The fetid plants had been burnt away, though some fungal growth remained. The odd leaf was left swaying about in a faint breeze on the floor. Calaf studied a five-pronged maple-style leaf that had survived the blaze. It was red and orangish, not unlike a tree in the Fall.

  Calaf, Jelena, and Enkidu walked out of the cistern. The flames cleared out many of the thickest trunks and branches of the rot. Entire pathways were revealed that had been blocked previously, including the old secret route to the thieves’ guild hideout. The trio traveled there and then saw evidence of the old sailor’s posse that had been blocked by the growth and ventured deeper into the cisterns, unknowingly to their doom.

  “Ah, guess we’ve got to hit the cathedral, don’t we?” Jelena said. “Getting Zilara back is going to require… finesse.”

  This pathway would drop them back out at the north side of town, a fair jaunt from the cathedral. Doubling back through the cisterns, retracing their path through the aqueducts and channels was an option. Not that anyone other than single-minded Enkidu was willing to spend another unnecessary minute down here in the depths.

  As they made for the exit, Calaf felt eyes upon him. Moreover, he heard the shimmer of an Interface. The Squire turned his head left, noticing the hem of a maid dress disappear behind a blind curb.

  Calaf pursued.

  “Hey, wait!” Jelena said. “We don’t know how many of these things are still out here.”

  “I saw her interface. Just… stay close, keep us covered!”

  The figure zipped this way and that through the dingy, rot-covered halls. Calaf followed as fast as his heavy armor would allow.

  “Wait. We’re here to rescue you,” he said.

  Still, the mystery woman fled.

  “Your husband was here with us!” Calaf said.

  Ah, well, he should probably attempt to say things that didn’t sound like he was part of a rotting collective. Nevertheless, Calaf chased after her – again, behavior that hardly differentiated him from the walking corpses they’d been fighting all night!

  The chase ended at a dead-end side chamber with five shallow graves now filled with rotten growths. Cowering in the corner, Menu designation marking her as among the living, was:

  One of the noncombat classes. Still, judging by all the gunk on her dress, Miss Barbara, wife of sailor Mal, had engaged in all manner of combat to survive in the depths.

  “We’re here to rescue you!” Squire Calaf said.

  Yes, that was better. More human, less out to convert her into one of the undead.

  The terrified maid shook, holding an improvised blunt object as her only defense.

  Enkidu and Jelena arrived at the entrance. The appearance of a long-haired wild man and a one-eyed rogue, both unbranded, did little to calm Barbara’s nerves. To win her trust, Calaf cast an Intermediate Heal to top up her health.

  “These things. They… can’t do that,” Barbara said.

  “See? We’re still alive,” Jelena said rather abruptly.

  “I can carry her if need be,” Enkidu added.

  “Won’t be necessary.” Calaf offered his hand, which Barbara took.

  For their next conundrum, the group had to determine how best to exfiltrate. Barbara was freezing, suffering from days under the elements, and afraid of every shadow. She required a proper healer, which only the cathedral could provide. Enkidu and Jelena were of course continent-most-wanted super-criminals, who didn’t want to risk an uncomfortable conversation with the church guards. Still, Zilara ought to be at the cathedral, and they weren’t leaving without her. What’s more, nobody wanted to spend another minute in these dingy reservoirs.

  Still, the group retraced Mal and his ship crew’s doomed rescue expedition, rediscovering areas where each sailor fell, then rose, in turn.

  Nobody thought for a moment that they’d slain every living corpse in this winding drainage and water storage network. The reservoirs would require a deep cleansing, potentially a years-long operation.

  “What were those things?” Barbara asked after a time.

  Calaf shook his head. “Don’t know. But I’ve seen them before.”

  On their trip back, Calaf took the time to describe his previous encounter with that entity beneath the lighthouse.

  “I’ve seen some dead pilgrims in my time,” Jelena said. “Ones decayed beyond the ability to consecrate. Back when I still had the ol’ Brand, things would… move. Corpses changed position, it seemed. Some unbranded animals even disappeared after they were killed.”

  “How did you lose your Brand, oh savior?” Barbara asked.

  “Oh?” Jelena put a hand on her eyepatch. “Lost it in a freak haberdashery accident. Yes.”

  The lie dampened the mood, and they marched in silence through the reservoirs on a southerly route.

  The crew approached the narrow entrance back to the reliquary hall. Rot still reigned here, though no further repurposed corpses were yet seen. Neither was there any evidence that Mal’s group had been ambushed during their retreat.

  “Okay, we’re going to be beset by guards as soon as we enter the church,” Jelena said.

  “We can fight our way to Zilara and make for the eastern gate,” Enkidu said. “A decapitation strike would leave the entire city in chaos. We could escape in the confusion.”

  “Wait, wait!” Calaf threw his hands up. “I know people there.”

  Jelena sighed. She seemed like she’d wanted to go for that route. It was a reminder to the upstanding-if-disillusioned Squire that, rapport though he’d established with the pair, they were still outlaws. Calaf was going to have to reconcile with that if he and Jelena were going to be together as allies – or otherwise.

  “Let me escort Barbara in.” Calaf rested a reassuring hand on the maid’s shoulder. “I will explain things to the Pryor. He’s a trusted friend of mine.”

  “I think even the kindliest pryor will still hand us over to the church arbiters,” Jelena said.

  The tension between the pair’s life paths hung in the air, and Jelena seemed to sense that. Enkidu let out a frustrated sigh.

  “Okay, okay. We’ll play by your rules.” Jelena took a step down a side corridor. “We can double back to the surface around here, stop by once you’ve… ironed things out. At worst we sneak in and get Zilara. Hopefully, she remembered those rings…”

  The pair of outlaws slunk off, leaving one more straightaway between Calaf, Barbara, and the safety of the cathedral.

  “I… I went looking for my coworker,” Barbara said as they entered the statue hall dedicated to the Ancient Heroes of Yore. “I never found her. Only, I saw her sailor beau… changed.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I am sorry,” Calaf said. “Marianne, another maid? We found her. She’d slain a friend of mine. But we put her to rest.”

  Barbara began to cry, which summoned the guards at the statuary hall’s locked gate.

  “Let us in!” Calaf shouted.

  The gate swung open, and Calaf escorted Barbara out.

  Healers waited in the darkened main hall of the cathedral. They quickly and rather brusquely separated Barbara from Calaf and applied some additional healing and purification spells to the beleaguered maid.

  Pryor Deacon was there waiting for Calaf.

  “You survived.” Deacon smiled, clearly pleased. “When those three sailors returned with only a single child in hand to show for their sacrifices, we feared the worst.”

  “I found your church rescue party,” Calaf said. “Dead, aside from the quarry I was looking for. She, too, died, unbranded, cleansing the reservoirs of corruption.”

  “Please. You must be tired and thirsty. Come.” Deacon had a set of tea and other warm drinks arranged at a pew. “This will be a long story. Please, tell us what happened down there, for the records.”

  Calaf described the fateful events of that night. All the while, faint rays of early morning began to shine through the cathedral’s glass. A trained cleric transcribed every word, the same as with his testimony regarding the Battletower crusading actions.

  Further testimony was interrupted when a figure ran out of the healer’s hall and into the cathedral.

  “Barbara! Hey, let me see my wife.”

  Deacon waved off some church guards, allowing Mal and Barbara to rush to each other and embrace near a buttress.

  The sailor now had an Interface designation:

  A healthy HP pool for a level one. Branding would have been necessary to heal his extensive injuries in a timely fashion. Mal ran up to embrace his now much higher-level wife, Barbara.

  “It’s been days!” he declared. “We were attacked by those things almost immediately upon entering the cisterns. How did you survive?”

  Barbara blubbered out an explanation about fleeing for her life almost constantly for days at a time.

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Safe! In the apartment, door and windows are locked.” Mal examined his wife’s status through his new Interface. “Level thirty-six!? What, you going to be the breadwinner now?”

  “Levels are a pure function of combat and occasionally crafting experience,” Deacon interrupted the happy couple. “Your sailing career will remain viable. Why, we have plenty of converts among the merchant marine.”

  “Ay, but now I’m a sailor with no crew!” said Mal. “Hells, none of that matters now. Just let me have some time with Barb.”

  Calaf scanned the cathedral. He was looking for a certain someone thereabouts twelve years old. Only, instead of any silver-haired girl, he found a young woman with short black hair:

  Not much of a disguise regarding the title. Was there even a ‘Haberdasher’ class? Calaf did not know. Still, the glamour ring had blessed her with extensive modifications to her appearance. Silver bangs and drill-tails were replaced with a plain straight black bob-type affair. She could pass as Jelena's fairer-complected cousin, which perhaps was indeed the relic thieves' alibi. Gone were her eye brands, replaced with a fake one on her ankle instead. An uncommon place for it, but not one that drew any inquisitor’s attention.

  “Hey, where’s Hoss?” she asked.

  “Hello, ‘Zelda.’” Calaf stifled a chuckle. “They’re laying low. Waiting to pick you up without altercation.”

  “Y’know Hoss likes you something awful,” the child currently known as Zelda said. “She totally wants to jump your bones. Would’ve done so too but she’s caught up on your whole honorable knight-man shtick.”

  Calaf’s cheeks morphed into a beat-red hue.

  “Well, she is a striking and remarkable woman who I have found myself wishing to know more about.”

  “Kay. Gonna tell her the feeling is mutual. What about that fiancée of yours? Or are you going to engage in mutually assured homewrecking?”

  Calaf stammered about. His mind was still running over the last years’ worth of interactions with Deaconess Charlotte. She was always pious, but so was he. What he’d long suspected and recently confirmed with Karol, though… went beyond piousness into fanaticism.

  Or, perhaps, to be pious was, ultimately, to be a fanatic.

  “Heh. Already planning to break up so you can fall into a bunk with Hoss, huh?”

  “It is not that.” Calaf’s face grew redder. “How does Enkidu ever tolerate you? You must grate on his sensibilities something awful.”

  “I don’t think he does.” Zilara/Zelda chuckled.

  Deacon returned to Calaf’s pew.

  “Hello, child. Do you have parents in town? If not, we can arrange a caravan to escort you to any town on the route.”

  Zilara shrugged. “My caretakers will come pick me up eventually.”

  “Now, Squire Calaf, I have a personal request.” Deacon rested his hands in his lap. “Did you find any trace of Barbara’s poor coworker? Marianne, per her interface.”

  “Dead, long before we got there. Her body was immolated.” Calaf let out a sigh, fatigue catching up to him.

  “Pity.” Deacon exhaled, deflated. “I feel responsible, for she was plucked right from the reliquary hall. Why, it was as if she were led in there to the slaughter. The poor dear. She was one of our most faithful congregants.”

  Zilara got to scanning the room, peering into everyone’s Interfaces. She frowned.

  “Hmmm. That one over there.” Zilara pointed at an assistant deacon near the stained glass. “He’s got spoofing rings…”

  Interim Pryor Deacon ignored her at first. But assistant Jeb only stood there.

  “Yeah. Level spoofing. It’s affecting his HP.”

  Jeb tilted his head at an unnatural angle. Only then did Zilara get the pryor’s attention.

  “Junior Deacon Jeb?”

  The spoofing assistant Deacon’s hand exploded into a tangled morass of vines. It sent his spoofing rings flying, revealing the true self:

  The web of tendrils caught two unassuming assistant deacons in its embrace. Another vine caught Zilara by her ankle and lifted her upside down into the air.

  Immediately, the church guards closed in, spears drawn. Calaf and Deacon jumped to their feet as well.

  “You can see me. But I can see what you truly are as well,” Deacon Jeb spoke with that same deep-throated growl as all the other repurposed corpses. “You will be a useful addition to the collection.”

  A shot ran out, fraying some of the tendrils and breaking the stained glass beyond. The rot shirked away from direct sunlight as it streamed into the church.

  “No sudden movements.” Jelena arrived; firearm drawn. “Next shot is incendiary.”

  Maybe it was a bluff. Maybe not. The entity did not care.

  “I know of you,” it said. “You have gifted me many specimens in your long and storied career.”

  “What is your plan?” Jelena asked. “Explode into tentacles in the middle of a cathedral? What, kidnap the kid? She’s ours. Tendrils off.”

  Jeb approximated something approaching a smile.

  “There is no plan but to spread and-”

  A fireball interrupted the proceedings, courtesy of Zilara. She held her palm out and summoned another:

  Another palm-sized mote of fire flew from Zilara’s hands towards the converted deacon. Fire grew high as the dried-out corpse lit up like a torch.

  “Fire is a weakness of mine,” said the entity. “But all life inevitably ends in my hands. Your church cannot stifle the spark of life unbridled forever.”

  A third fireball severed the tendrils holding Zilara up. Enkidu rushed forward to catch her. All the while, Deacon stepped forward to confront his long-dead former assistant.

  “I am a timeless-” the entity began.

  A shockwave of pure force burst out from Deacon’s position. As it washed over Jeb, the corpse and rot both was utterly disintegrated.

  “That was...” Deacon’s voice gave out, short of breath. “… Something most unholy.”

  “You think?” Jelena asked.

  Threat gone, the guards swiftly surrounded Jelena’s party.

  “Stand down,” Deacon ordered.

  “Sir, this pair matches the description of infamous relic thieves,” said a guard.

  “Let them pass,” Deacon said, more sternly this time. “We owe them that much.”

  “But sir, they came from near the reliquary. They could have stolen something even now.”

  “I will personally give them candlesticks and scones from the pryor’s quarters if they wish to get their hands on church property,” said Deacon. “For their deeds in the aqueducts, it is the least we can do. Let them go, and give them free access to leave the city.”

  Jelena smiled and then sent Calaf a glance.

  “Hey, that’s the one what saved us!” Mal said. “Barb says she saved her too. You want to throw her in jail? You gotta go through me.”

  Deacon raised his hands, urging peace and parlay. He looked at Zilara, still being carried by Enkidu.

  “You are this young woman’s caretakers?”

  Jelena nodded. “We’re on babysitter duty, yeah.”

  “Now, wayward child, I must ask: why did you help us?” Deacon gazed at the trio, concerned and wary. “The survivors said your aid was invaluable.”

  “Doin’ my good deed for the day.” Jelena shrugged.

  Calaf chuckled despite himself.

  “We got caught up in the proceedings. We were down there for our own, ah, reasons. Anyway, all turned out for the best in the end, eh?” Jelena mock-washed her hands of the whole mess.

  “So it did,” Deacon said.

  Small cinders still burned near the podium.

  “The arbiters will need to secure the sewers,” Deacon added. “Ah, maybe even the entire town.”

  “Good. Send all four of them down there. They’ll be busy all year.” Jelena smiled, self-satisfied. “C’mon, Enkidu. Let’s get out of here before these church dogs change their mind.”

  The posse of relic thieves left the cathedral. Jelena was hamming it up a bit to fit her infamous persona, but she continued to smile when looking at her favorite, personal church dog.

  “See you around?” Jelena said as she passed.

  “Hopefully.” Calaf nodded.

  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!