“Not even the weirdest type of Sanctum.” She stalked forward, hardly keeping the giddy joy from her voice. The floor squelched underfoot and tried to suck down on her boots as she walked. “Don’t tarry behind. Keep your sprite close.”

A mouth grew atop a meaty stalk and tried to bite through her boot’s heel. She stepped on it and tiny teeth crunched.

Vergil grumbled and swung his sword at some of the larger fleshy growths to little effect. They pulled back into the wall and grew sneering faces. Some mirrored their own.

Incredible how the helmet kept the boy animate and moving. A testament to the skill of whoever had made it and enchanted it, for whatever inane purpose something like that would have served.

“Save your strength, ghost,” she suggested. “You’ll get enough to fight later.”

Sil’s sprite illuminated more of the horrors ahead. Drooping, wax-like corpses extended feeble hands towards them. She burned some and they retreated into the wall, hissing in pain.

“Why?” Sil asked.

“Why what?”

“Just… why?”

“A Vitalis needs biomass. Blood especially. Best way to store blood is in living tissue. Best way to build a self-defending Sanctum is, well, you see it. There’s a reason Catharina burned most of the Vitalises at the dawn of the empire.”

Sil sneered at this. “She’s missed one.”

“More than. Most surviving ones have laid down old practices. This one looks to be a fundamentalist.”

It got noisy when the tunnel opened into a large, barely lit cavern. Bodies covered the walls—were the walls—and they all spoke in a cacophony of mimicked languages. Vestigial reactions likely. Most had been remade in some fashion, broken down, sewn back up, explored, and then emptied of whatever made them valuable.

Standard practice for a Vitalis and their unceasing quest for understanding the leverages of life. This one looked to have gone far off the shores of sanity.

Eyeballs of various shapes and sizes provided strange luminescence, a yellowish light that made everything beyond the sprite all the more grotesque.

“Hello,” she called out. “I’m looking for the master of this place.” Theatrics. Chances of anyone actively listening were nearly null.

One of the corpses ripped itself out of the wall and charged them, exposed viscera clinging to bones too mismatched to be all its own. Self-defence reaction to intruders in the domain.

She allowed it to cover half the distance separating them before she turned it into a bonfire. It stumbled with the impact of the first fireball, took a few more steps forward, and finally collapsed. It screeched as it burned to ashes.

And others answered it.

“Best be ready. They’ll come from all sides. Keep your barriers up.”

She didn’t need to check that Sil obeyed her instruction. Vergil, however, rushed forward, sword out, to meet the first of the assaulting creatures. Should have probably stuck him in one of Sil’s protective cages. Would be a shame to waste him in here.

In one strike, he bisected the leading chimera, neck to groin, his sword cutting all the way down to the rock with a dull clang.

Tallah whistled in appreciation.

Well, that was something, Christina echoed her amazement in the back of her mind. They knew the ghost in the helmet was strong, but this was far above expectation. She watched the boy swoop under the scything strike of another beast, flash his sword in a bloody arc, and cut two of the monsters in half at the waist.

The draw he enacted on her was nearly painful in its intensity. Well, best not let him fight alone then.

Twin heat lances burst apart several of the chimeras crowding ahead. They came from the walls, ripping out of their meaty cocoons to trail flapping muscles and rope-like sinews like a puppeteer's strings. Most were only armed with jutting spears of bone, their own limbs fashioned into weapons.

She snapped her fingers and a constellation of fireflies appeared to orbit her head. Another snap and they all loosed to pop wherever they could dig into the advancing corpses. Less effective than with the rats. Small explosions ripped throats and ribs apart but did little to deter the advance.

“Behind you!” Sil called out from the mouth of the tunnel where she’d hunkered down.

Tallah turned and launched a fireball on a creature that had come out straight from the floor itself. The blast turned its upper half into cinders, but its feet kept carrying it forward, screeching as it burned and flailed its deadly limbs at her. She had to hit it again, harder, to finally see it fall.

More encircled her. Vergil fought a cluster of them, stepping over pieces he chopped off, kicking, punching, slashing at everything that came within his range. Impressive as he was, he’d be overrun soon. Bodies crowded in the background, spilling out of side passages, climbing one over the other to reach them.

It was getting hard to focus now that they were within her killing range. Rot. Burning hair and charring meat. Keening cries of pain, all too human in their suffering. She closed herself up to them or risk faltering in her determination.

This close, she needed to defend with both sword and flame, constantly moving back towards the tunnel. Their sheer numbers were enough to overrun her and the boy at this rate.

A bit of an overreaction to only three people wandering in, Christina suggested with amusement. I’m swapping with Bianca until you find the master of the place.

I’m ready, Bianca confirmed.

Tallah reached out a tether and yanked Vergil back from the fray, sailing him above the mass of bodies. Even before he landed, she heaved forward with a kinetic push. Her back burned with the effort as Bianca took over for a heartbeat to handle the complex calculations of force that she needed.

Brace, the ghost whispered. It will hurt.

It did. A second heave of power felt like being ripped in two by the colliding forces she commanded, at the same time stretched out and compressed as Bianca wove her tethers and fulcrums.

“Barriers up!” Tallah called back as she prepared a real hit.

In a moment Sil’s barriers separated them from the advancing horde, wedged into the gap Bianca’s efforts had created. Only then did she realise they’d been pushed against the wall, cornered into the small cone of light the sprite offered.

Bastard things, she complained. The ghost ignored this as she took over again for the complex calculations she needed.

Bianca pushed out again, beyond the barriers. They did not stop advancing, instead crushing the ones in front between the mass behind and the invisible walls. Cracks began forming and Sil yelped with the effort of maintaining the separation.

This had clustered the beasts together enough.

Tallah wove a line of flame orbs above their heads, putting as much strength into each as she dared without burning all the air from the room. Each new layer of fire compacted the one beneath, made the flames burn brighter. Hotter.

The air sizzled with the heat. The wall behind them fried and screeched.

“Drop the barrier,” she ordered.

Sil did and the flames shot outward, guided by Tallah’s hands, at the speed of her thoughts. They cut straight through corpses, melted flesh off bones, disintegrated heads and limbs.

At first a fanning strike to gain space. The first line of horrors died without screams as the fire melted them down to blackened stumps. She brought the orbs around, replenished their heat, and scythed through those that followed. She took a deep breath of acrid, overheated air, and held it as she kept slaying. Whatever escaped her flames was brought down by Vergil as he stalked behind her line of devastation to kill whatever she missed. If he was bothered by the heat, she couldn’t say.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Ten heartbeats. Twenty. Thirty. She let out the breath, gasped for a second and choked on the noxious fumes.

Smouldering corpses littered the cavern floor. Those farthest back retreated into the tunnel mouths, running screaming. Vergil chased and cut down some of them.

Sil rushed to her side and handed over a vial of aerum. The serum acted quickly to replace the air she couldn’t draw in.

On the far side of the room Vergil collapsed, the enchantment’s strength waning.

Burnout, Tallah realised with a jolt. Barely able to move, she signalled for Sil to take the siphon from her. The healer obliged and staggered with the draw. It felt like a boulder shifting off her own shoulders. Vergil trotted back to them.

With some help from Sil, they moved out into one of the tunnels and away from the still burning pyres of corpses, where the smoke was thinnest.

“That wasn’t fun,” Sil quipped and let out a tired sigh. “So many bodies. How?”

Tallah huffed and pitched forward, hands on knees, trying to regain some semblance of coherence. She’d burned herself out. Used too much illum. Her limiters had flashed hot and at least a couple of them had cracked into uselessness. Channelling would be less controllable for now, but in here she felt that might be of help.

I had fun, Bianca said and radiated her pleasure. Should do that more.

Get buggered.

Before she could ask for nettle dust, Sil already had a bag in hand and offered up. She accepted it gratefully.

One inhalation of the fine powder cleared up the dizziness accompanying a near total illum depletion. A second lungful opened her up to more power and strength steadily returned as they cowered behind two layers of protective barriers.

“Better?” Sil asked.

“Much. Thank you. Had to exert myself.”

Sil grumbled, her eyes following the path forward. “There’s something waiting ahead. Voices.”

“Sounds like moans.”

“Clearer than the others so far. More chimeras?”

Tallah shook her head.

“Vitalises are loathe to waste biomass. I’ve just burned away some dozens ready-made bodies and crippled a lot more. Whoever’s master of this place won’t want to throw more meat at us unless they’re certain they’ll kill me. Moving forward, I’d worry about poison. Or walls closing in to suffocate us.” She grimaced and gestured to the curious stalks wriggling on the wall. “All of this is the Vitalis. They know we’re here.” She pointed to a baleful yellow eye on a wall. “They know exactly where we are.”

“So… why not kill us?” Sil dipped a hand into a rend and pulled out some purgers and stored the vials in her satchel.

“Wounded ego I’d guess. If I make more of a nuisance of myself, they’ll want to deal with me personally.” She straightened and grinned. “Let’s see what else I can break in here.”

She fixed the mask over her eyes.

The way forward was guarded beyond the first bend in the tunnel. Two large chimeras loomed ahead and died to Vergil’s sword. Tallah took the time to restore her illum reserves while the boy made himself useful.

At the end they emerged into a circular room, well-lit by captive sprites. Maybe thirty paces across. Terrifying.

Sil took one look at the content, turned around, and was violently sick outside the threshold.

Rows upon rows of bodies. Living. Female. Maimed to fit.

“A breeding room,” Tallah surmised on a single look. Aelir. Elend. Humans. Mostly humans.

All pregnant in some stage. Cradles of bone held each limbless body with a myriad of horrid tubes dug into the flesh. Some were headless. Most may as well have been under the mass of feeding tubes attached to their faces. Only terrified eyes stared out, unseeing.

“This is precisely why Catharina had them all burned. They run out of easy-to-access bodies, so they start breeding their own.” She spat and shook her head. A fundamentalist for certain. Either extremely old or stupidly powerful to flaunt their strength like this.

Vergil paced the room, the ghost possessing him quieted down to a low, angry growl. Even that mad thing couldn’t accept this atrocity.

Sil took another shaking look inside, shivered violently with revulsion, and looked to her.

“I aim to kill them,” Tallah said before the healer found her voice. “Any objection.”

A nervous shake of the head answered her. “I don’t…” Sil swallowed the lump in her throat, dry heaved and turned around. “I don’t know how they could be healed. Best put them out of this misery.”

If this wouldn’t bring out the master of the place, nothing would. A breeding room took years to create, set up, and especially to populate. Losing one was a blow no Vitalis would accept sanguinely.

She stepped into its centre and asked for Christina’s aid.

What do you need?

A Titan’s Punishment would kill everything in the room without suffering. She could burn them, but there was already too much pain in here. In the mask’s sight, the illum of the room was blood-red, stagnating in its sickness, already past the threshold of decay.

“Get out,” she growled.

The boy retreated out the door, not even looking back. He didn’t want to be in there anymore than Sil did.

She would’ve preferred keeping the Titan as an available weapon for dealing with whoever it was that controlled the place, but this needed it more. A breeding room in this day and age, and a well-stocked one too? The ugly things that grew where nobody looked.

Desperate eyes stared at her as she took position in the centre of the room, right beneath the surgical white light of the glow globes. Some of the victims raised feeble stumps at her.

Not only a well-stocked one, but also spectacularly cruel. What diseased mind the Vitalis needed to even dream up something like that?

I’m ready, Christina offered. She radiated her own displeasure.

“You got their attention. More are coming,” Sil called from the hallway. “Boy’s holding them off for now.”

Tallah raised a hand and surrendered control to Christina. A Titan’s Punishment was a complicated devourer, and she didn’t trust herself enough with the power to cast it on her own. Lightning discharged off her body, concentric lines of power spreading out from her feet, scorching the living floor. Electricity buzzed in her chest, the charge steadily building up, louder and louder in her ears. Her teeth vibrated.

Christina unleashed it without warning, a blinding white bolt of lightning that struck the ceiling a heartbeat later. Without control it would have punched right up through the rock. Instead, the ghost curbed the power, sent it spilling back down the walls to spear everybody as it raced back to her, the grounding anchor. She allowed it in and guided it back out to make sure everything in the room was dead.

It lasted for shorter than a breath. When she dispelled the weave, nothing was left of the monstrosity but burnt-out corpses, shattered cradles, and bare scorched rock. Darkness crashed in when her glow disappeared.

Outside, Vergil perched atop a mound of corpses, breaking one apart with his own hands. In the narrow corridor leading in they couldn’t corner him. He held the passage. Sil’s nose bled with the effort of feeding him illum.

“I think that’s the last,” the healer said as she dropped her barrier. “May the Goddess guide these souls away from here.”

“May she do just that. Come. We’re going to keep on breaking things until we get our host’s full attention.”

“The wall was screeching while you were in there. I think you have it all.”

“Good. I’ll break some things just for enjoyment then.”

Sil blew her bloody nose on the hem of her dress and then inhaled nettle dust. The draw of the helmet was hard on Tallah herself, let alone on a healer, but Sil seemed to manage it well enough.

“I can take the siphon back now.”

“No need. I can handle him.”

“Suit yourself.”

She cut a bloody path through the Sanctum. The place beggared the imagination with its size. Laboratories with pristine glass instruments, used for unspeakable things.

They’re well connected, Christina mused. I don’t see a Vitalis leaving this place to go shopping in Valen. Must have some thralls doing the dirty work.

“What did you say you go out of the boy’s head? About this place, I mean.” Tallah asked as she set another room aflame. She had to shout over the screeching of the walls and the dying wailing of creatures burning to death inside.

“He saw people coming and going. Someone brought prisoners to the vermen and handed them over. There’s a whole operation in here.”

“Fancy that. Vermen being paid. If I were still in the Guard, I’d make it a personal mission find whoever was doing the selling.”

Holding cages, empty and filled, all burned to ash.

Whatever glass she found, she turned to slag. Glass remained bloody expensive south of Aztroa. Let them try and find more to replace the expensive apparatus.

Some sort of shrine dedicated to Ort and his reaping. She took special pleasure in destroying it.

In a few bells’ time she must’ve ruined decades of work for the master of the place. Now she began finding passages sealed tight against her intrusion, grown bone and meat barring her way.

“And here’s our invitation,” she crooned as they were led.

“Into a trap, you mean.”

She shrugged, “I doubt they want to throw more bodies at me. So far, I’ve left a pretty good trail of gore behind.”

Vergil was crimson and stank at her side. Blood and other gross fluids stained his conjured-up glass armour. He’d been fighting ceaselessly since they came down and nothing seemed to even faze the mad ghost of the helmet. He’d picked up some severed arm from somewhere, fashioned into a bone sword, and carried it like some gruesome sickle.

For now, he was proving his worth and Tallah did not like it one bit. Her teeth itched at the good fortune that had brought him in her path. Something to ponder on for later.

They descended a narrow flight of stairs going deeper still underground. The air down was cooler than it had been atop, but the stench of death was worse.