“A giant rat, you say?” The old man smiled with a crooked tooth, his eyes hidden behind bandages and an old musket resting on his thighs. “Haven’t smelled a rat in a while. My cat catches them all.”

“A hooded visitor, maybe?” Marianne asked from atop her giant beetle. The farm was calm and peaceful, with giant snails peacefully grazing moss inside their pens. Their owner lived modestly in a two-floor, hollow stone pillar of a house. There were lights and dancing shadows behind the windows. “Someone who didn’t show his face, traveling to Paraplex?”

The old farmer scratched his white beard as he sank deeper into his rocking chair. Though he appeared calm at first glance, Marianne could see the tension in his fingers. A wrong move and he would reach out for his weapon.

Marianne couldn’t blame him for being suspicious. The closest farm was half an hour away, and these tunnels weren’t frequented; the only light came from the houses or the few lanterns along the road. For all the farmer knew, she might have been a highwaywoman or worse.

“I swear on the Light,” Marianne said. “This... man is a criminal and a murderer. If you know anything—”

“Yes, yes.” The farmer shrugged. “Imperial officials only come to collect taxes or hang poachers around here.”

“I’m not here for either.” She had too many questions to ask Shelley before she could consider a summary execution. “If you do not remember anyone, it is fine. I will be on my way.”

“There is… there was someone.” The farmer stopped playing with his beard and looked over his shoulder, at the iron, decrepit door of his home. “Dear?”

“Yes, Da?” a younger, female voice answered on the other side.

“You said you met a leper while washing clothes at the well?”

“Yes, poor thing!” The woman answered. “All bandages everywhere, wouldn’t even show his face or approach me! Said he was looking for a healer to soothe his pain, so I sent him to Emma and he thanked me!”

“Emma?” Marianne asked.

“The apothecary,” the farmer replied with a sneer. “Closest thing we’ve got to a healer since our last one took a nap in the dirt, though methinks a few of the village’s men pray to her cunt. Her three whelps gotta come from somewhere.”

“I’m sure Werner is the dad!” his daughter answered through the door. “He visits her every day!”

The farmer snorted. “None of the children look the same. Youngest one got fire in the hair, while Werner’s beard is as black as they come.”

Marianne wondered how he knew that detail since he was blind. “When did it happen?” she asked. If the Light had shined on her, she might have finally found a lead on Shelley’s itinerary.

“My dear washes clothes every first day of the week.”

So three days ago? One day after Verney Castle’s collapse, Marianne counted. It could have been Shelley. Considering his inhuman endurance and speed, he wouldn’t need a mount to cross the distance in such a short time. “Can you show me the way to this lady's house?”

The farmer gave her directions with a chuckle—the house with the garden to the left of the road’s second lantern—and Marianne tossed him a coin as she left.

It was easy to notice the lanterns in the ambient darkness, and far more difficult to see the road itself. Most routes from Horaios to Paraplex went through Marianne’s home Domain of Saklas, but thankfully Shelley had taken a less frequented tunnel. Since they were far away from Earthmouths, few people inhabited these pathways; this ‘village’ probably numbered less than forty families dispersed across kilometers.

From their sinuous shape and walls of volcanic rock, the swordswoman suspected that these caves used to be lava tubes and magma chambers in the past. The ceiling was low, and the road would benefit from repairs.

Although her eyes focused on the lanterns’ lights ahead, Marianne’s thoughts turned to another matter. To a revelation and questions she had rehearsed in her head for the last few days, trying to fathom their implication.

Valdemar Verney was a half-Stranger, a living ritual, and cult experiment born to serve a nefarious purpose.

But which one?

Was Valdemar meant to serve as his progenitor’s messenger in Underland? A living gateway for the Qlippoths to enter the material plane? A vessel for the Stranger to possess? Did the Verney purge truly disrupt this entity’s plans, or simply delay them? And most important of all, what was Marianne supposed to do with Valdemar himself?

Captain Léopold’s words came to mind.

Some people are too dangerous to live.

If there was any risk that Valdemar might yet fulfill his intended purpose, even unintentionally…

An inquisitor wouldn’t have hesitated. Though Valdemar was unaware of his heritage, the greater good commanded that he should perish. Every breath this ticking time bomb took might bring the empire closer to a disaster. Marianne simply had to spread the news, and the Knights would burn the last Verney on a pyre; even Lord Och would probably let it happen, if the information became public knowledge. The lich didn’t fear the masses, but other Dark Lords would pressure him into relinquishing his protégé.

Marianne only had to send a single letter, and it would be all over.

And yet… and yet she hesitated.

He looks so human, Marianne thought, as she remembered her short discussions with the last Verney. Even the inquisitors couldn’t discern his true nature. In spite of his origins and difficult life, he didn’t become a monster. He is a dreamer who wants to help people.

By opening a portal to another world.

Marianne couldn’t help but see it in another light now. Is that even his own desire, or his progenitor’s? She wondered. Is this Earth even a world of sunlight, or a trap? Will a portal there lead to a den of horrors hungry for human souls?

It had been nearly twenty years since the Verney purge, and besides his incredible resilience and skill at conjuration Valdemar had yet to cause an incident of any kind. True, he had broken the law, but he hadn’t driven a town to madness or summoned a Nahemoth as far as Marianne knew. Even Lord Och had taken the young conjurer under his wing rather than dissect him, although he certainly suspected his true nature.

Marianne couldn’t make a decision rashly, and some elements still eluded her. The false Mona had mentioned a certain ‘Crétail’ child, and unlike Shelley had shown no knowledge of Valdemar’s name. Maybe she had been lying, but the Qlippoth impersonating her was infamous for getting too much into character according to Léopold’s Bestiary.

I have uncovered a piece of the puzzle, but many more remain hidden, Marianne thought as she had her beetle turn left after the second lantern on her path. And only Shelley might answer my questions.

Emma’s house was located deep in a dead-end cavity, far enough from the road that Marianne thought she had taken the wrong turn at first. Her beetle accidentally stomped on a garden of moss, mushrooms, and medicinal plants the noblewoman had seen before in the Institute’s greenhouse. She and her mount approached foreboding stone walls and closed windows. The entrance door was a rusted ruin dug in the cavity itself, so fragile Marianne could probably break the hinges by kicking it.

“Is anyone here?” she called through the door. She didn’t notice any light inside the house, so maybe they were sleeping?

But by now, Marianne had gotten used to bad surprises. She activated her psychic sight, trying to detect the presence of human life inside.

She didn’t sense much. Only the hint of smaller lifeforms, of fungi and maggots. The blood inside the house was cold and dead.

No human life in a home owned by a woman and three children.

Hastily climbing down from her beetle, Marianne unsheathed her rapier. The noblewoman put her ear against the door, and when she didn’t notice any noise on the other side, kicked it open.

It wasn’t even locked.

“Bertrand, cover my—” The words died in Marianne’s throat before she finished her sentence. She had grown used to her retainer having her back on difficult missions, and her mind hadn’t accepted his disappearance yet.

She missed him dearly.

With her lantern in one hand and her sword in the other, Marianne stepped inside the house. She didn’t make a sound as she walked, her heartbeat quickening as she prepared for an ambush.

The house smelled of an unpleasant mix of body odor, cooked meat, and alchemical fumes. The front room’s stonework was crude and lacked paint, with only a mole rat’s skin used as a rug. Humble people, a harsh life, Marianne thought as she examined the ground. Mud covered the rug, as if a group had walked out without bothering to clean up afterward. The footprints weren’t fully dry yet and pointed to the exit.

People had left in a hurry, and Marianne barely missed them.

The noblewoman decided to delay her hunt. She needed to determine the fate of the house’s occupants, and if it was indeed Shelley’s work… Why did the cultist stay days here before moving immediately to Paraplex?

Marianne moved to the next room, a cramped kitchen mixed with a storing room. The table was set for four, the plates as unclean as a latrine. A cauldron rested on a stone oven, still containing some sort of cold meat stew. Marianne moved her lantern over its surface, trying to see what it was made of.

She noticed something buried inside the soup, so heavy it had sunk at the cauldron’s bottom. A bone, perhaps… but it looked too big and round for a mole rat’s rib. A terrible doubt crossed Marianne’s mind, and she used the tip of her rapier to bring the food to the surface.

A severed human head looked back at her from inside the cauldron, the eyes and tongue devoured by maggots.

Marianne would have loved to say that she had grown used to this kind of horror by now, but she struggled against the urge to vomit. The… the head belonged to a middle-aged man, grown bloated from the liquid in which it had been soaked. From the black hair around the cheeks, it probably belonged to this ‘Werner’ the farmer spoke of. He must have visited the apothecary, only to find a dangerous guest in the house.

No, Marianne thought as her eyes briefly wandered to the four plates on the kitchen’s table. Her breath shortened, as the implications became clear. “Please, no…”

The noblewoman moved into the next room, her steps faster, her movements tenser. The bedroom was a mess, the four straw mattresses covered in animal excrements and the remains of half-devoured rats. If Marianne needed any proof that Shelley was behind this, her suspicions were now confirmed. She followed the foul smell in the air to narrow stone stairs leading to an attic. The blood-tracker glowed inside Marianne’s pocket as she climbed the stairs.

Was Shelley still here? Marianne doubted so as she would have sensed him, but she remained on her guard. The odors of herbs and potions mixed with the terrible smell of rot and death as she climbed.

Emma had used her attic as a herbalist lab. It was little more than a kitchen by the Institute’s standards, the furniture so old Marianne wondered how it hadn’t crumbled already, the tools made of rusted iron or bones. Seeds and herbs dried on a shelf next to a small fireplace and a barrel of fertilizer, while bloodied, broken flasks laid on a workbench. The few books Marianne could find had had their pages torn apart, the potion containers shattered and their contents spilled on the floor.

The blood-beacon grew more agitated when the noblewoman examined the alchemical stains on the ground. Marianne soon noticed red spots among the puddles of healing potion and herbal elixirs.

Shelley’s blood.

Had he been trying to experiment on his own blood? For what purpose? To find a way to avoid his pursuers?

And that foul smell…

Mariane turned her lantern, its light revealing a corpse in the fireplace.

Considering the breasts and body shape, she must have been a human woman once… but these were the only hints to her former identity. The corpse had an elongated rat head, the bloodshot eyes consumed by fungi growth. Pustules grew on the furred back, while maggots festered in the slitted throat and stumped tail. The mutant’s dried blood had been arranged into the dreadful shape of Verney Castle’s rune, as if the baleful symbol had gorged itself on the creature’s life. A sentence was carved into the corpse’s forehead, a promise and a warning.

‘We always return to the Blood.’

Marianne had no idea how many seconds she spent gazing at this macabre spectacle, unable to say a word, unable to process what she saw. It wasn’t the sight of the symbol that mesmerized her, or the worrying absence of Emma’s children that paralyzed her muscles. It was everything, all at once.

Marianne’s breath grew shorter and shorter. Am I… am I shaking? she thought as she glanced at her shivering hands. The noblewoman trembled as if she had walked straight into a cold chamber.

First that twisted village, then Bertrand, then Valdemar’s true nature and the implications of his mere existence… Now… Now this…

And the children… Four plates, but no trace of the children.

It… it was too much. Too much all at once.

Marianne sat on the workbench, the lantern’s light dimming in her shaking hands. She closed her eyes, breathing in and out in an attempt to calm herself. The noblewoman attempted to meditate, to clear her mind. She closed herself to the foul smell of this tomb, banishing the memories of the horror she had seen.

Was this how Inquisitor Penhew had felt after the Verney’s purge? Too many dreadful encounters at once, a dive into the darkness leaving the mind exhausted, the spirit wavering?

What was even the point in continuing? Everywhere she went, it was already too late. Maybe dark gods smiled on Shelley, looking over his work with favor. Investigating the Verney case had only resulted in the loss of Bertrand and unleashing more horrors on the world. Maybe fate was already written, and the forces Marianne fought were beyond her ability to overcome.

…

No.

No, she couldn’t give up. Not now, not later. She refused. Not while she could still do something.

Bertrand wasn’t dead, and could still be saved. Valdemar hadn’t become a monster. The children were missing, but hopefully alive. Shelley could be slain.

Marianne hadn’t lost yet. Maybe she would fail to change anything. But at least, she would have tried.

Her heart invigorated with grim determination, the noblewoman opened her eyes and returned to her search. She examined the mutated body, trying to confirm her identity. From the clothes and pouches of herbs around her thorn belt, this was probably Emma herself.

Had Shelley transformed her into a monster through the black blood?

We found traces of a modified Beast Plague, the Knights of the Beast’s alchemist had said, inoculated during infancy.

Marianne glanced at the alchemical tools, and the remnants of Shelley’s blood on the floor.

It’s possible Aleksander Verney got his hands on a sample and modified it to include rat genes.

Shelley had extracted the modified plague that turned him into a monster from his own blood, and used Emma as a test subject. Her aging body couldn’t resist the changes and perished rather than fully transform.

Only a few days, Marianne thought. Shelley had ransacked this house three days ago and probably left last morning. The illness was lethally effective.

The noblewoman returned to the entrance and examined the footprints with more attention. She confirmed that some were smaller than others. The children had survived the inoculation, but considering the plates and the lack of resistance, the plague had given Shelley a hold on their mind. They had become no different than the rats he controlled.

Though the cultist’s cruel acts filled her with loathing, Marianne couldn’t help but ponder the reasons behind them. Was he trying to recruit new minions, to indoctrinate new wererats into the Verney cult? Why hadn’t he done it before then?

And why had he been so… so careless? Shelley had set his last lab on fire, and been careful to keep his activities hidden for years. And now, he had left the corpse of a sacrifice in the open like a morbid trophy. And though he had made a token effort to break the tools behind him and obscure the purpose of his experiments, it struck Marianne as half-assed. A carelessness that bordered on arrogance.

Either Shelley didn’t think that it mattered if people learned of his existence and activities… or he actively wanted word to spread. Perhaps he took joy in finally ‘practicing’ his vile religion after years of hiding in a castle’s crypt and exulted in his newfound mission. But somehow, Marianne suspected a larger scheme was at work.

Even stranger, her blood-tracker still mostly pointed towards Paraplex. Even if Shelley recruited a dozen wererats, they wouldn’t be enough to bypass the Institute’s defenses. If he attempted something so foolhardy as an infiltration or assault, Lord Och would slay him.

Unless…

Unless Shelley didn’t intend to attack the Institute from the front. It would make more sense to stretch its resources thin, or force a desperate situation where Valdemar would have to leave the fortress to help. A terrible disaster that even a Dark Lord would be hard-pressed to deal with...

Marianne’s eyes widened in panic as she put the two and two together, and she rushed outside. She climbed on her riding beetle and fled towards Paraplex as fast as she could, without even alerting the locals to their herbalist’s fate. The danger was too great, and every second wasted would endanger more lives.

Shelley had created a plague, and he had already selected the first carriers.