The City of Pilta had once had a brimming mining industry- an industry which had employed nearly every man, woman and child long before wheat had grown in the surrounding lands. This dependency on the mines was evident by the many entrances that had once led into the place of employment- some of which stood to the day. Every crack and stony outcrop had some form of reinforcement to support the working men and women of old, as they descended down into the dark depths. Neda, Asrael and Eleanor each had their own, favored entrances, but as was usual... Asrael’s word was law. It was he who decided that, from the Garrison, the trio would make their way down the bright, sparkly, reflective river until they came across the defunct loading-bay rotting away at the powerful stream’s side. From that spot, monstrous boats would once transport precious ore up the river- up towards the distant Capita.

The skeleton of a long-abandoned minecart stood on rusted rails- half-submerged on the rocks, next to what was left of a loading-crane. Ellie and Neda both stopped to eye the curious contraptions- pondering their functions and who might’ve made these artifacts. Neda followed the tracks with her gaze- in between the rocks, muck and sand over to a narrow opening- scarcely more than a crack- in the rock wall. Asrael wordlessly stepped towards it and squeezed in between the rocks- shortly followed by Ellie, whereas Neda was left on the riverside to protest:

“H-hey! I can’t get in there! Wait!” She sprinted after them and puffed out as much air as she could from her chest while still pulling in her supple abdomen, but to no avail. Both in the front and in the back, she had assets that her other two companions lacked. Asrael groaned from the total darkness inside and reached for one of stacks of torches he had prepared and fingered the rune on the broken, dry stick. Ellie watched in awe as her Master’s green, mysterious magic bled from his fingertip to empower the rune. A second later, the cloth-and-tar-clad tip of the torch came alive with a comfortable, orange flame- illuminating half of the stuck desert-dweller's form.

Had he been any other man, he might’ve taken the opportunity to fondle her large breasts and he imagined she would enjoy it just as much as he undoubtedly would. Alas... he shuddered at the intrusive thought and eyed the struggling girl aggressively. This was her fault- hers and hers alone. Her weeks of wiggling and cautiously flexing his boundaries had worn him down and gradually... cautiously... she had dug her claws into whatever was left of his masculinity. Not that there had been much of it to begin with.

“Hey- help!” Neda’s shout was muffled by her body. Asrael could only see one solution to this conondrum. With a stern hand, he pushed the flattest of his companions ahead of him and ordered her: “Grab hold of her-… thorax. And her posterior. Squeeze them together so that the cow might fit through.” Ellie had to rack her mind for the anatomical terms he had forced her to study and eventually understood what body-parts he refered to. She took a step forward towards the crack and stuck her hand between Neda’s buttock and the sturdy rock. As she huffed and puffed, a crumpled-up note fell from beneath her dress and earned her Master’s attention. Curiously, he bent down and grabbed it- unfolding it to behold it beneath the torchlight.

The girl was improving- fast. Whether she had made the runes herself or whether she had copied them was still uncertain, but if it had been the prior, this was extraordinary- truly a talent to match his own... at her age. But the girl had, foolishly, made several mistakes- meaning; this was likely a mix-and-match of different spells. As Ellie struggled to defeat Neda’s shapely posterior, Asrael turned the paper to show her the paper of scribbled runes.

“Explain.” Ellie’s dark eyes glistened in the dim torchlight. She was about to retract her hand, but before she could, Asrael commanded: “I did not tell you to stop. I told you to explain.” Ellie knew that look of his and she had learned that it meant she had either done something surprisingly correct or messed up enough to entertain him.

“I-I... tried to make that rune, myself. It’s got quen, herth, ligant, fio-” Asrael shook his head and frowned at her before leaning close to flick her forehead. “I know the runes, girl! But how do you intend to direct the spell when they are splayed out on a surface!? Where is your focusing circle!?” She swallowed and nodded. Before she could raise her voice to confess to her mistake, Asrael had already leaned across the distance between them and stolen the graphite-stick from her laughable chest- “pad it all you want, girl, it still will not make a difference” he thought as he pinned the paper to the wall and drew a large circle on the back.

“Your design is basically flawed. The best you could do with that spell was crack a pebble. I assume you were planning on shattering it, yes? Seeing as you have no transformative runes in this hogwash of yours, I imagine you planned to use your own element?” She had wished to practice on the cave’s walls and had construed the rune to crack the solid rock- or at least she thought so.

“In the worst case, these runes would have shattered every bone in your body- foolish...” He muttered and motioned for a completed circle- lined with runes and a complicated webwork of directional lines. Seeing him do this on the fly still filled her with amazement, but she was yet to see him empower anything save the runes meant to light a torch or awaken his dead. He held the paper out before her with a strict glare, but before she could raise her free hand to take it, he took it back and stuffed it in his coat pocket. Next, he raised a lecturing finger. “You are not ready for runic magic. Not yet... you are getting there, but it will take time. First and foremost, you need to get the lusty one unstuck.”

She sighed and looked back at the white dress squeezed into the narrow crack. Perhaps, she thought, if she were to fix her hold... but to her dread, she realized that she had gotten herself stuck, too.

“Hey! Someone’s coming- get me outta here!” This sparked Asrael’s panic. He was a creature of habit- both Neda and Ellie had learned as much. The green shimmer to his eyes spoke volumes of his unnerve- he would not find another way into the caves from the outside- not if he could help it. He needed to protect their well-kept secret and he had to act quick. He took a deep breath and bit down on his lip- steadying himself for the sacrifice to come.

Neda released an involuntarily sensual moan as an inhumanely strong hand appeared out the crack to compress her breasts and pull her into the darkness. Inside, she was greeted by the swiftest necromancer she had ever seen- or rather, his hurried back as it set off into the dark, musty, claustrophobia-inducing corridor of dust and stone. Neda rubbed her pained breasts and limped alongside her fellow student- after the shamed necromancer.

Outside the tunnel, a man clad in a tan cloak breathed a sigh of relief from where he lay in the grass. Had the girl seen him? Would his investigation into Bartholomew’s dark friends end before it had even begun? No-… Petrus raised his head from in between the stones to see that the tan desert wildling had disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel. He stood up and cautiously moved closer to the crack, where he paused to put his ear up against the dark recess to verify that they were moving inwards- their feet and muffled voices echoing between the dark walls of the abyss. He snaked his way through the crack with ease, only to be taken aback by how oppressive a darkness greeted him inside. Hunching down on the dusty floor, he narrowed his eyes to focus on the disappearing light in the distance. Safe in the knowing that they had turned an unseen corner, he raised his right hand and bled forth a stream of red-hot, crackling magic- congealing it into a ball that he then rested atop his palm.

The rest of the Clergy had always envied his pyromancy and the impressive control he held over his magics. Whereas most pyromancers could freely form flame, there were few who could touch it without burning to cinders. He had witnessed it- several times over, how his fellow Purge-initiates would be foolish enough to try to mimic him, only to lose an arm or a leg as they did their best to impress the Clergymen, only to once more prove their lack of talent- their lack of right. He was different- he had been pegged by the Gods and the Emperor himself to serve in His name- to watch over his beloved Titus and now, more than ever, Titus needed him to be strong. To be silent. To be swift. He shook from his musings and scanned his surroundings- quickly surmising that these tunnels were, in fact, an ancient mine.

He had heard of the mines- in fact, he had seen the maps years ago, when they had first come to Pilta. As Titus’ right-hand-man, he had taken it upon himself to hire the geologists to evaluate the sturdiness of the ancient construct, as several of the councilmen had expressed their concerns that the City might someday be swallowed by the void beneath its substantial mass. Thankfully, the geologists had concluded that the rocks were particularly sturdy and that the city should be relatively safe- even in the event of an earthquake. Good... the last thing he wanted was to put any further stress on his beloved- especially back then, when he had struggled to adjust to his Dukedom.

Realizing that the voices were growing dimmer by the second, he set his mind on quickening his pace. He drew the hood down low over his face and fed more power to his ball of flame- illuminating the walls on either side as he hurried after the suspicious trio- cautious as to not trip and reveal his location. Subtlety was of the utmost importance for his plan to work, fore this was but the first step of it. He would follow after this ‘Kerras’ and his merry band of prostitutes- back to whatever lair they had crawled out from and find out why and how they had been involved in the disappearances. With any luck, he would find what he searched for and then-… he came to a halt as he remembered his horrid conclusion- wallowing in the miserable, dark void.

Titus would never listen to him- not now... Petrus knew, better than anyone, that when Titus had made his mind up- his word was final. Even if it pained him to do so, Petrus knew that he would have to leave his beloved out of it and deal with Bartholomew directly...

If only the detestable man hadn’t been his brother, he could have just liquefied him by the riverbed and left his scraps for the fish, alas, he would have to be more subtle in dealing with this problem. He reignited the fireball in his hand and continued sneaking his way down the long, dusty darkness- following after the mumbling voices. As he gently snuck between the rocks, he considered how he would approach Bartholomew- how he would go about threatening him to concede his brother’s love and depart from Pilta, but as he approached the bend around which Kerras’ party had disappeared a few minutes previous, his boots froze to the floor as he heard something vaguely... familiar.

It was the voice of the wildling girl- she had spoken a name. “C’mon, Assie- it'll be fun! Bart says it is, anyways...” He heard her voice echo on the walls as their distant torchlight danced on the walls. He could hear hurried feet shuffling as the ill-tempered Kerras rounded on his companion to correct her: “For the last time, my name is not ‘Assie’! It is “Asrael”- or better yet, “Master” and the activity you are referring to is nothing short of unhygienic! Petrus had heard that name before- everyone had...

“It is a code-name, it has to be.” Petrus concluded in silence. Why else would any man choose such a name and proudly proclaim it? He crouched down and leaned against the wall to consider the possibilities. He racked his mind for any rhyme or reason to why anyone would name themselves after Asrael the Perverse- that failed assassin of old had left no legacy, save for his mud-trodden name, unless-

“What’s that light?” It was the voice of a young woman- the girl... Eleanor. Petrus realized his folly as soon as he heard her light voice echo between the oppressive walls and reacted by chucking the ball of bright fire the opposite way- over towards the opening from where he had come. The bright-white ball of magical flame struck the ancient stone and immediately transferred its massive amount of thermal energy to liquefy a partition of the floor- spraying the walls with magmatic droplets.