Underland

He dreamed of the well again.

His hands scratched the stone wall, while he heard the rats crawling above his head. The hole above him shone with a soothing, crimson glow; the light of freedom. But it was so far away, and he was trapped at the bottom deep below the earth.

The rats tossed him a half-eaten bone, one that joined their pile of treasure at the bottom. The well overflowed with the remains of animals and humans unlucky enough to fall down, but he wouldn’t waste away like them.

He would escape.

He would be free.

Once again his nails sank into the stone, as he began his perilous ascent towards the light above. One meter. Two meters. Three meters...

Strange symbols carved into the stone shone with a yellow light, one that burned and blinded him and made the rats scamper off. He fell back to the bottom, howling his frustration and despair.

The walls of the well trembled, and the dream collapsed into nothingness.

Valdemar fell off his mattress, and woke up facing the cold stone floor. He had rolled out of his bed in his sleep, and someone furiously knocked on his workshop's door. "Hello?" a woman's voice echoed past it. "Is someone there?"

Valdemar mistook it for Marianne's voice for a moment, before realizing that this one was different, higher-pitched. A lifetime of fearing inquisitors kicked in, and his psychic sight expanded beyond his door. The sorcerer didn't recognize the presence on the other side. He could tell it was a woman, one who hadn't prepared proper magical defenses.

That dream will never let me go, Valdemar thought with annoyance as his hands fumbled in the dark, looking for an oil lamp. Weeks or months often passed between two episodes, but the nightmares always returned. Once in his childhood, he had asked his grandfather about them, and he said Valdemar had fallen down a well when he was too young to remember. He had been lucky to survive long enough to be rescued.

Perhaps his mind did its best to suppress the memory, but the dreaming world left the door open for it to haunt Valdemar. Or perhaps his subconscious expressed its frustration with his lack of progress on his goal to reach Earth in an allegorical way.

Whatever the cause, Valdemar strongly considered contacting an oneiromancer to deal with this nightmare. It always left him exhausted and troubled in the morning, and though good dream-manipulators were expensive, he would rather pay to enjoy quiet nights.

"Who is it?" Valdemar asked, as he finally found a lamp and lit his workshop. True to his word, Lord Och had afforded his newest recruit a laboratory far superior to anything the summoner ever enjoyed in the past. His collection of grimoires and music box had found a new home in shelves next to a writing desk, while tools, alchemical reagents, and magical concoctions covered tables of chiseled stone. He had received a magical, smokeless forge, with the remnants of the broken ecto-catcher resting on the anvil. Stairs led to his apartments above, and a locked door to the outside.

The solar upstairs wouldn't see much use. Valdemar had put the mattress downstairs so as not to waste time going up and down the stairs each day; nor did he use the bathroom above unless he had to clean himself up to go outside.

"Liliane!" the woman replied, clearly overjoyed to receive an answer. Valdemar wondered how long she had knocked on his door before she managed to wake him up. "Liliane de Vane! I'm in the workshop right next to yours! I'm bringing you your new clothes!"

With a name like that, she had to belong to the Oldblood. Valdemar wondered how many nobles had made the Institute their nest. "I don't need any," he replied, still wearing yesterday's clothes.

"It's really important! Unless I'm interrupting something?" Valdemar sensed an undercurrent of fear and panic in her voice. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to bother you! I can pass by later if you want!"

"It's alright," Valdemar said while suppressing a groan as he rose back to his feet. Truth be told, he was always a bit cranky upon waking up, but that girl sounded too nice to complain about. "Take a step from the door, I warded it."

"Oh, with what kind of warding spell?" she asked with curiosity.

"The hungry kind." Valdemar unlocked the door, removed the magical wards, and welcomed his guest.

His visitor was a pretty little thing no older than nineteen, with shoulder-long red hair, kind blue eyes, and freckles all over her cheeks. She was surprisingly small, barely reaching Valdemar's nose, but radiated some kind of hyperactive energy. She wore a blue and orange variant of the Institute’s standard magical robes, and carried a pile of clothes in her hands.

"Hi!" She introduced herself with a bright smile. "Sorry, did I just wake you up?"

"It's fine, waking up was long overdue." Valdemar took the clothes off her hands. They included a black and grey hooded coat, with a purple shirt and pants underneath. A pair of black leather boots tastefully completed the set. "It's not like the other robes."

"Lord Och thought you might want something more practical, so he asked the acolytes to make adjustments," Liliane replied with a grin. "They're woven with protective spells too. You would need a very sharp sword to cut through them."

Nice, though Valdemar would examine these clothes later. He suspected they included tracking spells or similar measures. "Do you want to come inside?" Valdemar asked his visitor. "You came all the way, the least I can do is offer you a cup of tea."

"Oh, it's alright, I already had breakfast with my mentor," she replied with a slight blush. Did she believe he was making a pass at her? "But sure, I can take a look. Do you need help moving in?"

"No, it's fine." Marianne already helped with that, before leaving the Institute on her master's behalf. Valdemar didn't ask her about which mission, but he suspected she had gone to investigate his family. She would probably find nothing, as he did.

Valdemar led Liliane inside his workshop and her eyes immediately wandered to his paintings, which he had put on the walls to give the workshop more personality. The sorcerer liked to paint real world sights, and his pictures included a cute mole rat peeking through its hiding hole, his grandfather’s crumbling old shack, and mushroom farmers hard at work. Valdemar had sold some of his artwork to fund his activities in the past, though he had never fully committed to a career.

Liliane looked at the paintings with admiration, before freezing before the most beautiful of them all. "Oh, who is this?" she asked, pointing at the portrait enthroned above the forge.

"My late mother," Valdemar replied, before putting the clothes on a table next to his potions. He had been so focused on repairing the ecto-catcher that he hadn't cleaned up the rest of the workshop. Unfortunately, the knights had damaged the device to the point it would take weeks to repair it. "Her name was Sarah."

"She's beautiful," Liliane said, mesmerized by the painting. And she was. Valdemar's mother had been a raven-haired beauty with her son's pale grey eyes, and looked graceful in a blue dress. She hadn't yet gone mad when her child had painted her portrait. "But she seems so sorrowful."

Indeed. Valdemar's mother always had a sad expression, and only the music box could make her smile for a reason that always escaped her son. Whenever he had pushed the subject, she always burst out in tears. "I don't think it was in my mother's nature to be happy," he admitted.

"It's strange though," Liliane said. "Her hair is black and yours is white. Isn't raven-hair dominant?"

"It's not unusual." Now that mankind had lived centuries underground, more and more people were born without hair, eye, or skin pigmentation. Sometimes all at once. Valdemar was fortunate enough to only have whitened hair, rather than look like an albino.

No way people wouldn't have mistaken him for an undead otherwise. "You said you lived in the workshop next to mine?"

"Yes, though I spend most of my time in the greenhouse. I'm studying alchemy and petalmancy under Lady Mathilde."

Lady Mathilde, Lady Mathilde... Valdemar tried to remember where he had heard the name, his eyes wandering to his potion cookbooks. "Mathilde de Valnoir?" he asked, astonished. She had written over a third of the alchemy recipes he had memorized. "The inventor of the Elixir of Life?"

This horribly expensive potion reversed the drinker’s aging, returning them to the peak of their life. Though immortality in various forms was common among the upper classes who could afford it, most rich nobles preferred to remain young forever than become an intelligent undead or have their soul transferred into a golem.

Since the Elixir's recipe was known only to its creator and no one managed to reverse-engineer it yet, Oldblood members paid fortunes for a dose... and criminals like the Midnight Market's members stopped at nothing to steal the potion.

"Herself. She is a Master at the Institute, and my mentor." Liliane raised an eyebrow upon noticing his confusion. "No way, you don't know what a Master is?"

"No, but I have the feeling you will tell me."

"And you thought right," she replied with a grin. "The Institute follows a strict hierarchy. At the bottom, you have the Acolytes, who aren't Scholars but assist us. They're the cooks, suppliers, guards... Do you know Iren? You'll like Iren, he can get you anything you need."

"Are the Knights of the Tome considered acolytes?" The thought of being higher in the hierarchy than the people who imprisoned him amused Valdemar to no end.

"Technically, but don’t try to give them orders," Liliane replied with a giggle. "They only answer to Lord Och and the Masters, to a lesser extent. Now, you have Scholars like us, the researchers. We each have a workshop, a limited budget, and we can access the libraries except the forbidden stuff. And above you have the Masters, who answer only to Lord Och. They're the elite of the elite, sorcerers who have achieved immortality and mastered a magical field. They have unlimited resources and they can access all kinds of restricted knowledge. Each Scholar must answer to a Master, who serves as their mentor."

"Really?" Marianne hadn't informed Valdemar of that part. "So I have to find a teacher?"

Valdemar wasn’t going to spit on a sorcerer's mentorship, but the idea of a higher authority looking over his shoulder bothered him. Lord Och's attention was already more than enough.

"Yes, but no rush, you just arrived." An idea seemed to cross Liliane's mind. "Oh, you could ask Lady Mathilde to be your mentor! She's so warm, and she's also in charge of the local cathedral of the Light. You'll learn a lot of things with her, and we could help each other!"

Valdemar wasn't sure how to answer. A part of him wondered if Liliane's niceness was genuine, but he prided himself in being a good judge of character and sensed no falseness in her. She was just that friendly.

"Thanks for the offer," he said, "but I would prefer a teacher specialized in dimensional magic."

His answer clearly worried her. "Dimensional magic? It's dangerous stuff. You know, the last adventurer who tried to teleport to another world was cut in half. His torso ended up in another dimension, while the legs stayed at the Institute, so we couldn’t raise him back. We had a funeral and everything."

"Well, it means half of him reached the intended destination," Valdemar replied. Personally, he would consider dismemberment a small price to pay if he could reach Earth. "Though I wonder what you put on the eulogy. 'Here rests his legs, because he could never run fast enough'?"

Liliane chuckled at his dark joke. "You're cruel," she said. "We shouldn't laugh about it."

"What plane was that scholar trying to access?"

"I think it was the elemental plane of fire," the witch replied, though she didn’t sound so sure of herself. “The Dark Lord Bethor funded that project for military purposes. Something about opening a gate in the middle of the Derro Kingdom's border fortresses and incinerating them. But I think Master Poingcarré and Hermann could tell you more. Oh, did you meet Hermann?"

"I'm afraid not, though Lord Och said I should meet him. He's a painter too from what I heard?"

"Wait, you painted this stuff?" Liliane whistled while glancing at the paintings. "Then you must meet Hermann, and Frigga too! She really wants to commission a portrait of herself, but she doesn't like Hermann's style. Why don't I show you around?"

"Uh, thanks, but I must work on my ecto-catcher—"

But Liliane wouldn't hear any of his protests. "It will take twenty minutes tops, in and out."

"I'm sorry, but I really must work." His grandfather's ghost wouldn't return to this world on its own.

"But I came all the way to help," she said, her blue, innocent eyes looking at Valdemar as if he had just beaten a helpless mole rat to death. "You… you don't want to return the favor?"

Valdemar squinted. "Are you trying to make me feel guilty?"

"Is..." She looked almost ready to cry now. "Is it working?"

Valdemar sighed, as her painful stare became unbearable. "Yes," he said with a sigh. She had brought him his clothes and given him some info, he could spare twenty minutes.

"Awesome!" Liliane said, her chirpy mood returning. Valdemar couldn't help but find the change of demeanor a bit jarring. "But first you need to wash yourself. You look as if you haven't gone out in days."

Ugh, what had he walked into?

A few minutes and a shower later, Valdemar emerged from his workshop in his new clothes. He had to admit they felt rather comfy, though he couldn't recognize the texture. Linen? Silk? The magic inside the fibers soaked him like water.

The Scholars' workshops were located on the second level of the Institute, with the ground floor used for common facilities and the first floor mostly belonging to the Knights of the Tome. The second floor took the shape of a long tunnel almost two hundred meters long whose stone walls and the floor had been polished to the point of becoming smooth as a mirror's surface.

Workshops and individual facilities were honeycombed around the cavern, while crystals in the ceiling produced glimmers of light. The most beautiful structure in the layer was a giant clock around which the spiraling stairs leading to the upper and lower levels were coiled. Powerful engines fueled by bound earth elementals allowed the device's crystal needles to turn, and the whole cavern trembled whenever the clock struck.

As it turned out, Liliane indeed occupied the workshop to the left of Valdemar's, while this 'Hermann' occupied the one on the right. The sorcerer wondered whether his location had been attributed at random, or as part of some gambit.

Liliane proved a charming conversationalist as they climbed the stone stairs and narrow twists separating one workshop from another, quizzing him about his origins and regaling him with tales about her arrival to the Institute.

"Let me get this straight, you arrived here because of a flower?" Valdemar asked his neighbor.

"I did," Liliane replied with a grin. She seemed quite proud of it. "My parents wanted me to join the Saklas School of Sorcery in the capital, but it's full of stuck-up jerks who prefer partying over studying. Still, I was preparing to attend it when the Church of the Light asked for flower contributions as part of their foundation's anniversary. I sent flowers I had created myself and alchemically modified to produce glows of different colors. Lady Mathilde liked them so much that she visited me, and she offered me a scholarship."

"I remember that competition," Valdemar said, though he hadn't witnessed it. He had been hiding from the authorities back then, and followed the event through the newspapers. "It was only open to Oldblood families."

He couldn't hide the envy in his voice, and Liliane noticed. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I'm sure you would have done well."

"You don't need to apologize, it wasn't your decision. Besides, you earned your stay here." Creating a new species of plant with alchemy took incredible skill, especially at her age. "I would have been more resentful if you had bought your scholarship."

"The Institute doesn't work that way, thankfully. The Masters recommend a new Scholar, and Lord Och has to give his assent." Liliane sighed. "Truthfully, I don't think I will return to the capital after I finish my studies. I would prefer to become a Master and keep working, rather than spend my days going to balls and fending off marriage proposals."

"Marriage proposals? Are you an heiress or something?"

"I'm the only daughter of Count de Vane, from the De Vane Armories."

Valdemar recognized the name as one of the imperial armies' main suppliers of metalwork; dear Liliane was set to inherit a sizable fortune if her father ever decided to retire. Considering his wealth, he had probably purchased immortality by now.

Liliane cleared her throat. "It's not going to be a problem?"

"Forgive my language, milady," Valdemar said while locking eyes with her. "But frankly, I don't give a fuck."

Valdemar had never licked nobles' boots, and he wasn't going to start now. If he befriended Liliane, it would be because he liked her, not for her money or connections.

Thankfully, the witch sounded quietly relieved. "Great," she said. "You know, it's nice to talk with people who aren't after my money or a favor."

That explained her chattiness. She probably felt lonely. Valdemar could sympathize, having had a solitary homeschooled childhood with few friends to speak of. He made a note to get to know Liliane better, if it didn't interfere with his own research.

The duo finally arrived before the entrance of Hermann's workshop, a single door built into the smooth wall of the tunnel. "Hermann," Liliane knocked on the door. "It's me, Lily! I'm bringing you a new painter friend."

Valdemar took a moment to examine the door, as he waited for his neighbor to open it. He didn't recognize the wards used to lock it, and he could tell the workshop was overflowing with magical energies. What kind of sorcerer inhabited these halls?

Valdemar had his answer when the door opened, and milky reptilian eyes faced him.

As it turned out, 'Hermann' had white scales instead of skin, horns instead of ears, and black claws for nails. The humanoid lizard was almost two meters tall, covering his body beneath heavy black robes and a hood. His tail anxiously wavered behind him, and a pair of glasses glittered on his nose.

A troglodyte.

"Hello," the reptile said shyly as he faced Valdemar, his voice sounding like a serpent's hiss. His robes were covered in fresh paint, and he carried a brush in his right hand. "Nice... to meet you."

"N-nice to meet you too, I'm Valdemar," the sorcerer introduced himself, taken aback. "Sorry, I, uh... I didn't expect a troglodyte researcher."

"It's alright..." Hermann replied, though he clearly struggled to speak the words. Valdemar suspected that troglodyte’s throats weren’t properly equipped to use the human tongue. "It happens... often."

Though they could use the Blood, Troglodytes lived in primitive tribes that the Empire of Azlant had all but driven away from their home caverns; and they had remained fierce foes of mankind ever since. Valdemar never expected to see one in a Dark Lord's retinue.

"The Institute does not discriminate between species," Liliane said, amused by Valdemar's reaction. "We have a sentient swarm, and a dokkar."

"You have dark elves?" Valdemar all but coughed. How could they convince one of those sadists to behave? "Don't tell me you have derros too?"

"Don't be silly, Val, derros can't use the Blood." Liliane giggled. "Can I call you Val? Valou? Valdy?"

To his disquiet, Hermann started to smell Valdemar as if he were a piece of ham. "You smell strange," he rasped. "It's... an odd smell."

"Valdy, you said you would take a shower!" Liliane complained.

"I did!" he protested.

"It's fine," Hermann replied, before inviting them inside his workshop. Though studio might have been a better term. The troglodyte's home was as large as his fellow Scholar's, but lacked anything one would expect from a magician's laboratory, such as grimoires or potions. Hermann had traded his forge and shelves for a cabinet full of painting supplies and large canvas, even using his walls as murals.

However, the troglodyte favored a stranger style than Valdemar's realistic one, transforming common objects into abstract form. A portrait of an ashen-skinned woman had transformed into a collection of cubes and rectangles, while a representation of the hedge maze on the ground floor became a strange, but recognizable, amalgamation of geometric shapes. The murals represented strange symbols each written in a different color, with titles such as 'Morose Blue' or 'Furious Red' written underneath. When Valdemar blinked, the symbols shifted as if alive.

The strangest painting, however, was a canvas so tall that it reached the ceiling. The surreal work represented an abyss of multiple colors, of yellow eyes, red veins, and blue chains surrounding a bright magenta rift at the picture's center; this crack pulsated as if alive, growing and shrinking around a single black spot like a beating heart.

Valdemar frowned, as he sensed something watching him. He approached this eerie masterpiece, gazing in the magenta rift and the black hole at its center. His eyes lost themselves in the black pigment, trying to distinguish—

There.

A painted figure sat on a throne of thorns at the center of the abyss, watching back. A hooded figure covered in green robes, with colored shrouds for eyes and swirling tentacles for a beard. It silently called to Valdemar like a flame to a moth, telling him to fall into the void and join it inside this black sun. Yet when the sorcerer touched the canvas, his fingers only brushed against lifeless pigments.

"You're seeing him too..." Hermann rasped, as Valdemar pulled back. "You have... good eyes."

"Seeing him?" Liliane peeked into the black hole. "I distinguish a form, but..."

"This thing, it's alive," Valdemar said, using his psychic senses to try and analyze the painting. He could tell that the troglodyte had woven spells into his work—in all his paintings in fact—but he received no feedback from the creature looking from inside the ghastly masterpiece. And yet, the necromancer was convinced that this... this entity was watching them. "This is no ordinary painting."

"No... it is not," Hermann confirmed. "I am a pictomancer. I weave my spells... with pigments. Some pictomancers can create... pocket dimensions. Small... private worlds."

Valdemar instantly caught on. "And if powerful pictomancers can create artificial worlds, then maybe they can create pathways through space. You're trying to open a door, but a door to where?"

The summoner cleared his throat, a chill going down his spine as he glanced at the black hole. "To what?"

Though his reptilian expression didn't change, Hermann's fingers fidgeted and his tail stopped moving. It reminded Valdemar of a prey animal freezing in place, as if preparing to run any moment. Even Liliane bit her lower lip, clearly knowing something, but refusing to elaborate.

"It's something fishy, isn't it?" Valdemar surmised.

"Of course not," a voice whispered into his ear. "There is nothing fishy inside my fortress."

Valdemar froze as a chilling cold invaded the studio, and a Dark Lord's shadow rose behind him. Liliane's face lost all colors, while Hermann quickly lowered his head to avoid his newest visitor's gaze.

How does he do that? Valdemar thought as he turned to face the smiling lich, unsettled by his sudden appearance. Did he teleport without a sound, or use invisibility? "Lord Och... when did you arrive?"

"I was always here, young Valdemar. You only notice now because I wanted you to. Your psychic defenses have improved since our last meeting, but they remain painfully easy to disable." The Dark Lord glanced at the other Scholars. "The same goes for the both of you."

"I'm... I'm sorry, Lord Och." Liliane bowed so low that Valdemar thought she might hit the ground with her forehead. "I-I didn't expect it."

"Few expect an attack or a trick, so you must always be on your guards. But I am glad you youngsters have started to bond. I can see the beginning of a fruitful study group." Lord Och chuckled to himself, as if laughing at a joke only he could comprehend. "And to answer your question, Young Valdemar… you may see things here that the Church of the Light would find questionable. Heretical even. But you will not care. What happens between my walls stays there."

The lich looked at Valdemar, his eyes briefly glowing blue for an instant.

"Do you understand?" the ancient undead asked, his words cold as ice and the threat as heavy as gravity.

"Yes." Valdemar gulped, while Liliane held her breath. "Yes, Lord Och."

"Good," Lord Och said with a jovial voice, his eyes returning to normal. "Here in Pleroma, no path to knowledge is forbidden so long as proper safety protocols are respected, and young Hermann is very mindful of them. Perhaps you could even help him. You both approach art so differently, I shudder to imagine what new idea will spring from your brushes."

Hermann nodded slowly. "I will not say no to help... I am struggling with an obstacle."

"Truly?" Liliane turned towards the reptilian researcher. "Anything I can help with?"

"Maybe," the troglodyte replied before scratching the back of his head with a claw. "I need to think..."

"I will let you bounce ideas," Lord Och said, his gaze focusing on Valdemar alone. "Young man, come entertain an old undead on his morning stroll."

The Dark Lord didn't even wait for an answer as he walked out of Hermann's studio. Valdemar exchanged a worried glance with his fellow scholars, before walking after the lich. The workshop's door closed behind him on its own.

Lord Och walked towards the entrance of Valdemar's own lair, where they had a better view of the clock. "What do you see?" the lich asked as he stopped to look at the device.

"A clock," Valdemar replied after some thoughtful consideration. "An imitation of derro technology."

This must have been the wrong answer, because the lich shook his head with a look of sadness. "You can’t see them yet."

"Them?" Valdemar asked.

"You felt it when you arrived, and you still do," Lord Och replied. "That sensation of being watched."

Valdemar's eyes widened. "There's something invisible in this room," he guessed. "Something I can't perceive, but who can see me."

"Human brains do not perceive the true reality that surrounds us. Our eyes are blinded by the light and the darkness, unable to see behind the veil. Sometimes it is a blessing, for kindness is only found in lies; but a true sorcerer must aspire for the truth, no matter how horrifying." The Dark Lord adopted his favorite pose, putting his hands behind his back. "The point, young Valdemar, is that your psychic sight is powerful but limited. There are things right before your nose that you cannot perceive, and unless you learn to remove the veil covering your eyes, you will remain blind to the true nature of our world. And if you do not understand this world, how can you hope to reach another?"

Wounded pride was a bad advisor, but Valdemar accepted the challenge. "How does one acquire this true sight?"

"Training and potions, for a start. You will have to make the latter yourself I'm afraid. Truth is not for the unfit."

Valdemar made a note to research the subject, if only to improve his own summoning. If he couldn't perceive invisible things right before him, it might impact his own research in the future. "May I ask you a question, Lord Och?"

"Asking questions is a sign of intelligence."

Valdemar took it as a yes. "I've been told that as a Scholar, I must study under a Master and mentor. Can I pick my teacher, or will it be assigned to me?"

"You can change mentors if you like," the lich replied, "but I wonder who caught your eye."

Valdemar frowned. "Change mentors? Has one already been selected?"

The lich's eyes squinted in amusement, as if he were looking at a fool.

No way... "Lord Och, what are you implying?"

"I imply nothing," the ancient archmage said before glancing back at the clock. "I would not be so bold as to call myself a master, for there is always more to learn. But I have many things to teach you, if you desire my knowledge."

Valdemar still couldn't believe it. It had to be a joke or something. "But why me?" he asked. "Thousands of experienced sorcerers would murder their own family to serve you."

"Why not?" Lord Och shrugged. "Truth be told, I have high expectations for what we may achieve together, young Valdemar. I will have to kill you if you fail to meet them, but hopefully, it should prove a temporary punishment in your case."

Valdemar didn't miss the ominous way he said 'hopefully.' "Does it have something to do with whatever force slumbers in your basement?"

"A sharp insight," the lich replied. "And a correct guess."

"Did you bind a Nahemoth?" Valdemar asked. Nahemoths were the most powerful of the Qlippoths, demigods so powerful that their presence warped reality itself. Each attempt at summoning one ended in disaster, but Lord Och could have done it. Since Valdemar had a certain talent for binding these creatures, it would make sense that the lich would use him for such a purpose.

"Who tells you the source of this disturbance is a living being?" Lord Och's smile turned almost predatory. "I will reveal to you what my fortress is sleeping on in due time, when you are ready. It may even prove the solution to your quest. But first, you must get stronger and develop the True Sight. Only then will I show you my… little secret."

Valdemar wasn't blind to the manipulation attempt at work. The Dark Lord dangled the promise of supernatural insight and the answer to an intriguing mystery, but only if the younger sorcerer would follow the path laid before him. The necromancer still had some reservations at serving under such a ruthless being, especially since his 'entrance exam' had consisted of battles to the death with warbeasts. An apprenticeship under Lord Och would prove even deadlier.

But for all his ruthlessness and cruelty, Lord Och was the most powerful mage Valdemar had ever met; one that terrified the inquisitors themselves into obedience. The lich was older than the empire, and learning from his boundless knowledge would help Valdemar achieve his goal.

In the end, one did not say no to a Dark Lord.

"So how do we do this..." Valdemar cleared his throat. "Apprenticeship?"

Behind Lord Och's smile, there were fangs.

"I am a very busy undead, apprentice," the undead said while stressing the last word, "and so I will only spare you one day at the beginning of each week. Otherwise, I expect you to learn and experiment on your own. This fortress is full of experts in all fields of magic. Learn from them, even if this seems a waste of time. Innovation comes to the open-minded, and inspiration often takes circuitous turns. What did you intend to work on this week?"

"Repair my ecto-catcher, and repeat the experiment that landed me in jail." But this time, successfully.

"Good," Lord Och replied with a pleased tone. "You are free to continue with your experiment, but you will also assist young Hermann in his ambition. Our scaled friend has engaged in a quest that some would find a source of concern, but I foresee you will both learn a great deal from it. The humble art of pictomancy might appear unusual to you, even useless, but it will help you on your journey."

Could I paint a portal to Earth? Valdemar wondered. What did it even look like? He had his grandfather's notes to fall back on, but they were second-hand accounts. The summoner had a picture of Earth in his mind, but he wasn't certain that it fit reality.

Lord Och immediately laid down the homework. "In parallel, you will refine your senses and strengthen your body. You heal quickly, young Valdemar, but you are alive and thus limited by your flesh; the healthier you are, the stronger you will be in the Blood. I will teach you refinement exercises so you may purify your body from the waste that obstructs your full potential, and you shall feed on potions to enhance your senses. I will give you the names, but you will have to research and make them on your own."

"This way will be slower, but earned?" Valdemar surmised.

The undead archmage nodded. "Apprentice?"

Valdemar held his tongue.

"All I offer is the truth," Lord Och said, his deep voice devoid of false playfulness. "But it is true what fools say. Ignorance is bliss, and the path we walk is not a happy one. Power, real power, demands sacrifices."

"I understand."

"No, you do not." The lich looked at the clock with a distant gaze. "But you will."