The words "We need to talk" carried many meanings—some mild, some murderous. The tone, company, and whether or not blood was actively dripping from the speaker often served as a decent metric.
In this case, Salem stood panting in the cathedral's vaulted entrance, smoke curling from his shoulders, ash streaking the edges of his coat, and something that looked suspiciously like bodily residue smoldering faintly along his cheekbone.
So naturally, I assumed the worst.
"I thought you were dead," I said cheerfully, swirling a chalice of stolen sacramental wine while reclined on the chaise lounge I'd forcefully relocated to the nave. "Or worse, involved in something unsexy."
Salem dragged himself in, his boots leaving soot marks along the polished marble, and dropped something wrapped in silk onto the table beside me. "Worse than that," he grunted. "I've been reading."
I gagged on the wine. "Saints preserve you. You really have hit rock bottom."
He didn't smile. Not even a twitch. Instead, he unfurled the silk to reveal a scroll so aged it looked like it had molted in someone's crypt.
"This was hidden in the secret chamber beneath the ossuary," he said. "Took me three hours, a prayer to a god I don't believe in, and at least twenty lock picks."
My brows perked. "Impressive."
He laid the scroll down with care. The script was spiderweb-thin, a madman's ink—scrawled in erratic strokes, as if the author's hand had been trembling or caffeinated to death.
"This," Salem said, "is a record kept by the last High Priest. No name. Just a title. But there are... conversations. With someone referred to only as 'Her.' They talk about something called The Maker's System."
"The Maker's System?" I tilted my head. "That sounds like the title of a late-stage religious marketing scheme. Am I about to be offered a free robe if I convert ten souls?"
"No jokes," he said, low.
I sighed. Fine. "What does it say?"
He pointed to several fragmented lines:
"The system is not of gods—not entirely."
"She warned me not to tamper. I did. And I regret it."
"I've sealed the door beneath the false altar. From here on out, we cease all contact."
I felt something cold ripple down my spine—like silk doused in snowmelt. My smile flickered. "Where does this sealed door lead?"
Salem hesitated. "There's another passage beneath the hidden chamber. Took hours to find. Longer to unlock. It's unsealed now. I didn't go in."
"You left a secret tunnel unexplored?" I gasped theatrically. "Who even are you?"
"I thought you'd want the honors."
And there it was. My grin bloomed anew. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you're starting to like me."
"Don't push it."
We descended together, through corridors that moaned with memory and old stone. Our steps echoed like heresy in motion. The walls grew tighter, the ceiling lower. Cracks veined the bricks with subtle flickers of residual magic.
The hidden chamber beneath the ossuary was small, damp, and stank of mildew, ink, and bad decisions. The alter stood in the center. Beneath it, the entrance: a black obsidian plate etched with faded runes.
"If we interlock fingers," I said solemnly, "our combined holiness may ward off lurking demons."
Salem gave me a withering look. "Just open the damn door."
"Fine," I sighed. "No holding hands. But if I get cursed, I'm haunting your dreams in lingerie."
The plate slid open with a soft groan, like a tomb sighing in relief. What lay beyond was not a stairway but a steep, slanted hallway—narrow and slick, the walls crawling with carvings that shifted from gold to red to a creeping black.
The air changed. Grew colder. Wetter.
We stepped cautiously through the tunnel until it leveled out, our breathing shallow.
Then came the sound.
Skittering.
I froze. "Please tell me that's your stomach."
Salem said nothing and instead drew both of his swords from the twin sheaths strapped beneath his coat. I realized, with no small amount of irritation, that I'd never seen him draw them before.
They weren't enchanted or glowing or singing ancient hymns. They were steel. Functional. Worn down in places. One had a crack near the hilt, the other bore a faded sigil.
But in his hands, they looked like precision incarnate.
Two creatures emerged from the dark—wrongly shaped and twitching. Their eyes rolled white, limbs too long, mouths sewn open, chests pulsing with the cadence of trapped hearts.
"Experimental leftovers?" I whispered.
Salem moved before I could blink.
His blades met flesh with a sound like parchment tearing. One creature's head spun clean off its neck; the other was disemboweled mid-lunge. Not with elegance, but with surgical brutality. He pivoted, drove a sword into the wall, and shattered part of the stone structure with the force of the blow.
Dust settled. Silence followed.
I began fanned myself before letting out a low whistle. "Why didn't you use those in our battle against Hollow."
"I was still assessing your power." He glanced over his shoulder. "You're not the only one with secrets."
We moved onward. In that moment, I began to question weather or not Salem was completely on my side. Perhaps he served some higher master. I couldn't tell.
The corridor gave way to a circular chamber—vast and untouched. Shelves collapsed into rubble. Tomes blackened with rot. I stared down to see an open book with one page showing the diagram of a symbol in the shape of a hexed spiral which, for a moment, seemed oddly familiar to me.
Curious.
I turned toward the center of the room which sat another altar: obsidian like the rest, but smoother. And atop it, a cube.
Perfect, unmarked, and void.
It didn't reflect light. It drank it.
"That," Salem said slowly, "is not stone."
"I'm gonna touch it."
"Be my guest," he said softly, hand hovering. "I'll send flowers to your funeral. Or a rose toy, depending on your preference."
I laughed before reaching out toward the object, fingers trembling. The moment my skin brushed the surface, a dull nothingness seeped into me. Not pain. Not power. Just an awareness.
And a waiting presence. I stepped back.
"Well that was anti-climatic. I was hoping for… I don't know, a demon summoning or something?"
"Best to leave it alone for now. I'll go look around the perimeter."
I thought nothing of it for awhile until that night, I realized I couldn't sleep.
My silken sheets tangled around me like vines. The cube's hum still pulsed in my thoughts. Not sound—impression.
When I had finally gone to rest I dreamt of a woman in white, veiled, standing in milky-white light. Her hands were clasped. Her lips unmoving. And yet I heard her.
"Not yet," she whispered without speaking.
I awoke, gasping.
And standing beside my bed—silhouetted against the blush of dawn—was Lysaria.
"Urgent news," he said.
I blinked at his silhouette. "From who?"
"The Council. Something is stirring, something big, and they need your help."
"They need my help of all people? Well now i'm intrigued," I said as I bounded from my sheets and strode out of my room and into the main hall. Smelling the sweet stench of opportunity, a faint smile crossed my lips.