As we wound through the purposefully unremarkable stone hallways, I was surprised to see doors open in the monotonous façade to reveal rooms on the other side. As I passed, I glanced inside, curious and found them to be – more often than not – filled with people, unconscious and lying on the floor in cots.

“Are these the civilians?”

I gestured through a door we were passing with my head, turning enough to look back but not so much that I was at risk of running into a wall.

“They are.”

I waited for more from the man – the only one of the three to talk to that point – but there was only silence, other than him directing me through the labyrinth. I shrugged mentally, pleased at least that we would not be alone in our efforts to keep the citizens of Ouhl safe, though it was starting to worry me just how many were unconscious, given that at even the Focus stage, a cultivator was significantly more tough and resilient than a normal human. A regular human knocked unconscious for even a few minutes had suffered fairly serious brain damage, so I hoped it was something magical keeping everyone asleep, not only because it lowered the risk of them being vegetables when they did wake up, but also because it meant we might not have to keep feeding people sleeping pills.

There were dozens of revealed rooms as we walked, making me think that the walls were entirely for show and that the huge block of an edifice was in fact completely hollow, no matter how natural the partitions seemed. The Blood Guard had clearly been very busy in the slightly more than twenty-hour hours since the event, though it was a little strange that we had not seen them going about their business, given the fact we had been parading around the streets with a forty-foot glowing statue-man...

Before too long we reached the now-open door of Tain’s office, though I was certain that we had taken an entirely different route than the last time I had visited. The man himself was sat behind his desk reading from sheafs of paper that littered it, looking harried, a dark scowl on his face. At least he looked unaffected, I thought to myself with a mental chuckle.

“Marshall, this man claims to have some information you may be interested in.”

Tain looked up, irritation at the interruption written large on his face, thought that irritation managed to somehow deepen at the sight of me.

“Great, the Void blasted conspiracy theorist again. Did you bring evidence this time, or am I going to be locking you in a cell until the city is back in order, sometime in the next decade?”

“Uh, no, no evidence. Well, other than... all this” I gestured our around me, to indicate the city, the headquarters and the people in it. I had no interest in being locked up for any part of a decade and was ready to make a run for it – as useless as that might be in the maze-like halls – at the first whisper of warning from Instinctive Precognition.

“Well, perhaps we’re past the point of needing proof, given the events of the last day. Come in, and don’t knock any papers over. Thank you, Guardsman.”

I turned my head to watch my escort leave without a word or glance back at me; the Guard had come across as pretty bad tempered and violent, but I had to wonder how much that was due to circumstances. With a shrug, I stepped into the office and sat.

“Right, is this where you tell me you were right all long and the Random Bone sect – or whatever you said – is responsible for all of this?”

“Uh, yeah, the Risen Throne. Not a sect. We heard that they might have a member at a nearby sect, so we went to try and get some evidence, but when we found them, they told us this was about to happen, so we rushed back to warn people, or to try and stop it and... well, it happened sooner than we hoped.”

“And where is this person now? And... which sect?”

The Marshall’s was low and tight, an almost imperceptible growl bubbling up at the back of his throat as he spoke. Even without the aura’s effects to amplify it, I could feel the man’s rage at the people who had dared to do this to his city.

“We left him there, in favour of coming back. Obviously, in retrospect, that was a mistake. And it was the Earthen Sky sect, but we think there may have been others at the Forge of Flesh and Bleak Shadow sects. We don’t know whether the sects were complicit, or whether they've just been goaded into making a distraction of themselves, however.”

“Earthen Sky? I’ll bring the fucking Inverted Mountain down around them if I find out they took part in this. And I’ll maybe bury them alongside those other petty, obstinate shit-houses.”

I paused for a moment as Tain ground his teeth, the papers in front of him momentarily forgotten as he stared past me, past the walls and into the distance. After a minute or so, and judging that I had given him enough time not to bite my head of if I spoke, I continued.

“So, I had a question... everyone else we can confirm was in the city are, well, pretty insane at the moment. Or unconscious. Or dead. How is it that you and everyone else seems so... sane?”

I did not mention that Tain himself seemed to actually be saner than he had on the previous occasions I had met him. They say that tragedy can better a person, but I had never taken it quite that literally before.

The Blood Marshal looked at me for another minute, the quiet stretching out to two and then three; I was on the verge of just changing the subject when the man sat back in his chair, rubbing at his jaw before speaking.

“The Blood Guard have been in this city for a long time, for as long as there’s been a city. Before. When the first Marshal set about hammering some order into the heads of the other mad bastards that settled here, he knew that if he wasn’t going to get carried along with them, he’d need to be better at resisting. So, he set out to find – and did - the source of the aura.”

I almost interrupted him there; I had thought the aura a thing that extended evenly within the border. To hear that it has a source was certainly news, and it made me wonder if the Risen Throne had access to it, in order to build the array that supposedly destroyed it all.

“He found it, and he built a box around it, to contain as much of its effects as he could, before drowning himself in its baleful nature for a year and a day. When he emerged from his isolation, the effects of the emanations were like a candle when he’d been sat next to a raging inferno. As more people came, he needed more people to keep them from killing each other. So, he found others of like mind, and he took them into the box. For a year and a day.”

I was aching to ask questions, but it was clear from his expression that Tain was not yet done with his explanation, even if he had lapsed into pensive silence. I feared the prompting would only succeed in shutting him up, so I kept my silence and waited.

“Every Blood Guard goes through the process, deep beneath this place, in a sealed off crater with a pool of blood at its centre. We go through that, so that beyond its more... intense influence, we may save lives. And I know what you’re thinking – if we’re so inured to the chains the aura laid about our shoulders, why did we act like everyone else, or worse?”

This time it seemed like he wanted some kind of response from me, and since it was something I had wondered, I nodded firmly.

“In the time since this place was built,” the Marshall gestured around us at the building, “people have forgotten that there is a source, forgotten the purpose of this box. We try not to remind them, to draw curiosity by acting in ways foreign to the place. It also helps if those we keep in check consider us to be more ready with the stick than they are.”

I could not hold my tongue any longer, as much as had happened since my arrival and over the last day or so, all the curiosity over those events scattered as the man spoke, a new question rising inside of me.

“But... why? I get the impulse to protect people, maybe, but why ward this all away? Why not have everyone sit by the blood pool or whatever, gain some control of their own?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? I suppose it’s the same reason this Ribboned Crone has attacked. The blood is that of an ancient cultivator, an Apex. To consume even the smallest part is to take a huge leap forward, and to empower your abilities in ways that defy simple intent. They did not know this when they first came, it was just curiosity. But they learned.”

“But... so? Why not let people eat it, or drink it or whatever? There can’t be much, it would have been gone already, surely?”

“It is not just power the pool imparts, but madness. Any who consume it become singularly powerful – not to an Apex’s level, of course – but more than others, and then they rage across the world, slaughtering any they meet.”

“But won’t the Apexes stop them? That’s their chosen role, their job, right? And if they’re so strong, how did Blood guard stop them?”

“They can’t be everywhere. So here we are. And we are forced to use numbers.”

I sat for a moment in thought, processing that, before speaking again.

“But, it’s over, right? The Risen Throne blew it up. So, the danger is passed?”

“Whatever they did pierced the arrays we use to contain the pool; what the city experienced was just the pressure equalizing. The aura will return, eventually.”

We both sat in silence then, each of us considering the situation we found ourselves in.

“So, you think they’re here for this pool then. But how would they even know about it, if you’ve been keeping it hidden for however long?”

“I have no idea, you little shit! I’m not some god with the whole world under my Void blasted gaze! But what else is there? Even if they’re the largest force on the planet, they can’t attack everywhere. So how do they decide? The pool is the only thing here.”

“Have you come across them at all in the city? You seemed to have rescued most of the city already, the place was deserted on my way here. Good job, by the way.”

“We’ve collected a lot, but even this place doesn’t have room for the entire city. Somebody else has been taking them, the living and the dead.”

“Somebody is taking the dead people?!”

“Yes, though we haven’t seen them. We don’t think it’s the sects, or at least we didn’t. I’ll be paying them a visit to discuss their potential involvement. And if they’re complicit, well, I’m sure we’ll... get to the bottom of it all.”

There was a great deal of menace in Tain’s voice as he said that last part, and a small vicious smile curling the corner of his lips. If the various sects were involved, I was not sure whether it was the result of greed, arrogance or whether their leaders had never been around the Blood Marshall. But I knew, that unless there were some pretty life-or-death reasons, and I had some sort of assurance, there was no way that I would ever willingly get on his true bad side. I got the impression that if I did, my stay would be short, and violent.

Changing the subject, a little freaked out by his smile, I asked the question I had actually gone to answer.

“Do you have more room? We have dozens of unconscious people, as well as some members of the Bleak Shadow sect – I think. We’re holding the fort over at the City’s Edge, but we’re probably going to run out of room if we find many more – if they haven’t been taken. And honestly, the landlady has some pretty steep costs and I’m going to go broke if we stay there much longer...”

“We have room, and the Guard will be glad to have our hands on some sect members so soon. Just... one thing, my baby ren... if you’re lying to me about any of this – at all – I'm going to peel you, and I don’t care who your friends are.”