Gaius examined the door in an attempt to find a way to pick its lock. There wasn't any, just the same panel on the side as with all the other doors down there. He hesitated, thinking of how to best go about this.

  Observing Gaius' struggles, Major's images said, "It won't work. You'll simply alert Lucius to your presence. When I said bust through, I meant it."

  The first part made little sense to anyone other than Gaius, but the second was clear enough.

  Victor squeezed past Gaius and cracked his knuckles. With nothing to really hold onto, he pressed his hands into the door and started pushing it to the side. He huffed and growled as his muscles nearly doubled in size from exertion, making it clear what giant of a man the northerner really was underneath his usually loose and baggy clothes. Despite his heroic efforts, the door wouldn't budge, not even a little.

  "Let me have a go at it, young man," Gertrude said when Victor reached that point where he knew he wasn't getting the job done but was too stubborn to let go and admit defeat.

  Treating his withdrawal as a courtesy and not a necessity, Victor stepped away and allowed Gertrude to approach the door. Upon making sure she had enough room, she placed her hands on the door's surface and began chanting.

  Once the incantation ran its course, the old wizard began moving her hands in a wide circle. Wherever she touched the door, its metal grew hot to the point of melting. Unmolested by this immense heat, Gertrude kept going until she marked a wide enough chunk to let even Victor through. When that was done, she stepped back, barked a short command, and a gust of wind blew the molten metal inwards, cooling it off and opening up a passage inside Lucius' domain.

  Esven, who was usually quite fond of such displays of arcane power, observed all this with a complete lack of excitement.

  He went up to the door, traced his finger across the edge of the new entrance, and shook his head.

  "Nope, nothing," the captain muttered.

  Gertrude took that somewhat personally. "Covered in metal, this place cuts me off from my main source of power. I'm unable to utilize my flashier abilities."

  Esven shook his head again. "No, it's not that. It just all feels kind of pointless. You know, what's magic when you've just learned you're a backup plan in a scheme more ancient than the lay of the land itself."

  "I can't really agree," Gertrude said. "For me, this is an hour of triumph. I've long suspected there was a connection between the races and now I finally have proof of that. The question is what do we do with all this knowledge?"

  Gaius interrupted this discussion by stepping through the opening. "Let's form secret orders and divvy up the world later. For now, let's focus on saving it."

  He couldn't believe this was him now. The save the world kind of guy. As a young lad, he made pacts with his thieving buddies to leave the honor of saving the world to fools and stay alive to pick their corpses for loot later.

  And now, he was the first to step inside a den of evil. Though, admittedly, it didn't look that much different from the part of Major's facility that preceded it. The only noticeable difference was the lack of Major himself, whose crooked grin couldn't follow them inside Lucius' territory.

  Still, Gaius wasn't fooled by this relative calm. He knew that Lucius was aware of everything that happened within his halls. A retaliation was imminent. When Gaius felt the familiar chill piercing his joints, he was ready.

  A ghostly arm reached up from the floor and tried to grab him, forcing him to tumble away.

  "Don't let him touch you," Gaius shouted.

  His initial attack failed, Lucius materialized in full as the Shadow of Mallia. However, the mere knowledge of who hid behind this spectral facade dispelled most of his frigid nobility.

  "That old bag of bones is assisting you, I take it," Lucius said, his words leaking from the walls themselves. "I didn't expect you to be clever enough to follow me here. I tip my imaginary hat to you, Guy." The specter tapped the side of his misty head. "Well, it matters not. You're mine now, and you're not getting out."

  The specter used the narrowness of the corridor to try and pass through one of the intruders. By that point they had a good enough feel for working together and managed to avoid his advance.

  And while the others were content with merely dodging, Gertrude wasn't about to engage in anything even remotely related to acrobatics. As Lucius was about to crash into her, she disappeared, only to instantly reappear behind Lucius and send a fan of arcane bolts after him.

  The missiles passed through the specter without doing any observable damage.

  Lucius cackled, turned around, and went for another pass.

  Prior to parting with them, Major explained where Lucius was holed up and how to get there. Diving under the specter, Gaius looked ahead, visualizing the path he needed to take. He had no illusions about surprising Lucius, but him being able to see their arrival didn't preclude a distraction.

  "So, when are we to expect a horde of your minions?" Gaius asked when Lucius was passing by him.

  The distraction was successful, in a way. Lucius altered his course and went straight for Gaius, ignoring the other members of his group.

  "My minions?" the walls screamed. "You're talking about my brothers. And yours for that matter. How many of them did you murder in cold blood? No, you'll be dealing with me."

  Sidestepping the charge while already preparing himself for another one, Gaius said, "They're mindless shells, man. Get off it already. Ask that Major fellow if you don't believe me."

  "Lies," Lucius shouted. This scream turned into a squeal of pain when the specter collided with the light orb Gaius conjured on the spot.

  This briefest of breaks allowed for a shred of forward progress that put Gaius and his companions in front of another closed door. Lucius was behind it, or at least that's where Major's intel put the heart of his stronghold.

  "If you will," Gaius said, looking at Gertrude.

  Before the wizard got a chance to begin her spell, the door slid open.

  A well-lit oval room greeted Gaius and his companions with two parallel rows of desks augmented with ancient technology that beeped and blinked with a multitude of displays and gauges.

  On the far end of the room, an observation deck overlooking the beast's core was covered with a corrugated blast shield, a term that still lingered on the edge of Gaius' consciousness.

  There, using an elevated circular platform as his station, was Lucius. The sight of him dispelled any notion of his specter being a true undead creature instead of a trick of ancient craft.

  The man was essentially split in half. His right side was that of a middle-aged Caladonian, complete with dark features and a curled mustache. The rest of him was an unrecognizable mess of undulating flesh that shifted and reformed itself with Lucius' every breath.

  Countless prehensile appendages extended from that part of him to tap the buttons of the numerous panels within his reach. Finger-thick cords of metal extended from the ceiling straight into Lucius' spine, connecting him directly to the facility.

  There was a strong urge inside Gaius to double over and retch in a vain attempt to expel this image that would undoubtedly haunt him till his death.

  "Mallia's tits, captain. You're a mess. Whatever happened to you?" Esven was the first to react to this unsettling visage.

  A slight shift in Lucius' joints turned his technological throne around to help him face Esven.

  "Ah, it's not that bad, old buddy," he said. Each word came muffled and distorted, thanks to him having only half a mouth. "The ultimate knowledge had a price, one that I would gladly pay a thousand times over. It does have its drawbacks, I can't argue with you there."

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  At least he was talking with them. His specter was no longer trying to chase them down and there weren't any alefs competing for their attention. This was a start.

  "You clearly have at least some of your faculties intact," Gaius started. "Any chance we can convince you to see the error of your ways, kill yourself and spare us the trouble?"

  "Oh please," Lucius waved him away with a swift motion of his human arm. "You're not nearly that charismatic. Our brothers deserve to be freed after all the eons they spent cooped up down here only to be slaughtered on sight whenever they showed themselves on the surface."

  "But don't you think your new appearance may be clouding your better judgment?" Gaius asked.

  "Don't confuse my limited mobility with a lack of mental acuity, Guy. Tapping into the vast knowledge banks of the ancient ones while armed with the understanding provided by my transformation made me see things clearer than ever before." Lucius shook his head. "No, I gave you plenty of chances to move out of my way. Despite that, you are here now, and so this is where your remains will stay."

  Gaius shrugged. "Worth a shot."

  Esven's hot Caladonian temper was itching for action. He took Gaius' words as an invitation. His arbalest sent a missile straight at his old boss.

  Lucius made no attempt to evade this attack or defend himself in any way. The bolt hit his disfigured side only to disappear in that mess of constantly shifting matter.

  "Didn't hurt," Lucius snapped. "My turn now."

  His skin visibly calcified, with sharp jagged bones covering him all over. The sight of this process was disgustingly mesmerizing, to the point where no one caught the moment when a singular bone spike launched from within Lucius with the speed and force far exceeding that of Esven's bolt.

  This projectile hit the captain's breastplate, lodging itself deep inside his body and sending him down on the floor.

  Abandoning his recent lapse into civility, Victor reacted to the sight of downed Esven with a thunderous roar. He rushed forward, leaping across the desks in an unpredictable pattern.

  When he reached Lucius, he started an overhead chop that he then shifted into a sideways strike at the last moment.

  Just as the axe was about to hit Lucius, a layered cage of bone sprung up from inside his deformed half, blocking the hit. The axe crushed through a few layers only to be stopped by the rest without causing Lucius any noticeable harm. The cage then acted in very much un-bonelike fashion and reformed itself into a spiked fist that crashed into Victor, tearing through his vest and boring deep under his skin. In a whip-like motion, that fist flung Victor at one of the desks.

  Alessia was already there, standing above her husband with an open vial and a mad glint in her eyes.

  Isabella's advance was more careful, obscured by Victor's reckless charge, yet it still wasn't able to escape Lucius' attention. His specter materialized in front of her, while the man behind the desk said, "I thought we went over this already. Turn this thing off and fight like you mean it."

  The lights flickered and Gaius felt a momentary sapping of his strength. When the feeling passed, he saw Isabella facing off against Shadow. It was hard to tell if her low stance was one of caution or fear.

  Shadow grabbed for her but missed. After it failed her once, Isabella no longer relied on the shield as much and was instead employing her almost forgotten defensive training.

  She followed her dodge with a bolt of lightning she clutched in her fist like a javelin. Lucius reacted to the bolt hitting his projection with a pained groan.

  The spectral image momentarily disappeared to then descend on Isabella from above. This started a dizzying chase across the room. The knight was weaving an evasive path, using all manner of clutter for cover, while Shadow pursued her relentlessly, appearing and disappearing without a warning.

  Isabella's attacks only seemed to aggravate Lucius, while a single touch from him would spell her doom. And even the few bolts of energy she sent at his physical form dissipated before reaching their target.

  Gaius was never big on keeping his promises, but he remembered this one. He promised Isabella to deal with Shadow if things came to it. Back then, he didn't see the full picture of who or what Shadow was. And now, he was stuck eyeing Lucius for any sign of weakness.

  He caught Gertrude observing the situation alongside him. The practical Mystlund wizard wasn't about to rush in without a solid plan. She looked to Gaius to produce that plan.

  There were few things Gaius enjoyed less than going in without knowing exactly what he was doing. Here, he knew he needed to do something anyway. If he didn't, Lucius would either get Isabella or reclaim enough of his faculties to split his attention between chasing her and peppering the rest of them with spikes.

  With a head tilt, half nod, and not a single word, Gaius told Gertrude to follow his lead. At least he hoped that was what she got from it. He didn't stop to double-check.

  His every movement from that point on became measured and non-threatening. There was an almost forgotten finesse in this attempt to sneak up on Lucius. It brought Gaius back to his glory days of burglarizing wealthy merchants, not posing as one.

  This cautious stride helped him avoid the battle between Isabella and Shadow, step over Esven's body without paying any attention to his agony-filled groans, and slip past Victor and Alessia.

  Staying low to the ground and carefully planning his every step, Gaius navigated himself up to the observation deck and behind Lucius. This left him with an opening and a question. If Victor's furious swing didn't even irritate Lucius, what good could his feeble attack do against a foe like this?

  He still had to try.

  And he was just about to when Lucius' back shimmered with an otherworldly glow and an eye with an iris of pure black opened right around where his left shoulder-blade should have been.

  Gaius yelped and swig his axe. His hand was intercepted by a lash of flesh. This newly-formed appendage wrapped itself around Gaius' wrist, squeezed it to the point of nearly crushing the bone.

  "I honestly expected you to run," Lucius said. "I guess spending enough time here in Caladonia, among real men, must have rubbed off on you after all."

  This courteous and even jolly demeanor was easily the most unsettling thing about Lucius. He was clearly mad, driven to drown the world in a tide of alefs by a perverse delusion. His physical form was that of a failed fleshcrafting experiment. He was actively trying to kill them all. And yet he still maintained a friendly and polite fa?ade despite all of that.

  Stuck there, entangled by Lucius, Gaius already knew that if he were to survive through the day, he would come out of it with a newfound distrust for amiable people.

  Not really certain if he was waiting to die or get rescued, Gaius spent a split second examining the situation. Yes, Lucius was the big thing on his mind, and his tentacled attack was beyond disturbing, but Gaius wouldn't have gotten to this point in his life if he only focused on the obvious.

  Beyond Lucius' misshapen form, his workstation harbored an all too familiar slot in which sat a tablet, seemingly identical to the ones in Gaius' pocket.

  There was but a faint echo of his brief understanding of the ancients left in Gaius' head by then. Major's vision wasn't meant to stay there forever. And yet that echo was enough to give him an idea. If he cut Lucius off from the machinery, at the very least it would allow Major to regain full control of the facility.

  Gaius cursed himself for never learning any lightning-based spells. From what his mind still held onto, he knew they could work wonders against this technology. From up-close like this, they wouldn't be dispersed by the protective barrier that deflected Isabella's earlier attacks.

  He had to work with what he had, so he coated his free hand in metal and threw a punch past Lucius, straight at the tablet receptacle. He augmented his attack with a flash of fire, creating a small blast when the metal of his fist met the metal of the panel.

  Lucius shrieked and jerked away, both from Gaius and the explosion. His fleshy lash tightened its grip and Gaius was all but certain his wrist snapped. He joined Lucius in a pained scream.

  At the same time, he saw Gertrude enter his field of view. The wizard understood him well enough and took this commotion as her opening.

  Underground, but with metal sheets cutting her off from her main source of power and Lucius' aura draining a lot of her inner reserves, she couldn't crush Lucius with the ceiling or open a bottomless pit underneath him. But she was far from powerless.

  A practiced flick of her wrist sent her cane up in the air where it proceeded to float. A swift incantation revealed the cane's true form, that of a jagged chunk of rock with a pointy end. It was thick as an old walnut tree and could rival Victor in height.

  This floating rock reacted to Gertrude moving her hands by launching itself at Lucius. The sheer force of its impact tore Lucius away from the cords holding him up and threw him against the blast shield. Still connected to the old captain, Gaius had no choice but to follow that painful trajectory.

  He wanted nothing but to lay still and wait for the pleasant relief of Isabella's healing, but the stakes were too high for that.

  Gaius opened his eyes, expecting to see Lucius splattered. But that was very far from reality. With the upper half of his body connected to the lower one with but a few threads of flesh, Lucius was crawling towards a door on the other end of the room.

  The beast's domain lay there and Gaius could only imagine what would happen to them if they were exposed to the same energies as Lucius. But even though he was no longer stuck, Gaius couldn't find enough strength in him to move.

  He couldn't even muster enough air to scream for help.

  In that most helpless of positions, he watched Isabella run up to Lucius who was no longer able to hound her as Shadow. A flurry of downward swings descended upon his disfigured body, chopping what was left of him to bits. Then, he saw Gertrude join Isabella and burn the remains with a steady stream of flame.

  As if answering Gaius' unspoken question of whether all that was enough to finish Lucius off, Major's images appeared on the walls.

  "You got him. And from what my sensors are telling me, none of you are actually dead. Provided of course that you start tending to your wounded right about now," the ancient lich announced.

  With Alessia hunched over Victor and Isabella rushing to Gaius' help, Esven was stuck with Gertrude, who gave him a good tap on the shoulder and held up his head until Gaius was reasonably certain he wasn't dying and insisted Isabella let him be and helped the captain.

  Gaius was sipping on his second potion when Esven regained enough strength to sit up, look at what was left of Lucius, and say, "I drew first blood. It's my kill."

  "If it saves me from appearing in any report, you can tell them you did this all by yourself, captain," Gaius replied.

  "Hey, we're not in this just for the money," Victor protested.

  "Yes, some recognition would be nice," Alessia agreed.

  "I'm with Guy. I was never here," Gertrude said.

  "We were blessed with so many revelations down here, a little shuffling of the smaller details isn't that big a deal, I guess," Isabella nodded. "I'll attest to whatever you agree on."

  "Speaking of," Gaius said. "What are we to do with all this new knowledge?"

  Story Facts - Chapter 35