The city rotted from above, but it festered deeper below.
Zevrak descended into the underbelly of Viremoor through a crumbling drainage tunnel hidden behind a collapsed cathedral wall. Rats the size of dogs scattered at his presence, their eyes glowing faintly with mana-sickness. The stench was worse than above—the rot here was concentrated, soaked into the marrow of the stone itself.
The bone market breathed in hushed whispers and oozing deals.
Lanterns made of flayed skin and stained glass dangled from iron hooks. Each glowed faintly with soul-ash, casting sickly halos over stalls made from ribcages and spineframes. Vendors wore masks of bone or plaguecloth soaked in alchemical oils. The goods were worse: amputated limbs still twitching, preserved godling hearts in green fluid, bottled screams, scrolls inked with sacrificial blood.
And information.
Zevrak needed that more than flesh or fire.
Wrapped in a reeking plaguecloak and moving with the limp of a dying child, he walked like prey. But his eyes burned. Not with fever, but with knowledge. Each step was strategy.
A hooded merchant—face hidden behind lacquered skull—glanced at him. "Lost, little lamb?"
Zevrak's voice, though filtered by a child's throat, cut with layered authority. "I'm here to trade."
"What do you offer?"
"Secrets of the Vein of Avern. Sealed crypts west of the River Wroth. I know which still hold unbroken mana runes."
The skull-mask tilted. Silence stretched. Finally: "Come."
They led him behind a curtain made of chain-linked femurs. Inside, candles floated midair, dripping wax into a shallow pit filled with screaming maggots. Zevrak knelt—not in respect, but to avoid the attention of others. Knowledge was bought with discretion here.
The merchant gave him plaguebread and brinewater. Zevrak didn't eat. Instead, he laid out a bone tablet and carved symbols into it—ancient runes, from before the Divine Cycle. Knowledge forbidden by the current gods.
The merchant stared too long.
Zevrak leaned close. "Don't memorize too fast. Your soul may rupture."
They traded. Zevrak received a map of Viremoor's understructure—and something better: a name.
The Maggot King.
"He rules from under the Womb-Crypts," the merchant whispered. "His body is bloated with blessed rot. No eyes left—only mouths that whisper to the worms."
Zevrak filed that name behind his eyes like a dagger.
Later, as he wandered deeper into the bone market's sprawl, he felt it: a flare of mana too structured to be random.
Sorcery.
He turned down a narrower corridor where light thinned to a grey mist. A crowd gathered in a circle. In the center, a gaunt man with glass skin performed. Runes crawled across his arms like leeches. He summoned fire from his fingertips—but it was not clean. It moaned.
Zevrak recognized the art: Fleshweaving. Rare. Dangerous. Banned.
The sorcerer spun and spoke of power for coin. But Zevrak wasn't listening to his words—he was watching his hands. Each movement bled magical precision. The man wasn't some street performer. He was exiled nobility. Trained. Dangerous.
And perfect.
Zevrak waited. When the crowd dispersed and the sorcerer turned down an alley to rest, Zevrak followed like a shadow.
"Show yourself," the sorcerer said without turning.
Zevrak didn't answer. He raised one hand. Black mist coiled around his fingers like living smoke. The alley's shadows thickened unnaturally.
"Ah," the sorcerer chuckled. "A pickpocket or killer?"
"Neither," Zevrak said. "A memory thief."
The shadows surged.
The battle lasted twelve seconds.
Fire spiraled. Stone cracked. The sorcerer shouted ancient words—but Zevrak was already inside his blind spot, already beneath his guard. A spike of darkness erupted from the cobbles, piercing the man through the spine. He screamed, magic flaring—but Zevrak placed his hand over the man's heart.
And drank.
Not blood. Memories.
Images burst behind his eyes:
—A noble tower fallen to plague.
—Forbidden experiments beneath a cathedral.
—A contract with the Maggot King: one soul every week in exchange for protection.
—A map etched in flesh.
—A ritual... to grow new hearts.
Zevrak staggered back, exhaling smoke.
The sorcerer's corpse twitched once, then deflated. His skin peeled from his bones like old paper.
Zevrak stood, wiped blood from his mouth, and smiled.
That night, he returned to the deepest point of the bone market—where even plague cults whispered prayers backwards—and bought his way into the Womb-Crypts.
He had a name.
He had a location.
He had power.
And he had purpose.
The Maggot King was no god.
But Zevrak would make him kneel like one.
To be continued…