven people lay dead on the floor, the purple embroidered robes of Officiants and priests with red collars who had been keeping an eye on the crowds in the dining room and assisted after the orgies.

They all just lay where they had been standing, in a semicircle before the steps down to the pool at the end of the room. Arne flipped one of them over. There were no discernible wounds on them, though the corpses looked oddly exhausted with sunken eyes and slightly sagging skin.

He looked around in the room while Toog bent down, put the lantern on the floor and patted one of the officiants down.

The room was as bare at a second glance as it had been at first. It seemed the eight people in the room had simply stood in a semicircle before the pool in the floor. Silently. In the dark.

Arne shook his head in disbelief. It was strange. Unnervingly so, although he was secretly still too rattled after having seen their ‘employer’ dine to really feel that this compared. On the ‘shit, shit, shit, I’m going to die’-scale, this was a kind five out of twelve. He looked from the corpses to the masks to the pool. A ripple spread out, like when a fish shot to the surface from below to snatch an insect before disappearing into the depths again.

He froze for a second, memories of the ceiling climbing creature that had pressed him into service jumping to the forefront and he silently cursed himself in his mind for not having learned from the experience. He took a step back. Slowly. Took the lantern from the floor which gave him Toog’s attention. Dia was trying on the cat mask and wasn’t paying attention as far as he could see out of the corner of his eye. He took another step back, stepping over a corpse so his path to the door was free.

Toog rose, looking at him. Dia noticed. Hating that he had to do it, Arne angled the light from the lantern upwards to illuminate the high, vaulted ceiling above the pool.

It sat there, enormous, spread out, flat, like a mix of a giant spider and an octopus clinging to a ship’s side. The dark, hideous thing occupied the entire half of the room’s ceiling and all along its far too numerous arms or tendrils and strange shapeless central mass were eyes. Far too many eyes, shining surfaces that moved and tracked the three below it, pulsing slightly and seeming like a hundred squirming boils. Randomly, they blinked and moved, and above the pool, Arne saw a sort of face, like a strange fleshy bag with a maw and three enormous silver and orange eyes with square, yellow-rimmed pupils turned to stare at them. A tiny drop of mucousy drool left the maw and dripped down to make a ripple in the pool below.

Arne, surprised his body still took commands, took another slow step backwards, then another. And then Dia, still wearing the cat mask, raised her arms and attacked.

“Run!” Toog shouted and did exactly that, pushing past Arne with astounding celerity.

Arne spun around and made for the door, fully prepare to go back later when the horror dust settled and pick Dia's corpse up. He made it into the orgy hall and saw Dia round the corner just a second before the black, awful tentacles lashed into view from above the doorframe, tearing across Dia's back to make her scream, as the momentum carried her forward.

Ahead, in the corridor before the orgy hall, he saw that the potted plants had burst into flames for some reason he didn’t have time to ponder with a dark horror in hot pursuit. He ran, vaulting across one of the large tables to get to the side of the room, jumped off the bench and ran on. Hopefully, the pustuled eyes would follow Dia who was somewhere in the dining hall, closer to it.

When the voice hit him, it felt like a physical blow. Like when you have the wind knocked out of you and struggle to breathe, while your entire body is flooded with the need to flee.

“BOW DOWN AND BE DEVOURED, PETTY FLESH CHILDREN! WE WERE OLD WHEN THE ELVES WERE YOUNG!”

Arne felt the reverberations of the voice in his body, even though he wasn’t sure it was actually spoken aloud, as he struggled to move his suddenly sluggish body, caught immovable between a bench and the wall. Somewhere in the large room he felt the others fight – to move, to injure, to escape, he didn’t know – and he saw a flash of light ahead.

Somewhere close, he felt dark movement in the air, and a heavy clay pot with a large burning palm tree sailed past, narrowly missing his shoulder, and smashed on the wall close by in a shower of sparks that finally broke the strange trance that held him.

Toog sped towards the giggle-grope fountain up ahead, and Arne heard a shout of, “Help! Help! There’s a tentacle monster in the dining room and it killed all the priests…” as he fought to scoot out of range of the thing, rolling under the long table and getting on his hands and knees to shimmy away as quickly as he could. The table above him suddenly vanished, thrown into the air, and impacted on a wall far away in the dark room, and he had never before in his life felt this much like prey, helpless to do anything but flee for his life.

So, he got to his feet and sprinted.

The way to the giggle-grope fountain was clear, although it was far too far away, but he sped up, until the creature suddenly impacted with the wall to his right, landing with a wet *thunk* like an enormous, soggy dishrag that had begun to rot. Some of its shapeless tentacles shot out, pushing one of the long tables in front of him.

Desperately, Arne jumped onto a bench and another tabletop, running along it, as he felt the creature throw itself onto the table it had thrown. In a split-second decision, he ran towards it, narrowly missing a tentacle and dove under the table the horror was sitting on.

A tentacle shot under the table and hit him over the shoulder, tearing through his jacket and leaving a trail down his side that screamed in agony although he didn’t stop to consider what had happened. The planks of the table above him creaked and he rolled to the side under a bench, gained his footing again and ran. He didn’t look back when he crossed the threshold into the corridor, and in a few leaps and bounds he had passed the giggle-grope fountain, and came out into the atrium, immediately turning the corner to break the creature’s line of sight.

He heard screaming off to the side of the entrance, where Toog had said the dormitory was, and Dia was standing in the doorway out to the dark street, cat mask askew, catching her breath but visibly skittish and ready to run again. Several people, clearly dishevelled from sleep, came running from the dormitory as Arne ran to the door and pulled Dia with him. He glanced behind him but didn’t see the creature.

The newly awoken Family cultists were milling around in the atrium, and above it all, he could hear Toog still shouting, “Help! There’s a tentacle monster. It killed all the priests. And threw a potted plant at me. Help!”

Breath fast in his chest, he grabbed Dia's arm. “Mask off!” he insisted.

“Says mask-boy!” she snapped back, still trying to catch her breath.

“Now!” Arne said in a low tone of voice, dragging her along with him, head down, hood up. She resisted for a few seconds, turning her head to look back into the temple, when a voice full of hope sounded from inside, “There’s an Officiant!”

“Shit!” Dia said, and quickly followed him down the street and around the corner before the sleepy, panicked cultists could follow.

o-0-o

They had hurried to their meeting place in the park and Arne had removed his mask and taken the cat mask from Dia and put it in a cloth bag he carried before she threw it out. Then they went their separate ways, but Arne returned to the temple in the early morning, after the worst of the panic had died down. The city watchers, that had been called when the screams of the Family faithful woke the neighbourhood, had gone again.

Slowly, he made his way into the building, keeping to the shadows, just to see if anything stirred there. It seemed as if the building was deserted, although he knew there were people in the dormitory still. He carefully made his way to the dining hall, footfalls silent, stopping to listen every few steps. The dining hall was partially illuminated by the few wall lamps that had remained unbroken by the creature during his mad dash for survival.

Arne listened, and when everything was still and unmoving, he threw the lightstone into the air where it hovered and spread its clear bluish white light over the scene of destruction. The door to the orgy room was closed. He looked at it for a while, all senses on high alert, but nothing happened. Finally, he called the lightstone back, and it fell in defiance of gravity to his hand.

These last few days, there had been a lot of horror in his otherwise well organised and strictly controlled life. The last few days had been a whirlwind of fear, pain and chaos.

He hadn’t come back here to face the creature again. He couldn’t hurt it. It would be foolish. But seeing the enormous tables and sturdy benches scattered around the hall like toys after a toddler’s tantrum gave him a kind of calmness of mind for a moment. It had happened. He had escaped it.

Maybe it couldn’t be hurt, but at least he could outrun it. More or less. The place where it had hit him down his side burned and smarted with every breath, though he felt no blood seep through his clothes under the leather armour.

Arne turned on his heel and left, wondering how much energy he had contributed through the orgies to the horror that attacked them.