Hermann’s art gallery was in his life’s image: odd, modern, and transgressive.

Although Valdemar visited his friend’s workshop many times, he had only seen a glimpse of his collection. Hermann spent years perfecting his art and experimented with many styles. Realistic representations of animals and flowers shared a wall with paintings of alien landscapes or strange geometric forms. Valdemar’s acute eyes detected the slow, incremental improvements of Hermann’s skills with each painting. Over the years, the troglodyte had moved away from the realistic to capturing the abstract, transcending the physical to embrace the spiritual.

“That’s all of them, Valdy,” said Liliane. Valdemar had taken her as an administrative assistant to help him with his mind-numbing workload, and he had yet to see the witch without a pile of documents in her hands. “How do you find them?”

“Good.” Valdemar’s hand trailed against a landscape representation of the Silent King’s patchwork world. The paint was still fresh. Hermann must have completed it a mere few weeks before his death. What else did he have in mind?

“Iren said we should sell them to fund the walls’ repairs,” Liliane said with a frown. “But he’s a heartless dummy and we should ignore him.”

On paper, Iren’s proposal made sense. The Pleroma Institute had taken heavy damage from the Qlippoth incursion, though not as much as the city around it. Valdemar would never bring himself to sell away Hermann’s works, but he was in desperate need of money in the short term. The late Lord Och had put so many magical traps protecting his fortune and war chests that his successor struggled to access them.

You always hoarded things for greed’s sake, my teacher, Valdemar thought. The Institute’s vaults overflowed with knowledge, riches, and resources that had never seen the light of day. Valdemar aimed to change that. If the Institute was to become a beacon of enlightenment across the empire, then its discoveries should benefit all of mankind.

One of Valdemar’s first changes in policy had been to promise universal magical healthcare and post-mortem necromancy treatment to the Domain’s inhabitants. The summoner remembered all too well his mother’s death from lack of proper treatment. How many families would face similar tragedies in the coming days?

Valdemar had never asked to become a Dark Lord, but he would make full use of the position to implement positive changes. Scholars working at the Institute would have the obligation to dedicate some days of their week to cure the sick. Restrictions about magic would be simplified so that aspiring innovators like Valdemar himself would always find a safe abode in Paraplex. Nobles or commoners would be equal before the law.

Of course, his proposed changes had made some grumble; but Valdemar faced little open opposition among the Institute's denizens. Lord Och had publicly taken Valdemar as an apprentice, appointed him as his successor at the Sabbath, and had fallen at his hand. Nobody expected the old lich to perish, but the power transition had been as smooth as it could have been.

Fear helped too. No one wanted to defy the half-Stranger Dark Lord who had slain his predecessor in battle.

Valdemar wondered how long this respite would last. The Dark Lords were a scheming lot always on the lookout to weaken each other. Lord Ophiel had all but openly declared he would plot against Valdemar, and Phaleg the Binder would always consider Valdemar a puppet of the late Lord Och. Both would try to destroy him.

Lord Bethor was the only Dark Lord Valdemar considered somewhat of an ally, largely because the man was utterly uninterested in political bickering. Iren suggested to ally with moderates like Lady Phul and Lord Hagith while placating Empress Aratra, which would take valuable time.

Valdemar had better things to do than managing people’s egos, but it looked like a core part of his new job.

The summoner stepped in front of Hermann’s most recent creation: a self-portrait. The pictomancer had painted himself hard at work on a canvas with his back turned on the viewer. Hermann’s representation had painted a picture of Valdemar and Liliane, themselves holding a smaller portrait of the troglodyte. Valdemar found the result quite dizzying to look at… and touching too.

Liliane gulped at the sight. “I’ll miss him.”

“I already do,” Valdemar replied with a sigh. Hermann’s corpse remained in cold storage until they could return him to his people. Valdemar didn’t have the heart to make a mindless undead out of his dearest friend, but he had no idea how troglodytes took care of their dead. “So much.”

Lord Och would have mocked his apprentice for caring about someone he had met only a few months ago, but Valdemar and Hermann had gone through a lot together. They had learned pictomancy, fought Derros in Astaphanos, opened a portal to an alien world, and visited a god. Without Hermann, Crétail would have rampaged across Paraplex and awakened Ialdabaoth from its slumber.

All of Underland owed the troglodyte much.

“I’m passing new laws about your people,” Valdemar told the portrait. “Troglodytes will enjoy equal rights to humans within the Domain of Pleroma and receive exclusive access to the Painted World to settle in it. Your people will have their new homeland, I promise. I’ll protect it with my life.”

Hermann believed that his people and humans could never coexist for long, but Valdemar was determined to prove him wrong. If the two of them could become friends, then why not their species? All that troglodytes and humans needed to live in peace was for someone to make the first step.

“Was that what you wanted?” Valdemar asked. “Are you happy, Hermann?”

The painted troglodyte looked over his shoulder, his piercing eyes staring straight at Valdemar. “I am, my friend.”

Valdemar heard Liliane drop her papers on the floor in surprise. The Dark Lord immediately activated his psychic sight. He quickly detected the magic suffusing the pigments and the soul slumbering in the canvas.

“No way,” Valdemar whispered, astonished. “It’s not an echo…”

“Hermann?” Liliane put her hands on her mouth. “Hermann, is that… is that you?”

The painted troglodyte nodded, his reptilian lips pursing into a smile. “I told you pictomancy could capture a soul upon death.”

“You expected to die creating the Painted World,” Valdemar guessed, his voice breaking. His fingers trailed against the pigments. “No… the painting feels older than that.”

“I completed my soulcatching portrait a long time ago.” Hermann spoke clearly and without a stutter, perhaps because the soul used magic rather than underdeveloped vocal cords. He pointed a claw at his portrait-within-the-portrait. “Your picture and Liliane’s were recent additions. I didn’t have time to make a full portrait for each of you. I couldn’t even include Iren.”

Hermann had modified his soul’s abode to house his friends’ spirits if the worst came to pass.

“You… you scaled dick!” Liliane’s shock and happiness swiftly turned to anger. “We thought you were dead!”

“He was,” Valdemar replied as he wiped a tear from his face. How relieving it felt, to enjoy a good surprise after so many hardships…

“I’m sorry, Liliane,” Hermann replied with a contrite expression. “I thought the fewer people knew about this painting, the better. Too many mind-readers could have spread the word.”

You knew it, my teacher. The lich had killed Hermann but left his painted phylactery intact. Did you spare him because you lacked time to cover your tracks? Or because you wanted to give Hermann a chance to survive in case you failed to reach the Light?

“Do you understand what this means, Hermann?” Valdemar asked. “With your body in storage, I can bring you back to life after restoring it. Give me a week and you’ll return to us in flesh and blood.”

“I would be thankful. Life as a painting is not what I imagined.” The troglodyte sighed. “It took me hours to figure out how to move my head. Now it’s stuck.”

“Why did you paint yourself with your back turned?” Liliane asked with a sly grin. “It looks silly.”

Hermann looked quite embarrassed. “For the depth, Liliane,” he said. “For the depth.”

An investigator’s job was never done.

“Milady, you’ll be pleased to learn that the spy in our midst has been disposed of,” Bertrand said as he gave Marianne his report.

“He confessed under questioning that his employer came from the Domain of Alogi,” Iren added. “We’ve got nothing to implicate Lord Ophiel yet, but I would bet my hand on his involvement.”

Barely three days had passed since the Qlippoth incursion and the knives were already out. “We need to increase background checks at the Earthmouths and have animancers survey the streets,” Marianne decided. “Once we open the borders again, moles and opportunists will slip through the cracks.”

“Leave it to me,” Iren said with a smirk. “I smell lies like cheese.”

Valdemar had little talent for intrigue. The sorcerer preferred to focus on the bigger picture and magical research, leaving Marianne to pick up the slack.

“I also have grave news from the Moonshield defenders,” Bertrand added with a flat tone. The vampire had slipped back into his old duties and taken up his new ones with gusto. “The mages surveying the Whitemoon identified a change in its orbit with the Nightwalker’s capture.”

Marianne tensed up. “Is it falling towards the surface?”

“Thankfully not,” Bertrand replied to his mistress’ relief. “However, the change in orbit could have a geological impact on Underland and affect the behavior of monsters on the surface. We can expect more incursions in the future.”

“We should survey Nightwalker cults too,” Iren suggested. “Since they’re so keen on transforming themselves into surface monsters, one of them might summon a new Nightwalker.”

“We also have to be on the lookout for Derros infiltrators,” Marianne said. Otto Blutgang would no doubt seek vengeance against Valdemar for wrecking his facility. “We have too many foes and too few resources.”

“Last time I heard, it’s called governing.” Iren made a bow. “Don’t worry, we’ll manage. We’re used to the impossible.”

We have dangerous foes, true, but many true friends too, Marianne thought. “I will tell Valdemar to allocate Knights of the Tome to your intelligence service.”

“You mean the Dark Lord?” Iren chuckled. “The dread master of Paraplex?”

Marianne couldn’t help but smile. “I will inform Lord Valdemar of the respect you showed him.”

“I would rather that you don’t, or the praise might get to his head.” The doppelganger gave Marianne an insolent wink before taking his leave.

After Iren left, Marianne raised an eyebrow at Bertrand. “I’m surprised by your quietness.”

“Milady?”

“You don’t have anything bad to say about Valdemar.” Marianne had expected her retainer to show more defensiveness at seeing his mistress date someone else, let alone share a bed with. “When we began investigating him, you suspected him of foul treachery.”

“Milady, I disliked the man for his suspected inhuman allegiances and criminal past. He has saved my life, this Domain, and perhaps the entire world.” Bertrand smiled, thinly. “When facts change, I alter my conclusions.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Bertrand was Marianne’s closest friend, so she wanted him and Valdemar to get along.

“Besides, Milady, my only desire is to make you happy.” Bertrand crossed his arms. “Lord Valdemar makes you smile. As far as I am concerned, that's all that matters.”

“Thank you, Bertrand, your support means the world to me.” Marianne chuckled as an amusing thought crossed her mind. “Perhaps you could find a tea brand that Valdemar would like? I’ve found myself struggling to convert him.”

“Is Milady giving me a challenge?” Bertrand straightened up like a soldier marching to war. “I shall see it done.”

Marianne chuckled. “I’ve missed you greatly, my friend.”

She remembered one of Lady Mathilde’s sermons from when she attended the church’s mass. What life takes, sometimes the Light gives back.

After leaving Bertrand to his own devices, Marianne moved to the Hall of Rituals with a dusty notebook under her arm. The underground room’s magical defenses had shielded it from the worst of the invasion and made it the perfect resting place for the Painted World.

As expected, Marianne found Valdemar there alongside his familiar. He looks so tired, Marianne thought. Her lover hid his gauntness beneath the same scholarly robes he wore as a student of Lord Och. His new post hadn’t led to any improvement in his wardrobe. His eyes were blackened by sleeplessness. He needs to rest.

The new Dark Lord had put his grandfather’s portrait in front of the Painted World. Pierre Dumont’s image gazed at the magical painting on the opposite wall, his eyes wide open and unblinking. His expression was one of rapturous joy.

Ktulu waved a hand at Marianne as she joined them without a word. It has grown a few centimeters since yesterday, the noblewoman noticed. Marianne knew nothing about Ktulu’s life cycle, but it still surprised her a bit. I wonder how tall its species can get?

“I wanted him to stare at the sun he missed so much,” Valdemar said, his eyes looking up at his grandfather’s image. The echo of Pierre Dumont didn’t react at all. “It worked too well. I think watching the Painted World triggered a cognitive loop of some kind.”

“Did you forgive him?” Marianne asked. The kind gesture implied as much.

“I… I think I do?” Valdemar sounded unsure. “I feel… ambivalent, I guess? He was a desperate man who made terrible decisions and did his best to make up for them. He did evil and good in equal measures.”

“Most people do. Saints and monsters are few in number.”

“I know. I guess I need more time to process everything, to make peace with the past.” Valdemar turned away from his grandfather to face Marianne. “How are you holding up?”

“Alright,” she replied with a forced smile. “Whenever I think I can catch up to my workload, more problems spring up from nowhere.”

“You don’t say. I’m starting to understand why Lord Och wanted to dump it all.” Valdemar glanced at Marianne’s book. “What’s that? More papers for me to sign?”

“Notes I obtained from Frigga,” Marianne replied. “I think you will enjoy reading them.”

“I doubt that.” Valdemar snorted. “What is that opportunist up to?”

“Obviously, she wants to earn your favor.” Typical Dokkars, Marianne thought. “But I please ask you to keep an open mind. This concerns Earth.”

Valdemar frowned. “Go on.”

Marianne knew she had all of his attention. “Have you used a Dokkar dreamcatcher?”

“Not quite, but Frigga suggested that I take one.”

“As I told you before, Lord Och’s first appearance in official records involved him warring against the Dokkars as an independent warlord. Now that you granted me full access to the forbidden archives as the new Dark Lord, I could look more deeply into it.”

“And what did you find?”

“Lord Och raided the Dokkars to steal their artifacts for his personal use. One of them was the earliest dreamcatcher.” Time to drop the bomb. “He couldn’t match its component with any material found in Underland.”

She had his full attention now. “So the reason Lord Och took in Frigga as an exchange student—”

“Was to make use of her oneiromancy expertise to identify the dreamcatcher’s origins.” Marianne gathered her breath. “Brace yourself, Valdemar. According to Lord Och’s research, Dokkars didn’t invent dreamcatchers. Humans did. In fact, the Dokkar term for dreamcatcher doesn’t match any linguistic root found in any known civilization. They borrowed the word from another language.”

“So a lost human tribe invented dreamcatchers?” Valdemar’s eyes widened. He had caught on. “Unless…”

“An item made of a material unknown in Underland, named in a language that does not exist.” Marianne smiled warmly. “This case sounds suspiciously similar to your journal, don’t you think?”

Valdemar looked at the notebook with a newfound interest. His eyes shone with burning curiosity, and a little bit of hope.

“Lord Och’s raid happened long after the Pleromians fled Underland and before the Derros developed portal technology,” he whispered. “We know humans exist on both Earth and Underland, probably because they crossed over from one to the other at some point…”

“I suspect that the Pleromians didn’t develop their portals from nothing,” Marianne said with a nod. “Rather, they probably took inspiration from a periodic or magical phenomenon of some kind.”

“There could be another portal out there, unrelated to the Pleromians.” Valdemar’s jaw tightened with fury. “Och knew… That bastard, he knew there might have been another way to reach Earth and he kept it hidden.”

“He wanted to destroy you, to corrupt you.” Marianne would never forget Valdemar’s expression that night after he confronted Och: that of a man nearly ready to give up on everything. “He tested your resolve and failed.”

“Barely so,” Valdemar replied with a sigh. “I believed him, Marianne. For a moment, I truly thought sacrificing people to the Pleromian portal was the only remaining solution on the table to fulfill my dream.”

“But you listened to me. You remembered that in the absence of options, you could create another.”

“Because of you, yes.” Valdemar’s hand brushed against the book’s cover. “You reminded me that we have barely scratched the surface of this world’s mysteries.”

“Indeed,” Marianne replied with a warm smile. “Lord Och excluded options out of nihilism, but we can learn from his mistakes. We can rise above his shadow and offer mankind a better future. We will find Earth together.”

Their journey had only begun.

“Together…” Valdemar’s frustrated expression turned into a smile of optimism. “Thank you, Marianne. For everything.”

“Pfwagana!” Ktulu grabbed his summoner’s robes and instantly pointed at Marianne. “Pfwagana dayom!”

It’s so adorable, Marianne thought, resisting the urge to pet the little squid. “What is Ktulu saying?”

“That I should kiss you for your good work,” Valdemar replied with a chuckle.

Marianne burst out laughing. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Valdemar took her at her word. His lips closed the gap with Marianne’s own, warm and soft to the touch. It was an innocent kiss, short but intense. It sent shivers down Marianne’s spine and made her hungry for more.

“Here is not the place, Valdemar,” Marianne said coyly as she broke the kiss. “Your grandfather is watching.”

He took her hand into his own and held it tightly. “Do you want to see the sun, Marianne Reynard?”

Marianne’s heart skipped a beat as they turned to the Painted World. “Are you sure? Nobody has crossed into it yet.”

“Then let’s inaugurate it,” Valdemar replied, his familiar hopping behind the couple with impatience. “Will you come with me?”

Did he even have to ask? “Anywhere you go, I will follow.”

The couple held hands and walked into the Painted World. They crossed the pigments like a water veil, space bending around them as they did so. Marianne’s enhanced senses immediately picked up the small shifts in temperature and air pressure. New and familiar sounds echoed where the Hall of Rituals had been silent as a tomb.

Water, Marianne thought. Waves on a shore.

Rays of light blinded her sight. Marianne put her hand over her face until her eyes could acclimate to the change in luminosity. Her feet landed on what felt like soft sand beneath her heels.

The air was warmer, softer, purer than anything Marianne had ever breathed. No stone dust found its way into her lungs. An invisible force brushed against her cheeks, strange yet comforting.

“The wind,” Valdemar whispered at her side. “It is so warm.”

Marianne lowered her hand as her eyes started to distinguish forms and colors. As she suspected, she and Valdemar had indeed walked onto a beach of orange sand next to a vast blue sea. Where the Lightless Ocean had looked gloomy and foreboding, this one filled Marianne with a sense of wonder. Her enhanced eyes noticed a colossal tree over the horizon. Its bark was white as chalk, its leaves a pale shade of crimson.

It was unlike any plant Marianne had ever seen. Its size was dizzying to see. Lord Bethor’s tower would have looked like a needle while standing next to this majestuous tree.

“It’s a mirage,” Marianne said in disbelief. “No cavern’s ceiling could house something so huge.”

“Marianne, there is no ceiling,” Valdemar replied softly.

The words rang in Marianne’s mind like an impossible promise. Yet, to her astonishment, her lover was right. No stone ceiling stood above their heads; instead, white clouds floated peacefully amidst a pale violet expanse. The sight of it made Marianne dizzy.

Was that… the sky?

Marianne’s eyes looked up and up, all the way to the source of this strange world’s blinding light. A radiant fireball floated high above the giant tree and vast horizon. Even Marianne’s enhanced senses failed to process its sheer, gargantuan size. Its golden radiance shone brighter than candles, brighter than flames, brighter than anything found in Underland. The light warmed up the air and Marianne’s skin; the sea shone like a billion sapphires as it reflected a fraction of its beauty.

“It’s wonderful.” The sight brought Marianne to tears. “It’s absolutely wonderful.”

She found no word to define this cosmic wonder, this absolute god of light. But Valdemar had one.

“The sun,” he whispered with religious awe. “This is our sun, Marianne.”

“Will it shine on Underland one day?” Marianne asked softly. “Everyone… everyone must see it.”

“One day, the sun will shine on mankind,” Valdemar promised. “One day, I swear.”

Marianne and Valdemar spent the entire evening gazing at the sun, basking in its beauty.

There was no darkness that could snuff out light.

His flesh-thralls toiled in the dark to the tune of his lightning song.

They walked through his steel innards and shaped bolts in the depths of his forge-stomach. His furnace veins poured molten gold and zinc onto assembly lines. His countless hands worked together to build the future under the watchful gaze of his camera-eyes.

Pieces gathered in the depths of his laboratory wombs to build a new portal. A Pleromian blood-map of the infinity would guide its development. It would take many cycles to complete this improved cosmic window, but one day it would open a path to another world. What were years to the immortality of steel?

All inferior flesh would bend to his iron will.

“If so m-m-many other worlds ex-exist,” his voice carried through buzzing loudspeakers, “I mu-ust spread my magni-nificence to them."

So vowed Otto Blutgang, Godmind of Derrokind.

Lightning coursed through the incomplete portal, and the cosmos shuddered.

The End?

Author's Notes

Hope springs eternal, but evil never dies.

When I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a geneticist; I blame Jurassic Park for making me believe you could create awesome monsters in a laboratory. I had subscribed to a youth science magazine and devoured all the articles. Add on top of that a passion for astronomy and at one point I started to wonder if life had come from the stars. It just sounded plausible to me that some alien intelligence out there had seeded our planet with primordial bacteria.

I suppose this kind of reasoning is emblematic of man’s desire to find a ‘logical’ explanation to everything, to attribute all random occurrences to an invisible hand. The possibility that our very existence was the result of a series of coincidences in a chaotic, uncaring universe is not something we humans like to think about. Humans search for meaning even when there is none to be found.

There are only two kinds of horror I resonate with: medical horror, due to watching people around me die from cancer or Alzheimer's, and cosmic horror, because mind-numbing cosmic phenomena are beyond our ability to control. A war can be run from, killers can be shot or jailed, but cancer strikes without warning and an asteroid will hardly be diverted from its course. The most terrifying part of death is that it usually knocks on your door unannounced; and sometimes, it takes its sweet time too.

These are the fears I wanted to explore in Underland, alongside themes such as the pursuit of scientific knowledge to explain the unknown, the power of art, transhumanism, and the cost of one’s dreams. The ultimate lesson of the story, I feel, is that while some things are beyond our control, they should not prevent us from living. The random threat of sudden extinction from an interstellar pebble or a stray gamma ray burst does not stop us from waking up to go to work, to research new ways to extend our life, or to build monuments that will endure the test of time. Perhaps human civilization will be wiped out at any moment… or maybe it won’t.

Death does not make our achievements meaningless. Nihilism is intellectual cowardice. Our life could end anytime, but it was beautiful while it lasted.

The end you was originally the one I had planned for the first volume of a larger saga. Volume II would have continued with Valdemar as the Dark Lord of Paraplex with Otto Blutgang taking over as the main antagonist after Lord Och’s demise.

But while I leave the door open for a sequel, as it is, Underland will end with this chapter.

Although relatively well-rated, Underland never managed to obtain the same traction in terms of followers and patrons as my other stories. A temporary Patreon decline is nothing unusual; experience has taught me patrons follow a story first and an author second. It happened when I completed Vainqueur and Never Die Twice too. In both cases, my Patron took a hit around one or two months, only for newcomers to come and replace the people leaving.

But the fact that my Patreon kept declining without attracting new users to compensate for the loss meant the problem went deeper with Underland. Ever since I finished the Perfect Run and started Underland, my Patreon has been continually falling down. To put it bluntly, I haven’t had a single month of growth since August 2021 and my Patreon income was cut in half since that period.

Other factors probably contributed like the fact I was writing Kairos at the same time and thus couldn’t do more than two chapters a week, the niche genre of horror/dark fantasy compared to my previous works, etc… but in the end, the diagnosis was obvious.

Well-rated Underland might have been, but popular it was not.

Beyond the consequent monetary loss, watching the Patron go down month after month also hit my morale pretty hard; especially since I’m part of a group of RR writers and we usually confront our results. Knowing I was the only one facing a steep Patreon loss month after month really made me feel like I was doing something wrong. I now realize Underland was simply a risky bet and the genre probably wasn’t a good fit for Royal Road, but it still hurt.

As such, I made the choice to end Underland early and I’ll probably put it up on KU at some point in the future. The Kairos experiment has been a success and I’ve realized that this is one of the few ways I can continue profiting from my works once they’re finished and patrons move on. Going to KU might also provide a fresh breath to Underland; if it finds financial success on Amazon, I can see myself writing a sequel in that universe.

Overall, while it wasn’t my best novel, I still found Underland to be an enjoyable experience because it helped me get out of my comfort zone. I was a bit anxious about writing Marianne due to her being my first female co-MC, but I ended up liking her viewpoint more than Valdemar’s; I will almost certainly write a story with a woman as the main protagonist in the future. Underland was also the occasion to write an atypical setting with extensive, atypical worldbuilding, something I’ll most certainly do again. The Vernburg visit in particular will forever remain among the things that I loved to write the most.

I also intend to continue writing more ‘experimental’ novels in niche genres or with atypical main characters… but on my own time, without the pressure of producing X chapters per week.

For now, I’ll move on my new series, Apocalypse Tamer. Unlike my previous works, it will take a few more weeks before it becomes available on Royal Road; I'm currently trying to build a patreon backlog first and avoid the problems I faced with the trending list when I published my latest stories. Here's a sneak peek until the official release:

In any case, I hope that you enjoyed Underland to its conclusion, and that you’ll appreciate my next series too.

Best regards,

Voidy.