by Hugo Huesca
The first Ougan grimaced. “Sure. Of course. What he said.”
“Ah, don’t you two worry,” said Agumin, raising a hand shining with black tendrils of unholy energy. “I won’t pull any punches.” At least he would get to blow off some steam, this way.
Both Ougans flinched, but right before he was about to unleash arcane devastation, someone got in the way. “Wait!” exclaimed the succubus, throwing herself at the arms of the Warlock like a fainting maiden. “Wait, please, I know the real Ougan!”
“Who the hell are you?” Warlock Agumin said, pushing her off, his unreleased spell wasted.
“A mere servant in one of the pleasure houses,” said the succubus, lowering her head. “Master Ougan is one of my regular clients. By the Dark’s grace I was passing by and heard the commotion. Let me be of service, oh, great Warlock. The real miragefiend has a purple birthmark under his lower right armpit.”
“That is not true!” said one of the Ougans, clenching his fists. “This succubus is an impersonator as well!”
“So now everyone but you is a fake?” the second Ougan said. He has a good point, Agumin thought. He had enjoyed the warmth with which the succubus had called him “a great Warlock.” This Ougan raised his arms and turned to show Agumin and the rest of the tent the purple birthmark under his lower right armpit.
Agumin’s hand crackled with arcane devastation once more. He took aim at the unmarked Ougan.
“Wait!” this one exclaimed. “Wait. All of House Vandran’s pleasure servants are marked with a glyph on their back. If this succubus is who she says she is, she has one!”
Agumin lowered his hand, another spell gone to waste. “That… is another good point. Undress, succubus, show us the glyph of Vandran.”
The succubus hesitated. “I—”
“Enough of this!” exclaimed the other Ougan—at this point Agumin was sure he would go mad soon. “Master, look!” he pointed outside the tent, at a corner of the street where five cloaked figures pretended not to observe Vandran’s tent. “Those are the agents that came with the impostor, they surely work for another Dungeon Lord! If I were the fake one, would I have betrayed my loyalty?”
Agumin’s gaze fell on the five figures, which stood uneasily now that they realized they had been found. These had no illusory character sheet in place. They were Lord Wraith’s! Anger flooded through the Warlock like fire from a furnace.
“Why, you—” said the other Ougan, but no one ever knew what he was about to say, because Agumin blasted him into ash with a beam of disintegration which turned the lowly minion into a pile of ash, and almost did the same to the guard behind him, who only saved himself thanks to a dodge talent.
The second Ougan—the only Ougan, actually—gaped at the pile of ashes. “You got him. Thank you, Master, for listening to reason—”
“What reason?” Agumin growled. At no point had his eyes ever left Wraith’s minions. “I aimed at random. Now, servants of Vandran, teach those damned minions of Wraith a lesson! Let none escape, or suffer my anger!”
The expression of the five vampires as the tent of Vandran exploded toward them in a rush of angry minions was almost comical—somewhere between betrayal and disbelief. They ran.
Miragefiend Ougan gave the pile of ash next to him one last concerned look and wiped a bead of sweat from his face. I aimed at random. He very quietly walked out of the tent, but no one paid any attention to him anymore. From the distance came the sound of spells, shouts, and the clash of steel as Vandran’s minions made a mess of tents and passersby as they chased the Lucky Five all the way to the Haunt’s tent.
The succubus from the tent approached Ougan once he was outside. “That was so close! You told me nothing would go wrong,” she chided him. Then her eyes narrowed. “Alder, it is you, right?” she asked dubiously.
Ougan pointed an accusatory finger her way. “Who in Murmur’s name is Alder?” he asked. “And who are you, for that matter?”
He raised his open hands as the succubus’ eyes widened in horror. “Just kidding!” Alder said, as he dropped the illusion. He grinned ear to ear.
“Dung-head! You scared the Dark out of me,” Arieselle said, smacking his shoulder, hard.
“See, dear Researcher? By this point I’m a professional infiltrator, I know what I’m doing,” he lied. “Nothing went wrong, as I said. Except for the Lucky Five, though… I hope they already bought their mist-form talent, now that I think of them.”
Arieselle shook her head. “I hope this is as close as I ever get to the enemy ever again,” she said. “I’m a student of Magic, not a fighter.” Though, she smiled a bit. “Although, it was a bit fun, now that my heart is not trying to beat off my chest and go hide by itself.” She shook her head. “So this is what it feels like to do Kes’ work.”
“A terrible feeling, I agree,” Alder said. “Don’t worry, it goes away.”
“Here,” Arieselle said, handing him a rune. “I pocketed it out of the Warlock’s robe when I hugged him.”
“A dungeon message rune,” Alder said. He grinned slowly. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That we should run away before they come back?”
“No… but good idea, nonetheless.” They scrambled. As they tried to walk off as inconspicuously as possible, Alder activated the rune and said, “Hey, what kind of name is Sanguine, anyway? Did your mother hate you when you were born or you changed it yourself? We name our hell chickens like that. You could be Eye Gouger’s brother.”
He tossed the rune away, its magic spent.
“Lord Vandran won’t receive that,” Arieselle told him. “A dungeon message cannot be tampered with or have the sender impersonated, it’s in the spell description.”
Alder smiled his best mysterious smile. “The point wasn’t to send the message. It was to activate Sanguine’s rune in an unsecured location. Agumin may have aimed at random, but I don’t think Everbleed will.”
The commotion of the chase was soon enough visible even near the Haunt’s tent. Men and fiend dove for cover as the group of Nightshades made way, pushing and shoving and even shanking, away from their furious pursuers and closer to Kes.
“The idiots are about to implicate us if they come our way,” Lavy said, putting Kes’ thoughts into words. “What the hell happened to Alder, did they get him?”
A crowd was gathering by the Vandran’s tent. Maybe to watch an execution—Kes could see the black mole of Everbleed’s Devil Knight when people parted to let it pass. “The fastest way to find out is through the vampires,” she said. A part of her hoped she had not just sent her friend to a senseless death. However, there was still time to do something about it—if she stopped wasting her time with sentimentality.
The Marshal turned to Klek. “Can you and the riders go stab them a bit?” she asked. “Pretend they aren’t from the Haunt, tell them to go to Camp Dolmanak instead. I bet they’d give intelligent undead some cover over there. Also find out if Alder is in trouble.”
Without a second’s doubt, Klek brandished his spear. “Let’s go, Tulip, time to poke some vampires in the rear,” he said as he jumped astride his companion.
“Cross your fingers they won’t mind,” the spider Princess said. “Or we’ll both become snacks.”
Klek, Tulip, and the rest of the riders charged into the crowd, avoiding mercenary kaftar and a pair of territorial werewolves. At first, the Nightshades seemed to think that help was coming, but Klek’s spear changed their minds rather quickly. The pursuers behind them cheered.
Kes saw how the riders exchanged muffled words with the vampires’ leader. The Nightshade must’ve heard him, though, because he gestured to his companions and ran to Dolmanak’s camp. The spider riders “chased” them, staying close behind while inconspicuously parting the crowd and getting in the way of Vandran’s minions.
“Watch him go,” Lavy said, while Klek and Tulip, without breaking stride, “accidentally” webbed together a pair of naga spellcasters that were a
bout to roast the Lucky Five. “Little guy may be more of an adventurer than a critter nowadays.”
“Gods help us, he is,” Kes said. The riders turned a tight corner and disappeared, leaving a bunch of overturned carts behind them, several angry fiends slipping in mud pools, and a flaming tent.
Back on the screens, Lord Vandran and his miragefiends were setting up an ambush for Ed and the others. Vandran’s forces were outnumbered, so Kes assumed they meant to take a few shots at Ed and then escape, using the traps to buy themselves time.
And we know who they’ll focus their fire on the instant he steps inside, she thought. Ed wasn’t invincible, as she knew very well. “Now or never, people, how is our message coming along?” she asked.
“Pholk, that’s your cue,” Lavy told the Diviner, who was floating above a small chalk circle and adding silvery symbols with a telekinesis spell.
“Step inside the circle if you please, Marshal,” the abnatir said, huffing from the effort. “It’s an anti-magic variant, with a few basic bits of glyph-work taken from Master Lavina’s Scrambler Towers—with permission, of course. The circle should mask our magical footprint to outside observers. They’ll know a message was sent, but not from where.”
“Are you sure?” Lavy asked. “Everbleed was rather clear that cheaters get the axe.”
“Well…” Pholk didn’t look sure. “Just in case, perhaps the Marshal ought not to send too many. I’m sure the High Clerics have some talented Diviners in their employ.”
Kes grabbed one of the dungeon message runes that Ed had left them and hurried inside the circle. “Noted, Pholk. Lavy, if you see Everbleed’s minions coming our way, we Portal out—we are no use dead.”
Lavy nodded. “I have the spare ruby ready. Klek won’t like it, though.”
The Marshal stepped inside the small circle and readied the message.
The Museum came to life when Ed and the others stepped past the brass archway. Elegant chandeliers spouted flames—real ones, not magical, or so it seemed. A happy mechanical tune, the kind one may find in a music box, echoed through the empty halls.
Polished statues and old sets of armor stood guard at every corner as far as the eye could see; huge paintings that could’ve been at home in the court of a majestic king hung from positions of honor on alabaster walls; and wax scenes from the Factory’s history came to life under the light of the chandeliers. The Main Hall was ruled at its center by one huge, winged dirigible replica hanging from steel cables. A brass sign announced “The Standard Factory’s first mobile prototype” right under the shadow of its many pairs of wings.
“Fantastic,” Spymaster Macer said sardonically. “Now every Dungeon Lord in town knows we are here. Can anyone shut off that damned music?”
Mohnuran eyed the corners of the place as if he expected a zombie to leap out from a set of armor. “It’s not the Dungeon Lords we should be worried about. This is the Nightmare Factory, after all.” He leaned in to whisper in Ed’s ear. “If the legends about the horrors born here are even slightly true, perhaps we ought to dig into a safe zone and call for reinforcements.”
“This isn’t time for that,” Ed told him, suppressing a grin. The Haunt’s spellcasters had equipped Mohnuran with what Lavy had described as a “Witch Lavina’s Summoning Circle Kit for Dummies.” Mohnuran thought the plan was for him to summon reinforcements from the Haunt; kaftar and hell chicken mounts. The truth was, his real intentions were exactly what Ed was hoping for… as long as the Inquisition ruined the day of his enemies and not his. For that to happen, timing was everything. “Soon, though.”
The Dungeon Lord took in his surroundings. Three wings broke off the Museum’s Main Hall, each of them helpfully labeled. There was the “Memories of Iron and Necromancy,” “Saint Claire and Tillman’s Today,” and, finally, “A Prophecy of the Future.”
“They certainly weren’t humble,” Lady Xorander said appreciatively, reading the signs along with Ed.
“We need a map,” Ed said, fully aware they couldn’t afford to waste any time. Maybe after the Endeavor was over he could come back and take a good look at the Museum. “I’d say we’re bound to find it in the Today section.”
“As good a start as any,” Xorander said. “If only the rest of the Endeavor were so pleasant.”
Atop the wooden furnishings of the wall next to the Dungeon Lady, Ed saw a long set of parallel dashes—left over by a set of claws. Parts of the tiling of the floor showed similar damage. “Don’t lower your guard,” he told Xorander.
The Today section showed signs a battle had started—and ended—right in this place. Wax statues were melted partially, there were missing chunks from the walls, as well as crimson stains on the carpet that the beetles hadn’t managed to remove.
Present circumstances not considered, he thought, Alder would’ve been at home around here. The wing had five floors. The first showed the entrails of the Factory represented by replicas. The group followed the path of a chunk of iron as it was refined into a child-sized trebuchet, which was then enchanted by a team of naga spellcasters on the next floor, and finally brought via summoning circle to the waiting hands of a wax Dungeon Lord. The second level showed parts of the Factory they hadn’t seen yet, including a huge crystal greenhouse housing exotic plants from every corner of the Netherworld. Evangeline Tillman’s statue kept tabs on wide glass tubes annexed to the greenhouse. Cotton strings painted purple traveled through the tubes into vats on the third floor, attended by wax statues of round abnatir Warlocks and pale gnomes with sharp teeth.
“What is that purple thing meant to represent?” one of Xorander’s minions asked. “It’s all over this floor.”
“I’ve seen it before,” Mohnuran said, to the group’s surprise. “It’s all around the Haunt’s lands. Some kind of mist?” He shrugged, not very interested.
In the next scene, the gnomes refined the purple cotton of the vats and doused a a rabbit in a cage, while wax Tillman watched and took notes. The scene after that showed a rabid rabbit the size of a wolf bursting through its cage and biting one of the gnomes in half. Tillman grinned as the surviving gnomes retreated.
Ed blinked as realization set in. “That’s the smoke the Netherworldly plants spit out,” he said, reaching for the scrying necklace Lavy had given him. “Are you watching this?” he told the necklace. “I knew the damned thing was dangerous.”
Jarlen gave the mutant rabbit an appreciative whistle. “Dangerous indeed, my Lord, but not for the recipient, by the looks of it.” She paced through the scenes. “This may be how Saint Claire & Tillman created most of their unique monsters. I always wondered how they did that.”
“We eat those fruits,” Ed said horrified, thinking of the Haunt’s children.
“So do we, Lord Wraith,” said Lord Steros, giving a shrug. “Never have I seen a minion grow to thrice his size and go on a rampage after eating an apple. Saint Claire & Tillman process that smoke—it’s probably harmless in its natural state.”
“Giant batblins,” Jarlen said. “Think about it. I wonder how far we could take it. Giant vampire batblins riding giant horned spiders. Perhaps I should have applied for minionship with Saint Claire after all.”
Ed went past a floor with a miniature farming setup and saw a model zoo with dozens of cages filled with figurines, most of which he had met before—as his pixelated enemies in Ivalis Online.
There was a pair of lampagos, a type of creature he had fought with his first Wizard character, as well as all kinds of acid oozes, harpies, even a lone hydra in a spot of honor. Ed had to fight the need to pocket the figurine—a hydra had been the first non-End-Boss monster to wipe his party. He furrowed his brow just as he extended his hand. If Saint Claire & Tillman had a hydra around somewhere in the Factory, he sure hoped somebody else had dealt with it already.
Just as he made the decision to avoid the zoo section of the Factory just in case, Kes’ dungeon message opened a prompt screen in front of his eyes. He froze for an instant, rea
ding with his reflexes activated, and then dismissed the message, trying to act as inconspicuously as possible in case some of the Regents’ underlings had a Diviner watching his behavior.
Hoping his friends wouldn’t get in trouble after such a shameless cheat, he walked to the railing and found Steros and Xorander, rummaging through the floors below.
“Lady Xorander, Lord Steros, a word?” he asked casually. “I, ah… heard a noise we should check out.”
Warlock Agumin knelt, hands bound and mouth gagged with silken ropes enchanted with silencing magic, completely unable to cast a single basic spell to save himself. Next to him on the raised dais of the open plaza with tents all around knelt the rest of Lord Vandran’s High Minions.
They had been so close to catching Wraith’s minions, but at the last minute, they had slipped away into Dolmanak’s territory, where the vampires had been welcome. Lucky fuckers.
But now Agumin had little energy to spare on hating the undead. All his focus was on the black legs that stood close to him, and the horned face of Everbleed’s Devil Knight. Never in his life had the Warlock felt as small as he did in this moment.
“The High Clerics detected a message going off to Lord Vandran soon before the fight with Lord Wraith broke out,” Everbleed said, turning to face the crowd of onlookers that surrounded the dais. “Interfering with the Endeavor once it starts is a crime punishable by death,” the former ruler of Lotia announced.
The crowd roared their approval. Apparently, the grisly fate of Lord Vandran hadn’t satiated their thirst for blood. Nothing ever did. And whatever allies Agumin may have had among the Netherworld made themselves scarce now that Vandran was gone.
It cannot end like this, Agumin thought. He was a servant of House Vandran. Even with Sanguine gone to Murmur’s black halls, the House would protect their valuable servants, wouldn’t they? It certainly wouldn’t end like this. Agumin had survived years as a minion of a Dungeon Lord, had survived closer calls than facing the lapdog of the Regents.
