“You should have let him die,” the Knight of the Beast told her, his eyes squinting behind his horned helm. A lantern’s glow reflected on his plate armor’s steel. “You made a mistake.”

Marianne ignored him, as she and a dozen armored warriors searched the beach of rocks that had once been Verney Castle. Her messenger bat had reached its destination and allowed a warband of the Knights of the Beast to answer her call. This military order, bound to Horaios’ Dark Lord Hagith, specialized in hunting and slaying monsters, patrolling tunnels to protect trade, and studying dangerous creatures. They were professionals, and immediately set out to clean the fortress’ wreckage in search of clues.

They had upturned most stones, finding the crushed remains of burned clones or broken alchemical tools. Precious little evidence had survived the castle’s destruction, but inquisitors were nothing if not thorough. The remains of Shelley’s lab were compiled for psychometry analysis, while specialized black warhounds memorized noteworthy smells.

They had found no trace of the black blood or of the monster it had summoned.

No signs of Bertrand either.

If that thing is still Bertrand, Marianne thought grimly.

The Knights’ captain continued scolding her. “By prioritizing the life of a servant over the greater good, you not only allowed a dangerous cultist to escape, but also let him summon a dangerous eldritch entity in imperial territory. Worse, you failed to finish off your vampire before he could transform into an abomination. Hundreds might die because of your weakness—”

“With all due respect, sir,” Marianne interrupted him with a glare, as she turned a stone to reveal the crushed hand of a Sarah Dumont clone, “fuck you.”

A few knights looked in their direction, while their captain’s eyes peered at Marianne through his helmet’s visor.

“Bertrand was not only my servant, but a friend and companion. Perhaps you consider it alright to abandon your own allies to their death, but I do not.” Marianne’s tone turned even more icy as she continued. “I acted to the best of my abilities in a situation that your order should have dealt with.”

“Abilities that were found lacking,” the captain replied.

“You let a cultist act in your territory. Were it not for my investigation and my retainer’s efforts, you would still be in the dark about Shelley’s activities. If you had done your job and correctly surveyed the region, I wouldn’t even be here.”

The captain grunted. “I will admit our patrols failed to pick up on suspicious activities, but you should still have followed proper procedure, joined us at the nearest station, and then we would have assaulted the castle. Going in alone with your retainer was madness.”

“Shelley would have escaped anyway, with no blood sample to track him down.” Bertrand’s loss had made her deeply furious, as did her failure to catch the cultist. If not for her need to report the truth to competent authorities in case she perished on the job and her carriage's destruction, Marianne wouldn’t have waited for these reinforcements at all.

“Maybe. Or maybe your early interference caused the premature summoning of whatever creature you saw. And my point stands, you should have prioritized the cultist over saving your retainer. Some people are simply too dangerous to live.” The knight prepared to argue further, when one of his alchemists approached the rocky shore. “Squire József?”

“Captain Léopold, Lady Reynard,” the alchemist made a military salute, fist against his chest. “We finished analyzing the suspect’s blood sample.”

“Did you find anything?” Marianne asked. She had tried to preserve the blood she took from Shelley the best she could, but most of it had dried before the Knights arrived.

“I am the one asking questions here,” Captain Léopold said with annoyance. Marianne wondered if he was simply unhappy with his job in general; this area was one of Horaios’ most remote, and not the most prestigious of assignments. “Report, József.”

The alchemist offered a sharp nod. “The cultist is almost certainly a mutant lycanthrope, sir. We found traces of a modified Beast Plague, inoculated during infancy. It’s possible Aleksander Verney got his hands on a sample and modified it to include rat genes.”

The Beast Plague. When the Dark Lords last came to blows, Horaios’ master Hagith had his biomancers create this biological weapon to transform humans into hybrid monsters susceptible to an animancer’s mental influence.

“What was the point?” Captain Léopold asked his subordinate.

“Rats are intelligent but weak-willed creatures, pliable but capable of complex tasks,” the alchemist theorized. “Exposure to the Beast Plague usually results in the victim losing higher intelligence and self-control; while this wererat was not as powerful as a werewolf, he clearly kept most of his human intelligence. Enough to run a lab.”

And since Shelley had been in his master’s employ while an infant… Marianne tried not to think too hard about the ghastly implications. Whatever his origin, he is a threat to the empire now, she thought.

“And the blood trackers?” Captain Léopold asked.

“We are synthesizing one as we speak,” the biomancer replied. “We have enough blood for two, maybe three.”

“I would like to have one,” Marianne asked. She had sworn to hunt the beast, and she would deliver. Besides the danger he posed, maybe Shelley held the keys to returning Bertrand to normal.

“Certainly not,” the captain replied. “Hunting monsters is our order’s prerogative.”

Marianne frowned. “Fighting dangerous spellcasters is the Knights of the Tome’s duty.”

“True, and we will ask for the order’s support… but you are not a Knight of the Tome.” The captain shrugged. “We thank you for your assistance, but it is no longer necessary.”

“I do not work for you,” Marianne pointed out, struggling to keep her calm. The sheer ingratitude and condescension got on her nerves. “Lord Och asked me to get to the bottom of the matter, and I will.”

“You are free to pursue your hunt, but not with our trackers.”

“I brought the blood needed to make them.” By now the other knights all looked at their argument, though few showed it. “And Bertrand?”

“He will be caught alive, if possible.”

His tone made Marianne clench her fists. “Do you truly want to bring Lord Och’s wrath on your head?”

“I do not answer to him.” Léopold’s eyes gleamed with scorn beneath his helmet. “A case like this shouldn’t be entrusted to a noble dilettante and husband killer.”

Marianne’s cheeks turned red. So that was what it was all about, she realized. I knew his accent sounded Saklasian. He must have studied at the officers’ academy too. “You knew Jérôme.”

“He was ten times the man you were… or would have been, if you were a man.” The captain glanced at her rapier. “And you killed him over a sword.”

“It was an accident,” Marianne said while clenching her teeth.

“Then why did you run away and seek Lord Och’s protection?” Léopold shrugged, uninterested in her answer. “He must have loved you a lot to let you win.”

“You’re wrong. I was a better swordswoman than he ever was.” Even Bertrand had called her a saint of blades; to the point where she had surpassed him in spite of his centuries of experience. “And that is why I asked for a duel.”

Her Soulbound rapier was her heritage as a Reynard, and though her father had wanted Jérôme to wield it, she could never bring herself to surrender it to someone who couldn’t best her at swordplay.

Even if she had loved that someone.

“I won fair and square,” Marianne said. “I regret Jérôme’s death, more than you could possibly know… but I don’t regret winning that duel.”

“Regret all you want, he’s dead and you live unpunished. I suppose you can add your retainer to the list of your victims—”

Captain Léopold froze, as the tip of Marianne’s rapier stopped within an inch of his left eye. Her movement had been so swift, that she could have slain the man before he even reacted.

“You won’t finish that sentence,” Marianne warned coldly. The noblewoman noticed the other knights raise their spears at her, but she ignored them. “One way or another.”

The air grew cold and tense, as the captain looked at her sword without a word. Neither Marianne nor the knight backed down, and a fight seemed almost inevitable.

Wait, she thought, as a heavy presence hovered over the shore. The sound of crashing waves grew dimmer, as if the Lightless Ocean itself receded. It’s not… it’s something else.

Her psychic sight noticed an invisible force manifesting among the rocks, as overwhelming as the tide. She felt the taste of rotting flesh on her palate, smelled rot in the air. It was the stench of inevitable death.

The Knights around her immediately threw down their weapons and kneeled. Marianne imitated them. She recognized the presence from her childhood, the few times other Dark Lords visited the empress in her Domain of Saklas.

“My, my, what a mess.” The voice was deep and jovial, closer to a friendly merchant than a powerful archmage. “If you wish to fight, we have arenas.”

The Dark Lord Hagith manifested on the shore in a bright silver flash. When Marianne’s eyes recovered, the ruler of the Domain of Horaios floated in front of her and captain Léopold, overshadowing them both.

The tallest among the Dark Lords, Hagith reached almost as high as two meters and a half, his body so obese that he looked more like a mountain of stitched, putrescent flesh rather than a man; to the point where Marianne couldn’t even see his nose. Thick string wires prevented his hairless skin from falling apart due to overstretching, and kept a second, colossal mouth on his belly closed. His eyes were entirely black, without an iris or pupil, and he wore naught but oversized breeches.

He was not physically present though. His body looked as ephemeral as a ghost, a silver cord growing out of his chest and vanishing into the ether. Marianne wondered what spell he used; her surprise must have shown on her face, for the Dark Lord gave her an answer.

“Astral projection, fair maiden.” The specter moved his hand to his mouth and chewed, as if he was eating something invisible. In all likelihood, the Dark Lord contacted her over dinner. “A spell every mage should master, though few are capable of casting it.”

“My lord.” Captain Léopold lowered his head so low, that his helmet’s horns almost touched the ground. “What owes us the honor of your visit? Has our messenger reached you already?”

“Oh, you sent a messenger?” The Dark Lord caressed his naked paunch in a motion Marianne couldn’t help but find obscene. “No, I have not received any message. I sensed a surge of magical energy coming from this hideous…”

The specter glanced at the castle’s ruins and then at the shore. Only then did he realize that the castle was gone.

“My, this does improve the sea view,” the Dark Lord noted to himself with a chuckle before glancing at Marianne. “Are you the cause of this destruction, milady?”

Marianne hesitated before answering. Of the Dark Lords, Hagith was by far the most popular for organizing grandiose festivities, running gladiatorial tournaments, and supporting farmers in his territory. Hagith preferred to rule with bread and circus rather than an iron boot… though he was just as capable of the latter as his fellows. “Yes and no, Lord Hagith.”

“I would have preferred one or the other,” the Dark Lord replied. “But I have time. Tell me everything, dear. The truth, and nothing but the truth. Starting with who you are.”

Marianne noticed Captain Léopold about to say something, perhaps a slander attempt… but his words died in his throat the moment he looked at the Dark Lord’s second, closed mouth. “I am Marianne Reynard,” she said. “I have been sent by Lord Och to gather information on the Verney family… but I’m not certain that I’m allowed to disclose everything.”

Her response amused Lord Hagith. “Lord Och is far away, and I am here. You would rather risk my wrath than disappoint him?”

“I swore my loyalty to Lord Och,” Marianne replied. She hoped the Dark Lord wouldn’t begrudge her for staying faithful to her employer; he probably expected the same from his own men. “However...”

“Your investigation involves dark secrets about Och’s newest apprentice.” Lord Hagith laughed at Marianne’s surprise. “The empire is a small world and news travels fast between us, Dark Lords. Do not worry, dear. Lord Och and I enjoy a cordial relationship. If I find your answers lacking, I will get them from your master.”

Marianne nodded slowly, and gave the Dark Lord a detailed report while omitting a few details relating to Valdemar. How she had tried to look for information on the Verney at the source, only to discover a ghost hamlet and a cultist operating under the family’s castle. Hagith listened to her words with rapturous attention, his black eyes narrowing when she mentioned the hamlet and the black blood beneath Verney Castle.

“I see,” he said simply. “Léopold? Do you corroborate her tale?”

“We haven’t found any trace of the black blood she mentioned, or of the creature that it summoned,” the captain replied. “But the rest of our findings match Reynard’s story, sir. We are currently preparing to hunt the perpetrator.”

“Do so immediately,” Lord Hagith said with firmness. “This ratling may have failed to summon the Nahemoth once, but we can’t let him live long enough to try again.”

Marianne’s head perked up in surprise. “Nahemoth, my lord?”

“A Nahemoth, dear,” Hagith’s lips pursed, revealing rows of sharp teeth. “Your retainer identified this ghost hamlet’s villagers as Qlippoths; correctly so. But he didn’t know enough about them to understand what you had found. This ‘Vernburg’ was almost certainly a Nahemoth’s demiplane.”

“I…” Marianne gulped, slightly ashamed of her ignorance. “Sir, I… I do not understand much of what you say.”

Hagith observed her with a calculating gaze, before turning at the knight next to her. “Léopold?”

“Yes, my lord?” the captain replied.

“You will provide Lady Reynard with a blood-tracker, your Bestiary, supplies, and a mount.”

Marianne’s heart skipped a beat in surprise. Captain Léopold, though, didn’t sound happy for her. “My Bestiary?” He tried to hide his displeasure, but his voice betrayed his true feelings. “Sir—”

“You will receive another, and Lady Reynard clearly needs a crash course on Qlippoth pest control.” The Dark Lord’s tone remained warm, but brook no dissent. “I will have no quarrel with Lord Och over such a trifling matter, and if she wants to assist in the rat hunt, I shall indulge her.”

“I…” Marianne was at loss for words. She had expected to be sent home, not given assistance. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Then say nothing,” Lord Hagith said with a chuckle. “Another Dark Lord would have accused you of starting trouble or slain you for withholding information, but you have done me a great service in uncovering this sordid mess. You will do me a greater favor by killing that rat. And this black blood bit, it’s truly fascinating… Yes, we will take your retainer alive. We must study him.”

Marianne’s hope immediately turned to horror. “My lord, I… he’s a friend, and my retainer.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Lord Hagith waved a hand at her dismissively. “If he dies, you will be compensated for your loss.”

Marianne wanted to argue further, but bit her tongue. The man was generous when it cost him little, but he clearly put his interests first. If she were to save Bertrand, it would be by capturing Shelley or through Lord Och’s influence.

And the way he spoke of this black blood… Marianne had aroused a dreadful curiosity in this archmage, and feared what might come out of it.

There was not a moment to waste.

Captain Léopold was true to his master’s orders, affording Marianne with everything she needed. Marianne decided to hunt on her own though, separate from the Knights, and he didn’t stop her. If anything, she would have been happy never to see Léopold again.

That behavior was why she had fled from Saklas. Most people she knew despised her now, and the reasons that had driven her to duel Jérôme in the first place remained. Nothing had changed. Nothing would change.

Riding on a giant beetle’s back as it ran along the Lightless Ocean’s shore, Marianne observed the blood-tracker. Taking the shape of a red crystal of fossilized blood, the device shone with a crimson glow depending on the direction she pointed it at. It hadn’t taken her long to identify Shelley’s most likely destination.

Paraplex, she thought. He’s going to Paraplex.

Shelley couldn’t use the Earthmouth portals; now that the Knights had his blood, if he tried he would be immediately detected and caught. He would use longer tunnels. Though the cultist had a heavy lead on her, Marianne might beat him to the Domain thanks to this. And her vampire bats would inform Lord Och long before either of them reached Paraplex.

But Marianne knew better than to underestimate Shelley. Otherworldly forces supported him, and they might rival even the Dark Lords in power.

Marianne glanced at the grimoire in her supply bag. As it turned out, ‘Bestiaries’ were hefty grimoires distributed to the Knights of the Beasts’ captains, compiling detailed information on monsters they might be expected to fight. Léopold’s book numbered thousands of pages, to the point it might have been heavier than stone.

The information within was confidential, and only meant for high-ranking members of the Knights of the Beast. No wonder Léopold had been so displeased about giving up his own, to a non-member no less.

When her beetle took a pause to drink, Marianne took a moment to check the information on the Qlippoths. The interdimensional species had a whole chapter dedicated to them in the ‘extraplanar dangers’ subsection. The file opened on the picture of ten orbs connected together by a twisted tree of flesh.

“The Tree of Death,” she read out loud, to better memorize the content. “Flowing from the root of the Nahemoths, who dream the other Qlippoths into existence, the Tree of Death represents the Outer Darkness’ hierarchy.”

Each orb contained the picture of an eldritch creature, some of whom Marianne recognized as beasts who attacked her at the hamlet. “Satoriel, or Facethief,” she read below a picture of the creature which had impersonated Mona. “Second caste… born of envy and jealousy... capable of limited shapeshifting… seeks to steal the life of others, often to the point of self-delusion… easy to identify due to being unable to fully emulate emotions...”

Marianne’s jaw clenched upon recognizing the picture of the slime creature that taunted her about Jérôme in the third caste’s sphere. Called Ghogiel, or Egoid Ooze, the creature was apparently fueled by sloth; it delighted in convincing people to lay down their arms and spiritually waste away, usually through telepathic attacks.

Each Qlippoth was its own brand of horror, growing more and more powerful the higher their caste. The worst of them occupied the tree’s bottom, and the picture itself gave Marianne nausea. A disembodied, monstrous face looked back at her on the grimoire’s pages; a fiery maw surrounded by eyes and swirling tentacles, spitting out the flames of creation. Pictures of the other Qlippoths floated around this monstrosity like fleas around a colossal vampire bat.

“The embodiments of selfishness and solipsism, Nahemoths generate a magical field where their desires are laws, allowing them to spawn lesser Qlippoths into existence,” Marianne read. “While absolute in the Outer Darkness, this ability is limited by the inherent order of our reality. The summoning of a Nahemoth on the material plane instead results in a bounded space-time anomaly where the creature can twist our reality, but not fully control it. A place that is neither the material realm nor the Outer Darkness, but both. A demiplane.”

Or a ghost town where Qlippoths played at being humans. Marianne tried to remember the well at its center, and shuddered as she realized what slept at the bottom.

And the more she read, the more cause for concern.

“Summoning a Nahemoth is an extremely difficult task for all but the most powerful conjurers, and an act of pure madness,” she whispered, her lantern as the only source of light. “Nahemoths are malicious entities that cannot be bound to servitude; at best they can be unleashed as living disasters on unsuspecting populations. Fighting a Nahemoth head-on is a feat worthy of a Dark Lord. If you encounter one, contact the nearest headquarters for immediate reinforcements.”

Most information about fighting these creatures amounted to containing the lesser Qlippoths while conjurers banished the Nahemoth back to its home plane. Thankfully, powerful spells could achieve such a feat; the Bestiary even detailed a procedure to do exactly that, though it was so complex that it gave Marianne a headache from trying to understand it. Only a powerful sorcerer could pull it off, and certainly not without support.

The thing at the well’s bottom had probably been a Nahemoth, true. It checked perfectly.

But according to the Knights’ Bestiary and Lord Hagith’s own words, only an exceptionally powerful conjurer could summon one. Shelley’s knowledge of magic seemed limited to rat-related animancy and alchemy. At no point did the mad cultist try to summon reinforcements during their battle at Verney Castle.

He didn’t summon the Nahemoth, Marianne thought. He was only studying it.

But then who summoned that creature? She looked into the general parts of the chapter, trying to see if the Qlippoths could invade the material plane without a conjurer’s support. She quickly noticed a section that had been recently edited.

“Most scholars theorize that the Outer Darkness is a dimension of pure chaos and festering madness,” Marianne read. “Recent oneiromancy research in Astaphanos suggests instead that the Primordial Dream shared by men, dokkars, and lesser races may be a subsection of the Outer Darkness. It is possible that the collective unconscious evolved as life’s dreamscape, a protective cocoon created by sentient life to protect itself from depredations; this would explain the intimate link between Qlippoths and the emotional spectrum.”

Marianne rarely dreamed, but she shuddered at the idea of something like the false Mona looking at her innermost thoughts. Worse, the Bestiary’s theory begged a very important, and terrible question.

If the Outer Darkness is a dream, Marianne whispered to herself, then who is the dreamer?

The Bestiary’s writer answered her question.

“Oneiromancy researchers suggest that the Qlippoths are the will of a Stranger made manifest,” she read. “The same way the Nightmare of Kazat was created by dreamers perishing in their sleep, the Outer Darkness may be an almighty Stranger’s dreamscape. In this interpretation, the mightiest Nahemoths are no more than the conduits of a larger being's creative impulses. Considering the Primordial Dream might have been unconsciously created by life to protect itself from Qlippothic influence, we must assume that this entity’s desires are antithetical to mankind’s survival. As such, every member of the species found unbound must be executed on the spot.”

Marianne closed the book, considered this information, and then tried to put everything in order. She reviewed every part of her case, and tried to see how it all fit.

The Verney Cult was heavily associated with Qlippoths. A Nahemoth had recreated a copy of Vernburg for a reason Marianne couldn’t fathom, and Shelley clearly cooperated with it. The Qlippoths found in the hamlet also smelled like Valdemar, suggesting a connection.

If the Bestiary’s theory was correct and Qlippoths served a Stranger… then it might have been the creature that the Verney cult worshipped. The entity that had manifested its will through the rune beneath Verney castle. It was its blood that the cult had tried to harvest by creating their unholy grail.

But why clone Sarah Dumont? What made her so important? Because she was the daughter of a human from another world? The Verney had been interested in travelers from this ‘Earth’ according to the False Mona. What made them important?

“They’re not worthy!” Shelley had screamed, when the black blood had consumed both Bertrand and his own rat familiar. “Not worthy!”

It made them worthy.

Everything fell into place, and Marianne’s eyes widened in horror. She searched for a feather and ink among the supplies given to her, and scribbled down a genealogical tree. One far simpler, and far more terrifying than she had thought.

Pierre Dumont and Lavina Verney were Sarah Dumont’s parents; two worlds united through a single bloodline with special powers. One that was worthy of the cult’s greatest honor. One that could survive it.

This accounted for Valdemar’s maternal side.

As for the paternal…

Perhaps the truth is even stranger, Lord Och had told Marianne when she asked for his opinion on Valdemar’s true nature.

Stranger.

The Dark Lord had hinted at the truth, dangling it right under her nose.

“The grail is alive! Alive!”

The red grail. A vessel capable of holding a god’s blood and bind worlds together. One made of bones and flesh, that promised immortality. A living bridge between the cult and their vile deity.

Marianne wrote the bloody rune she had seen below Verney Castle in the place of Valdemar’s father.

“We must assume that this entity’s desires are antithetical to mankind’s survival.”

I pray, for all our sake, Marianne thought grimly, that he took from his mother’s side of the family.