Chapter 31: Really? A Stain in the Light ? (1/2)
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What was that smell?
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A pungent, thick odor—strong and metallic, like buckets of blood left to congeal in summer heat—grew so overwhelming it seemed to coat the back of his throat.
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The scent masked even the unique salty brine that permeated the camp above, intensifying with each step downward until he could almost taste the iron on his tongue.
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The passage itself seemed alive, expanding as he descended, as though the earth were inhaling to make room for him.
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Where his shoulders had nearly brushed both walls near the entrance, he now found himself in a tunnel that could accommodate three men walking abreast, the ceiling arching high enough that he no longer needed to stoop.
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It was then that he stopped abruptly. His ears twitched.
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"Ack!" The sound of someone groaning in pain reverberated through the passage, the echo distorting the anguish into something almost inhuman.
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SMACK!
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It was followed by the sharp crack of a whip—not just any lash, but the distinctive whistle-snap of braided leather biting into flesh, leaving the air vibrating with its aftermath.
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"How many times do we need to repeat this process?" The voice was clipped, clinical, its patience wearing thin like fabric rubbed too often in the same spot.
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Those were clearly human voices, and—considering this camp was filled with Holy Knights, the church...
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Torturing and imprisoning people? What a wicked idea.
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Lucien shook his head, the corners of his mouth quirking upward in dark amusement, his long hair swaying gently with the movement.
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It wasn't as if this was unexpected, not since he'd found the basement leading down.
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"I figured out so much, but still, this cliché?" he whispered to himself.
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Instead of retreating, Lucien cocked one eyebrow with theatrical skepticism, his gloved fingers trailing along the damp stone wall as he continued his descent.
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The stones grew smoother here, almost polished by frequent passage, and the light stones brighter, until he finally reached what appeared to be a dead end—until the passage opened up like a book flung wide.
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A vast room sprawled before him—it could almost be considered a library.
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Copper pipes hung from the vaulted ceiling in a complex arterial network, some connected to a central chandelier of twisted metal and glowing crystal, others feeding into glass cylinders filled with phosphorescent liquid that pulsed with a sickly yellow-green heartbeat.
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The cylinders cast long, distorted shadows across the stone floor, reminiscent of scenes from those fantastical mad scientist movies he'd seen.
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Shelves carved directly into the rock walls sagged under the weight of leather-bound tomes and scattered papers, their edges yellowed and curling with damp.
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Glass bottles containing substances of varying viscosity lined the lower shelves, their contents shifting and settling like sentient things disturbed from slumber.
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The air here was thick with competing scents—the metallic blood smell now mingled with chemical tang, musty parchment, and something else, something organic and wrong, like flesh preserved too long.
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But the most noticeable feature, positioned like a throne at the center of this underground laboratory, was a chair—one that looked like it could rotate, its mechanism gleaming with freshly oiled brass components.
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The high back was upholstered in cracked leather that might once have been red but had darkened with age and use to the color of dried blood.
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And sitting in it was...
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A... demon, perhaps, no a demi-human? Lucien thought, his pupils contracting to needle-thin slits as he focused on the figure before him.
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A single horn protruded from the woman's forehead—not the crude, thick protrusion of fantasy illustrations, but something elegant and deadly, a spiraled ivory spear that caught the light in pearlescent ripples.
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Her features were otherwise hauntingly human—high cheekbones flushed with pain, lips pulled back in a grimace that revealed teeth too white and too sharp.
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But it was her eyes that held Lucien transfixed: slit pupils like his own, framed by long lashes clumped with tears, glowing a sulfurous yellow-gold rather than his blood red. Those eyes rolled wildly in their sockets, tracking invisible horrors only she could see.
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Beside her stood two knights clad in white armor that seemed to absorb rather than reflect the chamber's strange light.
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The plates fit together with unnatural precision, no gaps visible at joints or seams, as though the metal had been poured directly onto their bodies and allowed to harden.
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One knight's gauntleted hands moved in precise, practiced gestures as he chanted in a language that made Lucien's inner ear itch.
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A glowing white light emanated from his fingertips, enveloping the woman in what should have been soothing radiance.
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Lucien could feel a freshness from this light, reminiscent of stepping into a forest after rainfall—pure, clean, alive.
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The other knight stood motionless except for the steady drip, drip, drip of blood from the whip clutched in his right hand.
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Both knights' attention fixed on the non-human woman who thrashed against her chains, the metal links biting into her pale wrists with each desperate movement.
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What is this? Some kind of fetish? Are they torturing demons to satisfy their hidden desires?
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The thought flashed through Lucien's mind with sardonic clarity, his lips quirking in a half-smile that vanished as quickly as it appeared.
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But then, his nose twitched, following one particular thread through the miasma—a distinctive blend of aged leather and dry soil, with a hint of herbs—sage and something more bitter, wormwood perhaps—and a faint, cold metallic tang like old coins left too long in a pocket.
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The familiarity of that scent struck him like a physical blow, his eyes widening with genuine shock, the red glow intensifying as realization dawned.
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"Immune to poison, to silver, noted. Moving to experiment number thirty-seven," said a familiar voice, each word measured and methodical, stripped of emotion or hesitation.
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The voice matched the scent—there was no doubt. It was Branks, the village head, hunched over a writing desk positioned just out of the woman's line of sight.
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His weathered fingers moved with practiced efficiency as he jotted down observations in a leather-bound journal, its pages yellow with age and use.
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Without looking up, he reached over to pull another book from the shelves beside him, the spine cracking as he laid it open atop a stack of similar volumes.
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Even the two knights seemed to take pleasure in their contradictory tasks—one healing, one harming—their breathing quickening slightly whenever the woman's struggles intensified.
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So absorbed were they in their work that none noticed the tall, looming figure of Lucien standing at the entrance, his shadow stretching across the threshold like spilled ink, his presence a void in the chamber's fetid energy.
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Branks frowned, the lines in his face deepening as he mumbled, "Emotionally weak. Weak to holy spells."
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The nib of his quill scratched against parchment, capturing every observation with clinical precision. He paused mid-stroke, blinking in surprise, a rare flash of genuine emotion crossing his features.
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"Ah! Remarkable—she's regenerating already, even after her legs were nearly torn off. His voice lilted upward with what might have been excitement in a more human man.
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He leaned forward, elbows braced against the desk, eyes narrowed to better observe the phenomenon. "The rate exceeds the last subject by a factor of three... fascinating!"
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CRACK!
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The sound reverberated through the chamber like a gunshot, echoing off stone walls and setting the glass cylinders trembling in their brackets.
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At this point, Branks's eyebrows furrowed, the only acknowledgment of the disturbance that had interrupted his concentration.
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Yet his focus never wavered from the new sheet of clean paper he pulled toward him, his quill poised with mechanical precision.
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"Keep it quiet, will you? Some of us are trying to document miracles here." Branks' voice carried the irritated tone of a scholar disturbed in his library rather than a man overseeing torture.
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His weathered fingers never paused in their writing, the nib of his quill scratching across parchment with the persistence of an insect burrowing through wood.
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A single droplet of ink splashed onto the page, and he tutted softly, blotting it with a cloth pulled from his sleeve with practiced efficiency.
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But neither Branks nor the knights noticed that Lucien was approaching the torture chamber.
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"So, your kind thought it clever to snatch our women, did you?" The knight wielding the whip leaned down, his face inches from the prisoner's face, his voice dropped to a venomous whisper that carried in the chamber's perfect acoustics.
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"Your parents must be as stupid as they are heinous." His gauntlet tightened around the handle of the whip, leather creaking as his knuckles whitened beneath the metal.
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The half-ogre woman tied to the chair was a study in contradictions—her frame more delicate than one would expect, yet corded with muscle beneath skin that shimmered with an almost pearlescent quality in the strange light.
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Already sobbing, her tears carved clean tracks through the dirt and dried blood on her cheeks, her shoulders heaving with each ragged breath.
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The chains binding her wrists had worn the skin raw, seeping wounds that tried to heal even as the metal continuously reopened them.
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"Mom i-is not a bad pe..." Her voice broke, hoarse from screaming, yet still carrying a melodic quality. "F-father is goo—"
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"Ha!" The knight—Ryan—snorted at her plea, the sound reverberating metallically inside his helmet. He straightened, rolling his shoulders with theatrical contempt. "You monsters love to lie. Did you beg for mercy when you gorged on my little sister?" His voice rose with each word, cracking with emotion that had festered into something rotten. "Do you think we'd just forget that?"
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WHIP!
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The lash cut through the air with a sound like tearing silk before connecting with the half-ogre's exposed shoulder. The impact left a welt that immediately beaded with blood, droplets pattering onto the stone floor to join countless others in a grotesque constellation.
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"Agh...U-uncle it hurts..." Her cry was barely more than a whimper now, her strength visibly ebbing as tears of actual blood—thicker and darker than normal tears—streamed from her yellow eyes.
