The world was painted in crimson when Valdemar reached the Institute’s ground floor.

The Potion of Insight he had drunk was meant to prepare his body for a genuine Elixir of True Sight by enhancing his sensitivity to magic. Valdemar had read that the effects could get stronger with some people, but he hadn’t expected this. He noticed vibrant crimson lines coursing through the Institute’s walls and floor, like the veins of a living body. He suspected that these lines represented the wards set around the Dark Lord’s citadel and the complex network of spells meant to protect it from intruders.

Valdemar would have considered the ability to see them without focusing on his psychic sight a boon, if it wasn’t so distracting. He suffered from headaches, and he found himself distracted whenever one of the illusory stone veins glowed with magical energy. It would take him days to get used to it.

As he had suspected, most of the bloody leylines gathered into the Black Pillar at the fortress’ center, but other areas showed a great concentration of these veins: the Cathedral of the Light; the water well; the Hall of Rituals where that sadist of a lich had made Valdemar fight multiple monsters in a row; and the greenhouse.

Speaking of the Institute’s greenhouse, Valdemar had to admit that it was the most well-stocked he had seen in his life. The smell of a hundred different plants reached his nose the moment he took a step past the glass doors, as miraculous herbs and subtle poisonous flowers both grew on trellises. Unique flowers infested isolated alcoves illuminated by magical crystals, and Valdemar couldn’t recognize half of them. Vines and squirming foliage grew on the glass walls, tended by golem gardeners. Valdemar even noticed a few farming plots allocated to crops and mushrooms.

Come to think of it, the place was much, much larger on the inside than the outside. Valdemar wondered if the red lines were the cause. They probably fueled space-alteration spells to increase the interior size. He promised himself to learn more once he had finished his current projects.

As she had told him yesterday, Liliane indeed managed the greenhouse on behalf of the Institute. Valdemar found her drying herbs on racks in the middle of the building in the company of a handsome gentleman of her own age.

Or was it a gentlewoman? Valdemar had to admit he struggled to identify the person’s gender. Their face was graceful and androgynous, with long silver hair falling down on their shoulders and they had beautiful purple eyes. Valdemar immediately recognized the coloration as a weak illusion spell, the purple blurring to reveal green irises underneath.

“Valdy!” Liliane greeted him with a smile, while the gentleperson examined the newcomer from head to toe. They dressed quite like a rogue, with a black coat and travel cloak. “Iren, Valdy.”

“Hi, sweetheart,” Iren said with a masculine, baritone voice. “So you’re the new one? I heard of you, but you’re more dashing than I imagined.”

“Uh, thanks,” Valdemar replied, not sure how he should take the compliment. “So you’re the famous Iren. Liliane mentioned you.”

“In a bad way, I hope,” he replied with a chuckle. “I do have a reputation to keep up. I prefer to be known as mad and dangerous to know. It’s better for my line of business.”

“Pff, right,” Liliane rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to him, Valdy. He’s adorable and he’ll get you anything.”

Valdemar started to regret allowing her to give him nicknames. “Anything?” the sorcerer asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, if you’re asking for a dragon’s egg, I’ll tell you to fetch it yourself,” Iren replied. “But otherwise, just tell me what you need and I’ll see what I can do. You fancy something in particular?”

“I came here to find some ingredients for a potion,” Valdemar admitted. “But if you’re really that talented, I’ll need rare mechanical pieces. I’m also looking for Hermann, if you know where he is.”

Valdemar had tried to knock on the troglodyte’s workshop, only to be met with silence. Lord Och had all but ordered his new apprentice to help the reptilian scholar on his secret project, and even though Valdemar would rather focus entirely on his work, he wasn’t mad enough to disobey the lich.

“You’ll find Hermann in the greenhouse’s back,” Liliane said. “He has been painting a tree for a while now. As for ingredients, you’ve knocked on the right door!”

“Potion-making is more of dear Lily’s expertise,” Iren said with a raised eyebrow. “As for your other request, I’ll need more info on these pieces.”

“They’re Derro technology,” Valdemar warned. “You’ll need to have contacts in the Midnight Market to get them.”

To his frustration, Valdemar faced some hurdles in trying to rebuild his ecto-catcher. A few components had been made with Derroan Steel, a special alloy created through a metalworking process that the Derros kept secret. Azlantean alchemists had tried and failed for years to reverse-engineer it. Valdemar had heard rumors that the production method needed specific crystals only found in a very specific location in Underland, but he could never confirm them.

“Not a problem,” Iren replied, confirming Valdemar’s suspicions. “Truthfully, the market’s head honchos asked me to keep an eye on you. You and a few other clients ended up arrested, but you’re the only one who got out. It’s suspicious.”

“It’s my former supplier, Armand de Mantebois, who sold out everyone for a lighter sentence,” Valdemar replied. “My jailers said as much and Marianne will confirm it. I didn’t betray the Market’s secrets.”

Iren shrugged. “I won’t bother Miss Reynard, and I will take you at your word. Even if you were behind the leak, you’re under a Dark Lord’s protection now and out of reach. As for Armand, the Market put a bounty on his head. We’ll find him.”

“Midnight Market?” Liliane asked, completely sold. “What are you talking about?”

“The Midnight Market is a, shall we say, secret association of underground merchants, fencers, and smugglers specialized in distributing illegal goods,” Valdemar explained. “Especially forbidden Derro technology or foreign magical items. Sometimes you’ll find fenced goods too.”

“What?” Liliane choked, before glaring at Iren. “Don’t tell me some of the ingredients you gave me were stolen?”

“I don’t ask my suppliers where they get their stuff,” Iren replied with a laugh, causing Liliane to punch him in the arm. “Besides, it’s not illegal if a Dark Lord does it. Lord Och and the Midnight Market have something of an agreement. They don’t cause problems in his Domain and let me purchase stuff from them, and in exchange, he looks the other way.”

Valdemar had figured as much. His new lich teacher didn’t seem particularly concerned about imperial regulations. “How much would your service cost?” he asked Iren.

“Since it’s your first time, I’ll do it for free if the pieces aren’t too expensive,” Iren replied while smiling. “Next time we’ll see. If you’re up for it, you could also pay me with work. I have a bounty hunting business on the side, and I need tough guys who can keep their mouths shut.”

“I’m forbidden to leave the Institute for now,” Valdemar replied, though he wouldn’t have accepted even if he could. Hunting people down for money didn’t interest him. “And Lord Och gave me enough work on top of my own research.”

“Is it true then?” Liliane asked with wide, sparkly eyes. “That Lord Och took you as his apprentice?”

Valdemar blushed. Who told her that? “It doesn’t really matter.”

“Are you kidding?” Iren asked with a chuckle. “The last two people who survived his tutoring became Dark Lords in their own right.”

Valdemar squinted. “Those who survived?”

Iren responded with a wink, while Liliane looked happy enough for the two of them. “He’s pulling your leg, Valdy,” she reassured him. “I never heard of Lord Och killing any apprentice. In fact, I think he only took Lord Bethor and Lord Phaleg under his wing, no one else.”

“That’s because he erases any information about those who disappointed him,” Iren said mirthfully.

“Pff, you’re just trying to frighten Valdy.”

“Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me,” Valdemar admitted. He still shuddered upon remembering his ‘entrance exam.’ “Lord Och is as ruthless as you would expect a Dark Lord to be.”

“But no more than he has to,” Liliane countered with optimism. “Lord Och is just putting up a front so he doesn’t look weak before the other Dark Lords, but he’s not as bad as you think.”

Valdemar raised an eyebrow in skepticism. “Do you try to think the best of everyone?”

“Would you rather think the worst?” Liliane replied with a kind smile.

“At least I wouldn’t feel disappointed.”

And Iren agreed with him. “Spoken like a wise man,” the rogue praised him. “Forgive Liliane, she arrived only a short while before you did and under the kindest mentor of the lot. Give her a few months and she’ll see the big lich upstairs doesn’t have a single good bone in his body.”

He probably had a point. Liliane had only seen the smiling old man disguise so far, not the cruel lich underneath. Valdemar hoped that she would take the truth well enough.

“Anyway, that apprenticeship opportunity is amazing!” Liliane said, trying to change the subject. “You’re going to do great things, I just know it! Oh, and is that potion a secret project on behalf of the Dark Lord himself? You can tell me anything, you know that? I’ll never tell anyone else.”

That didn’t inspire confidence. “I’m just looking for dreamshade leaves, fleshroot powder, a bottle of elemental flux, and some night fruit for a potion,” Valdemar replied. “Nothing unusual.”

Liliane’s joy turned to worry. “Valdy, what potion are you making?”

“An Elixir of True Sight.”

“What?” Liliane all but choked. “Are you mad? Do you know how dangerous that stuff is?”

“Isn’t that the potion that drives half the spellcasters who drink it mad?” Iren asked, recognizing the elixir’s name.

“Because they didn’t prepare properly,” Valdemar replied, having done his research. “One must first acclimate their brains to the higher truths of the world. I had to brew a Potion of Insight this morning to strengthen my mind, and Lord Och gave me multiple exercises.”

Well, to be precise, the lich had given his new protegee a scroll full of exercises and expected him to master them on his own. According to the text, the essence of the Blood coursed through seven ‘locks’ or ‘chakras’ inside a human’s body. Bodily wastes and emotional debris clogged them, greatly restricting a magician’s full potential unless cleaned.

Valdemar had heard of the theory, but it served as a fertile ground for all kinds of hogus-bogus ‘magical enhancement rituals,’ frauds, or sometimes just as a front to promote questionable dietary regimes. Lord Och’s scroll, however, limited itself to breathing exercises and using the Blood to ‘cycle’ magical energy through his body to eliminate the accumulated wastes. Nothing too hard, though Valdemar had to practice every day.

“I don’t believe you about the potion part,” Liliane said with a frown. “If you had really taken that stuff, you would be sick in bed right now.”

Valdemar shrugged. Truthfully, he had expected something like this to happen. “My body filters out that kind of stuff quicker than most. I can’t even get drunk.”

“A fair warning, pal," Iren said. "If you take that Elixir, don’t drink it without supervision. I heard the first hours are harrowing. I know a guy who knew a guy who ended up walking through his window thinking it was a door to another world.”

“Did he reach it?” Valdemar asked, curious. “The other world?”

“If you consider the afterlife as another dimension, then yes he did.”

Liliane sighed. “You’re really set on taking that potion, Valdy?”

“I have to, Lord Och ordered it,” the sorcerer replied. “Besides, it will help improve my spellcasting.”

“Fine, I’ll give you the ingredients… but you have to brew and drink the potion under my care. I’m not letting you hurt yourself.”

“You’ll drink potions alone with a boy in his workshop?” Iren raised an eyebrow in a way that Valdemar found obscene. “Of course. Nothing suspicious about this, nothing at all.”

An annoyed Liliane tried to punch Iren in the forearm, but the rogue had good reflexes and dodged.

Afterward, Valdemar gave Iren his shopping list, and the young man replied he would come back next week with the pieces. The summoner would have preferred to get them earlier, but it wasn’t like he could go buy the devices himself.

He also took the opportunity to ask Liliane what she had asked Iren to fetch her, but as it turned out, they had been negotiating a deal before he arrived. The young alchemist would provide her roguish friend with potions, which he would sell to shops in exchange for a cut.

“Why do you need more funds?” Valdemar asked Liliane. “I know our monthly budget isn’t all that high, but certainly your father can provide all the money you need.”

“Dad says that I have to learn that money doesn’t magically appear out of nowhere,” Liliane answered with a sigh. “He isn’t going to trust me with the family fortune until I prove I can manage my own funds.”

Huh. Wise. Valdemar had heard many horror stories about children squandering their parents’ fortune when left to their own devices, and from what he had gathered, Count De Vane had no intention of dying anytime soon. Even if he did, he would probably have his soul transferred into an undead, go into quiet retirement, and keep a voice on his company’s board.

His business with the two done, Valdemar bade them goodbye and went on a troglodyte hunt. As Liliane had told him, he found Hermann painting in an isolated area of the greenhouse. The pictomancer had chosen a majestic plant as his model, a three-meters tall lifeform with armor made of strong black bark, green leaves basking in a crystal lamp’s light, and strong roots digging into the dirt.

It was a tree.

A true tree, not a giant mushroom.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen one,” Valdemar admitted as he approached the troglodyte. Most trees had gone extinct when the sun vanished, as they needed light and heat to survive. The few that survived underground either grew in special forests fueled by luminescent crystals, or had been alchemically modified to thrive underground. “What is it called?”

“An oak,” Hermann replied, still carrying a brush. Valdemar noticed that he had brought two canvases alongside his painter tools, the one he was working on, and a blank. The troglodyte used a pile of books as support to sit on. “The species... is long extinct... but Master Amie recreated it with biomancy. She’s... working on birds now.”

“I hope to see them with my own eyes.” Valdemar glanced at the troglodyte’s canvas, and to his surprise, Hermann had copied the tree in a realistic style rather than in the strange geometric one he used in his workshop. The summoner also noticed traces of Blood magic in the pigments. “You mixed some of your blood with the paint.”

“Alongside… the tree’s bark.” Hermann pushed his paintbrush against a black pigment. “Look.”

As swiftly as a serpent striking its prey, the troglodyte slashed his own painting, targeting the extremity of a branch. To Valdemar’s surprise, one of the oak’s branches fell on the ground.

“This is the simplest use… of pictomancy,” Hermann explained while Valdemar examined the fallen branch. The cut was clean, as if an impossibly sharp blade had cut through the bark without resistance. “By using my own blood… and that of a target… I capture the essence and shape of a living being… to alter from afar.”

“It’s impressive,” his fellow scholar admitted. “But any spellcaster could have achieved a similar result with a telekinesis spell.”

“Yes... but you would have needed to be close. Once a painting perfectly captures… a creature’s essence… distance becomes an illusion. I could cut that tree… from the other side of the world.”

Valdemar admitted that it changed everything indeed. The Blood worked by establishing a sympathetic connection between multiple creatures, allowing one to influence the other; even spatial magic or item-related spells usually worked by mixing blood and souls with inanimate objects or patches of land. Valdemar suspected that Lord Och’s teleportation spell used the crimson ley lines across his fortress as a way to ‘travel’ between two points, the same way two Earthmouths worked to create a gate.

But the greater the distance separating a sorcerer from the target, the weaker the magic. That was why summoning was an extremely difficult art. Creating a bond with an entity from another world needed a lot of magical support to work, from specific geometric arrays to intimate knowledge of the target. And even then, it was only possible because most summoned entities used the sorcerer’s magical energies to create a temporary body.

If pictomancy worked by using a painting as an intermediary to bypass the physical distance, then a pictomancer could hit a target with a spell’s full power from any place. Though considering it wasn’t more well-known as an assassination method, Valdemar guessed that pictomancy had to face severe limitations. The portrait probably needed to be a nearly perfect representation of the target, and couldn’t bypass their magical defenses.

Hermann gave his brush to Valdemar, who slashed another branch of the painting. This time the real tree didn’t suffer any damage. “I see,” the summoner said. “The spell only works with the pictomancer who mixed their blood with the pigments. Do you also need the target’s blood for the painting?”

“No… but it makes it considerably easier. Pictomancy can do many other things… capture a soul… imprison a spirit… create a pocket dimension… influence a person from afar… and even imbue an image with the gift of life.” Hermann coughed and cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

“You struggle with our language?”

“Yes,” Hermann admitted. “We troglodytes use... smell and visual information... to communicate. Our vocal cords are underdeveloped, and... I’m still learning your language. I know the correct sound, but my mind struggles to… to associate it with letters.”

If troglodytes used visual cues to talk, it probably explained his affinity for pictomancy. “We could use sign language, if you prefer,” Valdemar said. “I learned the basics.”

“It’s… alright… I need to master… speech.” Hermann massaged his throat for a few seconds before speaking up again. “Lord Och sent you to me.”

“Yes, about that…” Valdemar scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “I’m sure you’re researching something very interesting, but I’m working on something highly complex and time-consuming. No offense, but I would rather focus on my own project.”

“I heard of it. You are trying to… to prove the existence of another world… called Earth. Your grandfather… came from it.”

Clearly, word of Valdemar’s activities had spread. He wondered if Lord Och or the Knights of the Tome were to blame. “I suppose you think it’s a fool’s errand too?” the summoner guessed. “And that I should move on to another project?”

But to his surprise, the troglodyte shook his head. “I’m… actually on a similar quest.”

Oh? That caught Valdemar’s attention. “How similar?” he asked, before connecting the dots. “Does it have anything to do with… with that thing inside your painting?”

After seeing it, the necromancer couldn’t chase that strange, hooded figure’s picture out of his mind. The image had imprinted into his brain, and he could vividly remember each detail. The strange, alien colors beneath the hood, the swirling tentacles...

The image had been alive. Valdemar was certain of it.

“Yes… and… it may concern you.” Hermann rose from his seat of books, before handing one of them to Valdemar. “Look…”

On the surface, the book appeared to be a standard painting portfolio, a catalog of art pieces reproducing the originals. Except Valdemar had never seen any of them, and they all shared something in common.

At first glance, the pictures varied in style and subject. Some followed the Danse Macabre artistic style which had been the craze during the early days of necromancy, showing representations of Death attending undead parties or being repelled by powerful magicians. Others were highly detailed representations of castle gates or of streets with the houses’ doors opened. Another showed the famous assassination of Surtr Niflson, the dark elf general who had nearly enslaved all of mankind during the early days of the descent, in an allegorical style.

So many different works of art, but it appeared on each of them.

Sometimes, the hooded figure hid so well that Valdemar needed a few minutes of observation to notice it. In one case, the mysterious creature appeared among a banquet’s guests lost in a crowd. In another, it appeared on the threshold of a house, but when Valdemar looked into the open door, he only saw the faintest glimpse of a land of sand with a pitch-black sun. Whether it discreetly peeked through a crack in a castle’s wall or openly standing at the forefront of a picture, it was always lurking somewhere... watching the onlooker.

As Valdemar finished examining the portfolio, Hermann gave him another book called ‘Tales of the Strangers’ and opened a specific chapter. Less of a research paper and more of a compendium of stories, the book mentioned a list of cases where this strange creature had manifested.

One tale spoke of the famous artist Arnold Vitruscus, one of Valdemar’s personal heroes, and of his secret collection of paintings which the inquisitors burnt to cinders rather than release to the public. Another included a secret, anonymous interview of an artist speaking at great lengths about her hooded ‘muse’ and how much it meant to her. The ghastliest story detailed the case of a madman slaying fourteen people to use their blood for his magnum opus, a macabre fresco where a hooded figure took center stage. The artist applied the finishing touch with his own life.

“Ancient scholars called him… the Silent King,” Hermann explained. “It appears in finished paintings or frescos… inspiring artists with visions of… a land with a black sun. I suspect that it… comes from another plane of existence… and it cannot properly manifest in ours.”

“It’s a Stranger,” Valdemar guessed as he kept reading, ill-at-ease.

“All entities that exist… outside the Church of the Light’s worldview… are considered Strangers. They are not… a unified group. The Coiled Ones which my kind worship… have nothing to do with the Mother of All or… the Nightwalker… but the Church calls them all Strangers… because it cannot explain them.”

At least this one doesn’t seem to eat souls for breakfast, Valdemar thought. But still, these eldritch creatures were not to be trifled with. There were dozens of tales about this Silent King, some sinister accounts of murder and suicide, others puzzling stories of unexplained occurrences or the secret life of famous artists.

“Does Lord Och know what you’re dealing with?” Valdemar asked.

“Lord Och sees value… in my research.”

“That’s… interesting,” Valdemar admitted. “But I don’t see what it has to do with me.”

“Keep reading.”

Valdemar followed the advice, and read until he reached a very unusual tale.

On a first reading, the story sounded relatively ‘normal’ by the book’s standards. A mental asylum patient in the Domain of Saklas had drawn a fresco on his cell’s wall with his blood, one where the Silent King appeared.

But when Valdemar saw a copy of the fresco in question, he almost choked.

The drawing represented a strange circle, with a metallic structure similar to an arrow pointing at a clouded sky within. The Silent King showed up at the bottom, right above a short sentence which Valdemar assumed was the work’s title: La Dame de Fer.

“I investigated… all of these cases… to the best of my ability,” Hermann said. “This man was found... in 451 After Empire… forty-five years ago… in the tunnels near the Domain of Sabaoth.”

The same year of his grandfather’s arrival.

He wasn’t alone, Valdemar realized, his heart skipping a beat in his chest. He wasn’t alone.

He didn’t know whether to feel relieved, or scared.

“Nobody could understand him and… he turned violent,” Hermann explained. “The authorities couldn’t identify him… or any relatives… couldn’t understand his gibberish.”

“So they mistook him for yet another mad vagrant and shipped him to the first asylum that would accept him.” In fact, that man had probably been simply disoriented and unable to speak the local language. “Is he alive? Hermann, if this man is still alive, then he can prove Earth exists!”

“Unfortunately…” Hermann shook his head, to Valdemar’s horror. “Asylums… when nobody can pay for a patient that they cannot cure…”

“They often make them available for biomancers and spellcasters as guinea pigs,” Valdemar shuddered in horror, but he refused to let that chance go. “Maybe we can still track the corpse! If there’s anything left, we can gather information from it!”

“I could not… find where it went. Some mage… bought the corpse anonymously. The paper trail… it goes cold.”

Valdemar let out a groan of frustration. He had found his first lead in years, decades, and it led nowhere.

Hermann glanced at the fresco’s picture, and at the words at the bottom. “They could never… decipher the text. Thought it meant… nothing. I agreed with them… until Lord Och approached me with a… with a book in a language he didn’t… didn’t understand.”

“My grandfather’s journal,” Valdemar guessed, squinting. Normally he would have been mad at Lord Och for showing his journal to everyone, but not this time. “You saw the illustrations, and connected the dots.”

“Yes… I recognized… the picture and the words… but not what they meant. Do you… understand them?”

“I learned the language,” Valdemar admitted. The French tongue. “It reads La Dame de Fer, or the iron lady. It’s a nickname for a building called the Eiffel Tower.”

Hermann had gone completely silent, and Valdemar knew he had the troglodyte’s full attention. Finally, an intellectual who took him seriously!

“My grandfather spoke of this tower,” Valdemar explained. “He said it ruined the landscape of his hometown, but he missed the sight.”

Hermann nodded to himself, taking his words at face value. Valdemar found the experience incredibly rewarding. And… and he might have finally found a clue about how his grandfather ended up in Underland! He could finally prove his grandsire’s story as the truth, the absolute truth!

“You think there is a connection between my tale and this Silent King,” Valdemar guessed.

Hermann scratched the back of his left horn, removing an insect that managed to climb its way there. “I have tried to… to study the Silent King’s pattern.” Saying that out loud would have caught the deadly attention of inquisitors in any other place, but clearly, the Institute was laxer about these things. “Do you know... the primary colors?”

Weird change of subject. “Red, yellow and blue?”

They were the best basic colors for painting pigments.

“Yes...” Hermann replied, before nonchalantly swallowing the bug with a swipe of his forked tongue. Valdemar did his best not to show his disgust. “I tried with cyan, magenta, and yellow too…”

“Was that the reason for your strange art style and color choice in your workshop?” his fellow scholar asked. “You wanted to check if specific associations of colors or forms would make the Silent King appear?”

The troglodyte nodded. “But it doesn’t change… anything. I have narrowed down… the rules. The Silent King only appears in paintings or drawings... that include thresholds... doors... rifts... murder or death… and only those that include blood among the pigments. It is why… it has a bad reputation with the Church.”

“Or maybe it considers death as a door,” Valdemar pointed out. “So all paintings include a ‘door’ or ‘pathway’ of some kind.”

“I reached the same conclusion,” Hermann replied with a nod. “The paintings all represent… doors. Except… this fresco. Or so… I thought.”

At first glance, it didn’t make sense indeed. The Eiffel Tower appeared inside a circle, not a window or a gate. Unless...

“That man was drawing a portal,” Valdemar guessed, his fingers shuddering with excitement. “A gate to Earth, the one he used to get to Underland. And since the Silent King only appears in pictures with a threshold inside, it means it can detect them.”

This entity might know the portal’s location, or at least have information on it.

This could change everything.

“I believe that the Silent King’s visits and visions are… instructions… for a ritual,” Hermann explained. “Showing the way to… to its realm. The blood is… the key.”

“You’re trying to use pictomancy to create a portal between worlds,” Valdemar guessed, amazed by his audacity. “A pathway between the Empire of Azlant and this Silent King’s realm.”

A Painted Door between worlds.

No wonder Lord Och supported the project, and thought Valdemar would do the same. If Hermann was correct, and that a painting could work as an interdimensional portal… and if the Silent King could detect conceptual thresholds… maybe it could show the way to whatever portal to Earth this madman had seen. Maybe even create one.

This might have been the same phenomenon that summoned his grandfather to Underland.

“Okay.” Valdemar gathered his breath. “Okay, I see how our goals align.”

Hermann nodded. “I thought we… that we could learn from each other. Cooperate to… to create a portal.”

“Gladly,” Valdemar replied. “Do you have any experience with summoning? If you’re trying to contact an entity from outside our reality, you’ll need it.”

“I… I struggle,” the reptilian painter admitted. “I can… make the Silent King appear… reliably… but I couldn’t create a true gateway so far. Pictomancy alone… may not be enough to create the portal.”

“Maybe we could combine your pictomancy with my summoning expertise.” However, Valdemar could see the danger inherent to this plan. “I hope you realize that if we create a door between our worlds and his, it might gain the ability to transfer to ours. What if he is dangerous, or plainly malevolent?”

“What if it is… misunderstood?” Hermann countered. “What if it is only trying to… communicate… but struggles with our minds?”

“It drove some painters mad.”

“Not all… for one bad case, there are ten where nothing went wrong.” Hermann coughed, and Valdemar had to wait a few seconds for the troglodyte to recover his breath. “That the Silent King is dangerous… is a possibility. But… we cannot let unproved fear stop us… we cannot understand the secrets of the world… by running away from them.”

A line of thoughts Valdemar agreed with. And truthfully, the possibility of finally proving Earth’s existence made taking the risk all the more worthwhile. “If this creature follows specific laws, it means it can be studied, countered, and maybe even communicated with. The fact that we don’t understand it now, doesn’t mean that we can’t.”

“Yes… it is frightening because of the unknown. If we know and understand… we won’t be afraid anymore.”

“Alright, I’m in,” the summoner said. “I will still focus on my ecto-catcher first and foremost, but I’ll help you as much as I can. However, if we progress far enough to create a functioning portal, we will only finish this Painted Door with Lord Och’s assent and presence.”

However powerful this Silent King might be, a Dark Lord would be more than enough to deal with it.

“Agreed,” Hermann said. “There is… another thing… to consider. A portrait worthy of a godlike being... needs rare and potent pigments. The three… primary colors at least.”

“Well, our blood is red and will be needed for the painting anyway,” Valdemar pointed out. “That leaves only the blue and yellow pigments. I think I could help with it, but I need to learn more about how pictomancy works first.”

“Yes, yes… of course. I will teach you my art… and you will teach me yours.” The troglodyte’s tail wavered, and Hermann’s facial expression turned into what could pass for a reptilian smile. “I am… I am glad that we met. My project… many wouldn’t understand.”

“Many don’t understand mine either,” Valdemar admitted, having found a kindred spirit in the troglodyte. “l do wonder why you’re going down this path though. I mean, I have a very strong personal reason to prove Earth’s existence, but… why do you seek to contact this Silent King so much?”

Hermann’s smile faltered, and he became as still as a statue. “It’s not… not about me. It’s for my people. I...”

“You don’t need to say it if you don’t want to,” Valdemar replied, sensing his unease. “I’ll respect your privacy.”

“Alright…” Hermann didn’t hide his relief. His fellow scholar could tell that whatever pushed him on, it was something eminently personal. “Thank you.”

“I have one last question.” An idea had crossed Valdemar’s mind. “You mentioned that you could use pictomancy to capture a soul?”

“Yes… what of it?”

Valdemar thought of the day of his arrest, and of his grandfather’s ectoplasm struggling to manifest before dissipating into the ether. “Does it work with ghosts too?”