They tasted the thick smell of smoldering flesh and dried blood before they had even entered through its inner doors.
While Dieter and Lukk walked in front of them with their weapons drawn, Fernand had been tasked with protecting the others.
Whatever it was that Dieter sensed behind those doors had wiped the sarcastic facade from his person.
Dieter wore a one handed axe tightly gripped in his right hand, but Fernand knew it to be purely ornamental.
Lukk’s Zweihander on the other hand was anything but.
He had seen the man cut through opponents much larger than even his own sizable self with apparent ease.
Both were of monstrous strength, especially Dieter, who was truly in a league of his own.
Which begged the question of what could possibly unnerve them so?
The insides of the strange, esoteric crypt-like construction were not well lit at all, but the seemingly nonexistent, perfectly distributed light sources were bright enough to where Fernand could compare them to the warm, gentle light that forever radiated from God’s Needle.
In his hobbyist studies regarding true history, he had found that these lights could be manipulated, if one only knew how.
In other words, something had likely dimmed these lights.
Something that had at least basic knowledge of ancient Onrein technology, which very few possessed.
Pondering whether or not this information would prove useful to the brave warriors guarding them, he decided to stay silent for now.
The, what fernand guessed to be an entrance hall, continued deep into the wall of the abyss.
Lukk had joked about it, but if the general architectural design was similar to those of more modern structures, this desolate place might truly be large enough to host an entire army.
His enhanced eyesight allowed him to see clearly, still.
Those around him unfortunately did not have that luxury, save for Dieter.
And so he was the first to see the gruesome details of the many charred bodies left around them.
Disregarding his initial thought, they were not the remains of soldiers.
These were the twenty or so remains of bureaucrats, nobles, politicians maybe, if their fancy clothing and abundantly present jewelry was anything to go by.
These had all been important men and women, but now with their very life essence spitefully burned out of their bodies, they existed as nothing more than a warning.
‘Dieter, wait,’ Fernand spoke, ‘Let me quickly examine one of the bodies before we move on.’ He heard a grunt.
‘You have two minutes.’ With Cornelia providing support, he lowered himself onto one of the burned men.
‘How much of this man can you see, child?’ He asked Cornelia, eager to put her skills to the test.
‘Not much, I’m afraid.
The flames of my torch prove to be a frustratingly unreliable source of light when it comes to spotting the finer details.
Still, I can see that this man died only hours ago.’ She moved her hand to touch the corpse.
‘It must be.
The body is cold to the touch, but I see no significant signs of decomposition yet.’ Fernand was satisfied, and with the help of his student he stood up again.
‘You hear that, Lord?
Whatever it was that killed these poor fellows has had plenty of time to prepare for our coming, if it had been made aware.’
‘Do you see signs of torture then, Fernand?’ Asked Dieter.
He checked again, but it was rather obvious.
‘No, lord.
These have been killed quickly and efficiently.
There are no signs of subtle wounds on any of the bodies I’ve seen.
But that does not mean those deeper inside are similar.’ ‘No, it does not,’ Dieter sighed.
‘Best we continue under the assumption that they are well prepared for our arrival.’
They continued traversing the forgotten crypt, sometimes following the handful of bodies on their way, other times relying on Dieter’s instincts.
More and more did Fernand get the impression that this used to be a prison of sorts.
But not quite.
There was something about this place that made Fernand think that it used to have another purpose, but he could not fully discern as to what exactly.
The eerie dark halls unsettled him, as they felt haunted, and not just by those that had perished shortly before their arrival.
There was something vile about this place, something ungraspable.
Cornelia’s observation about the architecture being similar to that of the Needle was spot on, but this place lacked all its warmth.
It felt corrupted in many ways.
Every body they had found was burned.
Some were cut, or sliced apart, but the Causus Mortalitus was always the same.
They had all died screaming as the fire had burned away their bodies, made to suffer as their clothing melted into their skin, left begging as they had ran and rolled around the ground for a relief that would never come.
‘Monstrous,’ Fernand managed to spit out.
‘Truly inhuman.’ He understood the sparing need of those able to do others harm, but he could never bring himself to respect them.
Whether he could be considered hypocritical for assisting men of violence despite rebuking their very methods, he wished not to dwell on.
It had gotten warmer.
Slightly so, but despite his old age Fernand was able to notice the gradual shift in temperature.
He could see that the others sensed it too, as they tightened the grip on their weapons.
Even Richter now held his curved dagger firmly, although it would be anyone’s guess how useful the small man was in actual combat, without his crows to protect their master.
Whatever had caused this horrendous carnage, they were nearing its source.
‘Behind that door,’ Dieter spoke softly.
‘Lukk, on me.’ They stood in a wide corridor with an even higher ceiling, leading to God knows where.
The entrance Dieter pointed at was one of many that would lead into one of the smaller chambers accompanying said corridor, likely used for administrative purposes in forcefully forgotten times.
It was one of the few rooms where the door was still closed, as many others had been ripped from their handles and laid scattered, broken and blackened throughout the entirety of the hall.
Dieter gestured to Fernand and the rest to hold their position, well away from the silver, mineral-crafted entrance.
Finally, he slowly opened the door, using an oddly shaped handle in its center.
Inside the chamber that would be no larger than one of his old classrooms back in Nieuw Reikstaat’s capital, laid a handful of bodies scattered throughout, all ended in the same, now awfully familiar way.
Ancient desks and priceless machinery he was wholly unfamiliar with were all carelessly smashed to the sides.
Amongst the carnage, only two figures still drew breath.
A small female child with blue eyes and blonde hair sat terrified on one of the broken desks, barely a tenth of his age.
Between them and the child, a woman in her early twenties stood in the midst of all the bloodshed, sharing the same blue eyes and long, blonde hair as the scared child behind her.
She wore light, extremely well made silver-golden armour with borderline absurd levels of detail that ended with a white-gold gambeson beneath, reaching and spilling well over the floor.
On her side she carried a Rapier, a specialized weapon for duelling and precise lunges and strikes.
In her right hand, she held what looked like a Richtschwert-inspired executioner’s sword, albeit much, much thicker and longer, with all of the sharpness of its original design.
The hilt was connected with a slender, even longer metal chain that swept over the ground, all the way back up to her arm, connected like a prisoner’s chains.
She stood with her back turned towards the party, but not her eyes.
Fernand noticed it immediately, and a chill ran down his spine at the sight of it.
They were full of hate.
They were the eyes of a troubled child stomping on ants just because they could.
‘Who are you, girl?
Our goals may align, and we do not wish to fight you,’ started Lukk, lowering his weapon.
Fernand continued observing the room, stressfully searching for more vital, useful information.
Looking more closely at the remains of the burned men, he noticed one of them had been a priester, likely brought here to aid Sascha in her restoration.
‘Dieter, she is not..!’ But before he could convey his warning they were already enveloped in her flames.