Lady Mathilde had advised Valdemar not to reinforce his entire body, as it cost a great amount of energy and he only needed to protect a few vital areas.

But she probably hadn’t expected her student to be subjected to artillery fire.

As he heard a click echo from the golem’s cannon arm, Valdemar instinctively jumped between the unconscious Iren and the line of fire. His skin turned to steel from head to toe, while his flesh grew denser from the sheer concentration of iron within his muscles. His sense of touch numbed into nothingness as he became a living statue of metal.

A cannonball the size of a human fist hit Valdemar in the chest, the impact’s blow reverberating through his body as the projectile flattened against his natural armor. The blast propelled him backward against one of the cavern's walls, his back shattering the stone. A sharp pain spread through his ribcage, perhaps from a bone fracture.

Valdemar saw stars and stumbled, the flattened cannonball falling to his feet with a loud clang. The golem froze for a few seconds in surprise, the skull inside the machine’s glass dome of a head glaring at the iron sorcerer.

Unlike the brainless workers, that thing had a mind of its own.

Valdemar immediately attempted to telekinetically take over the golem’s skull and crush it. He sensed a mental response, a brain and a spine connected to machinery; but no blood to control. The derros had replaced veins with cables, and body fluids with alchemical components.

The golem immediately charged at Valdemar with frightening speed, the ground shaking with its heavy steps. It raised its left hand, and prepared to rip the sorcerer’s head off from his shoulders.

Reacting quickly, Valdemar glanced at the derro surgeon’s corpse lying on the ground and telekinetically tossed it at the golem’s face. The body hit the machine’s glass visor with enough force to crack it, but it didn’t slow down. Valdemar attempted to grab Iren and the other bed-bound prisoner before making a break for the stairway, but he almost tripped while taking a few steps.

Damn it, his iron armor might have been strong and flexible enough to resist a cannonball, but it lacked the flexibility of skin!

The golem tossed aside the infirmary’s beds in its charge—thankfully missing Iren’s—and attempted to punch Valdemar. The sorcerer leapt to the side at the last second, the machine’s metal hand piercing through the cavern wall like a sword through butter.

Worse, the noise was starting to attract attention. Valdemar heard voices deeper in the cavern, and realized that another group of derro was moving his way.

Hastily undoing his metal armor to move more freely, the sorcerer rolled to the ground, got back to his feet, and fired a few blood bullets from his fingertips. The projectiles hit the golem’s glass tank and widened the existing cracks, but not enough to pierce through the shielding.

It didn’t matter though, as Valdemar’s blood slipped through the cracks and the sorcerer telekinetically reshaped it into a small summoning circle. As the golem freed its hand and pointed its cannon at the sorcerer, he snapped his fingers and activated the spell.

The summoning circle ignited, and the golem’s visor exploded in a fiery blast.

Valdemar raised his arms to shield himself from both the bright light and glass shards as the golem violently fell on its back. A self-sustained conflagration materialized over the machine’s metal body, tongues of flames looking for fuel. The fire elemental raged like an inferno as it incinerated the golem’s piloting skull to a crisp and turned its strange fluids to steam.

The machine didn’t rise again.

Valdemar had yet to see anything survive a monster being summoned in its face.

“Enjoy yourself,” the sorcerer said, as he left his summoned bonfire to its fury. Valdemar glanced at the derro surgeon’s guinea pig, whose bed had been tossed aside by the golem; the human, a man in his forties, bled so profusely from the forehead that his hair had turned red. He struggled against the manacles chaining him to his bed, his eyes widening in relief upon seeing Valdemar approach.

“Calm down,” the sorcerer said as he applied a hand to the man’s forehead. The derro surgeon’s saw had cut through the bone, which Valdemar couldn’t repair, but he quickly stitched his skin back together. The summoner then reinforced his hands, breaking the man’s manacles. “Hey, my friend is wounded, can you help me carry—”

Valdemar never finished his sentence, as the prisoner fled for the stairway the moment he could. He didn’t even bother to remove the gag around his mouth.

That coward!

It was an all too human reaction, but Valdemar would have hoped for a little gratitude.

“I hope you get shot!” the summoner shouted on impulse.

And the derros fulfilled his careless wish.

A bullet hit the nameless prisoner in the back of the head, shattering the skull in a shower of blood and brain. The corpse collapsed at the bottom of the exit stairways, and Valdemar immediately regretted his words.

A trio of derro emerged from the cavern’s depths, wearing primitive respirators and glass visors on their faces. The shooter carried a long, spindly firearm Valdemar had never seen, the second a blunderbuss, and the third an alchemical flamethrower.

The trio noticed Valdemar and his elemental, with the blunderbuss wielder opening fire. The sorcerer ducked down in time to dodge, but his summon was hit directly. It only enraged the elemental, who abandoned its futile attempts to burn the golem’s corpse to charge at the derros. The vile dwarves fired bullets, but their projectiles harmlessly phased through the creature’s flames.

An idea crossed Valdemar’s mind. Glancing at the two derros he slew earlier, the sorcerer manipulated the blood bullets encased in their skulls and telekinetically reshaped them into summoning circles. “Hungry thralls of the Nahemoths and members of the first caste,” he chanted, his voice twisted by his mask into an alien growl. “I summon you from the depths of the Outer Darkness!”

The two corpses erupted in a shower of blood, as twin masses of eyes and tentacles manifested within them. Two Gnawer Qlippoths materialized, sandwiching the derros between the elemental and themselves. One of the dwarves activated his flamethrower and bathed the summoned creatures with green flames, but their tentacles swiftly coiled around his neck and started choking him to death. One of his allies attacked everyone with his rifle, while the fire elemental caught the last member of the trio and melted the flesh from his bones.

The nice thing about being a summoner, Valdemar thought, is that you’re never outnumbered.

With his foes distracted by his summoned allies, Valdemar hastily returned to Iren’s side and checked his vitals with blood magic. The stabilization process had worked, though the sorcerer noticed abnormal chemical reactions in his body. Having focused on the stab and head wounds in priority, Valdemar started paying more attention to the rest. He noticed an abnormal balance of hormones, hints of biomancy manipulations, and—

…

Oh.

Valdemar was thankful that his mask had merged with his face’s skin, or he would have probably blushed in embarrassment.

Carrying his ally in his arms, the summoner prepared to make a dash for the stairs when he noticed movements coming from it. Briefly fearing derro reinforcements, the sorcerer instead froze in confusion as a swarm of colored vipers slithered down the stepstones. The creatures, which numbered in the hundreds, lacked eyes and depths; they appeared two-dimensional, like sheets of paper. Their scales were all red in color, rippling like…

Like fresh paint.

“Valdemar!” Hermann’s voice called him out as he emerged from the stairway. His painted snake horde spread across the room and immediately chased after the derros; while the latter had managed to burn the Gnawers to a crisp, the fire elemental had turned the blunderbuss wielder to ashes in return. Hermann’s vipers coiled around the flamethrower-user and crushed him under their weight, the last derro fleeing deeper into the cavern with Valdemar’s last summon in hot pursuit.

“You can do that with pictomancy?” Valdemar asked Hermann, as two mirror-faced Knights of the Mind walked right after the troglodyte. They flinched upon seeing the room, and especially the brainless worker corpses walking around, before immediately chasing after the last derro.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Valdemar was happy to see the authorities.

“I was in a… hurry,” Hermann replied, as he rushed to his ally’s side and glanced at Iren. “Is he…”

“No, but he will need help,” Valdemar reassured him. Hermann immediately grabbed Iren and pulled him on his shoulder, the rogue as light as a feather to the troglodyte.

A strident screech suddenly echoed through the lab, while the electrical pylons’ light became unbearable, electrical arcs jolting between them with increasing frequency. The mindless, brainless workers stopped their tasks as the noise turned sharper, clearer. Derro words, Valdemar thought, as his ears struggled to make sense of them.

The workers immediately answered the signal, the brainless animated corpses rushing to the harvested human brains’ containers and removing them from the machines to which they were connected.

“Stop them!” Valdemar shouted, as he realized the danger. “They’re trying to get away!”

Hermann let out a hissing whistle, and his painted snakes immediately attacked the brainless workers by coiling around their legs. A single kick was enough to dissipate them into harmless paint however; Hermann’s creations were more obedient than Valdemar’s summons, but far more fragile.

The light from the pylons brightened, and the electrical bolts they emitted spread between them. A bolt vaporized half a dozen snakes, while another hit a Knight of the Mind rushing down the stairs and struck him down.

“Slime of the mind and member of the third caste,” Valdemar chanted, preparing to summon another Qlippoth as reinforcement. “I call you from—”

His vision went white with a crashing boom.

For a brief instant, Valdemar’s world slowed down to a crawl. A bubble of white light seemed to surround him, spreading over his blurred body; he went deaf for a moment, all sound stopping, all images dimming.

And then came the pain. The excruciating pain.

A wave of burning heat spread over his flesh, as if it was melting off his bones. Invisible ants crawled beneath his skin, from his toes to his eyes, the thrumming wave of suffering consuming him entirely. Every inch of Valdemar’s body hurt, and yet he stood in place, unable to move. His fingers trembled, his nerves ablaze. He didn’t even have the strength to scream, his brain paralyzed by the monstrous current racing through its neurons.

Another lightning bolt hit Valdemar in the chest, and the white turned dark.

Valdemar oscillated between darkness and consciousness afterward.

Each time he opened his eyes, the pain took over. Even his treatment at the inquisitors’ hands couldn’t compare to what Valdemar was experiencing in these moments; he felt as like a piece of meat being cooked alive, his blood boiling as invisible ants devoured him from the inside.

Sometimes he woke up facing Liliane’s panicked face. At other times, he vaguely remembered Lady Mathilde pouring liquid into a syringe. Valdemar actually welcomed the brief moments of dreamless oblivion that followed, right before his eyes snapped open again. The only part that didn’t hurt was his face, his mask providing him with fresh air, its cold surface soothing the pain.

And cold he felt when he awoke.

The world was dark and chilling. The frost numbed him to the bone, though he didn’t shiver. He was dead, and yet he breathed.

He walked on thick ice, with only a distant howl for company. He thought it was some beast calling out to him, until he sensed something brush against his naked chest. A movement in the air, strong and fresh. Fresher than anything.

Was that… the wind?

There were no walls around him, no ceiling to keep him down. Only a white desert, and an all-consuming darkness. He walked alone in the ruins of frozen cities, past the corpses of mammoths and monsters forever trapped in cages of ice. When he looked at their faces, he could only see fear and despair.

What was worse? To be slain without knowing it… or to see death, and yet be powerless to escape its grasp?

Valdemar looked up at the small distant lights in an ocean of cosmic darkness. He had heard of the stars, from the few brave and foolish enough to travel to the surface; some were blue, others a baleful shade of green. He watched a hundred fell down like droplets while twin daemonic flames danced in the void. The stars looked beautiful and terrible in equal measures.

And then, he noticed the Whitemoon looking down on him.

A pallid white sphere blurred the heavens, obscuring a smaller moon and the constellations. It was smaller than the world, the way a derro appeared so frail next to a human being. It dominated the skies, hanging above the surface like a vampire bat over an open wound.

And it had eyes too.

They were not the flesh eyes of Underland, no. They were as soulless as its surface, two black bottomless abysses over vertical rifts. The Whitemoon's ghoulish visage would have reminded Valdemar of a skull, were it not for its expression. Something in the eyes told the watcher everything he needed to know about why this rogue moon had emerged from the coldness of space to orbit around this world; why it had obscured the sun and cast the surface in eternal darkness.

Hate.

That face hated Valdemar. It hated life, and warmth, and all that was. Its hateful eyes didn’t look at the surface, but below; at the living creatures festering beneath the stone skin of the planet, hidden but never safe.

Valdemar lost himself in these hateful eyes, but he looked beyond. Beyond the darkness, beyond the death it promised. And no matter how deep the blackness, the shine shone through it. Soon the sorcerer found a glowing star beyond the Whitemoon. A fireball greater than the world, beautiful and bright.

Is that the sun? Valdemar thought as he gazed at the light, his fingers reaching for it. It looked so close, and yet so distant. It’s… beautiful. His fingers looked so ugly and shadowy in comparison, claws of blackness trying to approach something they could never possess. The closer he got, the warmer he felt; but the sun forever remained out of reach.

His vision sharpened, revealing the candles beneath the fireballs, the chandelier, and the pale yellow ceiling. Valdemar’s hand became clearer, covered in lightning-shaped scars, and he noticed the bed sheet against his naked chest.

“Valdy,” Liliane’s soft voice said to his left. Valdemar struggled to turn his head around, but noticed his friend sitting at his side with a look of concern and a bouquet of blue flowers in her hands. Iren occupied a bed behind her, his chest bandaged like a mummy and his eyes open. “Valdy, how do you feel?”

“Like shit,” he replied slowly, his voice twisted into an alien growl by his mask. His body didn’t hurt anymore, but it was numb and slow.

“I had to triple the anesthetic dosage,” Liliane said while biting her lower lips. She seemed relieved to hear him speak, but bothered by his voice change. “Your body eliminates it otherwise. Your regeneration is… it’s amazing.”

“You would be dead otherwise,” Iren said from his bed.

“It was just a flesh wound,” Valdemar replied with a chuckle, only for his chest to contract. The pain was sharp, but lasted less than an instant.

“Don’t you dare,” Liliane scolded him with a deep frown. “Lady Mathilde and I didn’t nurse your ass back to life for days to hear you joke about it.”

“Two bolts, that’s all,” Valdemar groaned. Liliane fidgeted in her chair. “What?”

“Hermann said you were hit six times,” his friend said, her face turning as pale as milk. “I… I didn’t recognize you at first. I could see the flesh, and we couldn’t remove your mask.”

Six times? Also, she said he had been asleep for days? “Couldn’t you remove it?”

“No, it sank into your flesh when we tried to remove it; Lady Mathilde feared it would reach the bone and fuse with it if we tried hard enough. We had to give you the healing potions intravenously.”

That… that didn’t bode well.

Valdemar moved his hands to his face, his numbed finger fumbling as they touched the wooden surface covering his skin. Liliane looked on with worry. “Valdy, be careful,” she asked.

“I… it’s alright.” The mask unattached itself without any trouble, allowing the sorcerer to remove it and put it on the blanket. It felt strange to breathe normal air again; he sensed dust flowing into his lungs, and the smell of flowers. “It must have been a defense mechanism.”

“Maybe.” Liliane shifted in her seat. “Where did you find that stuff, Valdy?”

“In the shop,” Iren replied for Valdemar. “I don’t think the fake Elias understood its true value.”

Valdemar thought there was more to that. He examined the mask, finding its surface as perfect as the day he found it. Lightning powerful enough to burn its wielder alive hadn’t even dented it.

“You said you tried to remove it?” Valdemar asked Liliane, his voice raspy and his throat sore. “How?”

“I poured acid on it for a start,” his friend admitted. “We escalated from there.”

And yet, it had survived everything. And the dream Valdemar had of the Whitemoon looking down on him… it felt far too real for it to be a figment of his imagination. The sheer amount of details, that sensation of infernal cold and loneliness…

“Valdy, what is that thing?” Liliane asked.

“I don’t… I don’t know.” Certainly not a pawn shop item. “The shop… does it have sales registers?”

“You’ll need to ask the Knights,” Iren said. ”They confiscated everything.”

Valdemar would consult them, and yet his thoughts moved to the fake Elias. The derro had looked confused when he had the mask. Maybe it was just inexperience, as the imposter couldn’t possibly know everything the true shopkeeper did. But why hadn't Hermann’s masks bothered him?

He had never seen this particular artifact before, Valdemar thought, a shiver going down his spine. The mask was never there.

Liliane clenched her fists. “Damn it, Valdy,” she said, her voice breaking. “Please don’t do that again.”

“What was… that actually?” Valdemar asked, as he remembered the horrific sight of human skin dried like clothes. He knew some Qlippoths used a similar process to impersonate mortals, but he never imagined derros could replicate it with surgery. “Did…”

“From what I understood, some of the dwarves escaped through tunnels with the brains they harvested,” Iren said from his bed, looking at the window. “Not all of them though. The Knights are interrogating them alongside Hermann, and Lady Mathilde is studying the skin samples they recovered.”

“Lady Phul is furious,” Liliane said, before showing Valdemar her blue flowers, which he identified as fresh Colophryar. The petals smelled so sweet. “She asked us to remain discreet, and gave us these flowers as thanks. They come straight from her personal gardens.”

Thanks? More like a bribe to keep quiet. The Dark Lord didn’t want people to know that a derro cell had been operating right under her nose. What did the dwarves even want with the brains they took? And how many people had they managed to replace?

Valdemar chased the thoughts from his mind. It was the inquisitors’ problems now, not his own. With the Colophryar plants in their possession, he could finally complete the Painted Door with Hermann. “When will we leave?”

“Not for days.” Liliane put the flowers on a bed table, then glared at Valdemar. “If I find you out of your blankets, I’ll spank you like a child.”

“Not even my mother spanked me,” Valdemar replied with a smile.

“She should have, it would have taught caution. Why did you think going alone in this dwarf den was a good idea?” She pointed a thumb at Iren, as if he were an afterthought. “To save this guy?”

“I know you care,” Iren teased her, though Valdemar sensed a hint of pain beneath the playfulness. “Your life would be too dull without me.”

“Pfft, of course I would have saved you, but Valdy is supposed to be smarter than I am.” Liliane sighed. “Now that we can access your mouth, it’ll be easier to feed you. I’ll come with potions, and you better drink them all.”

“Yes, Mom,” Valdemar replied with a deadpan voice. Liliane exited the room through a door while rolling her eyes, leaving him and Iren alone.

“You should ask her out,” the rogue commented with casual bluntness. “I mean, you almost died without passing on your genes.”

“So did you,” Valdemar deadpanned back. “Frigga is all yours.”

“You know, she didn’t even visit us. I expected her to do weird stuff to us while we were asleep.” Iren looked at Valdemar with a playful look. “You know, oneiromancers… they don’t need to be asleep to get inside your dreams.”

Valdemar slowly turned his head at the rogue, blinking repeatedly. “What do you mean by that?”

“All those times she talked to you in your dreams? Well, she could still move in the real world. Alone in a room, with your unconscious body.”

No way, Frigga didn’t strike him as that kind of…

But…

A doubt formed in Valdemar’s mind, while Iren grinned ear to ear. “Why did I save you again?” the summoner asked, while trying to suppress the horrifying mental image of Frigga sneaking into his bed.

“I dunno.” His voice turned from playful to serious. “Honestly, friend. If you had been the one shanked in an alley… I wouldn’t have risked my life for you.”

Valdemar remembered that nameless prisoner who made a run for the stairway, and ended up dead for it. He wondered if Iren would have reacted the same, if the positions had been reversed. “Then why do you call me friend?”

“I call everyone ‘friend,’ because that’s my job.” Iren shrugged. “I’m the guy that gets you what you need.”

“The guy, or the lass?”

“Depends.” Iren’s voice swiftly changed from masculine baritone to high-pitched… and feminine. His—her—facial features grew softer, more ladylike. “Does it matter to you?”

“No,” Valdemar replied immediately. “Well, yes, it does, but…”

Damn it, how could he say it?

“Iren, you’re not fully human,” the warlock stated. “Are you?”

Iren looked away. “If I answer, will you tell me why you saved me? Because I really don’t get it.”

“I would even if you kept quiet.” Valdemar shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I have saved you? Liliane would have, you heard it yourself.”

“Liliane is as naïve as a newborn, and she’ll probably get killed for it. You struck me as smarter.”

“Honestly, I might have hesitated if you had been an inquisitor or wronged me before.” Though nobody deserved to be flayed alive and their skin used as a warm disguise.

“And if you hadn’t known me?”

“I would have helped anyway.” And I did, Valdemar thought as he remembered the derros’ other victim. “After my mother and grandfather died, I was all alone. It was a tough life. Nobody helped me without expecting anything in return.”

“That’s how the world works,” Iren said with cynicism.

“Well, it’s wrong,” Valdemar declared firmly. “Just like it’s wrong to have a roof of stones above our head rather than a bright blue sky, or to have inquisitors burn our books because the knowledge inside might be dangerous. If we worked together rather than constantly keeping each other down, mankind would have expanded beyond this cold tomb by now. We’re better than this.”

Iren looked at him with an indecipherable gaze. “You spent too much time around Liliane,” he mocked Valdemar.

“Maybe,” Valdemar admitted. “But she isn’t wrong. I don’t think we can change everything… but someone has to try. To start somewhere. Or nothing will change. Even if I fail to reach Earth… I hope someone will pick up where I left off.”

Iren smiled, and this time it reached the eyes. “You’re an idiot,” he said while looking at the window. “Lord Och is going to eat you alive and shit you out.”

“He can’t, he doesn’t have intestines.”

“He will grow them, just to mess with you.” Iren marked a short pause. “Have you ever heard about doppelgangers?”

“The shapeshifters?” Valdemar raised an eyebrow. “You’re one?”

“Yeah.” Iren’s face darkened, literally; his pale skin took on a browner shade, and his hair became blacker. His eyes didn’t change though, which might explain his use of illusions to hide their colors. “It’s complicated.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Valdemar replied.

“Maybe I will one day.” Iren pulled his blanket closer to his shoulders, his appearance returning to ‘normal’ and his voice becoming masculine again. “I hope I’ll live long enough to see that bright blue sky of yours.”

“Me too,” Valdemar replied while looking at the ceiling, trying to imagine the sun beyond it. “Me too.”