Deus Necros

Ludwig crouched and punched through the rotten floor of the house.

He then set his weight and drove his fist into the boards.

The floor gave in with a wet, ugly crunch. It did not burst into clean splinters the way healthy timber would have. It sagged, folded, and collapsed around his hand like something that had spent years becoming soil while pretending to remain architecture. Dust puffed upward, gray and bitter, carrying the smell of mold, old smoke, stale piss, and dampness so deep that even fire would probably complain before burning it.

Redd stood by the broken doorway, arms slightly raised as if ready to react should the whole building decide to come down with the floor. His imperial knight uniform looked painfully out of place in the abandoned ruin. Too clean, too official, too tied to a world of ranks and titles that this house had clearly never respected.

Ludwig tossed the plank aside near the unconscious muggers, where it landed across one man’s legs. The man twitched once in his sleep, then wisely decided unconsciousness remained the safest option.

The hole beneath the floor opened like a dark wound. The air rising from it was colder than the room, but not clean. It carried the sour thickness of sealed places, old water trapped in stone, rat droppings, wet brick, and something faintly metallic beneath it all. Not fresh blood, but close enough to narrow Ludwig’s eyes. This was not a simple cellar. The darkness below had depth, structure, and history. More importantly, the compass needle beneath his lantern pointed down with the stubborn certainty of a bad idea becoming official.

”Guess that’s our door,” Redd muttered, though not loudly enough to make it a proper conversation. His eyes moved from the hole to Ludwig, then back to the shadows below. The ghost beside him leaned closer.

Ludwig jumped first, cloak fluttering around him as he dropped through the broken floor. The fall was deeper than any normal house foundation had a right to be, enough that a regular man would have cursed halfway down and landed badly. Ludwig hit the ground in a crouch, one hand touching the floor as dust stirred around his boots.

Redd landed a breath later, quieter and lighter, with the kind of animal balance that made his body look like it had negotiated favorable terms with gravity. His boots barely scraped the brick before he straightened, head already turned toward the tunnel ahead. The ghost descended after him without sound, drifting through the opening rather than falling. Her form dimmed in the darkness, then gathered again near his shoulder.

They found themselves in a narrow tunnel with an arched ceiling, paved in layered brick. The passage stretched in both directions, though the compass gave one path all the importance it needed. There was enough room for three people if they were friendly or desperate. The ceiling curved overhead in old brickwork, damp in places, darkened by age, and patched where someone had clearly repaired it long after the original builders were gone.

Ludwig frowned at the walls. They were far too well maintained for something supposedly forgotten. That was the first problem. The second was that none of it was visible from above, which meant someone wanted the house to look abandoned while the passage beneath remained usable. The bricks were old, but not neglected. The mortar had been reinforced. Cracks had been filled. Drainage grooves kept water from pooling too deeply. Even the air moved faintly, suggesting vents or hidden shafts farther in.

A forgotten catacomb would have been convenient. A maintained hidden route beneath the Sacrosanctum was something else entirely. People used this place. People with access, resources, and reasons to keep a passage under a holy city functional without drawing attention. In Ludwig’s experience, reasons like that usually came wearing masks, robes, or a very enthusiastic relationship with murder.

Then he noticed the engravings.

He got next to the wall and watched faint lines glow dimly. They were carved shallowly into the brick, so fine that dust had almost hidden them. Almost.

The script crawled along the walls and arched ceiling in thin patterns. Runes nested within longer lines. Circles broke into angular shapes. Repeating marks looked decorative only to someone who had never seen magic written by a mind paranoid enough to distrust stone.

There was rhythm in the engravings, a layered structure that ran with the tunnel rather than against it. Not a single ward, then. A system. The passage had been stitched together with seals.

Redd’s eyes narrowed as he studied the carvings. He could see well enough in the dark, but seeing marks and understanding them were different problems.

”What’s that?” Redd asked. His voice remained low, but the tunnel caught it and carried it farther than Ludwig liked. The words slid along the curved ceiling and returned thinner, colder.

”Magic seals. Blocking sight and signals. Powerful stuff,” Ludwig said, feeling the hum of magic running through the brick. He did not touch the writing. He was not stupid enough to poke unknown wardwork beneath the Holy Order with his bare hand unless the situation offered no better comedy. The seals vibrated beneath the surface, quiet but constant, like a sleeping beast breathing through stone.

They were not aggressive, at least not yet. Still, the magic in the walls pressed faintly against him, tasting the air around his body and finding something acceptable enough to ignore. That was not reassuring. It only meant the first layer did not hate him immediately. There were probably deeper layers with stronger opinions.

They advanced, following Ludwig’s compass. The needle beneath the Soul Letting Lantern pointed forward without hesitation, its dark tip steady even as the tunnel curved. Ludwig kept the lantern low, enough to read the compass but not enough to throw light down the whole corridor. Shadows clung to the ceiling in thick folds, broken only by faint glints of damp brick and the occasional twitch of something small fleeing ahead.

Redd walked behind and slightly to the left, leaving Ludwig the lead without complaint. His movements were careful, but not timid. His hand hovered near his weapon, and every few steps his head turned toward some sound too faint for ordinary ears. The ghostly woman remained close to him, drifting without footfall, her faint shape sometimes passing through thin strands of darkness as though the tunnel itself was reluctant to touch her.

Apart from a few rodents, there was nothing alive in the tunnels. The rats down here were pale, thin, and unpleasantly bold until instinct corrected their optimism. One skittered toward Ludwig’s boot, stopped, raised its head, then bolted so fast its claws scratched sparks of sound from the floor. Another froze on a ledge at shoulder height and stared with wet black eyes until Redd glanced at it. The creature vanished into a crack.

Smart rat. It has a promising future if it avoids politics.

The deeper they went, the more the city vanished. No forced cheers. No distant bells. No priests smoothing grief into obedience. Only their steps, the hum of seals, the drip of moisture, and the occasional scrape of rodent claws. Ludwig preferred honest silence. It usually meant fewer idiots were talking. Unfortunately, it also meant every sound that did not belong became easier to hear.

He then decided to place the lantern underneath his cloak, completely turning off its brightness.

”You alright without light?” Redd asked. His golden eyes were capable of sight even in the dark, and his voice was nearly swallowed by the tunnel. The question was practical, not doubtful. He wanted to know if Ludwig could move without illumination before they found themselves sprinting with no time for explanations.

”Yeah. I have the eyes of Envy. I see fine,” Ludwig said. ”But we should stop talking. I hear footsteps. Far away, but still there.”

His vision shifted as Envy’s gift sharpened the darkness into depth and outline. The tunnel became layered, stone and air divided by subtle shades, old magic gleaming where the walls had been carved. Far ahead, sound moved. Not rats. Not water. Steps. Controlled, measured, and too heavy to belong to children or beggars.

”I didn’t think you’d catch that before me,” Redd murmured. ”Yeah, I hear it too. Let’s keep conversation to a minimum.”

There was a small note of surprise in his answer, but no wounded pride. He turned toward the sound, ears angling slightly beneath the red hair. The ghost shifted with him, her form narrowing as if listening through whatever senses she had left.

They continued moving until Ludwig snapped his arm back.

”Stop right there!”

The voice echoed loudly in Ludwig’s head.

Ludwig caught Redd by the shoulder before the knight’s next step landed, pulling him back carefully rather than violently.

There was an issue here, if Kaiser decided that he needed to shout that loud, and Ludwig wasn’t about to start risking anything while they have yet to reach the entrance of the catacombes.