I followed the sound of Vasil and Skelly having a conversation to find them all in a nearby room—also private quarters, by the look of it.

  "You can talk to people?" I asked Vasil.

  He pointed at his crown. "With this, yes. It's just better not to most of the time, me being a frog and all."

  "Good to know," I said. “What about animals?”

  “It has an [Omniglot] enchantment on it. They gave me a voice so I could answer their questions, beg for mercy, and give them the satisfaction of hearing me plead. What's the point of torturing someone if they can't tell you how much it hurts? They even put the enchantment on a crown to mock me—the advisor who ruled in all but name, now a frog wearing a tiny golden joke. I don't think they realized how useful the enchantment would be for me, though.”

  I nodded. “That explains why you were so desperate to get it back.”

  “Among other reasons, yes.”

  I turned to Phisto, who was inspecting the room. "What do you think?"

  He sat down in a patch of sunlight coming through a cracked window. "I could get used to this. This place has potential."

  "Wow. High praise from Meowphistopheles himself."

  "Don't let it go to your head."

  I shook my head. “Sure, Phisto.”

  "So," I said to Skelly. "You mentioned showing me around?"

  "Oh yes! Absolutely! Follow me!" He enthusiastically shuffled toward the door.

  Skelly led me back down the corridor. "This entire floor is private quarters. At least, I think they were. Looks like it, anyway. Most of them are in similar condition to the one you were just in." He gestured at a series of doors, most hanging crooked or missing entirely. "There are about twelve rooms up here, I think. Maybe fifteen. I lose count."

  Twelve rooms. Maybe fifteen. That meant I could house at least eleven other people here, assuming I kept one room for myself. More if people didn't mind sharing. That was good to know. If I was going to build something here I'd need places for people to sleep.

  I peered into one of the nearest rooms. A collapsed bed frame. Any fabric had long since rotted away. Moss grew up the stone walls, and the ceiling was high. The windows still had some glass in them. Apparently all the rooms were in similar condition.

  "These could be fixed," I said, more to myself than anyone else.

  "Oh certainly!" Skelly said. "With some work. Maybe a lot of work. But the foundations are solid."

  “Yeah, you’re going to be busy,” I said.

  “Huh?” Skelly replied.

  “What? You just offered to fix them.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah,” I said, clapping a hand on a bony shoulder, “Appreciate it, Skelly. I knew I could count on you.”

  He stared at me for a couple of seconds. “You’re… welcome?”

  Phisto padded past me into the room, sniffing at the corners. "Stinky."

  "How do you know it’s not you who’s stinky?" I asked.

  Phisto's head whipped around, ears flat. "Excuse me?"

  I shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You know damn well I’m immaculate, bitch.”

  I had to fight back a laugh and started to say something, but Phisto screeched, "Don't try me, bitch! I take my cleanliness very seriously and I will NOT be disrespected in this manner! I wash myself AT LEAST three times a day! My coat is pristine! You, meanwhile, just got out of your first bath in DAYS and you still smell like—"

  "Okay, okay!" I held up my hands. "You're very clean."

  He huffed and walked out of the room, muttering under his breath. We followed him out.

  "What's that?" I asked, pointing to a doorway at the far end of the corridor. It was smaller than the others, and the door was still intact.

  "Tower access," Skelly said. "But I wouldn't recommend going up there. The stairs have rotted. Very unsafe. You might break a leg!" He started laughing.

  I stared at him. "Is breaking a leg funny?"

  "Not really," he said, still laughing.

  "Then why are you laughing?"

  "I don't know."

  What the fuck?

  I decided not to pursue that line of questioning. "Alright. What about you, Skelly? How long have you been here?"

  "Oh, I'm not entirely sure. Time gets a bit... fuzzy when you're dead."

  "When did you wake up?"

  He cocked his head, thinking. "I don't know. It's been a while, I think. The cathedral was already like this when I woke up. Empty. Quiet. Just me and the... well, the swamp sounds."

  "Do you remember anything from before?"

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  "Not really. I know I belong here. I know the layout of the cathedral. I know there used to be people. But names, faces, why I'm here..." He made a vague gesture with his hands. "All gone."

  I studied him as we walked. Then I noticed something—a small puncture mark in the back of his skull, like someone had driven something sharp and flat through it. A knife, maybe.

  "Skelly, do you know how you died?"

  He shrugged. "Not a clue."

  I exchanged a glance with Vasil. He looked as curious as I felt.

  If Skelly had been here when the cathedral was still active, and someone had killed him with a blade to the back of the skull... Had he been a priest? A servant? Someone who'd gotten in the way when the Church came?

  Maybe the magic in this place had brought him back. It had grown Audrey Three into a massive talking sunflower. It had preserved that painting for decades. Why not reanimate a murdered priest?

  I decided not to press. If he didn't remember, pushing wouldn't help.

  "Let's see the rest," I said.

  ***

  The ground floor was in better shape. Fewer holes in the ceiling to speed things along. Skelly walked me through each section, narrating like he was a proper tour guide. Impressive for someone with no memory.

  "The main hall you've already seen. Beautiful space. No idea what it looked like before, but probably even better."

  We moved through the side chapels—small alcoves with stone benches and empty niches that most likely had statues or offerings at one point in time. Most of the stonework was still solid, just dirty.

  The administrative rooms were mostly wrecked. Rotted furniture, collapsed shelves, mold everywhere. But one room at the end of the hall was different. The ceiling was intact—no holes, no water damage. It even had a stone desk.

  Then Skelly brought me to the dormitory—a long room with rows of stone bed frames. No mattresses, no blankets, but the frames were fine.

  I counted them as I walked down the aisle. At least forty beds, maybe more in the back sections where the ceiling had collapsed. Combined with the private quarters upstairs, I could house a small army here if I needed to. It was starting to feel less like a hypothetical and more like a plan.

  Next Skelly showed me the library, and I felt a pang of genuine disappointment.

  The room was large, with tall shelves lining the walls and a few free-standing cases in the center. But most of the books were gone. Rotted into pulp, or eaten by whatever. A few spines remained, but when I reached for one, it crumbled under my fingers.

  "What kind of books do you think were here?" I asked.

  Skelly looked around. "Dunno. Cookbooks?"

  I shook my head. Why did I even ask?

  I ran my hand along one of the shelves, feeling the empty space. All that knowledge, gone. Erased along with everything else the Church had burned.

  "Shame," I said quietly.

  The kitchen was vast and empty. Stone ovens, a massive hearth, space where I assume were once long tables for food preparation. All of it unused for decades. But like the other rooms, the structure was sound. It could be cleaned. Restored.

  I was starting to see it. Not the ruin it was now, but what it could be.

  The stairs down to the first basement level were steep. Skelly led the way, his bones clicking with each step.

  "These levels are for storage and preparation," he explained. "Nothing too exciting."

  He wasn't wrong. The storage room looked empty at first, until I noticed the shelves along one wall, lined with thirty, maybe forty, clay jars. Most had their lids sitting beside them, like someone had been searching through them in a hurry. A few in the corner were still sealed. I made another mental note to check those later.

  The preparation rooms were more interesting. Stone tables, channels carved into the floor for drainage, hooks hanging from the ceiling. For butchering animals, probably. Or maybe something else. All the channels converged at a single point. I crouched to peer into the hole, but it was pitch black.

  We walked on until Skelly stopped in front of a heavy iron door. "And this is the vault."

  I tried the handle, but the vault was locked. I even felt a faint tingle of magic.

  "Can you open it?" I asked Skelly.

  "I don't have a key. I'm not even sure there is a key."

  I studied the door. Whatever was in there, someone had wanted it protected, and it was possible that it hadn’t been plundered. I’d have to search for a key at some point. Unless this was one of those vaults that opened with a magic phrase or something. I had no idea, but I was sure I’d figure it out.

  "We'll come back to this," I said.

  ***

  He led me down to the second basement level. It was dark, so I swapped one of the Strong Bracelets of the Stag Beetle for the Lucky Bracelet of the Luminary. Then I used a charge of [Illuminate], and the bracelet lit up bright. At least I wouldn’t die by tripping and falling down the stairs.

  The air was colder, and the walls were lined with alcoves—burial niches, each one sealed with a stone slab. Some of the slabs had names carved into them, others were blank.

  "Catacombs," Skelly said.

  I walked slowly, running my hand along the stone. Further in, we found chambers filled with stone coffins. Dozens of them, arranged in rows. Most were simple stone, but a few were ornate, carved with symbols and spirals.

  We moved deeper, and the layout shifted. The passage opened into a large circular chamber. "What is this place?" I asked, stepping forward carefully.

  "I don't know," Skelly said. "I've never been able to open any of the doors."

  The floor was engraved with a massive symbol—spirals and stars, all converging on the center of the chamber. The wall was lined with iron doors. Nine of them evenly spaced around the chamber. Each one contained a different glowing rune. Each rune glowed a different color. Blue, teal, green, gold, red, violet, white, black, and one that seemed to shift colors.

  To my surprise I couldn’t read what the runes meant. That made me wonder what could be behind the doors even more. There didn’t appear to be any handles or any obvious way of opening them.

  I approached the closest door—the one with the glowing blue rune—and placed my hand against it. The rune flared brighter as heat rushed through my hand, then dimmed again. The door stayed shut.

  "Can you read what these runes mean?" I asked Vasil.

  Vasil looked up at the rune. "I cannot."

  “Me neither.” I shook my head, intrigued. “So the System does not believe they are a language. Or maybe they are, but not one [Omniglot] recognizes. Is that even possible? Don’t symbols count as language?”

  “A good question,” Vasil said as he hopped from door to door, inspecting them. “But one I do not have the answer to.”

  I turned slowly, taking in all nine doors. Why would anyone create something like this? And why nine of them? Were they all connected, or did each one hold something different? The runes were all unique. And the floor beneath my feet, that massive spiral converging on the center. What did it mean? Was it part of a ritual? A seal? A warning?

  “Any idea what’s behind them?”

  Vasil looked thoughtful. "Maybe something they wanted to keep contained. Or perhaps something precious they wanted to protect. Whatever it was it looks like they went through a lot of trouble to keep these doors from opening."

  I nodded slowly, still staring at the doors. Whatever was behind them, I'd find a way in here as well. Eventually.

  We moved away from the chamber into a section lined with cells. Empty, barred rooms with rusted chains hanging from the walls. One of the cells still had bones in it—a skeleton slumped against the back wall, wrists still shackled.

  I nodded at Skelly. "Friend of yours?"

  He peered into the cell. "Oh! No, no. I don’t think."

  The skeleton's bones were old. Whoever they'd been, they'd died a long time ago.

  We kept walking.

  At the far end of the level, we found another staircase. This one descended into darkness. I leaned over the edge and looked down to find only water. Black, still water, reflecting nothing. Even the glow from the Luminary bracelet couldn’t pierce it.

  "Level three," Skelly said. "It's been flooded since I woke up. I don't know what's down there."

  I stared into the black water. A single bubble rose to the surface and popped. I watched for more, but nothing came.

  For a second I considered tossing Vasil in to check it out, but... no. He'd been pretty helpful. That would be rude. Besides, whatever was down there wasn't going anywhere. Might not even be anything worthwhile.

  I turned and looked back the way we'd come. I thought about the library, the quarters, the circular chamber with its locked doors, the flooded staircase leading to gods-knew-what. All of it had belonged to Bies once. Now it was mine.

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