Tenebroum Ch. 56-57 (Patreon)

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Ch. 56 - The Under Temple

They continued deeper into the darkness after that. As the sound of water got louder, the hair became more humid until water began to drip from the ceiling of the narrow winding passage. They waited for the next attack to come at any moment. Instead, the terrible fury of the zombie’s attack had been replaced with an unsettling silence so oppressive it made Todd’s hands tremble, at least that was until he heard the sound of distant chanting. The words were too faint to be understood, but the darkness behind their terrible rhythm was clear.

He could not let himself be overcome by the fear that boiled out of the dark and mouthed a silent prayer to the light bringer to drive it back. At the same time, he followed Brother Faerbar deeper into the darkness. Even the holy light radiating from the Templar's and their weapons did not penetrate far into the cursed shadows they were walking through, so when the room opened into a large cavern, it surprised everyone. One moment the winding path seemed like it would continue forever into the bowels of the earth, and the next, the walls fell away to reveal a wide hall that was very dimly lit by a number of large brass braziers lined up down the center of the hall.

It was entirely different from the tunnels they’d traveled through so far. Not only was it larger, but the floors here were smooth and the walls painted. Someone had taken great care in their construction. In places, there were grooves cut to channel something from the broad, flat surface, but he had no way to know if they were meant to keep water from pooling, or if they existed for some darker purpose.

Brother Faerbar led them along the left wall, toward the nearest of the small doors that lead away from the great hall. This made sense Todd reasoned, since they shouldn’t stray far from their only known exorcist until they’d found another. Instead of finding more attackers, though, they found a wall and a series of rooms which resolved themselves into a nightmare more awful than anything they’d seen in the palace above. There, there was only the blood as evidence that something horrible had happened. Here though, lay the bloodless corpses - pieces of them, anyway. The Rooms were packed with stacks of body parts, and on tables, there were corpses in different stages of disassembly or reassembly. That most of them wore the remaining shreds of fine clothing told him that they had found the final resting place of the missing nobles.

All the squires had made signs of warding as soon as they’d caught a glimpse of these sights, but the muttering began when they saw one particular corpse, with five extra arms grafted onto it and a sixth sitting there just waiting to complete the horrible symmetry. Barbaric. Butchery. Abomination. The words were quiet, but the disgust in the syllables was unmistakable. This place needed to be cleansed, and the people responsible needed to be brought to justice.

There was no one to hold to account, though. Wherever the chanting voices were coming from, it wasn’t here. Here there were just mutilated corpses that had been modified until none of their humanity remained. At least, that was the case until they reached the final room. There they found a man with his back to them, busily stitching away on the corpse before him like they weren’t even there. His back was to them, and they couldn’t see his face, but because of the fluid nature of his movements, Todd was sure that he was a living person, and if he was persuaded properly, he could finally give them the answers they sought. So, he was surprised when Brother Jakobous approached with his glowing sword raised high to split the stranger in half without asking his name.

Todd understood the rage as much as anyone. He could see the evil roiling off the cloaked figure in waves and knew a swift execution was too good for such a man. It was only when the Templar was bringing his sword down like a vengeful god that Todd finally saw the third hand that it had been using to hold the stitches and understood the truth: it was just one more corpse that happened to be busy making other corpses.

Everything happened at once after that.

The blow never landed as a corpse next to the strange surgeon suddenly came to life and grabbed the brother’s arm. The undead’s hand began to smolder on contact with the Templar’s holy aura, but its death grip held firm nonetheless. Even as that happened though, all the partially finished and half-completed zombies suddenly came to life on all sides of them as the room erupted into chaos. Not even the zombie that began reaching for Todd distracted him from the gruesome sight that would remain burned into his mind for as long as he still drew breath.

With Brother Jakobous’ sword held over his head and his arm restrained, there was nothing to stop the strange zombie’s fourth hand from plunging through the Templar’s chest and ripping out the man’s heart before suddenly withdrawing. For a second, Todd struggled to understand how something could rip through the warrior’s blessed chain mail like it was little more than paper. However, that single image of the hand holding a still beating heart answered his questions and would live in his nightmares forever. The seven fingers on that hand had all been knives of one shape or size, and they glowed with a foul aura that made them glitter violet and black in his sight.

After that, he didn’t have time to rush to Brother Jakobous’s body. No one did. They were all fighting for their lives, and though many of these half-finished monstrosities were effortlessly slain a second time, some of the more monstrous creations proved quite a challenge. No matter how hard Brother Faerbar and the other Templars fought, they couldn’t quite reach the surgeon that had struck down their friend and sworn companion.

Each time they got close, there would be a new surge of monsters to push them back, and it only ever had to move to parry their blows a handful of times. It didn’t even bother to turn around and face them as it had its ragged little army attempt to tear them to pieces. Ultimately, the Templars were forced to retreat from the relentless, murderous insanity. Such a maneuver was not without cost, though, and warriors were wounded and maimed as they fought their way free from the insane slaughterhouse to regroup in the main hall, where they weren’t surrounded.

They’d expected to have to hold the door against a wave of dead, but in the end they weren’t followed as they left those cursed rooms and returned to the eerie orange glow that was reflected in the puddles that spotted the floor. There was an argument then, in that relative moment of safety. Some of the men argued that they needed to go back to secure the bodies of the fallen before that thing could bring them any harm, but Todd was having trouble paying attention to that as he noticed one simple fact: the chanting was getting louder.

“They are brothers,” Brother Harnin swore. “We owe them nothing less than this!”

“It pains me to say this, but the light will protect their souls, but their bodies are already dust, and we will have to mourn them later.” Brother Faerbar said softly, “The light will protect us too, but we need to keep pushing deeper. We have not yet found the true source of evil in this place, and people will keep dying until we.”

A few moments were spared for the paladins to use the light to heal the most injured of their brothers. Once they were done, the only evidence they’d been wounded were rent clothes and damaged armor. Even these miracles were a trade-off, though. Every one spent healing the dying was one less they could use against the darkness, so those with lesser wounds made do with bandages. Then they were back to pushing deeper into the cavern.

“Why would there be light?” Brother Samael asked as another brass brazier bloomed to life in the distance with no apparent cause. “Surely the damned would do best in the dark.”

There was some quiet debate about witchcraft or it being a trap before Brother Faerbar interjected. “It’s because they want us to see this sacrilege,” he said, pointing at the barely visible wall on the far side of the light. The way was narrowing as they approached a pool, and the walls were covered in blasphemous murals of aquatic scenes, which were barely visible in the dim light.

Todd wanted to study the pictures but couldn’t take his eyes off the almost circular pool of water in the center. Its dark water was perfectly placid but so full of evil that it might as well have been acid or poison. Nothing had happened yet, but he was sure that it would.

It was only when he saw the murals on the far side that he finally turned and looked to his master, “Look - it’s Oroza - the water dragon!”

The mural depicted her as a giant, sinuous blue-gray water dragon, but no sooner had he spoken that name than the pool began to boil and froth. For a moment, he worried that the water dragon herself would burst up and devour them all.

But instead, tentacles show out of the water, aiming to drag every nearby warrior into the depths and drown them. When Todd felt the first two tentacles crunch beneath his mace, he realized they weren’t tentacles at all but arms sewn one to another until they stretched over a dozen feet and made a mockery of life itself. The monster might not have revealed itself yet, but this fact told him a great deal about it. He shouted a warning to his brothers, but he wasn’t sure if they heard him over the roar of the leviathan that finally rose from the bloody pool.

It rose along with the pitch and volume of the hellish chanting that echoed through the hall. This wasn’t a man or a beast; instead, it was a monster made into the shape of a beast out of the parts and pieces of countless men. Todd would never be able to describe it better than that. Its wide mouth was filled with row after row of teeth, and innumerable tentacles were attached to its bloated body. He would remember those details in his nightmares for years. As it dragged itself onto land with its wavering tentacles and clawed limbs, it used its grasp to entangle and then devour two of his fellow squires almost immediately. A Templar followed soon after.

It was all Todd could do to keep from hyperventilating as he battered the grasping arms and pseudo tentacles from him as he tried to fight his way to his master’s side. He couldn’t, though. Even if he could fight through this forest of flesh, he never would have been able to stand so close to Brother Faerbar’s brilliance.

The Paladin shone like a tiny star as he advanced on the horror, with no fear on his face. There was only determination as he struck at it time and again. Three of the other Templars did the same, as they fought in a long crescent, absorbing most of the attacks. Still, none could get so close as his master, which filled Todd with a strange sort of pride as he struggled to do his part.

In the end, it was their holy light that did the creature in. No matter how many limbs they lopped off or rents they created in the creature’s bloodless skin, more tentacles ending in dead men’s hands always rose out of the water to assault the warriors. Still, slowly but surely, the thing began to smoke and smolder before it finally burst into pale-yellow flames of holy fire. Todd had been taught that evil could never stand against the might of good, and he had never doubted that.

It was one thing to believe and quite another to see with his own eyes. As the strange aquatic creature switched from lashing out in a never-ending storm of attacks to flailing in agony as it became a slowly deflating spiritual bonfire, Todd praised Siddrim for his protection and strength, vowing never to forget this moment of triumph.

Ch. 57 - The Purge

When then aquatic abomination was no more than a melting pile of flesh sloughing off a jigsaw puzzle of a skeleton, it was finally over. Another four brave warriors had died in that final fight, and twice as many had been seriously hurt, reducing the martial strength of their cadre to half of what it had been at dawn. Most of those hurts would be healed within a few days with the proper rituals, but the dead were set aside together respectfully in a bloodless part of that foul hall until the danger had passed enough that they could be brought to the surface. Already though, Todd could feel the change. Everyone could. The blight that existed in these dank caverns had, in large part, vanished with the death of that monstrosity.

The chanting that had throbbed in the darkness was gone now, and the dreadful stillness had once more replaced its unnatural rhythm. Was it possible that they had really slain Oroza, he wondered. The Oroza was said to be a mighty river dragon, but the way that these people worshiped around that pool, it wasn’t impossible, was it? Perhaps she’d never been a dragon at all, and that had just been a myth to cover something darker. From its size, he could easily believe that it was linked underground to the nearby river.

That was the thought he returned to over and over again as they searched the side rooms after they’d skipped until now. In them, the holy warriors found prayer rooms filled with unresponsive cultists who seemed to be able to do nothing more complicated than breathing and small libraries that were overflowing with blasphemy about the nature of their gods. The Templars would not even allow the remaining squires to look at the latter and had them end the suffering of the helpless cultists while they alone reviewed the profane material before burning it. In their search, they found several altars dedicated to the Oroza in all her aspects. Still, they found no one who could explain what had happened here. The leviathan had died, and somehow it had taken everyone’s minds with it.

The living worshipers weren’t much different than the remaining zombies in that sense. The zombies still moved and attacked if you got close enough for them to sense the spark of life that burned within Todd or his fellow warriors, but they lacked the strange teamwork that had made them such a formidable threat before. Now they were just thrashing menace somewhat less challenging than a rabid dog.

The Templars made quick work of the place after that. In killing the abomination these heretics had worshiped, they’d torn the heart out of this web of darkness just as it had torn the heart of Jakobous’ body. In the end, they retrieved the bodies of the warriors that had died in the butcher’s den, but the strange surgeon that had made all of them had vanished without a trace. In the end, that zombie and the heart it had stolen from Jakobous were the only missing pieces of the puzzle, in a physical sense. Still, the mysteries only grew deeper as they found the routes that led from this underground temple to the buildings it was connected to on the surface.

That the set of winding stairs closest to the river leads to the main temple of Oroza, the Storm Bringer that looked out over the river was a foregone conclusion. The only ones that were surprised that was where the first tunnel led were the priests. They interrupted when they burst into the place. After taking several priests into custody, they quickly summoned the city guard of Fallravea to handle their prisoners and put the place to the torch.

“Rotten from top to bottom,” Brother Garrand said, scowling.

Todd was forced to agree because, to his eyes, the whole edifice was tainted. The beautiful marble building might not have been as obviously evil as the temple below. Still, it was easy enough to see the shadows lurking in the corners and on the faces of the devout. The entire edifice of the Oroza’s worship was as contaminated as the river, and he had no qualms in helping to light the fires himself.

Things happened quickly after that as Brother Faerbar took command of the guard from a weaselly-looking noble named Baronet Geldin. He was locked in a tower with the rest of the captured priests until each could be questioned and tested individually. It was a priority, but there was too much work to be done to take care of that just now. The smoky plume from the waterfront temple was drifting over the whole city by the time they had sealed the old city’s gates. Now they could descend again into the darkness and root out all the other filth that had to be purged by fire.

Watch Captain Bruden had worked hand in glove with the now-arrested guard captain. Still, he’d shown no reluctance in obeying every order the remaining Templars delivered to him. Todd couldn’t say whether that was because he was a devout man or because he knew the kind of scrutiny such resistance could bring to him. He’d heard that inquisitions were an ugly business, and there was no doubt in his mind that Brother Faerbar would send for those fanatics once the danger was past.

While the holy warriors were busy rooting out the nests of filth below, the watch captain carried out his mandates on the streets above. Curfews were being established, checkpoints were being manned, and anyone that seemed the least bit foreign or strange was being rounded up so that his master could look hard at them for the taint of evil. Each new path led to a new tunnel and a new den of vice and evil that needed to be purified by fire. A brothel, a butcher, a warehouse on the docks, and three noble houses all went up in flames before sunset. It was only once that was done that the Templars brought their dead to the surface to give them their last light rites by the glow of the setting sun.

“We honor the fallen with the full knowledge that someday we too will fall as well,” Brother Faerbar entoned as he looked from his comrades to the setting sun and back. “They are only a step ahead of us in the eternal struggle, and we shall meet with them again in the next world.”

The ceremony continued until dark, and each surviving Templar said a few words. Todd could tell from the way several spoke that he wasn’t the only one concerned by Brother Jakobous’ missing heart, but he said nothing because it was not his place. He, like everyone else, was just grateful to have survived. They’d gone into the darkness of the palace with 17 men: eight Templars, eight squires, and one priest candidate. Now two Templars and three squires were dead, and another 6 people were dead, including Brother Verdenin, who was still only barely clinging to life.

By tomorrow half of those injured would be so wholly healed that it would be as if their wounds had never existed, but that was tomorrow. Tonight there were only five members of their cadre that were uninjured, and there was still much work to be done. The smell of smoke was heavy in the air, and the prisoners were overflowing the city jail and three other defensible buildings that had been set aside for that purpose.

Todd had always thought that he would have been thrilled to be doing the work of the divine on such a day, but this evening excitement was the farthest thing from his mind. Between the exhaustion and grief, he felt like he was about to pass out on his feet. Unlike so many others, though,  he was uninjured, so he owed it to everyone to do whatever he could for as long as he had to. As the night wore on, that mostly turned out to be running messages back and forth across the city through empty streets to let this unit of the city guard know to reposition here or inform the watch captain that all boats were to remain moored pending a thorough search.

“Don’t you see? This is the most crucial time,” he heard Brother Faerbar yelling at the watch captain after he hurried back breathlessly from delivering another message to the jailers. They were to start bringing prisoners to the temple at first light for questioning. Usually, his master would have another errand for him as soon as he arrived, but this time he had to wait for this argument to subside… or escalate, he thought grimly.

“Wasn’t that when you set half of Fallravea aflame this afternoon?” The man asked, not bothering to hide his irritation. “I’m telling you, the day watch needs to sleep, or we’ll be adding mutiny to our list of problems.”

“They can sleep when the checkpoints are all manned,” the paladin answered. “We have burned the viper’s nests and rounded up as many of their colleagues as we can find, but tonight is the night that the rest of the vermin will try to flee. Every man that escapes is another village that we will someday have to purge and burn in the exact. Same. Way.”

Whether it was the strength of Brother Faerbar’s argument or the way his eyes glowed as his righteous anger gathered, eventually, the Watch Captain relented. “I’ll see what I can do, but I ain’t promising any miracles,” he grumbled.

“Siddrim will provide all the miracles we could ever ask for,” the brother said with a smile, which quickly disappeared when he turned to Todd and gave him his next assignment.

Todd didn’t talk back. He just took the note and was off again on another jog through the moonlit city. He would deliver two more messages before his work for the day was finally done. It was almost midnight when he finally went to sleep on the floor of the tiny chapel to Siddrim that had become their base of operations in this godless city. They couldn’t be sure anywhere else was safe until they knew how deeply the rot had already spread. So, like everyone else, he fell asleep in his armor, waiting for an attack that never came.

Instead, he was greeted by dawn’s light and freshly baked bread that he greedily devoured after morning prayers were complete. There was still much to do, but now that the light was again on their side and the Templars had enough energy to heal the wounded, there was no chance that they would lose, Todd told himself.

When what healing could be done had been done and everyone had finished eating, Brother Faerbar addressed them all. Though he wasn’t a handsome man, as he stood before his assembled warriors in torn armor, silhouetted by the rising sun, Todd couldn’t help but be stunned as he took in everything his master said. The church of Siddrim forbade iconography of their god, preferring to think of him as pure white light. Still, in that moment, Todd couldn’t help but think of the man as the living embodiment of all that was good and just.

“You may or may not have realized it already,” his master said, speaking mainly to the assembled squires, “but we have already won. Last night was evil’s last chance to strike us down, and they failed. Instead, they are routed, and we are victorious.”

A cheer went up after that, but Brother Faerbar kept talking for quite a while as he laid out the plan. By the time the sun was set again on the city, there would be a messenger on their way back to Siddrimar to relay everything that had happened and request more assistance and public proclamations would be read to explain what had transpired to the fearful townspeople. After that, those with the sight would use it along with some harsh questioning to sort the genuinely guilty from those that had merely been standing too close and cut their number of suspects by at least half before they started putting people to the question. He continued, enumerating a long list of specifics they would focus on and who exactly was going to do what, but Todd didn’t worry about that. All that mattered to him was that they had fought evil, and they had won.