Deus Necros

As they entered the next chamber, the corridor behind them seemed to contract. Roots fell across the path like closing doors. The chamber beyond opened in a downward spiral, a pit descending in wide circular steps, each ring lined with carvings and half-melted glass. The images were clearer here, but no more comforting. They showed the same figure from before, the veiled form with outstretched limbs, now crowned in a halo of flame and root. Around her knelt figures, faceless and hollow-chested, offering up what looked like severed branches, twisted fetuses, fragments of armor. This was a place not of worship.

“A feeding zone…” Ludwig’s words echoed lightly around him.

And far above, somewhere in the broken forest above the ruin, something vast had begun to stir beneath the roots. The ground across the island flexed once, not enough to knock anyone off their feet, but enough to be felt. The Holy Order, still tending its wounded and trying to rebuild what little morale remained, would feel it too. But they would not understand it.

The descent into the spiral was uneventful only in sound. Each step downward tightened the air, narrowing the breath in their lungs and dampening the heat from their skin. The murals that lined the inner curve of the pit were larger here, but not clearer. The scenes shifted as they descended, becoming more twisted, less ceremonial. At first, they had shown reverence. Then sacrifice. Now they showed transformation. Figures being pulled apart, their limbs reshaped into monstrosities and aberrations. These were the People of The Dawn.

“I guess I might have been wrong,” Ludwig muttered, “I thought the Queen was unrelated to the People of the Dawn island,” he added. “But the more you look at the murals…”

“Yeah, been having the same thoughts, you think she’s been a member of their race?”

“I have no idea, I’m not a historian, but if she survived this long… I just don’t want to think about it,” the Knight said.

The lowest tier of the spiral opened into a chamber without doors. The stone here was smoother, polished with age or ritual, and the floor bore a massive circular engraving, a sun pattern etched with impossible precision. Its rays extended out to the edges of the room, ending in sockets where once crystals or bone totems had likely been placed. Now only rot filled them. The vampire’s footprints stopped here, smudged at the edge of the circle. She had walked into the center. But there were no more steps leading away.

Ludwig stepped forward slowly. The circle pulsed beneath his boots, not visibly, but through sensation. A low thrum in the arches of his feet and a pressure across his temples. The Wrath Core was reacting. Or perhaps the Queen’s presence in the island was brushing against him through her. He couldn’t be sure.

“She’s not here,” the Knight said, his voice hushed. “But she’s not far. I can feel it. Like when a storm is coming, and the birds fall silent.”

“You’re probably right,” Ludwig replied. “And I think this is a special place, for the Queen, even the vampire is standing there doing nothing… what is she waiting for?”

The moment Ludwig finished his words, she turned to him. Her face completely different from before, though deep scars were still carved through it, some of her skin was slightly healed up, most of her cheek flesh was gone, but it was slowly regenerating on one side.

She looked around, left and right, as if lost, or trying to find something.

[YOU ARE IN INCREDIBLE DANGER! YOU ARE IN A GREAT, THREATENING SITUATION! ]

Sudden Quest!

[Survive!]

A grave danger has landed on the island! You must not be caught, noticed, or spotted by it!

Your death point had been set to:

Thorn Wombed Queen’s Burial Ground!

***

Ludwig was almost panicking at how the status screen showed up, though he was a bit intrigued that this place was called the queen’s burial ground meaning that she is buried here maybe? But this was the first time the screen in front of his face was painted in this color. A deep, threatening crimson red.

And then the noise came.

Above them.

Not beneath.

Far overhead, from the surface of the island, something howled.

It wasn’t the Queen. It wasn’t Perturbant. It was a howl stripped of language or echo. A sound not shaped by mouth or breath, but by a hunger so vast it could not be silenced.

The Knight turned his head sharply, instinctively reaching for his sword. Even the Hunter froze mid-step, his eyes narrowing as he looked toward the ceiling, though there was no sky above them.

“What the fuckity fuck was that?” The hunter couldn’t help but blurt out.

Ludwig stopped.

He heard it too. And this was just the pure confirmation of the danger the notification screen had shown him. It was coming.

Something old.

Something fast.

And something most definitely, deadly…

///***///

Far above, on the edge of the ruined battlefield, the earth cracked beneath the force of the landing. The paladins, what remained of them, had only just begun forming new lines. Healers were still bent over the wounded. Some clerics had started to sing again, their voices shaky but rising with renewed hope.

They were still praising the Cardinal for his great contribution, while laughing and enjoying a well earned victory.

Mot however, was silent and watching on the side.

“Saint Mot,” the Cardinal said, “It seems it was a waste to have used up your time to bring you here,” he said.

Mot on the other hand didn’t pay any attention to the cardinal, and had his gaze stuck on the far end of the island.

Just as the cardinal was about to interject, something boomed right in the middle of the paladins

It landed in the center of the glade without ceremony, a blur of fur and breath and muscle.

The dim glow of the red moon caught on its matted, tangled fur, a shifting, writhing mess that seemed almost alivelike a twisted fusion of muscle, sinew, and something darker, something wrong.

His limbs were too long. His claws dragged against the earth as he rose from a crouch. His breath steamed in the cold air. He didn’t howl again. He didn’t need to.

The beast’s body twitched and convulsed, as if struggling to hold its form, its flesh bubbling and tearing in places, revealing glimpses of raw, pulsating muscle underneath. Its red eyes burned like embers in a sea of black. Each breath it took was a ragged snarl, air wheezing through its twisted, jagged maw lined with gnashing teeth, their edges slick with something too thick to be only saliva.

One of the younger paladins raised his spear and shouted, and the beast turned its head slowly, regarding him with no fear, no interest. The boy charged, and the werewolf stepped forward once, catching the full weight of the paladin’s thrust with his bare hand. The spear never pierced. It cracked in two with a squeeze, and before the soldier could retreat, the werewolf opened his jaws and bit clean through his throat. Blood sprayed across the moss. The man’s body twitched, then fell, forgotten.

“Don’t try to bite more than you can chew!” it spoke in a gravel scraping sound, deep, heavy, and mortifying.

If the Queen was terrorizing, this creature made her presence and aura look like that of a toddler.

The surrounding knights hesitated. The Cardinal raised his staff and shouted for formation, but the creature was already moving. Not attacking. Sniffing. Its head swept low across the grass, tracking something not visible to the eye.

Then it stopped.

It lifted its nose into the air.

It had caught the scent.

“Ah, this scent!” it sniffed once more, “it’s familiar…”

“YOU FOUL BEAST!” the cardinal shouted, but the creature didn’t even give him a second glance.

With a sharp breath, it turned east, toward the slope of the island, away from the glade and into the deeper woods. It didn’t run with rage or frenzy. It moved with the stillness of a practiced killer. It was the same direction the Queen had moved to earlier.

Now, the wolf is out to hunt. And from the looks of it, the prey is a young man who had killed its first sired. Oh, what glorious day will it be.