I walked through the halls, the ringing of elven steel piercing loudly into my mind.

  It was not a physical noise that others could hear, I alone was bonded to that blade. Though at this point I had much on my mind.

  How exactly had this complex network of tunnels been dug out from beneath this city without anyone noticing? The answer was obvious, clearly a number of people had noticed and had facilitated in hiding this structure from the public eye. The lord may need to be questioned. It must be someone with power.

  If my mental map was accurate then there were over seven miles of tunnels beneath this city.

  I readjusted my hat, the long brim was occasionally rubbing against stone jutting from the rough walls and coming loose. I needed to keep my ears tucked tight to my head or risk losing them in an upcoming fight. I could dodge an attack from a human easily, but my ears were long and floppy enough to not stay tied to my head.

  Some elves clipped their ears, but I always felt that was reminiscent of an attack dog.

  “Damn.” I muttered, my feet were sore from the extended walking and it seemed like my task was still far from complete.

  In front of me was a door. It may have been the only door I had seen in this dungeon. Everything else had been dirt caverns with oddly smooth floors. Overlapping hallways that sometimes went nowhere and other times lead to back alleyways.

  I held up a fist to signal my present company that they were to remain in place and I approached the door. I had decades of experience in how to breach an entryway, everything from silent breaks to battering rams to explosives.

  Many were surprised by the first step. It had always been fairly obvious to me, I tried the doorknob and felt the door spring open then I slowly pulled it open while peeking inside.

  The room appeared clear with no obvious threats. There was an altar, candles, and a woman kneeling in prayer. This room confirmed that this complex was made for a cult to the ancient one. The fools did not know that their own god was dead.

  I strode in, my footsteps silent, my breathing hushed beyond what a human could hear. Slowly I drew the blade of an unknown metal that I had taken from that strange human and closed distance.

  The woman was muttering unintelligibly. I could distinctly hear her voice but the words made no sense, it seemed to be gibberish.

  Like a tiger I stalked the elderly human who may have been a fourth of my age, I reared and then I pounced. The blade cleaved through her back and into her heart with a single motion and I felt no resistance. Her blood splattered outwards as stray droplets coated the room before the stream of blood leaked onto the floor. I shifted her body to keep it from trickling onto me.

  The scent of iron mixed with the scent of damp earth. The woman went limp, the blade was much sharper than I thought and I began to wonder how this could end up in the hands of a human.

  My musings were cut short, the woman breathed her last breath as I slowly lowered her down to avoid unnecessary noise, but even so her head turned and I met her gaze. She had stopped breathing, seconds ago her heart had lost function and yet her eyes appeared alive.

  Her lips moved into a smile and she spoke with air that I knew was not in her lungs.

  “I knew it.”

  Her corpse dropped like a puppet no longer being held up by its puppeteer and I continued laying her flat onto the ground. There may be more cultists in here, human or not the deranged were not something to play games with. I moved quietly through the halls, the exits should all have guards on them.

  I listened, but heard nothing other than the breaths of the men I had brought down here.

  The air was thick with blood and it made it difficult to smell.

  The dim light was more than enough for my eyes and I came upon a passage, one that did not intersect with the maze that had taken me here. Some sort of escape tunnel?

  I called to the guards I had brought. “Get in here!”

  Their clumsy footsteps carried them forwards, their armored boots loudly trodding through the dirt. I watched as each one’s eyes lit up in surprise. One by one they would see the candles and stare towards the source of light, then they would look about the room before coming upon the dead old woman.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  It was predictable, in this place of darkness the first thing they would always look at was the lights. If you put a candle on one side of a room and hid on the other you could kill a human before they realized that you were there with complete certainty.

  These men were supposedly well trained, their shock only lasting a heartbeat as one by one they took in their surroundings and got to work. They began lowering their halberds and fanning out to watch the empty doorways.

  The fact that every man took the exact same course of action, of course, made it all the more obvious when one of the men reacted differently. I watched as the armored human came through the door and instantly sighted on the dead woman. His eyes lingered upon her crumpled form and then with effort he broke away to stand next to his ally, pointing his weapon down a dark hallway.

  His eyes never glanced at the candles, nor did it at any point fall upon the gold and jewels on one side of the room. I memorized his face and later I would question him.

  With the room secure I began a more detailed search. Diverting most of my focus into the makeshift shrine.

  I saw the crosses, the jewels and the money and the old woman’s lifeblood coating everything. It was enough money to buy a dozen farms or hire an entire company of mercenaries. Absentmindedly I reached into the bowl and grasped a handful of silver coins and felt something bite into my hand.

  I withdrew and grasped my appendage. Blood trickled from a slight cut.

  A jagged rusted nail dug into my palm and I ripped it out, the cultist’s blood had camouflaged the jagged metal in with the gold and silver.

  I was definitely going to have to be checked for diseases.

  I turned to the old woman, a mocking grin still plastered on her dead face. She looked as though she had won, though the fact that she laid dead on the ground was evidence of the fact that she had not.

  Lowering myself, I grasped at her sides to check for anything concealed. She had no pockets, but even so I turned her over to see if she carried anything.

  I found only a wooden cross, carved into a sharp point on the bottom, clenched in her dying grasp. For a moment I searched my memory, rituals for ancient magics had so much variance that it made it difficult to tell what was a spell and what wasn’t. This scene would have to be catalogued and any ill effects nearby would have to be investigated. It was a serious procedure, and I would need to call in more inquisitors.

  My blue mouthless companion surveyed the room, their eyes glazed and sliding over everything as if she was blind.

  “Dear god.”

  My head snapped to the source of the voice, the same man from earlier whom I had marked for questioning. He clearly was one of these cultists. My gaze turned to each of the soldiers in turn, looking for any sign of understanding, anything that meant they knew what this was a shrine too.

  The most obvious thing was that each of these men were staring at something, at first I thought they were looking at me but then I too turned.

  Upon the altar was a golden piece of artwork, a cross that did not belong in this dark cave. It was elegant and was large enough that few walls could have borne the weight of the rare metals. Blood splattered across it, the same cultist’s blood that had drenched much of the alter.

  Was this what they were staring at? The bleeding figure nailed to this gilded cross?

  I heard one of the humans fall, he knelt clutching at his head. Sweat poured from his brow as his breaths turned to ragged panting. His kneeling turned to a makeshift grovel as he lost the ability to even sit up correctly.

  One by one the humans fell as some unseen force overtook them.

  I was blind to whatever was causing this, I drew my knife, then thought better and seized a halberd from the ground. I hadn’t seen something like this since-

  A flash of light tore through the room, brighter than the sun. Enough that it tore at my vision despite closing my eyes and turning in the opposite direction. It was like someone set my retinas on fire. I covered my face, I threw myself upon the ground and tried to bury my face in the dirt.

  You know not what you have done.

  The thought came unbidden, like something else was thinking for me.

  Should you continue, certain doom awaits.

  Something’s mind wormed its way into my head. I could feel it pressing on my consciousness like a weight.

  This is bad. I thought.

  He is waking. It thought. Should it ever cease its endless dream so too shall everything cease.

  I knew what I was talking to, one of the servants to the dead god. The dreaming ancient, that which humans worshipped and feared.

  “Get out of my head!” I screamed. “Your god lies in a pool of its own blood. It rots and we have seen it!”

  The planet is dead, it is cold rock. The sun is dead, it has never lived. The sky is dead and yet neither is it not real. God lies dead and yet only that which has been mortal may die.

  From my history lessons I knew we had seen it before, thousands of years ago we searched for what it was humanity knelt to. We saw the rotting monstrosity, we saw the angels crawling from its corpse like maggots. Those who laid eyes on it went mad shrieking of things with a thousand thousand eyes and a billion teeth.

  “Leave me angel. We know the rules that bind you. You have no power here.”

  I raised my hand, I called upon the power within me and felt it crackle at my fingertips.

  I come bearing warning. The priestess’s prayers were granted, elf. His pieces move, drawn to His will. Lay down your arms and submit your life, such that your people may find redemption.

  “So you seek to twist your rules to allow you to take my life? Tell me, if you wish to save us so badly why don’t you tell me what your god plans?”

  His will is unknowable, his hands move unseen. His goals are unknown and even we cannot fathom the depths of his will. I will ask once more, because I know these plans involve you. Will you not give up your life, that your kin might live?

  I struggled to my knees, then forced myself to rise and face the angel. I covered my vision with an arm and in my other I hurled lightning. Asking me to submit my life? The dead god’s servants could not kill, but they were free to take anything that you offered including your life and more.

  The bolt of lightning cracked the air like an explosive. I never saw if it landed.

  As if it had never happened, the light ceased.

  I blinked the spots out of my eyes, searching for whatever had spoken to me. The room was empty, the altar was untouched, the candles continued to flicker casting their moving shadows across the room.

  I turned to my companion, its blue skin already fading. Their eyes had been burned out of their sockets. The body lay inanimate and something within their torso wriggled and then grew still.

  The ringing of elven steel grew distant, and I turned towards a tunnel knowing instinctively that this is where that human had gone. I turned to the halls and I knew my decision had already been made.

  The human had my blade, I could track him to the ends of the earth. There was no rush because I would get it and him back eventually.

  But the presence of this cult? It would have to be dealt with before it had the chance to spread.

  My hand went to my stomach as nausea almost overcame me.

  That old woman’s blood had to have been disease ridden.