The year was 1800 of the Abium calendar, three nights before the blood moon's ascent and the blood fog's arrival — harbingers of a calamity yet unnamed.In the rotting veins of Aldrin, imperial heart of the Aldrin Empire, two figures ran through fetid back alleys:a woman in a shredded blue gown, and an old man clad in black, his beard flecked with blood and grime.
The woman, her steps faltering, clutched a bundled infant close to her chest. Her voice, once sharp and commanding, trembled with suppressed fear.
"Alfred," she hissed, glancing back over her shoulder, "your wounds. Are you sure we're not being followed?"
The old man spared her a brief glance, sweat carving grimy trails down his weathered face. "I've bought us some time, Lady Alice. But the city is a den of wolves tonight. We are far from safe."
The words were measured, calm — but the blood dripping from Alfred's shoulder onto the cracked cobblestones betrayed the cost of their escape.
Not fifteen minutes earlier, the inner courtyard had been consumed by flames, the masked assassins still fresh in his memory. Ten Knight ranked experts, sent under cover of darkness — all dead now, yet the true hunt was just beginning.
Alice muttered a bitter curse under her breath. "Damn you, Aldrin. I should have known you'd sell your own blood for a handful of gold."
The bundle stirred, a frail cry escaping from within. Both fugitives froze as newborn's cry — in these streets — was a death sentence.
Alfred's hand slipped inside his sleeve, fingers wrapping around the cold steel of a dagger. His sharp eyes flickered through the shadows; already, distant boots could be heard hammering from the main road.
"We move," Alfred growled. "City gates will close soon. We must flee the empire entirely, if the young lord is to live."
Alice nodded stiffly without another word, they plunged deeper into the labyrinth of alleyways, toward the jagged silhouette of the outer wall.
Above, on the ramparts, the guards watched the rising smoke from the palace with uneasy expressions.
"What do you reckon happened, Roric?" one muttered, scratching his stubbled chin.
Roric, an older man, his face a roadmap of scars, grunted. "Don't ask. Don't know. Best to keep your head low and your blade ready."
Behind them, a balding captain barked orders, sealing the city gates. No one in. No one out.
Alfred heard it all with grim clarity. Without hesitation, he pulled Alice into the shadows once more, disappearing into the filth-ridden underbelly of the slums.
The slums of Aldrin were a festering wound, forgotten by the empire's shining facade. Here, hunger sharpened knives and desperation stripped away any pretense of civility.
Alice, even in her torn dress, drew eyes — glances filled with hunger, greed, and something fouler. The rats had scented blood.
Figures slithered from the ruins: gaunt men with scarred faces, women with dead eyes, children who knew only the law of the blade.
A hulking, bald man — his face a map of knife wounds — stepped forward, leering. He hefted a rusted dagger, its edge black with old blood.
"Well, well," he chuckled, voice thick with mockery. "An old cur and his little dove. What fine entertainment you bring to these streets."
Around him, a dozen others emerged, blocking every escape. Catcalls and low, obscene laughter filled the air.
Alfred's face remained still, a mask of cold inevitability. His left hand tightened slightly on the hilt of the dagger hidden within his sleeve.
"Move aside," Alfred said, voice low and without inflection. "And lower your eyes. That woman is beyond your reach."
The bald man — Rick, being egged on by the sneering whispers of his lackeys — paused. A flicker of doubt crossed his brutish features as he studied Alice more closely.
"Hmm… no way…" Rick muttered, scratching the mess of scars along his jaw. "You ain't... the second princess, are you?"
The air grew heavier.
Alice's face paled; Alfred's shoulders tensed.
Rick's lips curled into a cruel smirk. "Guess the rumors were true after all. About some royal bitch birthing a bastard."
The moment the words left his mouth, the alley changed.
A black mist exploded from Alfred's body, swallowing the space between them. Daggers, glinting like the eyes of vipers, howled from within the darkness.
Screams tore through the night as Rick's men were ripped apart in a flurry of steel. Blood splattered against broken walls. Bodies dropped like puppets with severed strings.
Rick stumbled back, swearing viciously, parrying two daggers that spun toward his face. Fear twisted his features as he realized — too late — what kind of monster he had provoked.
"Gods damn it!" he bellowed, rallying a thick, earthen-yellow aura around his body. A crude armor of stone clung to his flesh.
"You think your tricks will save you, old man?!" Rick roared, emboldened by the defensive power of his Earth Attribute.
Alfred emerged from the mist, his gaze like black ice. "No tricks," he said flatly. "Only death."
The alley became a slaughterhouse.
Rick fought with the raw, stupid strength of a cornered beast, his stone armor absorbing blow after blow. Yet for every dagger he deflected, three more whistled from the mist, slicing flesh, opening wounds.
Panting, Rick retreated, blood dripping from a gash across his thigh.
"You damned lunatic!" Rick spat. "I just wanted a few coins, maybe some fun — didn't have to turn this into a graveyard!"
Alfred's reply was a dagger that grazed Rick's neck, slicing through the earth-armor as if it were paper. The blade embedded itself deep into the crumbling wall behind him.
"One more word," Alfred said, voice calm and bloodless, "and you will not live to speak again."
The aura leaking from him — profound, oppressive — forced Rick's remaining thugs to stumble back, white-faced.
Rick clutched his neck, realizing how close death had come.
"I-I belong to the Crimson Cross gang!" he stammered, hands raised. "If you want anything — anything — I'll help! Just don't kill me!"
Alfred stepped closer to Alice, shielding her and the infant with his body.
"Take us to your boss," he ordered.
Rick nodded frantically, the smell of terror thick around him. Without waiting, he limped down the alley, motioning for them to follow.
Alice clutched the child closer to her chest, her expression unreadable. There was no kindness left in these streets. Only necessity — and survival.
Rick stumbled through the maze of alleys like a wounded dog, clutching his bleeding side. The deeper they went, the more the city rotted around them. Moss-blackened walls leaned like dying men; the air was thick with the stench of urine and despair.
Before them loomed a sagging, half-collapsed tavern. A weathered sign swung drunkenly above the door, its faded letters spelling: Crimson Lotus Bar.
Alice's brow furrowed. She remembered whispers of this place — a nest for smugglers, slavers, and worse.
But Alfred pressed forward, relentless.
Rick pushed open the door with a trembling hand. The stench inside was worse: sour ale, cheap sweat, the iron tang of old blood. A few scattered patrons froze mid-drink, their eyes narrowing at the newcomers.
Behind the cracked bar, a man with rat-like features — Aaron — straightened warily. His hand disappeared beneath the counter.
Before the crossbow could even clear the bar, Rick croaked out: "Don't! He's a Profound expert!"
Aaron's face turned corpse-pale. The crossbow clattered to the floor. He pasted on a rictus smile.
"Welcome, esteemed guests," he said through clenched teeth. "How… how can this lowly one serve you?"
The silence in the room thickened. Eyes darted between the bloodied Alfred and the deathly stillness of Alice cradling her bundle.
Rick wiped blood from his mouth, wincing. "Get the boss," he rasped. "They're here for him."
Aaron hesitated — for a heartbeat too long. Alfred's fingers twitched slightly. A single dagger shimmered into existence, vibrating with suppressed malice.
Aaron practically tripped over himself as he vanished into the back.
The room's tension snapped like an overdrawn bowstring. One of the drunken guards at a nearby table made a slow, foolish movement toward his belt knife.
Alfred's cold gaze pinned him where he sat. The man swallowed and lowered his hand, his face turning an unhealthy shade of gray.
A minute later, Aaron reappeared, beckoning frantically.
Alfred and Alice followed, their footsteps echoing like the tolling of a bell through the hollow bar.
Inside the Office:
Hansen — a lean man with a twisted mouth and dead eyes — sat at a battered desk. The smell of cheap cigar smoke hung heavy.
When the door opened and he saw Alice, his composure shattered.
He rose halfway to his feet, knocking over a bottle of liquor.
"Princess..." he croaked, his voice cracking.
Alfred's presence hit the room like a cold knife. He said nothing — he didn't need to. His hand rested lightly on the hilt of a throwing knife, and the implication was clear: one wrong word, and Hansen would be dead before he could beg.
Alice stepped forward. Her face was expressionless, her eyes devoid of the youthful light they once held.
"You will aid us," she said simply. "Or you will die screaming."
The weight of the empire's corruption pressed in around them, invisible but suffocating.
Hansen tried to smile. It looked more like a grimace. "I… I only run a bar, Your Highness. I'm a simple man — a man of humble trades."
Before Alfred could react, a lackey burst into the room, panting, wild-eyed.
"Boss! The Holy Sea's templars — they're storming the warehouses at the docks!"
The color drained from Hansen's face as if his soul had fled.
He slumped back into his chair, muttering obscenities under his breath. As if cursed by fate itself.
Alfred finally broke the silence, his voice like the scraping of a coffin lid. "Well now. It seems you are a hunted man, Mr. Hansen."
Hansen laughed hollowly, the sound cracked and bitter.
"What choice do I have?" he spat. "I'll get you out. But it'll cost you one hundred thousand gold — and my own skin."
Alice inclined her head slightly, like a queen passing judgment.
"Agreed," she said. A lie, of course. Once they were free, this wretched man would be no more use to them.
Rick, still limping and bloodied, heaved open a hidden door behind a bookcase. The old wood groaned as gears, long unused, creaked into motion.
Behind the shelf yawned a black tunnel, damp air breathing out like the sigh of the dead.
Hansen grabbed a lantern and led the way, not daring to look back.
"Move," Alfred ordered.
Alice tightened her hold on the infant and followed without hesitation. There was no safety now — only a thinner chance of survival.
The shadows swallowed them whole.
The hidden tunnel swallowed them whole. The wooden door ground shut behind them with a heavy clang, severing the last faint ties to the city above.
The air grew thick with moisture and mildew. The stone passage was narrow, barely wide enough for two men abreast, and lined with ancient bricks crumbling under centuries of rot.
Lantern light flickered, casting distorted shadows that twitched like dying things along the walls.
Their footsteps echoed endlessly ahead and behind — never alone, never in peace.
No one spoke.
Alfred moved like a ghost at Alice's side, his senses sharpened to a razor's edge. Any moment, he expected betrayal — from Hansen, from Rick, from some unseen horror lying in wait. Trust was a currency long since spent.
Alice held the bundled child tightly to her chest, her face set like chiseled marble. The infant slept, for now, lulled by exhaustion and fear.
Hours blurred into one another. The stifling tunnel seemed endless — a slow, grinding descent into some underworld of filth and forgotten things.
Finally, Hansen raised a hand. They stood before a crooked iron ladder, bolted into the wall.
He gestured upwards without a word, sweat gleaming on his forehead.
Rick climbed first, grunting with effort. Then Alice, carefully cradling the child. Alfred followed, never letting Hansen out of his sight.
The ladder led up into darkness.
At the top, Rick shoved open a trapdoor. A waft of cool night air rushed in — tinged with woodsmoke and the sour stink of unwashed bodies.
One by one, they emerged into the ruins of a storage room: cracked stone floors, rotting crates, the scent of damp mold thick in the air.
Beyond a half-collapsed doorway, faint voices echoed — thin, reedy, and broken. Laughter too — but laughter without joy, the brittle sound of the damned.
Hansen wiped his forehead, his hands trembling slightly.
"We're at the orphanage," he said, almost a whisper. "Outside the city walls. Few patrols come here anymore... place has been left to rot."
He didn't need to say more. The sheer despair radiating from the place was suffocating.
Alice's gaze hardened as she took in the surroundings.
The orphanage was little more than a skeletal ruin: charred beams sagged under sagging roofs; walls wept black moisture; the faint glow of guttering fires flickered behind broken windows.
Small figures scuttled in the darkness — children, but twisted by hunger and fear into something feral.
Their hollow eyes watched the newcomers with a predator's wariness. Some clutched broken sticks; others brandished sharpened bones.
A skeletal girl with sunken cheeks hissed softly through missing teeth, a rat clutched to her chest like a beloved doll.
Alice shifted the child in her arms, instinctively shielding him from their gaze.
"Stay close," Alfred murmured. The tunnels had been dangerous — this place was worse.
At least in the tunnels, the only certainty was collapse. Here, desperate things lived.
"Move quickly," Hansen said, his voice strained. "There's a path through the old chapel. Leads to the cart I've stashed beyond the woods."
The "path" he spoke of was little more than a jagged, uneven trail winding through the corpse of the orphanage.
Every step felt like an intrusion. Eyes followed them — sharp, pitiless.
A boy no older than seven shuffled forward on twisted legs, holding out a dirty hand. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
Before Alice could react, Rick barked and kicked the boy away. The child crumpled soundlessly to the ground, then scurried back into the shadows like a wounded animal.
Alice bit down on her rising disgust. This was not a place for mercy.
Mercy would get them all killed.
The group pressed forward, weaving through the skeleton of the orphanage. The crumbling halls groaned under the weight of unseen memories — of prayers unanswered, of small hands grasping for salvation that never came.
As they approached the shattered remnants of the old chapel, the stench of old blood thickened. The door had long since rotted off its hinges. Inside, under the wan light of broken moonbeams, bones were scattered like offerings — tiny bones, stripped clean by rats and time.
Alice tightened her hold on her child. Even Alfred's steps grew heavier, his face grim.
In a cracked corner of the chapel, a crude altar of scavenged wood stood, dark stains pooled beneath it. Someone had tried to resurrect faith here once — but only despair had answered.
They didn't linger.
Through the ruin, they pushed toward the shadowed forest beyond.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, within the heart of Aldrin's imperial city, three figures in the blood-red armor of the Holy See Templars rode grimly through the night-shrouded streets.
Their armor gleamed dully under the torchlight, bearing the black sun sigil of the True Church. Each was a seasoned killer, trained not only in combat but in the tracking and destruction of heresy.
At their head rode Ser Gavran, a giant of a man whose pitted blade had ended more lives than the plague.
His companions — Paladin Silar and Inquisitor Maeven — flanked him silently, each lost in grim focus.
They had found the burned-out remains of the courtyard first — the smell of scorched flesh and blackened stone thick in the air.
From there, they had traced signs of flight through the alley ways a smear of blood, a broken cobblestone, faint footprints of different sizes.
"There," Maeven said, crouching low in the filthy alleyways.A broken fragment of blue silk, snagged on a rusted nail.
"She passed this way. The child as well," Maeven said, her voice a sibilant whisper.
Gavran grunted, eyes hard behind his helm.
"She runs because she knows the child must not live," he said simply."His birth will hasten the coming calamity. We must not fail."
At another crossroads, Silar picked up the trail — droplets of blood leading toward the slums.
He gestured, and they pressed on, relentless as hounds scenting blood.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Back at the orphanage, the group emerged into a weed-choked courtyard.
Rick, panting and pale, pointed toward a collapsed section of wall.
"Through there," he rasped."Path to the woods."
As they moved, a faint noise drifted across the ruined grounds.
Alice froze.
Soft footsteps.Low, whispering voices.The creak of leather armor.
Alfred cursed under his breath.
"Templars," he hissed."They're coming."
Hansen's face turned waxen."They must have tracked us already," he muttered.
The group broke into a run, abandoning all pretense of stealth.Behind them, distant voices rose — cold commands, shouted prayers.The hunt was truly on now.
The dead orphanage seemed to shift and lean, mourning them as they fled.
They had barely crossed the broken courtyard when the first one appeared.
A child, or what had once been a child, staggered into view from behind a collapsed pillar — skin stretched tight over brittle bones, hollow eyes gleaming with unnatural light.
Rick recoiled with a curse.
More figures emerged from the rubble, dragging themselves forward on shattered limbs. Some wore the tattered remains of orphanage robes; others were little more than skeletons wrapped in dried sinew.
A dozen at least, maybe more.
The orphanage had not been abandoned.It had been left to rot, and rot had birthed something worse.
Alfred stepped forward, his daggers already spinning into his hands, black mist curling at his feet.
"Protect Lady Alice and the young lord," he growled.
Without waiting for agreement, he hurled himself at the nearest undead.
The clash was brutal.
Daggers flashed through brittle bone and rotted flesh, but the dead felt no pain.A skeleton with a shattered jaw clamped broken teeth onto Rick's shoulder, tearing at him until Hansen smashed it aside with a rusted iron bar.
Alice backed against a crumbling wall, cradling her child, whispering soft calming words even as tears blurred her vision.
More undead surged from the ruins — a slow, inevitable tide of the forgotten.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Far behind them, the Templars entered the orphanage grounds.
The leader, Ser Gavran, dismounted without ceremony, sword already drawn.
Inquisitor Maeven strode ahead, her eyes like slits. She paused at the sound of whimpering behind a collapsed archway.
Two orphans — grimy-faced, no older than six or seven — cowered there, too frightened to flee.
Silar moved to them, crouching low, his expression almost gentle.
"You saw them, didn't you?" he said softly.
The boy nodded, clutching his sister.
"Where did they go?"
The boy hesitated.
A bad choice.
With a speed born of countless atrocities, Silar drew a small blade and opened the boy's throat, tossing the limp body aside like garbage.
The girl screamed.
Maeven seized her by the hair, lifting her into the air.
"Speak," she said.
Through sobs and choked words, the girl pointed toward the shattered courtyard and the breached outer wall.
Maeven dropped her like a sack of meat.
Gavran, impassive, raised his sword and cleaved the girl in half without slowing his stride.
"Leave no witnesses," he said flatly.
The Templars moved onward, the ground behind them slick with innocent blood.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Back at the courtyard, Alfred snarled as a skeletal hand clawed across his ribs, raking bloody furrows.
"Rick! Hansen! Clear a path!" he roared.
Rick, bleeding and pale, drove a jagged blade through the skull of a rotting boy barely taller than his waist. Hansen smashed another apart with a grunt.
They fought like men drowning, clawing toward a breath they might never reach.
Alice, whispering frantic prayers, cradled the bundle tighter against her breast.
The child, the young lord, whimpered — a fragile sound in a world that hungered for their extinction.
They had to reach the forest.
Or die here among the dead.
The air stank of blood and rot.
Alfred grunted as he crushed the skull of another undead creature underfoot.The black mist surrounding him twisted and writhed, shrouding his movements in lethal shadows.
But even he was slowing.
Rick stumbled, clutching a broken rib. Hansen limped heavily, a deep gash torn across his thigh.Alice, pale as bone, clutched her bundled child tightly to her chest, her breathing ragged.
The courtyard walls loomed ahead — broken, crumbling, but passable. Beyond them, the twisted thickets of Jal'gan Forest beckoned like the gates of hell — but it was salvation compared to the slaughter behind them.
"We're close!" Alfred barked, voice hoarse. "Push through!"
The dead surged again.
They moved faster now, as if sensing the group's desperation. Hollow sockets burned with a feverish light.
Rick shrieked as a skeletal hand latched onto his arm, pulling him backward.
"NO!" Alice cried.
Alfred turned — too slow.
Rick's body spasmed, then went still, dragged under a tide of snapping jaws and clawing fingers.
Hansen roared, but Alfred caught his shoulder in an iron grip.
"No time," he said, voice cold as the grave. "Rick's dead. MOVE."
Grief twisted Hansen's features, but survival overrode sorrow. Together, they surged forward.
Alice stumbled over the ruins of a child's doll — blackened, rotting — and nearly fell, but Alfred caught her.
The world narrowed to blood, broken stones, and the forest beyond.
With a final, ragged charge, they hurled themselves over the crumbled wall.
Alfred slashed a path through the last of the dead with savage precision.The black mist roared outward, forming claws and tendrils that dragged skeletons back into the rubble.
The moment their feet hit the overgrown path beyond the wall, Alfred released a deep, ragged breath.
They had escaped.
For now.