Darrow stepped out of the shadows using [shadowmeld]. He knocked the thrown dagger the assassin had aimed at him to the side, and when he stepped up, the roguish man was ready for him.

  Darrow sidestepped. In the same motion, he brought his own dagger around to counter-stab. The assassin grabbed his hand and redirected the blow, pushing it to one side of the room.

  “Not bad,” the assassin said, and pulled out another dagger. How many he had, Darrow could only guess.

  “How about you let us go,” Darrow tried, but the man shook his head.

  “Not my orders, and after this i would be a fool to late you go.”

  Darrow gulped. Something was off. He dropped into a knife-fighter’s pose.

  The assassin raised an eyebrow, then, amused, lowered himself into a knife fighter’s pose as well.

  “This one is mine,” Darrow told Damian, but he got back a slurred response.

  The man—the assassin—used [flash step], and in a moment he was within Darrow’s arm’s length.

  It all happened so fast. Darrow parried left, then pivoted right. The assassin then feinted left and spun low.

  Darrow hopped back.

  “You’re skilled,” the man said.

  Darrow shrugged.

  “Been working on it.”

  They traded a flurry of strikes then. The exchange went from six to eight to ten movements. In their next exchange, however, the assassin used a skill: [Three-Fold Slash].

  There was a flash, and three cuts appeared on Darrow’s stabbing arm. There was something about the pain Aunt Cassandra had warned him about before.

  Unlike Damian, who had taken most of the hits, Darrow’s class had allowed him to try to match the rogue. Only this time, the man had used a skill, and the pain felt cold and bright.

  His altered awareness picked it up first.

  “Poison,” he spat the word, and the assassin gave him a salute with his dagger, a smile on his face.

  Darrow knew what he had to do. He had to win, then get Damain, and escape this place. And if he followed them, Aunt Cass was a decently leveled rogue. With her help, they would be able to take the assassin down.

  He used [skill imprint]—[lesser strength]. The assassin was surprised. In fact, he didn’t move out of the way fast enough.

  Darrow had to work fast and help his brother get out of here. He grabbed the assassin and pushed him into the shelf.

  Books and expensive-looking relics fell across the floor.

  The assassin tried to free himself, but suddenly he was confused. Darrow had grown as strong as his brother.

  "Another strength skill, "the assassin cursed, trying and failing to escape.

  Darrow then tried to finish him off, but the man used another skill.

  “[Moirah’s Execution].”

  For a split second, Darrow recognized the skill. He tried to step back, then tried to block.

  [Moirah’s Execution] was a rogue-exclusive skill. In fact, it was a skill that only rogues above level twenty-five possessed. It was a sure-hit attack—an attack you couldn’t block, and the only way to survive having a dagger in your throat was to get out of arm’s length.

  Darrow staggered back, and a dagger went through his forearm and out the other side. He screamed.

  “Relax..., it’s only your arm,” the assassin said, spitting blood to the side, then kicked him back into the table.

  Darrow tried to get up, but he felt cold. He stumbled two steps forward and fell onto the floor of the office.

  “Not yet,” he said and raised his hand, but the assassin slapped it aside.

  “You shouldn’t have come up here.”

  Darrow cursed. He turned to the side to see how Damian was doing, but he was on the ground, bleeding from his arm.

  The room went still. Even the dim lantern had gone out during their fight. Darrow struggled to keep his eyes open, but the fading sounds of the ballroom below were like a lullaby.

  He thought of Cassandra’s furious face, then of Elora’s quiet laugh. He almost put on a smile.

  Below them, Darrow’s senses picked up a changing tune, and that was the last thing he heard.

  ---

  A low hum filled the air. It wasn’t necessarily a clockwork cog. It wasn’t magic either. There was dripping and bubbling, but most importantly, there was still the faint hum of music.

  Damian’s eyes fluttered once, then shot open. He took in a deep breath and looked around. He looked up at the iron bars, then rose.

  The motion caused his head and arm to throb in pain, and the smell of rusted metal, followed by the damp air, made him groan.

  His eyes adjusted to the dim burning torchlight that flickered along the rough stone.

  “Darrow,” he called out hoarsely, then felt at his arm. It had stopped bleeding on account of someone having wrapped it up.

  There was no answer. [Shared fear] didn’t trigger, and when he used [sense presence], he realized that Darrow wasn’t far away.

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  He shifted, felt the scratch marks on the floor of the cage under his palm, and turned.

  Darrow was lying motionless beside one side of the cage, and his arm was wrapped up. It was better to say someone had tried their best to wrap it, but his wound was bleeding more than Damian’s.

  “Hey, are you still alive?” Damian whispered and shook his other shoulder—the one that wasn’t so badly injured.

  The last thing Damian remembered was collapsing. He heard Darrow tell him that he would handle the assassin, but it seemed like he hadn’t.

  Darrow groaned and rolled onto his back. He had been snoring even through the pain. He started, then opened his eyes.

  “I thought I was dead,” he muttered, looking up and focusing on Damian.

  “Well, you will be if you don’t get up,” Damian said, smirking faintly and offering his brother an arm.

  “What happened?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Level twenty-five assassin. Yap,” he said, and watched Damian frown.

  “We are lucky then. Let’s get out of here before he comes back,” Damian said, helped his brother up, and started looking around.

  “Ouch,” Darrow cursed. He couldn’t lift his other arm.

  “I tried my best,” a voice said from the other end of the cage, and they both turned to face him.

  The man had pointy ears, tired eyes, and his skin looked pale from all sorts of exhaustion.

  The half-elf had a collar around his neck, his clothes were beginning to turn filthy, and he was in one corner watching them carefully.

  Damian moved over to Darrow and, like any brother, started to tighten the cloth around Darrow’s arm.

  “Ouch,” Darrow said, looking offended.

  “Don’t be a wuss,” Damian shot back and tugged.

  “You’re awake. Well. I thought you were dead,” the half-elf said.

  “Where are we?” Darrow asked, feeling at his arm, then looking around at the cage.

  “Below. Beneath the administrative ward,” the half-elf answered.

  “Underground,” Damian frowned.

  “Yes. An underground warehouse.”

  The moment was broken by a scream that echoed from down a dark corridor. All three of them flinched. It was more instinctive than anything else.

  “At least we are not dead yet,” Darrow muttered and chuckled awkwardly.

  Damian looked at him, sighed, and shook his head at his brother.

  There was a distant sound of glass falling, a screech of animals, then silence.

  Damian turned to the half-elf.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “My name’s Enris. I am an enchanter,” he said quietly, his voice cracking.

  “Elora’s father?” Damian asked suddenly.

  The half-elf froze. He turned to them, and his eyes widened.

  “You know her?”

  “Yes, we were in the tunnels with her,” Damian nodded and said.

  “She’s alive,” Darrow added quickly and waved his hand to ease the man’s worries.

  Enris’s downcast expression brightened, then softened. He looked to them, sat straighter with hope, then suddenly the exhaustion of where he was hit him again.

  “Thank the spirits,” he whispered, his voice filled with a slight tremble.

  “We are here to get you out,” Damian said.

  “Yah, we’ll just talk to the guards,” Darrow added, but he wasn’t intending on doing exactly that. He walked over to the door of the cage and tried to inspect the lock.

  Enris let out a hollow laugh.

  “We are in a cage,” he reminded them. But like his brother, Damian didn’t seem worried—or it was better to say he didn’t show it.

  “We’ll figure it out, right, Darrow?” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

  Darrow used his one good arm to examine the bars, the door, and the hinges of the cage.

  “It’s not ordinary iron. You may not be able to bend it,” Darrow said.

  “It’s mana-forged iron. You can’t break it by hand,” the half-elf said.

  Darrow leaned closer to the bars, and sure, it was dim, but using his [Altered Awareness], he could see a lot better.

  Across the room, there were other cages that lined the wall. Unlike theirs, the other cages were oddly empty.

  “There is no one there,” Darrow said and nodded towards the cage right in front of him.

  Damian turned to Enris.

  “Where are the others?” he asked.

  “They’re gone.”

  “Gone where? Who took them?” Damian asked as he knelt in front of the man.

  “Over there,” Enris said. He raised a trembling finger to another side of the room.

  He pointed at massive glass tubes that stretched to the ceiling. They were filled with glowing red, brown, and blue fluid and bubbled softly. Most importantly, however, were the floating bodies inside.

  There were goblins, humans, and even half-giants in the glass tubes. Their bodies were twisted, their skin warped, and their eyes hollow.

  They were undergoing a sort of twisted metamorphosis, and Damian’s stomach turned at the sight of them.

  “What are they doing to them?” he asked.

  “Turning them into much stronger corrupted.”

  “What for?” Damian asked, he looked angry.

  “They are making weapons like any other faction,” Enris said.

  “We saw those in the tunnels,” Darrow said.

  “Seems like they have gotten better at using the dungeon mana,” Damian added, staring up at the figures.

  “Yes. The ones in the tunnels were just the beginning. They are using some sort of blood.”

  “Blood?” Damian frowned.

  “Yes, a dungeon artifact. Blood from one of the dungeon monsters,” he said sadly.

  “How?” Darrow dared to ask.

  “Four go in... then a moment later only one comes out looking like that,” Enris said, and nodded to the ghouls in the large glass tubes.

  The door on one side cracked open, and the smell of mana dust mixed with hex root stung their noses.

  Much colder air filled the room, and they turned to see a familiar, bold-looking mage in fine robes enter through the side door.

  The man carried a wand, which he lifted and used to cast [purify] on himself.

  “Two more,” he said, barely looking at them. He walked past them and moved to another cage hidden in the shadows.

  They hadn’t noticed it before, but inside, there was a man who was clearly corrupted and had one good eye. The other had already turned obsidian black.

  The human pleaded for mercy with what little sense he had, but the mage had other plans for him.

  “You should be honoured we used an artifact on you,” the mage said in a bored tone. His wand glowed with a purple light. Then the man screamed as blood left his body—from his mouth, eyes, ears, and nose.

  Enris had known this man, but he had said nothing. They had both known that the mage would come back, and this would happen. So he had decided to let the man have a little peace before it happened.

  Darrow’s knuckles whitened on the bars of the cell as he watched the man transform, then crumple to the ground, twisting in agony.

  “We need to get out of here,” Darrow said, and Damian knew he meant it.

  Damian felt that Darrow was truly scared. even worse, he knew it was true thanks to the [mourntwin] class.

  The mage turned his back toward them. He fixed his glasses, pushing them up his nose, and focused on their cage.

  He wasn’t concerned with the twins, and his eyes locked onto Enris, the half-elven enchanter.

  “The people—the ones with your daughter in the tunnels. Who were they?” he asked the half-elf.

  “Which people?” Enris said, playing dumb.

  “The ones in the sewers with your daughter,” the mage said.

  Enris, for all his self-discipline, tried not to look at the two, and yet it was like an itch. They had said they knew Elora, and that meant the mage was asking about them.

  He glanced their way, which was a mistake, because the mage noticed it. He paused.

  “Hold on. You two—you were there,” he said, and stepped closer to their cage.

  Damian met the man’s gaze silently, while Darrow did the opposite.