Deus Necros

The guards outside Titania’s chamber remained exactly where Kaiser had left them, sprawled across the clean stone floor with their faces pale and their chests rising shallowly. Ludwig stepped over the nearest one without looking down for long. Killing them would have been easy, and after everything he had seen in the cells, it would have even felt deserved. But dead guards outside Titania’s door would announce that someone had found her. Unconscious guards could still be explained as being lazy or an incident happened.

Redd paused beside one of them, the tension in his arm showing that he had considered finishing the job anyway. Ludwig saw it, but he did not need to speak. Redd looked once toward Titania’s closed door, then toward the stairwell ahead, and moved on with his blade still in his hand.

Kaiser noticed the direction of his attention and glanced toward the staircase. ”You were expecting the source to be below us,” he said as they started climbing.

”Would have made sense,” Ludwig replied. ”Rot beneath the church and all that.”

”It would have been dramatic, not efficient. A spell affecting this many prisoners, while also isolating Titania from her patrons, needs access to a stronger current of holy power than those cells could provide. The catacombs are where they place the result. The mechanism that allows it is more likely installed somewhere within the active structure of the Sacrosanctum.”

Redd’s lip curled as he looked at the pale stone steps ahead. ”So they chained the dead with the same power people come here to pray to.”

”That appears to be the charming idea,” Kaiser said.

The stairwell was not built for prisoners. The deeper levels had been crude, cramped, and wet with old filth. These steps were broad and evenly placed, their edges lined with thin golden carvings that brightened faintly whenever someone walked over them. Prayer verses decorated the walls, all of them speaking of mercy, refuge, and the sanctity of the soul. Ludwig did not bother reading more than the first few. He had recently seen what the Sacrosanctum considered mercy, and his mood did not need help getting worse.

The sound reached them before the top of the stairs did.

It began as a distant murmur, too steady to be ordinary conversation. As they climbed higher, the words shaped themselves into a hymn sung by hundreds of voices together. The sound traveled through the structure with a low vibration, gathering strength in the white stone until it seemed as though the building itself was singing. Bells chimed between verses, deep and measured, followed by a single male voice rising above the rest in formal prayer.

Redd stopped for a moment, listening. ”There are a lot of people above us.”

”Mass,” Ludwig said. He remembered the raised banners outside, the crowd packed into the streets, and the miserable faces pretending that whatever the Holy Order was celebrating had not been built over something rotting. ”They were gathering people when I entered the city.”

Kaiser tilted his head slightly, listening to the voice leading the prayer. ”That is not a common priest conducting it. The resonance spells amplifying him are woven into the upper hall. Either someone at the very top is present, or the Sacrosanctum is spending far too much effort on making a minor cleric sound impressive.”

”The Pope,” Ludwig said.

Redd’s gaze darkened. ”Clementine.”

”Likely,” Kaiser replied. ”Which is troublesome if one intends to walk into the main hall and accuse him of binding souls to corpses. Fortunately, it is helpful if one intends to move through the lower chambers while the majority of the Order is occupied with spectacle.”

They reached the top of the staircase and found themselves in front of a closed door. It was nothing like the metal cell doors below, nor the polished wooden door keeping Titania hidden away. This one was made of pale stone fitted into an arched frame, with silver lines crossing its surface in intricate layers. A circular emblem sat where a handle should have been, four holy symbols arranged around the crest of the Sacrosanctum. The entire thing pulsed faintly with contained magic.

Beyond it lay the lower interior chambers of the church.

The path passed through this entrance.

Redd studied the seals. ”Can we open it without alerting everyone upstairs?”

Ludwig looked toward Kaiser.

Kaiser sighed lightly, as though the question insulted him only because the answer involved work. He walked to the door and rested two fingers against the emblem, tracing one of the silver lines without pressing into it. ”The seal is built to reject intruders coming from below, but it is not alarmed yet. They clearly believe no one reaches this point unless escorted or imprisoned. Sensible, considering the guards and the rooms we have already passed.”

”Can you open it?” Ludwig asked.

”Yes,” Kaiser replied. ”Though you should decide what you intend to do after we enter. Once inside, knocking every priest unconscious while asking directions is possible, but eventually someone will notice the halls are decorated with sleeping paladins.”

”Going in openly gets us buried under every knight and cleric in this place,” Ludwig said. ”Even if most of them have no idea what Clementine is doing, they won’t hesitate once they see intruders coming out from restricted catacombs. Worse, if I walk into the mass demanding Mot while dragging accusations behind me, Clementine gets to decide how the story is told before Titania can say a word.”

Redd looked toward the door as if Sister Gallows might be standing on the other side of it. ”Then we find the seal first.”

”We find the chamber operating it,” Ludwig corrected. ”Break whatever is stopping Titania from hearing her gods and holding those souls in their bodies. Once Titania can move, Clementine loses the one advantage he thought was absolute. If priests and paladins come rushing toward us after that, they will have to decide whether they want to charge through their own Saintess.”

”And Mot?” Redd asked.

”I still need to reach him before Clementine pushes events far enough that Mot acts the way he did before,” Ludwig replied. ”But walking up to the Saint while the Pope still controls the building, Titania is imprisoned, and I have no proof visible to the people above is asking for disaster. We release Titania first. Then we speak to Mot with someone the Order cannot easily dismiss standing beside us.”

Redd remained quiet for a moment. The hymn above them shifted into another verse, the voices swelling through the walls while the three of them stood at the hidden edge of the building’s corruption.

”And if we find Gallows before the chamber?” Redd asked.

The question carried more weight than the words themselves. Ludwig looked at him directly. Redd had not forgotten his sister for a single moment since hearing the Shrike’s name. He had simply forced himself to keep walking because there was something larger ahead of them. That restraint would become much harder the moment her face entered his sight.

”I intend to help you kill her in a way that lasts, you fought her before, you know she is almost immortal” Ludwig said. ”Until then, you do not charge in because you see her face and decide rage counts as a plan. She already took enough from you. Do not hand her the rest of your life because she knows how to make you pissed. Trust me, I know about rage more than anyone.”

Redd’s expression tightened, and the ghostly shape beside him stirred faintly, as if the words had reached her as well. For a while, he said nothing. Then he nodded once, stiffly, without taking his eyes off the stone door.

Kaiser glanced between the two of them. ”Good. Now that revenge has been postponed until it can be conducted competently, perhaps we can focus on entering a holy fortress without encouraging every armed fanatic inside it to introduce themselves.”

Ludwig snorted. ”Open the door.”

Kaiser placed his palm over the circular emblem. For a moment, nothing changed. Then the silver lines on the door began dimming one at a time, not breaking or flaring, but going still as though each strand of magic had simply forgotten what it was supposed to protect. His fingers shifted slightly along the emblem, following a sequence Ludwig could not recognize, and a soft click echoed from somewhere deep inside the stone.

The door released with a low scrape.

Kaiser did not push it open fully. He moved it only wide enough to look through the gap, then waited, listening. The prayer from the mass was louder beyond it, but nearby the corridor appeared quiet. After a moment, he gestured for them to follow.

Ludwig passed through first.

The hallway on the other side was painfully clean. Smooth marble floors stretched in both directions, broken up by carved pillars and small recessed alcoves holding candles and sacred relics. Painted glass panels along the wall showed saints healing the sick, shielding children, and guiding the dead toward peaceful light. The images might have moved Ludwig once. Now, after the cells below, they only felt like decorations hung above an open grave.

No one noticed them immediately. The mass had pulled most of the servants and soldiers toward the upper sanctum, leaving the lower hall nearly abandoned. A few voices carried from a side passage to their left, mixed with the sound of armor shifting and someone complaining quietly about having been assigned corridor duty during a papal ceremony.

Ludwig looked toward Kaiser. ”Once we start moving, put down anyone isolated enough to disappear without drawing notice. Priests, paladins, guards, anyone who sees us coming from this door. Quietly. Leave them breathing if you can. The more bodies found dead, the faster this becomes an invasion instead of an infiltration.”

Kaiser gave him a faint smile. ”I am pleased to see you finally recognize the value of precision. It is almost as if repeatedly dying has improved your judgment.”

”It mostly improved my irritation.”

”Whatever the source, I appreciate the result.”

Redd pulled his hood farther forward and remained close behind Ludwig as they moved away from the hidden door. His weapons stayed concealed for now, though his hands hovered near them. The ghostly figure following him had dimmed, becoming difficult to see in the brighter hall, but Ludwig knew she was still there. If Gallows appeared, he doubted either of them would need to ask whether Redd had recognized her.

They had only crossed the first alcove when a priest emerged from the side passage, accompanied by two paladins wearing ceremonial white armor. The priest had been speaking quietly to them about security around the mass, his expression sour from whatever task had taken him away from the ceremony. He turned toward Ludwig’s group, saw three figures where none should have been, and his mouth began to open.

Kaiser lifted two fingers at his side.

The priest’s words never came out. His throat tightened in the middle of his first breath, his hands flying up toward his neck as he staggered into one of the paladins. Both armored men reacted quickly, hands reaching for their weapons, but their own breaths vanished before either sword cleared its sheath. Metal scraped softly against marble as their knees struck the floor, then each collapsed in turn, their bodies heavy and limp beneath the glow of the painted glass.

Redd stared at Kaiser for half a heartbeat. ”That is becoming disturbingly useful.”

Kaiser stepped past the unconscious priest and adjusted the man’s robe so his face was less visible from the far end of the corridor. ”There are many valuable lessons hidden among basic magic. People have an unfortunate habit of chasing larger spells before mastering the ones that make breathing optional.”

Ludwig grabbed one paladin under the shoulders and dragged him behind the nearest pillar. Redd did the same with the other, while Kaiser pulled the priest into the alcove and set him beside them. The work took seconds, and when they were done, the hall looked empty again unless someone deliberately searched the shadows beside the candles.

Ludwig crouched beside the priest and searched his robes, finding a small ring of keys, a stamped token bearing the Sacrosanctum’s inner seal, and a narrow strip of parchment folded several times. He opened it and scanned the written instructions. Most of it listed routes that had to remain clear during the mass, which halls were reserved for the Pope’s escort, and where paladins were expected to rotate during the ceremony.

Then he found two entries that mattered.

The first marked a restricted corridor leading toward the Saint’s receiving chambers. Mot’s name was not written, but the symbol beside it matched the imagery of the God of Dreams Ludwig had seen at the entrance. If Mot was anywhere beyond the public mass hall, that corridor was the most likely path toward him.

The second entry mentioned a lower sanctified conduit chamber that was not to be entered without direct papal approval while the ceremony remained active.

The compass beneath Ludwig’s lantern pulled immediately toward the second route.

He folded the parchment and tucked it into his coat.

”Found something?” Redd asked.

”Two things,” Ludwig replied. ”There is a route that likely gets us near Mot, and there is a restricted conduit chamber under direct papal control. The compass wants the conduit.”

Kaiser glanced down the empty hall ahead of them. ”Then the seal first. If the conduit releases Titania, meeting Mot afterward becomes a conversation rather than an act of suicidal trespass.”

”That is the plan,” Ludwig said.

Redd looked toward the direction of the upper sanctum, where the mass continued, the chorus of worshippers rising around the voice of Pope Clementine. Somewhere up there, the man responsible for burying Titania and cutting open prisoners stood before a crowd and led them in prayer. Somewhere nearby, Mot remained unaware of what his own church was preparing. And somewhere within these halls, Sister Gallows moved freely enough that every shadow might eventually turn into a wound from Redd’s past.

He looked toward Ludwig. ”Which way?”

Ludwig closed his hand over the compass vestige. The pin steadied, pointing away from the public sanctum and toward a narrower passage descending behind the ceremonial halls.

”Down,” he said. ”We free Titania before the Pope realizes he has lost her.”

The three of them moved away from the unconscious patrol and slipped deeper into the Sacrosanctum while the mass above continued without interruption. The prayers grew louder for a moment as they passed beneath the main hall, voices joined together in reverence for an institution that had hidden its worst crimes only a few corridors below their feet.

Ludwig listened to them for a brief second, then kept walking.

Soon enough, the Pope would have something far more urgent than a sermon to worry about.