The sun was retreating from the spires of Luskan like a coward, leaving behind long, spindly shadows that stretched across the cobblestones like the fingers of a corpse. Zadok stood in a narrow alleyway behind a high-end apothecary, his seven-foot-seven frame hunched over to avoid scraping the low-hanging eaves.
He shifted his weight, the heavy iron head of his mace—The Hand of Mercy—resting against his thigh, while the wood-carved face of Sally peered out from the crook of his arm.
"He's late, Zadok," the doll hissed, her voice a dry, papery rasp that sounded like dead leaves skittering over a grave. "The little potion-peddler is late. I think we should find his house. I want to see if his intestines are as colorful as the bottles he sells."
Zadok flinched, his massive, scarred hand instinctively patting the doll's head in a calming gesture. "Now, now, Sister. We talked about this. Patience is a virtue. The contract was for the removal of the necrotic rats in his cellar, and we did a very thorough job. He's likely just... counting the gold. It takes time to count gold."
"It takes less time to scream," Sally countered, her painted, stationary eyes seeming to glitter with a comically sadistic glee in the twilight. "You could hold him upside down by his ankles over the harbor. See if the gold falls out of his pockets. Or his teeth. I bet he has gold teeth."
Zadok let out a soft, pained whimper. He hated it when she talked about teeth.
He looked down at his empty coin purse, then back at the apothecary door.
He had spent six hours in a damp, pitch-black cellar crushing rats the size of terriers, all for a handful of silver that hadn't manifested yet.
"He's not coming, is he?" Zadok whispered, a note of genuine, heartbreaking disappointment in his voice. "The sun is almost gone, Sally. The shadows are getting... long."
"He's stiffing us, you big, holy oaf!" Sally shrieked, though the sound was only audible to him. "He thinks because you have the face of a kicked puppy and the height of a watchtower, you won't do anything! Let me at him! I'll bite his nose off and make him wear it as a ring!"
Zadok sighed, the sound heavy enough to rattle his ribs. "No, Sister. We do not bite noses for silver. If he won't pay, then the sin is his to carry. We must go home before..." He trailed off, his eyes widening as the last sliver of the sun vanished behind the city wall.
The dark didn't just arrive; it fell like a heavy, suffocating shroud. Luskan was a city of a thousand lanterns, but in the slums of the harbor district, the oil was expensive and the shadows were thick.
"Oh, look at you," Sally mocked, her voice dripping with sadistic delight. "The Pillar of Faith. Shaking like a leaf because the big, bad sun went bye-bye. Don't worry, Zadok. If something jumps out of the dark, I'll make sure it eats your face last. I want to watch the expression you make."
Zadok gripped the mace until his knuckles turned white, his breath coming in short, shallow hitches. He began to walk, his massive boots thudding against the stone, every shadow looking like a reaching hand. He was a towering monument of muscle and holy iron, a man who could break a horse's back with a shrug, and he was currently whimpering under his breath.
"It's just light's absence," he muttered to himself, a mantra he'd repeated since childhood. "Just absence. Nothing there. God is the light, and I am His servant."
"And the dark is the closet where He keeps His monsters," Sally whispered, her voice a sharp, gleeful needle in his ear.
Suddenly, Zadok froze.
His ears, sharp and alert, caught a sound that wasn't the distant roar of a tavern or the lapping of the harbor waves.
Rustle. Snap.
It came from a thick, overgrown hedge of night-blooming jasmine near the corner of the alley. The leaves shifted, not with the wind, but with the deliberate, heavy movement of something lurking within.
Zadok's heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. He hoisted Sally higher, his eyes wide and glassy with terror as he stared at the bush.
"Sister," he breathed, his voice trembling. "There is something in the greenery. Something... un-holy."
"Oh, goody!" Sally chirped, her tone manic and eager. "Maybe it's a ghoul. I've always wanted to see if they taste like old jerky. Hit it, Zadok! Smash the bush! Smash everything!"
Zadok didn't smash.
He stood paralyzed, a seven-foot-seven giant trembling in the dark, watching the jasmine leaves part to reveal two glowing eyes.
The bush exploded.
Not with a ghoul, not with a specter, and certainly not with the dignity a man of Zadok's stature deserved.
Instead, a mangy, hissing opossum—a creature that looked like a rat's fever dream—hurled itself from the jasmine, baring a row of needle-teeth before scurrying across Zadok's boots.
"EYE-POPPING HELL!" Sally shrieked with delight. "It's a swamp-demon! Look at its naked tail, Zadok! It's mocking your lack of courage!"
Zadok didn't stay to debate the theological implications of the marsupial. He let out a sound that was less a war cry and more a high-pitched, strangled yelp—the kind of noise a steam pipe makes right before it bursts.
The 7'7" giant pivoted on his heel, his heavy iron mace swinging wildly at his side, and bolted. He didn't just run; he thundered through the alleyway like a panicked rhinoceros in a cathedral, his eyes squeezed nearly shut, his massive boots sparking against the uneven cobblestones.
"Run, you big, holy cow!" Sally cackled, her wooden head bobbing rhythmically against his chest. "Let's see if we can find a wall to run into! I want to hear the crunch!"
Zadok didn't hit a wall.
He hit something much smaller, but significantly more solid.
As he rounded a corner into the dim light of a flickering street lamp, he slammed full-tilt into a lean, wiry figure emerging from the shadows of a nearby tavern.
The impact was like a carriage hitting a fence post.
The stranger—a feline silhouette with spiked, salt-crusted fur and a coat that smelled of wet wood and alchemical fire—stumbled back, her boots skidding on the damp stone.
"Watch it, you oversized, god-forsaken tower of meat!" a jagged, voice snarled.
The sapphire light of a single, glowing eye cut through the gloom like a knife, fixed on Zadok with a manic, murderous heat.
Zadok didn't stop.
He didn't apologize.
He didn't even look down to see the sharp, fang-filled scowl or the hand instinctively reaching for a saber hilt. To him, she was just another shadow, another monster in the night that had dared to touch him.
"SORRY! SO SORRY! THE BEAST! THE NAKED-TAILED BEAST!" Zadok wailed, his voice cracking as he scrambled past her, his massive frame disappearing into the blackness of the next street like a ghost with a guilty conscience.
"Oh, marvelous!" Sally's voice drifted back from the darkness. "You just offended a pirate, Zadok! I hope she follows us! I want to see if she can climb you like a tree!"
Nokera stood in the middle of the street, her fur standing on end, her wet tricorn hat nearly falling off her head again. She watched the giant vanish into the dark, her sapphire eye narrowing in genuine confusion and mounting irritation.
"What in the nine hells was that?" she hissed, spitting a glob of salt-phlegm onto the stones. "Luskan is getting weirder by the hour. First the Kraken, now a sprinting mountain with a doll."
She adjusted her saber, a dark, dangerous grin slowly returning to her face.
Zadok's lungs burned like he'd swallowed a chest of hot coals. He skidded to a halt in the center of a small, desolate plaza where the cobblestones were cracked and choked with pale weeds.
He spun in a frantic circle, his massive frame casting a long, jittering shadow under the dying light of a single, oil-starved lantern."Is it gone? Sister, tell me it's gone!" he wheezed, his breath coming in ragged, whistling gasps.
He clutched the heavy mace to his chest like a child holding a teddy bear, his eyes wide and darting toward every dark doorway and every pile of refuse that dared to look like a crouching shape.
"Is what gone, you great, quivering pudding?"
Sally's voice was a sharp, jagged needle in his ear. She sat in the crook of his arm, her painted face tilted at an unnatural angle.
"The toothy rat-thing with the pink tail? Or the angry little cat-woman you almost flattened? I hope they've teamed up. Imagine it: a tiny pirate riding a marsupial, coming to nibble on your ankles until you bleed."
"Don't say that, Sally! Please!" Zadok whimpered, spinning again as the wind whistled through a nearby alleyway.
To his eyes, the darkness wasn't just empty space; it was a living, breathing weight. Every shadow was a claw, every creak of a swinging sign was a monster's footstep. He peered into the gloom, his heart hammering a frantic, uneven rhythm against his ribs.
He was a 7'7" monument of muscle and holy iron, a man built to hold the line against the abyss, yet here he was, shivering in a Luskan alley because the sun had the audacity to set."We aren't safe," he whispered, his voice cracking. "The shadows... they move when I'm not looking. I saw a hand, Sister. A long, grey hand reaching from that doorway."
"That was a piece of laundry, Zadok," Sally deadpanned, her tone dripping with comically sadistic disappointment. "But if it makes you feel better, I'm sure there's something much worse behind it. Something with too many joints and a hunger for large, frightened priests. Why don't you stand still? It's easier for the monsters to catch you if you don't move."
Zadok let out a low, pathetic moan, his eyes fixed on a pile of discarded crates. He could have sworn he saw them shift. He felt the weight of his fear pressing in, a thick, suffocating blanket that made his skin crawl.
He was a beacon of the light, but right now, the light felt very far away.
"I need to get home," he muttered, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the handle of The Hand of Mercy. "Home is safe. Home has candles. Lots and lots of candles."
"And me," Sally added, her voice dropping to a low, menacing purr. "And I'm the scariest thing in this city, aren't I, darling? Now, move your legs before I start biting."
Zadok's boots, large enough to serve as small rowboats, stumbled blindly over the uneven terrain as he fled the town.He had long since abandoned the main thoroughfares of Luskan, his terror-fueled sprint leading him into the jagged, unlit outskirts where the city's foundations met the rocky cliffs of the coast.
"I don't recognize this alley, Sally," Zadok whimpered, his voice echoing off damp stone walls that felt far too close. "The stones... they've changed. The city is shifting around us, trying to swallow us whole!"
"Oh, don't be so dramatic, you oversized lump of suet," Sally rasped, her wooden head bobbing with every frantic step he took. "You've simply managed to get us lost in the Crags. It's a lovely place, really. Perfect for hiding bodies. Or losing ones that are still breathing. Stop crying, you're getting salt on my hair."
"I'm not crying! It's the... the humid night air!" Zadok lied, his chest heaving.
He turned a sharp corner, his eyes searching for a familiar lantern, a friendly tavern sign, or even a particularly recognizable pile of garbage. Instead, he found nothing but a steep, treacherous slope of loose shale and coastal scrub.
He didn't even have time to scream.
His right boot hit a patch of slick moss and slid.
"SALLY!"
The 7'7" giant went down like a felled redwood. He tumbled head-over-heels, a chaotic mess of heavy limbs, iron mace, and billowing priest's robes. He bounced off a jagged rock, spun through a thicket of thorns, and finally plummeted down a steep embankment.
"Wheeeee!" Sally shrieked as they airborne, her voice full of manic glee. "Do a flip, Zadok! Snap a rib for me!"
CRUNCH.
Zadok hit a soft, damp floor of sand and bat guano, sliding several feet into a deep, oppressive blackness.
The air was suddenly heavy and still, smelling of salt, ancient rot, and something metallic—like old blood.
The only sound was the distant, muffled roar of the ocean and the frantic thudding of his own heart. He lay there for a moment, groaning, his massive body aching from the fall. Slowly, he pushed himself up, his hands sinking into the cold, wet sand.
He looked up, but the hole he had fallen through was nothing more than a faint, jagged smudge of moonlight high above.
He was trapped in a cave.
"Oh, Zadok," Sally whispered, her voice uncharacteristically soft and dripping with a delicious, dark malice. "Do you feel that? The dark in here... it's different. It's thick. It's the kind of dark that has teeth."
Zadok's breath hitched. He fumbled for his mace, his fingers trembling so hard he nearly dropped the iron handle.
He looked around, but his eyes couldn't pierce the gloom. It was absolute. Total.
"Sister... I can't see," he breathed, a note of pure, unadulterated panic rising in his throat. "I'm in the belly of the earth. I'm in the dark's stomach!"
"And something is hungry, darling," Sally giggled.
Deep in the back of the cavern, beyond the reach of the moonlight, a low, wet sound echoed—a slow, dragging rasp of something heavy moving across the stone.
It didn't sound like a rat.
It sounded like something... reassembled.
Zadok scrambled backward on his hands and knees, his massive fingers digging into the damp sand as he reached out with a frantic, blind desperation. "Sally! Sister, where are you?!"
"I'm right here, you great, clumsy cow!" the doll hissed from a few feet away, her wooden face half-buried in bat guano. "Pick me up before the cave-crabs start thinking my nose is a snack!"
Zadok scooped her up, clutching her to his chest so hard her wooden joints groaned. He squeezed his eyes shut, his entire 7'7" frame vibrating with a terror so profound it threatened to shake his teeth loose.
He began to mumble, a rapid-fire, panicked prayer that sounded like a swarm of bees in a cathedral.
"Light of the Morning, Flame of the Hearth, please... please don't let me die in a hole! I haven't finished the communal garden! I still have overdue library books!"
He raised a trembling hand, whispering the ancient words of power.
A soft, humming sound filled the cavern as a small, orb of pure, white light flickered into existence above his head. It bobbed gently, its glow expanding to reveal the jagged walls of the cave—and the three figures standing less than ten feet away.
They were human once, but now their skin was the color of a week-old bruise, hanging in tattered strips over exposed muscle. One was missing an arm; another had a jaw that hung at a sickening, jaunty angle. They didn't breathe; they just existed, their clouded eyes fixed on the giant in the white robes.
"Zombies!" Zadok shrieked, the sound echoing off the walls like a thunderclap. "Oh, dear God, they're the walking dead! Sally, they're coming for my marrow!"
"Well, don't just sit there and let them season you!" Sally cackled, her painted eyes dancing in the orb's light. "Crush them, Zadok! Make them into a nice, grey paste! Start with the one with the dangling eyeball—I don't like the way it's looking at us!"
The first corpse lunged, its fingers outstretched like reaching claws.
Zadok let out a sob of pure reflex, his massive arm swinging The Hand of Mercy in a blind, terrified arc.The heavy iron mace caught the creature in the chest with a sound like a wet bag of flour hitting a wall.
"I am so, so sorry!" Zadok wailed as the zombie was launched backward into the darkness. "I didn't mean to hit you that hard! Are you... well, obviously you aren't okay, but I apologize for the rudeness of the blow!"
Another one hissed, its teeth snapping inches from his shoulder.
Zadok flinched, bringing the mace down in a vertical crush that buried the creature's head into the sand.
"Pardon me! Excuse my reach!" he whimpered, his eyes squeezed shut as he swung again, his sheer, accidental strength pulverizing a third zombie's ribs.
"I really am a pacifist at heart! Please stop trying to eat me, it's making this very difficult to remain polite!"
"Stop apologizing and hit the next one!" Sally screamed, her voice a jagged rasp of joy. "Look, there's a fourth one coming out of the shadows! I bet his skull would make a lovely soup bowl!"
Zadok opened one eye, his face pale and slick with cold sweat.
He was a 7'7" monument of holy terror, crying and apologizing while he dismantled the undead with the efficiency of a meat grinder.
Zadok stood over the final heap of twitching, grey limbs, his chest heaving under his white robes. The glowing orb above him cast long, jittering shadows that made the cave walls look like they were closing in to finish what the zombies had started.
He reached out a massive, trembling hand toward the hole he'd fallen through, his fingers brushing the jagged lip of the embankment, but it was far out of reach.
"It's no use, Sally," he whimpered, his voice echoing off the damp limestone. "I'm trapped in the gullet of the world. I'll be found in a hundred years as a giant, dusty skeleton, and the scholars will wonder why I was holding a wooden head."
"Oh, hush, you great, weeping willow," Sally snapped, her voice a dry rattle in the stillness. "At least you'd be a skeleton with excellent company. Now, stop staring at the ceiling and look behind you. There's a draft coming from that tunnel, and it smells like… well, it smells like something died and then got invited to a second, worse party. It's a hallway, Zadok! A dark, dank, delightful hallway!"
Zadok turned, his orb of light bobbing with him.
Behind the pile of pulverized corpses, the cave narrowed into a straight, unnaturally smooth passage. It wasn't built by hands—at least, not human ones.
The walls were slick with "cave milk," a pale, dripping calcium carbonate that looked like weeping sores on the rock.
Long, spindly stalactites hung from the ceiling like rows of crooked teeth, dripping cold, mineral-heavy water onto Zadok's head.
"It's too straight, Sister," Zadok whispered, taking a hesitant step forward. His massive boots crunched over a floor of cracked shale and ancient, brittle bones that snapped like dry twigs. "Nature doesn't make paths this… purposeful. It feels like a throat."
"Then be a good little morsel and keep walking," Sally chirped. "Look at those marks on the walls! Those aren't tool marks, Zadok. Those look like claw ruts. Someone—or something—has been dragging heavy things through here for a long, long time."
Zadok let out a low, vibrating moan of terror, his knuckles white around the handle of The Hand of Mercy.
He hugged Sally tighter to his chest, his eyes darting toward the deep, rhythmic shadows between the rock formations.The tunnel sloped downward, the air growing thick with the scent of ozone and copper.
"I shouldn't be here," he muttered, his mantra of "light and love" failing him as a particularly large drop of cave water hit the back of his neck. "I'm a man of the garden! I like sunlight and sensible herb rows! I don't belong in a place where the rocks have ribs!"
"Don't be silly, darling," Sally whispered, her painted eyes seeming to glow in the orb's reflected light. "You're exactly where you belong. In the dark, where the secrets are kept. Look up there! Is that a door made of bone, or am I just being optimistic?"
Up ahead, the natural limestone of the cave gave way to something far more sinister—a threshold of jagged, mismatched stones held together by a dark, glistening mortar that looked suspiciously like dried blood.
Zadok stood before the grim threshold, his massive frame trembling so violently that the silver chains on his vestments chimed like funeral bells.
The door was a patchwork of jagged obsidian and what looked like bleached whale ribs, set deep into the weeping limestone of the cave.
"I should knock," Zadok whispered, his voice cracking. "It is the only polite way to handle a residential boundary. Perhaps they have a map. Or a very large ladder."
"Or perhaps they have a skinning knife and a penchant for taxidermy," Sally hissed. Her voice, once a rasp that seemed to echo off the walls, now sounded strangely intimate, as if her words were vibrating directly inside Zadok's skull. "Go on, you big, holy mountain. Rap on the bone-gate. Let the monster know dinner has arrived and brought its own seasoning."
Zadok raised a hand the size of a dinner plate and tapped three times, as lightly as a man of his strength could manage. The sound was a dull, hollow thud that seemed to vibrate deep into the earth.
"Hello?" Zadok called out, his voice blooming with a desperate, misplaced politeness. "Excuse me? I've had a bit of a tumble. I'm terribly sorry to intrude upon your... subterranean solitude, but I appear to be quite lost and somewhat damp."
"Oh, tell them you're delicious while you're at it," Sally muttered in his ear. "And mention you have a very soft, easily-removable liver."
The door didn't creak; it slid sideways with a heavy, grinding sound of stone on stone.
Standing in the amber, alchemical light of the chamber beyond was a Tiefling woman of striking, lethal elegance. Her skin was the color of a sunset caught in a jar of soot—a deep, bruised violet—and her horns swept back from her brow like polished onyx. She wore leather and lace that looked as though it had been stitched together from the finest funeral shrouds in Luskan.
Her name was Xylanthia, and as her golden, cat-like eyes traveled up, and up, and further up the 7'7" frame of the man at her door, a slow, predatory smile unfurled across her lips.
She didn't see a trespasser. She saw a rare specimen. An "interesting" creature that would look marvelous in a gilded cage—or perhaps as a footstool that could reach the high shelves.
"My, my," Xylanthia purred, her voice like silk dragged over velvet. "A giant in priest's robes, smelling of bat guano and fear. What a magnificent surprise. I was just lamenting the lack of... stimulating company in these tunnels."
"I... I am Zadok," he stammered, bowing so low he nearly hit his head on the doorframe. "I apologize for the guano. And the fear. It's been a very long evening involving a marsupial and several animated neighbors."
"You're staring at her horns," Sally's voice rang out inside his head, sharp and mocking. "And she's staring at your neck like she's choosing a wine. Ask her if she has a cage, I'm getting a very 'captive' vibe from her eyes."
"Shush, Sister," Zadok whispered under his breath, his eyes wide.
Xylanthia tilted her head, her golden eyes narrowing. "Talking to yourself, Zadok? How charmingly broken you are. Come in, come in! You must be exhausted. Let me show you my conservatory. I have things growing in the dark that you won't find in any garden under the sun."
She reached out a slender, clawed hand and caught his sleeve, her touch cold and possessive. "Stay a while. I have so much to show you... and so much space for you to stay. Permanently."
Zadok stepped inside, his orb of light flickering as it merged with the sickly green glow of Xylanthia's laboratory.
He was so busy looking at the jars of floating organs and the strange, pulsing moss on the walls that he didn't notice the heavy iron bars recessed into the ceiling of the next room.
Zadok's eyes, already wide with a permanent sheen of terror, began to dart frantically around the chamber.
The amber light of the alchemical lamps didn't provide warmth; it only highlighted the macabre geometry of the room.
On a shelf carved directly into the weeping limestone sat a row of apothecary jars, each containing a floating, grey-white organ that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic throb. Beside them was a jar filled entirely with human molars, stacked like ivory pebbles.
"Oh, look at that, Zadok," Sally's voice hissed directly into the back of his skull, dripping with a manic, giddy malice that only he could hear. "She's a collector! See that flute on the table? The one with the delicate marrow-staining? That's someone's femur, darling. I bet it plays a lovely, hollow tune. Ask her if she has one made from a giant's rib. It would suit your chest cavity perfectly."
Zadok's breath hitched, a soft, pathetic whine escaping his throat.
He looked at the bowl sitting on a nearby pedestal—it was polished to a high sheen, but the unmistakable sutures of a human cranium traced a jagged map across its surface.
"I... I think I've overstayed my welcome, Lady Xylanthia," Zadok stammered, his massive boots shuffling backward over the cold, damp stone. "I've just remembered a very pressing engagement with a... a turnip harvest. Very urgent. The seasons, you know. They wait for no man."
"Going so soon?" Xylanthia purred. She didn't move quickly; she moved like ink spreading through water, stepping into his path with a grace that made his skin crawl.
She raised a slender, violet hand, and with a flick of her clawed fingers, the heavy stone door behind him ground shut with a finality that shook the floor.
Zadok bumped into the cold obsidian, trapped between the wall and the looming, elegant nightmare of the Tiefling.
He clutched Sally to his chest, his knuckles white, as Xylanthia reached up—stretching on her toes—to trace the line of his jaw with a sharp, black fingernail.
"A cleric," she whispered, her golden eyes reflecting the flickering green glow of her vats. She looked at him not as a guest, but as a masterpiece of biological engineering. "A mountain of holy meat and fragile faith. I've had rogues in my jars, and I've had wizards in my cages, but I've never had a cleric for a pet. Your soul must taste like incense and honey, Zadok. I wonder... if I pull you apart, will you still pray?"
"P-pet?" Zadok squeaked, his voice jumping an entire octave. "I'm not... I don't think I'd be a very good pet! I'm very large! I eat a great deal! And I'm prone to night-terrors!"
"He's already house-broken, isn't he?" Sally's voice cackled in his mind, sharp and mocking. "Tell her you'll sit and beg for a cracker, Zadok! Maybe she'll let me watch when she starts the 'exploratory' surgery. I want to see if your heart is as big as your feet."
Xylanthia's smile widened, revealing teeth that were just a little too pointed to be strictly decorative. She began to lead him toward a large, ornate cage made of blackened iron that sat in the center of the next room, its floor lined with silk and—disturbingly—heavy leather manacles.
"Don't be frightened, my sweet, oversized creature," she crooned, her touch lingering on the silver thread of his robes. "I'm going to take such wonderful care of you. You're far too interesting to let wander in the dark alone."
Zadok's eyes darted from the velvet-lined cage to the jars of teeth, and for the first time in his life, the terror of the dark was eclipsed by the terror of the woman standing in it.
A rare spark of defiance flickered in his chest. He tightened his grip on the handle of The Hand of Mercy, his massive muscles bunching beneath his robes.
"I... I cannot stay, Lady Xylanthia," he rumbled, his voice regaining a fraction of its priestly weight. "The Light does not belong in a box. I must insist that you open that—"
"Oh, look at you! The little lamb is trying to grow a backbone," Sally's voice hissed inside his skull, dripping with sadistic delight. "Go on, Zadok! Swing that hammer! I want to see her brains decorate those pretty jars! Do it before she turns us into a footstool!"
Zadok began to raise the mace, the silver chains clinking—but Xylanthia didn't flinch.
She didn't even stop smiling. She simply raised a hand, her violet fingers weaving a complex, fluid pattern in the air that left trails of sickly, shimmering chartreuse light.
"Such a noisy, beautiful creature," she whispered, her voice sounding as if it were coming from inside his own lungs.
"Crown of Madness."
The world didn't go dark. It went... soft.
Zadok felt a sudden, icy pressure at the base of his skull, a sensation like a thousand tiny needles made of frozen honey sliding into his thoughts.
The defiance vanished. The fear vanished. Even Sally's mocking voice seemed to recede into a distant, muffled echo.
His mind became a blank slate of white marble, and on that slate, there was only one command, written in Xylanthia's silken script.
Step inside.
His legs moved without him. He watched, as if from a great distance, as his massive boots carried him toward the blackened iron cage. His arms, which felt like they belonged to someone else, carefully placed his mace on the floor outside the bars. He knelt, his 7'7" frame folding with a mechanical, eerie grace into the silk-lined interior.
"Good boy," Xylanthia crooned.
The sound of the cage door sliding shut and the heavy clack of the arcane lock echoed through the lab, but to Zadok, it sounded like a lullaby.
A heartbeat later, the chartreuse light snapped out.
Zadok blinked, his eyes watering.
He shook his head, a confused, wet whimper escaping his throat. He was sitting on a pile of silk, his back against cold iron bars.
He looked around, his heart beginning to hammer against his ribs again. "I... how did I..." He trailed off, his large hands patting the floor. "Sister? Sally? Why am I in the cage? I was just... I was standing by the door, wasn't I?"
"You're a disgrace to the cloth, Zadok," Sally's voice rang out in his mind, jagged and furious. "One second you're holding a weapon, and the next you're walking in here like a dog following a soup bone! You didn't even fight! You just... moved. Like a puppet with its strings pulled. I've never been so embarrassed to be carried by a man in my life."
Zadok clutched the doll to his chest, his eyes welling with fresh tears as he looked through the bars at Xylanthia.
She was leaning against a table made of bone, watching him with the pride of a curator who had just acquired a priceless, slightly broken vase.
"There now," she said, her golden eyes glowing with a predatory warmth. "Rest, my little cleric. You've had a very long walk in the dark. We have so much work to do tomorrow. I've always wondered if holy blood reacts differently to necrotic catalysts when the donor is... agitated."
Zadok gripped the bars, his knuckles white. He couldn't remember the last thirty seconds. It was a hole in his life, a terrifying void where his will used to be.