Arc 1: Chapter 38: The Baron’s Madness
We found more evidence of the falling out between the Baron and his “guests” deeper into that house of darkness.
It started out as a corpse here and there. A Mistwalker ripped to shreds as though by some beast, rancid ghoul blood splattered like paint strokes across the rich tapestries and fine masonry of the halls.
The evidence grew as Catrin led me into the bowels of the castle. The men Issachar had left had met steep resistance from Orson’s household, and here I finally got a look at the enigmatic servants who kept the place up.
They were all chimera, or perhaps homunculi. Twisted, warped things grown in glass and bubbling liquid, sickly and misshapen. They had been strong, ripping apart the mercenaries like dolls, beating them to pulp, or eating them.
But the invading monsters had proved superior, in both tactic and number. Though the Mistwalkers had taken casualties, most of the corpses we found were the Baron’s creatures.
We found a group of three soldiers plunging long spears into the tumorous mass of a hunchback big as three men. It wasn’t dying no matter how many times they stabbed it, but it clearly felt pain.
The ghouls were laughing at it.
By the time I’d finished with them, my bloodstained axe smoldered with molten light. The little victory felt hollow, after what Quinn had revealed.
Catrin knelt by the hunchback’s side, laying a hand on its twisted neck as it struggled to breathe. She gave me a pleading look, and I lifted my axe.
When I’d put the poor thing out of its misery, we took stock of the corridor ahead. More bodies. Most were twisted humanoids like the big brute, but some resembled the creatures we’d fought down in the flood tunnel. These lacked wings, looking more like big, leech-headed reptiles which crawled on all fours.
“Baron must have emptied out his kennels for this,” Catrin noted. “You think he’s still alive?”