“Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.”

― John Milton, Paradise Lost

Whirring gears adjusted the metallic head covered by a smiling porcelain mask as Butler One assessed the situation. The group around the friends, Leomund, Johanna, and Ralf, the apprentice, walked on ahead, none the wiser. An illusion of the last ‘cultist’ walked ahead where Butler One would have been. Jamila’s spell perfectly recreated the city's background without letting anyone see that something was amiss.

Stumbling back from the automaton, Jamila looked incredulous and gritted her teeth before quickly stepping further back.

As luck would have it, the patrol that had questioned the group seemed to guess something was wrong, and the soldiers that had been inspecting a side street began to walk in their direction quickly. The sergeant in charge waved and shouted for them to stop.

Vanessa had been quietly walking alongside her friends and temporary allies when she suddenly sensed something amiss. Turning, she carefully looked around, flinching at sudden shouts from the sergeant, who seemed to be somewhere down the street and out of sight. The last ‘cultist’, Butler One, trudged after them, head lowered. Everything seemed to be in order. Then it suddenly dawned on her. She could see Butler One’s chin because of her good night vision, and the construct naturally did not sport a somewhat unkempt beard!

With a spell and a cutting motion of her right hand, the delicate spellweave was disrupted.

“Stop right there!” The sergeant grabbed his sword as he suddenly saw a person appearing from thin air. The group of soldiers and undead were uniformly attired in thick winter cloaks over studded leather armor while holding short swords and shields, with some additionally armed with crossbows.

Vanessa quickly took in the situation and grimaced. “If I find you have betrayed us…” She hissed at Leomund, who had a bewildered expression on his face.

“No! I did...I never…!” He stumbled over his words.

Butler One took two steps before Alea and asked, “Is this person an enemy? Non-lethal magic use sensed.”

“Be careful, but don’t hurt her,” Alea said quickly while huddling in her too-large robes.

Alyssa stroked Cyrus's neck. The gate-guard had accepted the familiar as a demonic creature quite readily.

“Who the heck are you?” Mireille asked Jamila, who took in the somewhat familiar face.

Focusing on the girl, Jamila gasped, “You are academy students! I am a teacher, Jamila von Nordstrom!”

“Damn it.” Alyssa cursed. So close. They had nearly reached the castle.

“What have we here?” The sergeant came closer. “If that isn’t the missing Ms. Nordstrom.” Turning to the ‘cultist’ group and Leomund, he said, somewhat apologetically, “She is a wanted fugitive. Please leave this matter to us.”

Alyssa thought furiously, “She...she damaged our construct. We demand restitution.” She pointed at the visibly damaged Butler One.

“Ah.” The sergeant looked a bit bewildered at that. “That can all be discussed when she is under lock and key. Please excuse me.” He gestured for two of his soldiers to get the wizardess.

“Should we do something?” Mireille whispered to Alyssa.

“I can’t really remember where I heard of her before. It was nothing good- but what exactly? Be that as it may, we cannot simply stand by and do nothing when a teacher of the academy is arrested.”

The sergeant saw them whispering and frowned. “I suggest you talk to the guard captain. He will help you. Until then. Please move along.” With another gesture, one of his men nodded and pulled a horn from his belt before blowing a loud, strident note.

Jamila gestured with her wand. “Don’t come closer, or I will not hesitate to use this. Who commanded you to arrest me?” While she stalled, she gave Vanessa an urgent look.

The group around the sergeant were ten men and seven undead. The latter stood a good bit to the side, staring at the ground or the walls with slack expressions.

“We can’t…” Alyssa began when Iseret shushed her.

“Sergeant?” Iseret gestured to Vanessa behind her back, trusting in her friend to understand her.

“Yes?” The man looked highly irritated now.

Suddenly, a dense fog billowed forth and covered the soldiers. Vanessa lowered her hands and pulled Mireille toward the side street where Jamila was still standing, gesturing at them to follow. “Let’s follow her.”

“Alarm!” The sergeant lunged from the thick roiling mists only to be met by the shadowy form of the demon Vanessa still carried in her shadow. Recoiling back into the fog, he stabbed and slashed desperately, only to nearly succeed in wounding one of his men.

“Down here!” Jamila gestured at the sewer entrance she had already used once. Hurrying down the steep stone stairs, she nearly fell, only held back at the last moment when Vanessa grabbed her by the collar, narrowly pulling her back.

“Careful, don’t break your neck.” The cold air from the vampire girl's mouth brushed over her neck, making her shiver. Eyes glowing a pale blue-green, Vanessa seemed more like a lifeless doll than a living elf at the moment, backlit by the feeble light from the sewer entrance.

Coming to stand in the tunnel, she turned and took in her potential rescuers. “You are one of them. For the lich or against?”

“Isn’t that a quite problematic question in this situation? What if she answers yes?” Iseret teased, helping Alea safely down the stairs.

Jamila’s left eyebrow twitched at that. “Mh, correct. But please indulge me.”

“No. We are not in the service of the Heartstealer.” Vanessa answered.

“Reassuring.” The wizardess pointed down one corridor. “This way. Leomund, I did not expect to see you here.”

“Well, life has a way of changing plans.” Leomund shrugged.

“Please don’t talk so much! We are trying to escape, are we not?” Johanna hissed.

With a flicker, Alea conjured a mage light, and the group hastened down the winding tunnel, the half-frozen sewage giving off a foul stench lessened thankfully by the cold.

After a few minutes of that, Mireille cleared her throat and asked quietly. “Where the heck are we going? If I may ask.”

“Depends on what you want to do?” Jamila shot back.

“Kill the duke and hope the rest aren’t as stupid,” Mireille answered.

Alyssa had to snort at that.

“You might be right about that, but it won’t be easy.” The wizardess slowed to inspect them. “A curious group. Two undead, a Reborn if I’m not mistaken and some academy students. How did you get mixed up in that?”

“Long story, too long for this sewer,” Vanessa replied.

“Do you really think you stand a chance?” Jamila questioned.

“Yes. We have two god-blessed, and they both possess gates.”

“Mh.”

“What more do you need?”

Jamila stumbled from fatigue and looked with disgust at the smear on her glove gotten from merely touching the grimy walls. “I don’t know. Since this morning, I have been running. You know that Zygmund, the duke, is a vampire?”

“We strongly guessed.”

“He wanted to make me his spawn.” Shuddering, Jamila pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders.

“That is far from easy.” Vanessa looked at her sharply.

Down where they had come from, voices echoed down the tunnel.

“We should decide right now.” Mireille clenched her fists, sparks flying over the fabric of her gloves, and a faint smell of burning cotton drifted through the air.

“Let’s do it,” Alyssa spoke confidently. “I have all this power now. Wouldn’t it be a shame if I don’t use it?”

“Then we must take the next right.” Jamila nodded and strode ahead, her fatigue kept at bay- for now.

“Ungrateful brat!” Zygmund smashed his fist down on the table, and with a crack, the top broke in half, spilling the books and notes onto the ground. “Bring her here ‘til sunup, and I might forgive you, but someone must have warned her. Question everyone who knew about this!”

Ivyander looked at his raging lord expressionlessly and sighed internally. When would he be allowed back to his people? Humans were loud, crass, and greedy. Their talents were mediocre even if they were surprisingly quick in acquiring new knowledge and skills. What his mistress was thinking when she made the lord of Nordmark a vampire was completely inexplicable.

The crypt Zygmund had made into his laboratory and makeshift torture chamber reeked of blood and fear. Several guards lay dismembered and drained in one of the open graves dotting the ground.

The room had once been an ornate family crypt with the ancient and honored dead laid to rest in carved tombs in the ground or walls. Toward the rear, great stone doors led deeper into the stony depths. The air was normally stale and cold, but great braziers burning with bluish light- due to enchantments keeping them going without fuel- gave off a chemical reek that mingled most unpleasantly with old blood and rot.

“Ivyander. Don’t slack off. Prepare the ritual. We will have her before long. Where can she go?”

“Yes, milord.” Ivyander hid his thoughts behind an impassive facade and began preparing the runic circle for the ritual.

A bowing and scraping guard captain crawled backward out of the chamber, lucky to be alive.

With some effort, the frost elf necromancer stifled the questions he could have asked, knowing from experience they most likely would not be answered.

With a loud crack, the gauntleted hand slapped the guardsman. “Go! Don’t stand around gawking! We have to get her back.”

“But captain…!”

“Do you need another reminder?” The captain raised his hand threateningly. A burly man with more than a bit of fat on his face and belly, the man was in his fifties and still muscular but slowly going to seed. His heavy jowls, covered with a struggling beard, were quivering with rage, and dark eyes promised violence to everyone not quick to obey.

“YES, SIR!” The guardsmen in the small room stiffened to attention and then hurried out.

The captain sagged a bit as his men left to aid the search. “I hope they find her, but the next best thing would be if someone could…” He did not complete the sentence but looked back at the winding stairs leading down into the earth, and hatred marred his features for a moment before he got control of himself. “So, which guard room did I miss.” Walking outside, he counted with his fingers, gesturing for his two personal guards waiting outside the room to fall in. Which they did, chain mail clinking.

He had heard the most intriguing things about some cultists vanishing with the elusive Ms. Jamila. Perhaps they could solve a big headache for him.

He was ordered to mobilize all forces. And all forces, including the guards for the crypt entrance, he would gather.

With a sullen sneer, he walked into the dank corridors away from the brazier, spreading a little warmth in the guard chamber. But he could not forget the plea in the eyes of his dying guardsmen as the duke carved them into pieces and fed on their blood.

All he could think about was how close he had been to sharing their fate.

“Here we are.” Jamila touched a protruding stone, and with a grinding noise, a piece of wall swung back to reveal a narrow opening leading to an even more narrow spiral staircase. With another tap, faint runes glowed and shed a bit of faint light. Just enough to navigate the steps. “It’s one of the older tunnels. The door will no longer close before someone has not raised the counterweight again.” She shrugged apologetically. “But by the time this is discovered, we should be long gone.

Alyssa turned toward Vanessa. “Do you think I should try to take control of the corpses down here?”

Jill’s mouth was a white line so firmly were her lips pressed together.

“I think that would be a good idea. Think how much this would help in cleaning up afterward. The undead could be properly laid to rest and not desperately hunted through this labyrinth of a sewer.” The words were meant for Jill as much as for Alyssa.

“Good.” Breathing out, she concentrated and started gathering void energies. The circlet on her head began to glow with a soft light, and she felt it as soon as she overwhelmed the enchantment anchoring her mind, and darkness seeped into her thoughts. Stopping herself and slowing down again, she fed a steady stream of power to the jewel.

Asandria gazed at her silently. ‘You are getting better at this. Let me help you.’

Some of the strain she had not even realized was there eased, and she felt a weight lift from her mind.

Making her intent known to the artifact, something activated, and glyphs spun to life. Words came to her, and she spoke the incantation of a complicated spell. With sudden clarity, she saw the void energies flooding this place. So far from the breach in the old fort down south, the surroundings should have been nearly clean, but the opposite was true. Whatever the duke had done here had forced void energies into the world.

Then the spell took hold, and the lesser minds of the undead populating the sewers blazed with cold pinpricks of light in her mind's vision. It was a simple thing to grab them and turn them to her purpose.

“We can go,” Alyssa said matter of fact. Jill shivered as she looked into the black eyes of the teenager. The illusion anchored in the amulet around the girl’s neck was fading in and out of sight as the powerful spell disturbed its structure.

“Then let us not tarry.” Vanessa took the lead, gesturing for Iseret to guard their rear with a probing look at the too-quiet Alea.

Leomund mumbled something unintelligible but probably a curse. Johanna walked third after Mireille and the apprentice, Ralf, quietly prayed to Jaros.

Another secret door opened before them, and they exited into a luxurious bathroom. The door on this side was an elaborate mirror that had even doubled as a one-way looking glass.

The formerly elegant surroundings had not seen much use in recent years, it seemed, and dust covered most surfaces. One tile was even cracked, probably because of the large temperature swings of the last months.

Exiting, they found themselves in a bedroom. Paneled walls and dark drapes cast the whole room in shadow and gloom.

“Who lived here?” Mireille asked as she brushed over the samite wall hangings, luxuriating in the soft feel of the fabric.

“My grandmother,” Jamila answered shortly.

“I thought you were a Nordstrom?” Alea asked curiously, only to shrink back as the wizardess turned to her.

“I was born a Nordmark. But my mother was widowed and later married into the lesser house, taking me with her. It's even more complicated than that, but let's leave it alone for the moment.”

The door to the corridor opened after Iseret made judicious use of a hair needle to open the lock.

“All clear.” Looking outside, they saw a broad corridor with many adjoining rooms in between hung portraits depicting former lords and ladies of Nordmark.

With all of them walking down the corridor, Iseret winced at the amount of noise they made, trying to be stealthy or not, and soon they met the first servant, a young maid, going about her work cleaning.

“Magister Leomund. Magus Erzgau missed you. He asked for you to present yourself at the earliest opportunity.” She eyed the ‘cultists’ and the demonic familiar with a lot of trepidation.

“Yes, yes. I will hurry, but first I have to change my clothes. It can’t be so urgent that I cannot even freshen up a bit, can I?”

“I will tell him of your imminent arrival.” The maid bowed deeply.

“Don’t hurry for my sake.” Leomund grinned weakly.

The maid bowed more deeply still and then backed away politely before fleeing the scene.

“Will she tell someone about us? This Erzgau fellow?” Mireille asked.

“Won’t make a difference. Erzgau is old and will not give me the satisfaction of coming to look for me. He will make me come to him, and he will most likely make me wait quite a bit.” He grinned.

“Where to now?” Alyssa asked and turned toward Jamila.

“Down the corridor, and then we take the stairs. Should be quite empty this time of night.” But her eyes showed her doubts even more than her voice.

Leaving the broad marble stairs behind, they quickly came across a smaller stairwell built into a niche in a small side corridor. They descended several stories and quickly lost all orientation as there were no windows or other recognizable features but for other small corridors and doors branching off at certain intervals. The walls were bare stone blocks fit together with superior masonry and without the use of crutches like mortar.

“Dwarfen made?” Alea asked suddenly as her fingers brushed across an expertly fitted piece of stonework. Cecily turned and twisted on her shoulder to get a better view.

“Yes. If we live through this night, I will give you a tour. And bake you something. But we have to hurry now. I fear if we wait, there will be even more searching for us.” Jamila answered with urgency in her voice.

And down they went.

And with all of them trying more for speed than for stealth, suddenly, they stood before a trio of guards coming out of one of the small corridors.

The groups stood before each other, and silence spread.

“Ah. Who goes there!” One of the guards, a young woman with scraggly blonde hair sticking from her steel helmet like bits of straw, broke the silence.

“Leomund. Court magus. On official business. I bring the blood mages to the duke, as ordered.”

“But...we got word you were helping Ms. Jamila, and the blood mages were your accomplices.”

The older of the three guards bit his teeth and looked pained before slowly stepping back.

With a sudden gust of wind, Vanessa turned into mist and rematerialized behind the trio before they could get their bearings. “I would listen to what we have to say.” Claws of black ice manifested around her dainty hands.