Chapter Summaries

After Yvonne brutally defeated the intruders at the clinic, Kraft tried to explain her strength to Green as a natural talent while the Priest investigated the scene. Green shared new information about the Pendragon Family, and Kraft demonstrated a vial that detected nearby supernatural phenomena; the group left with a crude warning device for future dangers.

• The monks secured the clinic, treated the injured, and told Green and Kraft that Yvonne had single-handedly attacked the invaders with a candelabrum.
• Green questioned Kraft about Yvonne’s strength, and Kraft claimed she had been born unusually strong and had simply used too much force while nervous.
• Green reported that an expert had dated the armor crest to the early Kingdom and found that records of the Pendragon Family seemed to be missing.
• Kraft demonstrated that black granules in a sealed iron vial clumped and grew quiet when supernatural phenomena were active nearby.
• Kraft gave Green three vials and advised him to run if all of them suddenly went quiet.

Kraft investigated the dead attackers and learned that the Heretics had recruited people beyond scholars and were using Dunling’s Sewers to travel. He planned to search underground with Green and considered bringing Yvonne along as an apprentice, leaving her a chance to begin proper training.

• Kraft comforted David, who regretted hiding during the attack, and examined the attackers laid out in the backyard.
• Kraft found a Stone Matter implant in an attacker whose body had been deliberately elongated.
• A friar identified the attacker by his blacksmith’s hammer and explained that he had been grieving his wife’s death.
• Kraft and the friars discovered that the Heretics had used the Sewers to reach the clinic, but the water had erased their trail.
• Kraft decided to search the Sewers with Green and considered taking Yvonne along to introduce her to knight training.

Kraft brought Yvonne into Dunling’s underground cemetery to find Father Green and investigate a Heretic lair connected to another world. After warning her about the danger and asking whether she accepted the consequences, he led her onward, and they arrived at a chamber where armed monks gathered.

• Kraft returned to the cemetery with Yvonne and offered the duty monk a pouch of warm cookies.
• Kraft explained that Heretics might be using the cemetery as a lair and contacting a malicious mirror world.
• Kraft asked Yvonne to reconsider entering the danger, warning that the consequences could include death.
• Yvonne chose to continue, pushing through the strange resistance in the passage until Kraft led her deeper underground.
• Kraft and Yvonne entered a stone chamber, where armed monks looked up as Kraft asked for Father Green and introduced Yvonne.

Kraft, Yvonne, Father Green, and five monks explored the waterways beneath Dunling, where Yvonne sensed fear around strange fissures and the group found several collapsed passages. Back at camp, Kraft mapped the dead ends and proposed that someone had sealed a circular area around the Hexagon Well, possibly leaving a hidden entrance that they would have to search for.

• Kraft joined Father Green and five monks for an expedition into the waterways, with Yvonne among the group.
• Yvonne sensed an intense, primal fear near fresh fissures in the Great Hall, while Kraft warned her to watch her footing.
• The group explored branching tunnels and found several dead ends, including passages blocked by collapsed masonry.
• After returning to camp, Kraft mapped their routes and theorized that the passages had been deliberately sealed within a fixed distance of the Hexagon Well.
• Green suggested that a proper entrance might lead into the sealed area, but the group realized they could need to search as many as thirty waterways and their branches.

Green's team found a rusted fragment that Kraft suspected came from a sword, suggesting they were nearing their target. Kraft allowed Yvonne to join the next expedition, and Green led the team toward the waterway where the relic had been found.

• Green's team continued searching the tunnels as the collapse sites formed a clearer circular boundary.
• The monks brought Kraft a rusted metal fragment embedded in a wall, and he judged it might be part of a sword blade.
• Green said they had also found smaller fragments, and Kraft warned the team to prepare carefully as they approached their target.
• Kraft gave Yvonne a Page Hammer and allowed her to join the preliminary expedition after instructing her to follow his orders.
• Green rested briefly, then led the team across a crack in the rock toward the waterway where they had found the Rusted Relic.

Kraft and the party investigated strange markings and porous, fused patches in a tunnel, then discovered a small, shell-like creature inside a rusted suit of armor. Kraft captured it, but its origin remained unknown.

• Green showed Kraft a rust-colored mark where a sword fragment had been embedded in the brick, and Kraft struck the stone to reveal a porous cavity filled with murky semiliquid.
• The party found increasingly dense carvings, hexagonal shapes, and porous structures along the tunnel as they ventured beyond their previous explorations.
• A monk spotted a damaged suit of armor fused to the floor, and Kraft and the priest found shell-covered creatures moving inside it.
• Kraft pulled a thumb-sized creature from the armor with forceps after it lunged toward a monk's eye, then sealed it in a glass bottle.
• Kraft said he could not identify the creature and suggested first ruling out a local Dunling species of snail.

Kraft told Green and the party a chilling story about the sea as they traversed the strange passage, where Sieve Holes grew scarce and other marks appeared. They reached a damaged stone door, bypassed its hidden warning bells and deadly grease trap, and moved deeper inside.

• Kraft compared the passage's strange creatures to shellfish on the tidal flats of his hometown and warned how the sea could drown those who took too much.
• Green noticed the monk shiver and edge away from the Sieve Holes after hearing Kraft's story.
• The party observed that the Sieve Holes were diminishing while geometric carvings, deep slashes, and recent burn marks became more prominent.
• Green halted the party to rest and prepare, then led them forward in a guarded formation.
• Green spotted a hair-thin tripwire near the damaged stone door, and the party carefully stepped over it and its hidden bells.

Kraft and Green’s group slipped through a guarded chamber in the Sewer and discovered ancient reliefs and a carved structure beneath a clear Reservoir. The chapter ended as Kraft examined the lifelike carving, which seemed to depict a creature poised to rise from the water.

• The group crossed the bell-trapped passage and Green and the crossbowman killed the two guards before they could raise an alarm.
• Kraft and Green inspected the chamber’s counterweight trap, which could topple oil barrels into the passage behind them.
• Kraft and Green examined damaged ancient reliefs, and Green paused over a figure wearing a tall, pointed hat.
• Kraft noticed that the Reservoir water was unusually clear and found a lifelike, hemispherical carving of a strange creature beneath its surface.

Green, Kraft, and the monks explored a maze of tombs beneath the sewers, where carvings stirred a strange recognition in Green and the opened coffins revealed evidence of burning and surgery. After following tracks through the winding passages, they encountered alerted Heretics and pursued a fleeing figure.

• Green recognized the hexagonal carving from the Great Hall after Kraft stopped him from staring at it, while the Priest sensed a troubling connection to the being beneath the water.
• The group climbed out of the chamber into a vast hall filled with ruined statues, rotten weapons, and side rooms containing opened, burned coffins.
• Kraft found an oversized surgical hemostat among the ashes, and Green urged the group onward because the sparse guards made him suspect something was wrong.
• Kraft deciphered patterns in the maze's doorway decorations as the group followed footprints through the spiraling tomb corridors.
• A voice called out the name “Larry” when the group approached a lit passage, and the unseen figure fled before Green could respond.
• Green ordered everyone to chase the fleeing figure.

Kraft, Green, and their group chased a Heretic through the Tomb Maze and learned that his warning had summoned a fanatical force. After surviving the first wave, they heard a much larger advance approaching and Green tested the muffled sound in his iron flask.

• Kraft realized the group was pursuing their quarry through unfamiliar passages without watching their surroundings, but they continued to stop his warning from spreading.
• Green caught and wounded the Heretic, who spoke of a door to Heaven and claimed it had already taken people away.
• The group formed a defensive line as Heretics attacked from every direction, and the Priests adapted to the cramped passages to repel the first assault.
• Kraft fought with unnerving precision and sensed something was wrong with himself as the initial wave fell.
• The passages fell quiet, then Green shook his iron flask after hearing a dense clatter of weapons and armor approaching.

Kraft, Green, and the priests encountered a vast Chaos Entity made of shapeless matter, armor, and weapons in the underground maze. After fire revealed its form and failed to stop it, they fled as it surged after them and merged with an even larger mass.

• The iron bottle detector fell silent and grew heavy as Green realized enormous supernatural power was approaching.
• Kraft ordered Green to throw oil, then used a torch to reveal a wall-like creature assembled from armor and weapons.
• The Living Wall absorbed the flames, advanced, and overwhelmed the priests with its size and eerie, unintelligible voices.
• Kraft shouted at the frozen group to run, and Green ordered a retreat.
• The priests fled as the Chaos Entity swallowed the Heretics' corpses and merged with a larger mass in another chamber.

Kraft and Green led their group through the maze while a relentless amalgamation of metal and bodies pursued them. Kraft’s uncanny guidance helped them evade it, but he ended the chapter warning that it was everywhere.

• Yvonne hurled a Javelin at the advancing amalgamation, but the dent in its metal body quickly healed.
• Kraft pulled Yvonne into the group, and they fled deeper into the maze as the tide of living matter pursued them from multiple directions.
• Green had everyone call out the relief-marked route so they could check one another’s directions and avoid mistakes.
• When part of the pursuit blocked their way, Kraft calmly directed the group through another route, seeming to sense paths ahead of them.
• The group followed Kraft’s guidance through a complicated series of turns and reached the Sword-Leaning Relief Doorway again.
• Kraft clutched his throat, feigned suffocation, and warned them to keep moving because the pursuer was everywhere.

Kraft and the group fled through increasingly intact burial chambers as the Chaos Entity’s pain overwhelmed their senses. They reached a corridor near the maze’s center, where the entity stopped and black liquid covered the floor; Kraft warned everyone not to look down.

• Kraft struggled against the Chaos Entity’s painful resonance, and the Priest caught him when he nearly fell.
• Kraft noticed that the burial chambers grew more intact and displayed familiar Church symbols, including Angels, saints, and the Winged Ring.
• Kraft led the group into a long corridor toward the maze’s center while the Chaos Entity pursued them and intensified their pain.
• A monk slowed down and turned toward the Chaos Entity as it stopped short of the group.
• Kraft saw that black liquid had risen over their shoes and shouted, "Don't look down!"

Kraft and the monks survived the Chaos Entity’s retreat, but Brother Turner emerged from its influence convinced that a Celestial Body was Heaven. When Green confronted him, Turner fled, and Kraft’s sword stopped Green from striking him.

• Kraft pulled the monks away from the Black Fluid as the Chaos Entity’s advance slowed and the mass withdrew into the maze.
• The group found the ground transformed into sharp crystals, counted everyone, and resisted a call from the maze inviting them to return to Heaven.
• Brother Turner revealed a fixed smile and spoke with ecstatic certainty about the Celestial Body he had glimpsed.
• Green threatened to expel Turner for blasphemy and argued that reaching Heaven required doing good and repenting.
• Turner dodged Green’s blade and fled toward the corridor, while Kraft’s sword clashed with Green’s and prevented him from pursuing Turner.

Kraft and the others subdued a possessed priest, while Green's exorcism calmed him and helped restore the group's composure. As they examined the Black Fluid-lined corridor leading toward the tomb's heart, Green recognized the wall carvings as heraldic patterns that encoded colors.

• Kraft disarmed the possessed priest with a pommel strike and a blow to his wrist, and the others bound him while the other priest fled into the darkness.
• Green prayed over the restrained priest with a Holy Emblem, and the man's struggle eased as the other priests joined the exorcism.
• Green warned Kraft that supernatural power could weaken people's minds and morals, and Kraft agreed that powers pursued for rewards carried hidden dangers.
• Kraft examined the corridor's Black Fluid crystals and intricate wall carvings, suspecting the crystals marked a boundary before the tomb's central area.
• Green explained that heraldry used patterns such as stripes, squares, and crosses to represent colors on the carvings.

Kraft, Green, and Yvonne deciphered the corridor carvings as overlapping maps of Dunling’s waterways and discovered multiple contradictory versions of the Sewer beneath the Tem River. They reached an open door at the corridor’s end and prepared to enter the area beyond, where they smelled burning and decay.

• Kraft recognized that the blue radiating patterns formed a single map split across the corridor walls.
• Green compared the carvings with Kraft’s route map, and they identified the first image as a map of the Sewer.
• Kraft deduced that the map also showed surface waterways on another level, and Green recognized the Tem River.
• Yvonne found another hexagon map whose routes contradicted the first, and the group discovered several increasingly different versions along the corridor.
• Kraft told the others to gather their people before they entered the open door, from which a stench of burning and decay drifted.

Kraft, Green, and the monks entered the sealed tomb chamber and found evidence of repeated burnings and surgical experiments. They discovered that the Church had been connected to the King's Apple and ended with Green approaching a motionless robed figure whose sleeve was moving strangely.

• Kraft crossed the stone doorway first and found ornate carvings, including a statue holding an Orb that the Priest identified as the King's Apple.
• The Priest explained that the Church granted the Orb to the king and that an Archbishop had represented the highest authority in the kingdom.
• Green warned the monks not to discuss what they had learned about the Church's ties to the kingdom's hidden past.
• The group entered the tomb chamber and found ash heaps, damaged surgical tools, and tables stained with oxidized grease.
• Green had a monk shoot the tall, hooded figure beside the sarcophagus, then moved closer when it did not react.
• Kraft pointed out that the figure's sleeve was shifting in a faint rhythm that its arm muscles could not explain.

Kraft examined a corpse whose left hand had transformed into a pulsing mass containing Stone Matter and collected fully activated Black Fluid from it. He discovered a Medical School lecturer’s dissection notebook, whose account of a successful experimental fracture treatment ended with the patient hearing voices in the sewers.

• Kraft cut open the corpse’s sleeve and found that its left palm had melted into a churning biological mass with Stone Matter fragments.
• Kraft severed the transformed arm, collected the fully activated Black Fluid leaking from it, and searched the corpse’s robe.
• Kraft and Green examined a notebook containing years of dissection records, and Kraft identified its writer as likely a Medical School lecturer.
• Kraft read about the lecturer’s failed surgical experiments, including attempts to treat complex fractures and replace damaged bone.
• Kraft found an account of a new filling material that restored a patient’s movement and sensation, though the patient later heard voices in the sewers.

Kraft read the Author’s account of testing the surgical material on himself and experiencing increasingly disturbing voices. As Dunling’s rainy season began, the Author traced the voices to the city’s underground waterways, and the circle’s leader promised him an explanation.

• The first patient’s voices and personality changes worsened, but the leader suggested testing the material on another subject.
• The Author volunteered to implant a small piece of the material beneath his skin and record the results.
• After the operation, the Author felt unusual sensations and later heard voices calling to him from nearby and below his house.
• The Author became anxious and began documenting the voices, which grew more frequent over time.
• During Dunling’s rainy season, the Author noticed that rain intensified the voices rising from underground, and the leader promised him answers.

Kraft read a notebook explaining how Moon Remnants and Spellcraft altered bodies and could tear Cracks in space, while the group that studied them vanished into the Deep Layer. After finding Black Fluid in the remains, Kraft suspected he understood why the miraculous anesthetic was scarce.

• The notebook’s author described how pain resonating through an implant created Cracks and convinced him to join a group seeking to cure illness by returning to the source beyond the Present World.
• The Author dissected altered bodies and concluded that Moon Remnants encouraged growth, aggregation, and the assimilation of living matter.
• The notebook explained that predecessors had named the fragments Moon Remnants and that their experiments had left a dangerous Chaos Entity in the maze.
• The author recorded that excessive Spellcraft activated Black Salt into Black Fluid, which could kill its user, and noted that his guide, Professor, and other colleagues had gone down into the Deep Layer.
• Kraft showed Green the Black Fluid he had collected and found no Spiritual Entity in the remains, then said he thought he knew why the anesthetic supply was limited.