The floor of the vast sedimentation basin was a cracked expanse of dried, blackened sludge. The team clustered around the two-meter-wide circular metal hatch at its center. Hawk chipped away thick layers of moss and rust with a geologist's hammer, revealing the deep, burnished sheen of bronze beneath. The hatch wasn't smooth; it was covered in intricate bas-relief—twisting brambles, burning stars, and incomprehensible geometric patterns. At its heart, the alchemical sigil they'd seen on the ancient map stood out clearly: the triple-ringed inverted triangle, the blazing crucible prominent.
But this was more than decoration. Around the hatch's rim, eight sets of massive, tarnished yet precisely engineered brass gears meshed deeply into the bronze frame. Each gear hub held a fist-sized, currently dull gemstone (or crystal). More ominously, the relief lines, now partially cleaned, revealed their true nature—they were dense networks of ancient, interlaced runes! These weren't a single system, but an unnerving fusion: alchemical sigils, astrological glyphs, and intricate Celtic Ogham script woven together into a pressure-filled energy lattice covering the entire hatch!
"Triple Runic Lock…" Selena's voice held unprecedented gravity. She knelt by the hatch, her runic staff hovering centimeters above the lattice, its tip emitting a soft blue scanning light. The light traced the runes, eliciting faint energy ripples; the lines writhed like slumbering serpents. "Alchemical matrix for energy conversion and trap triggers. Astral array taps celestial flows for power and phase-keying. Celtic Ogham… the soul lock. Bound to the builders' will or specific blood resonance. Interlocked. One wrong move…" She didn't finish the thought.
"Can you open it?" Lena asked, her runic pistol sweeping the surrounding gloom. The abandoned pump station was vast and oppressive, their headlamp beams the only light, casting dancing shadows on rusted hulks of machinery. The air stank thicker of rust and rancid oil.
"Requires a 'key'…" Selena's finger traced energy paths through the lattice, the blue light following her mental command. "…Or finding the correct activation sequence. Like solving a three-dimensional cipher lock made of stars, alchemy, and ancient oaths. It will take time… and luck." She took a steadying breath, pulling small silver discs etched with micro-constellations (astrolabes) and a smooth, green-glowing druidic stone from her pouch, carefully placing them on key nodes of the runic web.
Hawk scanned the structure beneath the hatch with a sonic probe, brow furrowed. "Massive cavity below… structure abnormally dense, mix of metal, stone, and… high-density crystal? Energy signature… profound inertia laced with a faint… pulse. Like a sleeping leviathan's heartbeat." He glanced at Selena. "Be careful down there. Might be worse than up here."
Alan stood back, his suppressor cuff warm. Near the bronze door, his Harmonizing energy felt shackled, leaden. Simultaneously, an indefinable, faint "call" from the ancient presence deep within brushed against his senses like whispers through thick felt, unsettling him. He forced his focus outward, scanning the perimeter.
Fenrir didn't join the lock-picking. He was a mobile sentry tower, his amber eyes methodically scanning every corner of the pump station—the stained brick walls, jungles of fallen pipes, the deep shadows of colossal turbines. His keen senses sifted through the damp, decaying miasma.
Suddenly, his nostrils flared violently! A low, warning growl rumbled in his throat! He snapped his head towards a distant corner of the station, partially obscured by a tangle of massive, broken cast-iron pipes!
"Blood!" Fenrir's voice rasped over the comms, certain. "Thick… fresh… less than a day old! And… brimstone and burnt wiring!"
Lena snapped to alert! "Location? Human?"
"No!" Fenrir was already striding towards the corner, heavy footsteps echoing. He kicked aside rusted pipes blocking his path, his headlamp beam stabbing into the gloom. "Smells wrong… Vampire cold-iron tang… but faint, masked! And… Wolf blood! But rabid! Mad! Like… cornered and frenzied!"
The team moved quickly. Lena and Hawk covered the approach; Selena paused her work, staff raised, monitoring ambient energy.
The scene in the corner was horrifying.
The floor bore savage combat scars—cracks and shallow craters punched into concrete by immense force. Scattered shards of dark, metallic chitin (reminiscent of Victor's constructs) and several mangled brass shell casings littered the area. The walls were splashed with wide swathes of dried, dark blood! This blood was nearly black-purple, glistening with a viscous, oily sheen under the lights, utterly alien to the crimson of humans or common Animates! Its spread indicated a brief, brutal slaughter.
Fenrir crouched, delicately lifting a shard of concrete crusted with the black-purple gore to his nose. His expression twisted with disgust and confusion. "…At least three different 'scents' mashed together… One cold, like rust and ice shavings (Vampire), weak, fading… One hot, boiling, full of rage and… fear? Despair-sweat stink (Wolf?)… Strongest is this black blood… Thick, rancid, like burnt rubber mixed with sulfur and… arcing electricity! Not from anything alive!"
Hawk scanned the chitin fragments. "Composition… high-density ceramic composite mixed with Anima-conductive alloys… Residual trace 'Withering' energy signature… Ouroboros construct debris!" He pointed to deep gouges in the wall, like claw marks from a colossal beast. "…This level of damage… exceeds normal werewolf strength, approaching Fenrir's berserker state… but claw morphology shows subtle differences… more… twisted."
"Victor's people were here!" Lena concluded, her heart sinking. "Ambushed! Vampires and werewolves involved… but dead? Or… taken?" She stared at the pools of dark, viscous blood. "What bled *this*? Something that took down Victor's constructs, vampires, and a frenzied werewolf?"
Selena cautiously touched her staff tip to a patch of the dark blood on the wall. ZZZT! A faint sizzle, a wisp of sulfurous smoke! She jerked the staff back, face paling. "Highly corrosive! Packed with chaotic negative energy and… potent metallic toxins! The blood itself… is a weapon!"
Alan, silent until now, spotted something half-buried in rubble and slime near the corner. He nudged the debris aside with his boot. Underneath lay a broken piece of metal, slick with the black-purple residue.
It was a badge fragment.
Made of some dark silver alloy, edges jagged and bent. But the remaining portion clearly bore the image of a serpent coiled in a circle, devouring its own tail—the Ouroboros mark!
"Victor's men!" Alan held up the cold metal shard. "They made it this far!"
"But they didn't get inside," Lena stated, looking from the still-sealed, rune-glowing bronze hatch to the carnage in the corner, her eyes like flint. "Something guards this place. Not Victor's. Something older… Or… the Forge's own defenses were triggered?"
Fenrir's head snapped up, ears swiveling, a renewed growl vibrating in his chest! He whirled towards the pump station's opposite side, where a collapsed auxiliary tunnel yawned into deeper darkness!
"…Movement…" Fenrir's pupils contracted to slits, muscles coiling like springs, claws extending silently. "…Faint… like metal scraping stone… And… dripping… Smells like that black blood!"
Tension spiked to breaking point! Weapons snapped towards the source of the sounds—a dark passage reeking of deeper decay and sulfur. Selena threw up a shimmering runic shield. Hawk raised his sonic emitter.
Dead silence fell over the pump station, broken only by the team's ragged breathing inside their helmets. From the depths of the collapsed tunnel's darkness, the faint, rhythmic scrape of metal on stone… and the steady drip… drip… drip of liquid… grew louder. Closer.