The air was unnaturally hot in this part of the facility.

The surface of the metal walls was covered in scorch marks, while joints had melted into puddles of black slag on the ground. Ruptured pipes filled the corridors with burning steam and thick particles of dust. Marianne struggled to walk at a steady pace without stumbling on scraps.

How can you call yourself a warrior after falling into such an easy trap? Marianne scolded herself as sweat dripped from her forehead. You lost Valdemar, even Lord Och…

The fact the Dark Lord had been as surprised as she was before the teleportation effect didn’t console Marianne. She should have grabbed Valdemar and made a rush for the exit the moment she noticed electricity in the air. Her failure to act was what Lord Bethor had warned her against.

No more, Marianne swore as she put a hand on the walls, attuning herself to the vibrations through the steel. This maze was nothing compared to the one Lord Bethor had put her through; she would find a way out, rescue Valdemar from whatever force controlled the facility, meet with Lord Och, and leave in short order.

The teleportation effect had sent her to a hidden floor beneath the original facility; her enhanced echolocation detected the gruesome lab full of Derro and human corpses roughly four meters above her head. Thick layers of steel prevented Marianne from opening a way through, but according to the various rooms’ configuration, she suspected the presence of an elevator to the upper levels further ahead.

Her nose also picked up the smell of dry blood soaking the pipes.

In all likelihood, the creature that massacred the Derros lurked in the area. The force controlling the facility obviously intended to get rid of Marianne by throwing her into the fire. The noblewoman was determined to disappoint it by living through the ordeal.

Sheathing her rapier, as it wouldn’t serve her in the narrow corridors, Marianne closed her eyes and advanced slowly. She used the Blood to enhance her senses further, her hearing, touch and smell coordinating to help her visualize the rooms ahead. Marianne attuned herself to the thrumming rhythm of pumps toiling in the background, to the steam coursing through the pipes and the lightning saturating the steel. The disordered, claustrophobic machinery suddenly started to make sense.

This is a body, Marianne realized. A wounded alien body of steel rather than flesh, but a body all the same. The pipes were organized like a bloodstream distributing power to the facility, converging at a central heart of pumps and engines. But beyond the steel, Marianne sensed an organic substance merged with the walls and machinery.

“Marianne?”

Hearing her name spoken startled the noblewoman.

“Marianne,” the familiar voice repeated. “Lord Och? Are you here?”

“Valdemar?” Marianne answered as she opened her eyes. The voice came from the engine room, and it sounded so real...

“Marianne?” The voice turned happier. “I’m over here!”

Following the sound, Marianne traveled towards the facility’s heart. The corridors grew wider as she walked, and so did the air grow searing hot. The thunderous noise of hydraulic devices rumbled across the facility.

Unlike the narrow corridors and small rooms she had visited beforehand, this chamber was nearly a hundred meters in diameter. Five metal bridges extended to join at a vast metal platform hanging above a colossal engine, forming a crossroad connecting various areas of the facility. The whole structure was supported by the strangest steam engine Marianne had seen yet: a vertical turbine digging into a searing hot pit shining like the heart of the world itself.

And Valdemar was waiting for her at the platform’s center. He had removed his spiral mask, his kind face beaming with relief when he saw her. “Marianne, thank the Light you’re alright.”

“I’m relieved to see you safe and sound as well,” the noblewoman asked as she stepped on the bridge, discreetly casting a few defensive spells under her breath while at it. “What happened?”

“I don’t remember much,” he admitted with a contrite face. “I saw a flash of lightning, and when I recovered, I was in another room and neither you nor Lord Och were anywhere to be seen.”

To be seen…

Marianne forced herself to smile. “I was worried for your safety.”

“So was I,” Valdemar replied while returning her expression, before glancing at the ceiling. “Look at this.”

She did so.

Her eyes saw something that her other senses couldn’t. A beautiful landscape of gemstones embedded in steel covering the dome-shaped ceiling, each of them a different color. Rings of emeralds surrounded rubies and sapphires in a complex geometric tapestry of untold refinement and complexity.

“I didn’t know the Derros had any sense of aestheticism,” Marianne said as she calculated the distance between Valdemar and herself. One meter and half, maybe two…

“Me neither. This is true beauty, don’t you think?”

“It is.”

Valdemar turned away from the ceiling to look at her with the warm smile Marianne had grown so fond of. The sight made her sick. “Marianne,” he whispered, “I need your help.”

“It’s not complete, is it?” Marianne asked, feeling the growing urge to scratch her eyes. “Something is missing.”

“These stones are beautiful, but not as much as you,” ‘Valdemar’ said as he stared at her with pale gray eyes. “We can’t leave this place without giving it a finishing touch, don’t you think? It wouldn’t be right.”

Her eyes itched so much that Marianne struggled not to cry. The unpleasantness grew so overwhelming, her mind furiously urged her to scratch her eyelids apart.

So she shot ‘Valdemar’ in the forehead.

A first bone bullet erupted from her index finger before he could react, and a second hit him in the chest. The blow made him flinch, but he remained standing. His body turned as still as a statue while black blood poured out of his wounds.

“You don’t understand how I feel, do you?” Marianne asked as she took a few steps back. “Nor how we humans perceive the world. To you, sight is all there is.”

That was how it had managed to fool her True Sight. It had subtly affected her brain through the Blood, fooling her mind with false stimuli. But her other senses, sharpened through harsh training, had told her the truth.

For a moment, the false Valdemar didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at his chest wound as he touched it with his fingers, his nails sinking into the hole Marianne’s bone bullet had made. He stuck out his tongue and let out a moan of pain as blood dripped on the metal platform.

No, not pain.

Pleasure.

That thing enjoyed getting hurt.

The world around Marianne changed into a grotesque shape as the visual illusion collapsed.

Smashed devices of levers and buttons covered the walls, their surface stained by fleshy secretions and garlands of harvested intestines. Thrumming pipes coiled over the ceiling like a thousand snakes of steel, impaling dozens of Derro corpses intertwined with their steel. The beautiful illusory gemstones transformed into eyes of different colors, encased in a tapestry of pulsating flesh.

This amphitheater was a surgical artist’s masterpiece.

“Are you ready,” the thing asked with Valdemar’s voice, its hands moving to grab his forehead’s skin, “to see true beauty?”

The creature ripped his false skin apart and revealed the gruesome horror underneath.

A powerful telekinetic pulse erupted around it and almost threw Marianne into the charnel pit below. The noblewoman managed to strengthen her psychic defenses enough to resist as she reached the platform’s edge, allowing her to witness the monster in its full glory.

This humanoid creature’s skin was festooned with sharp bone spikes, blood-soaked wounds, and self-inflicted scars. Its stature was skeletally thin and twice as tall as any man, with an impossibly long spine supporting a monstrous torso of exposed organs, glistening veins, and two elongated arms. Black, thorny tendrils coiled around stunted legs barely capable of letting the creature walk.

The monster’s head was split vertically in half, the remains of a humanoid face surrounding a hole of teeth, black blood and fleshy ligaments. A single loathsome red eye peered at Marianne from within its hideous abyss.

“You want my eyes?” Marianne grabbed her revolver. “Come and get them.”

The creature shrieked inside Marianne’s head, its psychic might crashing against her mental wards while its arms lunged at her face.

Channeling the Blood through her legs, Marianne swiftly ran around the creature while shooting it in the chest and head. The iron bullets, empowered by her Soulbound weapon, impacted with the strength of bombshells. They pierced through the creatures and hit the walls behind it, goring fountains of blood into its flesh.

The monster answered with a moan of pleasure, before jettisoning the bone shards embedded in its flesh in all directions.

Grabbing her rapier in her empty hand, Marianne used it to deflect the projectiles while she kept shooting at the monster’s head. Her blade cut through the shards like butter and the strength of her projectiles blasted the creature’s skull to bits. Bits of bones and blood fell off, revealing the red eye at the center.

On a closer look, Marianne realized that it was closer to a crimson sphere of light than a true organ. The black blood coalesced around the orb before solidifying in a gruesome mass of necrotic flesh, the very essence of space twisting around the monster. The massive engine below the platform echoed its power and surged with lightning.

Recognizing the nature of the spell cast, Marianne stayed on the move as space rippled around her. Tears in the fabric of reality appeared all over the platform, sharp blades of crystalized blood cutting through them. One lunged at Marianne’s head and another at her chest. She dodged both, only for a dozen more to target her from all sides.

Her enhanced senses analyzed every tiny movement in her surroundings, calculating the angles of attack and where the blades would strike. Time seemed to slow down as Marianne’s reflexes took over, guiding her body as she gracefully danced around the teleported projectiles.

The creature hit the ground with its hands, a torrent of black blood spreading from its fingertips. Marianne hastily fled towards the bridge as tentacles surged from the expanding pool and tried to grapple her.

Watching her escape to the bridge, the creature let out a roar and vanished in a flash of crimson light. Marianne sensed the air density change above her and backflipped as the monster teleported above her head, two curved blades of crystalized blood in hand. The swords hit only the bridge, while Marianne regained her footing.

The noblewoman and her opponent faced each other on the bridge. The cyclops’ head had developed a new mouth of sharp teeth, a coiling tongue sticking out and licking the tip of his swords in an obscene manner.

Murder is all a funny game to you, isn’t it? Marianne thought as she put her revolver back around her belt and called upon the Blood. Drawing upon her body’s reserves, she used magic to materialize a weapon of bone: a flail made of a chain of spine and with a miniature, hardened skull for a head. Creating the material left Marianne slightly winded, but she had stocked up nutrients and energy for such an occasion. Let’s test your pain threshold, tough guy.

Swinging her flail with one hand the same way Lord Bethor taught her to, Marianne used the other to make a challenging gesture with her rapier.

The monster answered by leaping in the air with its swords raised. Marianne dodged the blades with a step back as they hit the metal bridge with enough strength to shake it, before launching her flail at her foe’s head. The projectile pulverized the monster’s skull but phased harmlessly through the red eye.

It’s intangible, Marianne thought as she swung her flail, the black blood regenerating a head around the monster’s eye. Is it a ghost manipulating a puppet of flesh?

In that case, a Soulbound weapon should be able to damage it. The revolver’s bullets had blasted the flesh around the eye previously, but failed to hit it directly.

The monster let out a furious shriek and wildly swung its twin blades at Marianne, striking from all angles possible. There was little grace and skill in this dance of steel, but the creature’s strength meant a direct hit would likely tear Marianne in half. The noblewoman slowly fell back while deflecting the blows with hits of her flail. Each blade her weapon shattered was instantly replaced with another, as the creature immediately materialized replacements to its hands. Its tongue dripped luridly as the red eye gazed at Marianne with intensity, its moans growing more animalistic while blood dripped from a wound between its stunted legs.

Suppressing her disgust to focus on the fight, Marianne lunged at the monster’s chest with her rapier. The beast raised its blades to deflect her own, leaving his legs exposed to a feint. Marianne flung her flail at the monster’s knees, shattering them with a sickening noise.

The beast stumbled in surprise, and the tip of Marianne’s rapier struck the red eye. The noblewoman sensed her weapon hitting an invisible force and pierced it.

This time, the psychic shriek that echoed in her head was no moan of pleasure.

The creature dropped its weapons, as the hands holding them trembled in agony. The beast’s scars ruptured open and black blood poured out of them, the substance dripping off the bridge and into the shining pit beneath.

“Come on,” Marianne said with contempt as she twisted her rapier. The monster screamed all the louder. “Laugh. Don’t you think pain is fun?”

The Derros couldn’t hurt this thing for real without a Soulbound weapon capable of targeting intangible foes. Marianne, however, had plenty of experience with exorcizing ghosts.

“Where did you teleport Valdemar?” Marianne hissed. “I know you can understand what I say. So where is he?”

The beast’s eye erupted in a flash of crimson light and reality twisted around them.

Realizing the danger, Marianne leaped off the bridge and threw her flail at the pipes dangling from the ceiling. Her weapon coiled around one of them, allowing her to dangle around the metal platform.

A mere second after she fled, space compressed around the metal bridge as bloody blades erupted all over it. The surface turned into a sea of spikes, while the creature manifested great wings of bones and skin.

A direct hit of a Soulbound weapon would have destroyed any normal ghost, Marianne realized as the creature took flight to follow after her. After confirming that the central platform was still covered in tentacles, the noblewoman managed to land on another metal bridge to the left of the destroyed one. What is that thing? A summoned monster? A specter?

The monster shrieked as it flew towards Marianne, half a dozen arms growing out of its bleeding wounds. The beast quickly turned into a pulsating chaotic mass of bone blades and arms centered around the red eye, its wings barely able to support its mass.

In the end, that entity’s nature didn’t matter. If it wouldn’t answer her questions, Marianne would destroy it.

“I would rather avoid that, Young Marianne.”

Footsteps echoed behind Marianne, as a hooded undead emerged from another part of the facility.

The noblewoman immediately focused on her enhanced senses, fearing another illusion… but no spell could fake the cold, oppressive aura surrounding a true Dark Lord.

“My, thank you for the compliment,” Lord Och said as he walked onto the bridge, barely sparing the monster a glance. “I would gladly watch you finish off this living antique under other circumstances, but science demands that I preserve this specimen.”

The creature let out a shriek. The tentacles on the metal platform twisted and coiled around the bridge, trying to grab Marianne at full speed.

The Dark Lord waved his hand and the tentacles rotted to nothing. Within seconds, only a thin layer of dust covered the metal platform.

“Your consent is not required,” Lord Och said with the same tone an adult would use to scold an unruly child. “I’m afraid that the pecking order has changed greatly since your civilization’s glory days, so I kindly ask you not to make this difficult.”

And like that, Marianne realized the battle was over.

The creature, however, refused to accept the inevitable. It flew straight at the two sorcerers, black blood surging from its hands and rupturing the fabric of space.

“Very well.” Lord Och pointed an index finger at the flying beast. “You asked for it.”

The world brightened in light and fire.

Marianne had to protect her face with her hands as a torrent of searing hot white flames erupted from Lord Och’s finger, the sheer ambient heat evaporating the sweat on her face. The blast swallowed the surprised monster and vaporized it. The flames continued their progress into the wall behind the flying creature, melting a tunnel through the facility.

Though the creature’s red core survived the magical flames, they clearly affected it. The psychic scream that followed the incineration dwarfed all its previous ones in intensity, and not even a single drop of black blood remained behind.

The flames died down, a tiny cloud of smoke rising from Lord Och’s index finger.

Marianne watched at the molten tunnel with shock, trying to process what she had just seen. How did… how could the Blood… “How?” she dared to ask.

“Do you remember how our Institute’s water reservoir works, Young Marianne?”

Yes, she did. “Master Poingcarré turned an elemental into a permanent portal to the plane of water.”

“This minor offensive spell uses the same principle,” the lich replied casually. “It involves temporarily summoning a minor fire elemental with a conjuration spell before immediately turning it into a temporary rift to its home plane. Primordial fire then surges into our dimension, blasting everything in its path. I have seen very few things capable of surviving a direct hit.”

The red eye flickered as black particles gathered around it.

“I expected more from a Pleromian,” the Dark Lord said with a hint of disappointment as he observed the entity. “But you have exceeded my expectations, Young Marianne. Lord Bethor trained you well.”

Marianne examined the creature with surprise. “This thing is a Pleromian?”

Impossible. The Pleromians had been a great and ancient people, who created so many wonders. How could such a sick, petty creature be one of them?

“Or at least, this is what the Pleromians have become after millennia of rampant excesses, obscene pleasures, and degradation. Such a shame to watch an ancient and proud civilization reduced to…” Lord Och glanced at the Pleromian with contempt. “This.”

The particles turned into drops of black blood coalescing around the red eye, forming a protective cocoon. It’s trying to recreate a body for itself, Marianne realized. It can’t escape without one.

“Fascinating,” Lord Och whispered as he observed the phenomenon. “The Pleromian draws into the very essence of the Blood saturating all of Underland to generate organic matter from nothing. All while its soul remains stuck between two planes. This warrants further testing.”

The Dark Lord raised his hand at the Pleromian, his empty eye sockets shining with a ghastly glow. “I suppose I will call upon the elemental plane of lightning and see if it can recover from intense electrocution.”

When she looked at the pitiful, sadistic creature, Marianne realized she couldn’t even muster the slightest hint of pity. “Lord Och, we need to find Valdemar,” she said, trying to stay on track. “He could be in danger as we speak.”

“Have faith in my apprentice, Young Marianne. There’s no rush. Eventually, this creature will accept its helplessness and we’ll be on our merry way.”

“It enjoys pain, Lord Och.”

“Good.” The Dark Lord grinned cruelly as his hands crackled with electricity. “Then we’ll both get to indulge ourselves.”