Malevolence (AKA, Evil Juice, let’s not get too reverent here)

Citing mythology, Paul’s second action after the three descended the stairs, besides grabbing a lit torch off the wall, was finding the heaviest loose rock in the immediate vicinity and tying one end of the spool of rope he carried to it, before letting the line run free to mark their path.

“This is my escape route,” he explained with stony graveness. “I am not getting lost if we wind up running for our lives from whatever mutant-hyper-murder-bear is going to turn up, mark my words.”

“You mean ‘escape rope’?” Bao joked while following behind the gray-haired man.

“A what? What’s an escape rope?”

“Oh god, Paul, and you criticise fantasy stories.”

“Go sit on your stupid evil talking stick.”

“Are we actually inspecting all this? Seems like people have been here plenty already,” Trudy noted sceptically, holding the torch aloft after it was passed to her. Wherever she pointed her burning tool, it indeed appeared that the underbelly of the ruins looked clean, as if people had already cleared away whatever rubble had been present. In their place, braziers helped keep parts of the basement lit, if only to show that it had been checked and approved.

It piqued Paul’s curiosity, too, though he wasn’t sure what it meant.

“We just want to see if the Menace’s evil stuff is actually real, before running for our lives to the experts. This job is just an excuse, even if we’ll get paid afterwards.”

“Looks like whoever used to live here knocked down a few of the walls to get into the other basements nearby,” Bao observed, staring into one particular hole that had been propped open with beams.

The three continued to pay lip service to their job, though as they continued, Trudy’s statement kept ringing true – it was a strangely redundant task, as it seemed every basement in these ruins had been explored and lit.

Even Paul was wondering if it was time to give up and return upstairs with an equally vapid excuse of finishing their job when he noticed one corner of the expansive subterranean chamber had another fissure in the brick wall, and whatever was on the other side was obscured by a deep, nigh-impenetrable darkness.

As the three gathered about the tear in the wall, Trudy thrust her torch forward and saw that it continued on into a dirt tunnel that was propped up haphazardly with more beams, and without any further illumination.

It was clearly man-made, unsafe, and yet still somehow incognito despite all the bluster above about worker safety.

“Oh, and I suppose no one ever reported this,” Trudy sniffed derisively.

It took a moment for Paul to understand what upset her so, but soon enough his eyes narrowed in realization. “Yeah, something about this operation is rotten. But we don’t have any proof.”

Bao looked at them, but shook his head and firmed his resolve. “I’m not sure I follow, but if we’re here to find that proof, and it’s down there, then let’s go.”

That was how the redhead found himself sandwiched between Trudy, who was leading the way, and Paul, who was still busy laying a rope behind him, while explicating.

“Trudy said something about how Liev stank. How eager he was to get us this job. Then I started talking with the other workers, and there might be people disappearing here. Just no one’s sure because so many people cycle in through this job thanks to the high pay, no one’s sure where anyone’s gone when a day’s done. Something about that foreman is also weird. He didn’t bother giving us any familiarisation, just marched us down here… and I got a feeling that he’s just waiting for us to ‘inspect’ this tunnel.”

“Think there’s something on the other side?”

“Well, I can only pray it’s not some murder-bear.”

The dirt under their feet began hardening and fading away into molded stone, and when Trudy lifted a torch, her light showed that the three of them had emerged into some underground cavern filled with stalactites and stalagmites that shone under the light’s reflection in a way far too disconcertingly like the wet fangs of a beast, whose mouth they hoped they weren’t standing in, figuratively or literally.

Paul blinked uncomprehendingly, murmuring in subdued bafflement. “What the hell is this? Any of this?”

Trudy gave a full body shiver that made the fire in her hand warble. “We’re close to whatever I felt. This place sucks.”

“Maybe we should back out,” Bao suggested with a quick glance over his shoulder, and momentarily brushed his mind against wherever his talisman-decorated rod was, still whispering for bloodshed. Even so, Trudy shook her head firmly.

“Not until I at least see a glimpse of our problem. I want to be sure this is the place.”

Then, somewhere in the cavern, a frail voice wheezed out.

“Hey, is there someone out there!? Help us!”

Paul rolled his eyes. “What, do anglerfish talk now?”

Bao, however, was more divided by the echoed pleading, “I don’t know, I think there’s someone actually in there…”

Trudy had already found a natural ramp downwards, and was shouting back while keeping the torch raised high. “Where are you!? Call back! I’m coming!”

Paul gave one more groan under his breath, but continued following after them without further complaint as he kept unspooling his rope. “I swear, if I’m being taken in, I will never forgive either of you…”

Distant, frail voices and a winding path led them into a natural depression in the lightless cave, and it was here to a fresh rush of alarm that they found signs of habitation. There were chairs. There were desks. There were piles of books.

And off to the side, a cage full of men and women who shied away from what might have been the first light they had seen in who knew how long. They were thin, pale, and their clothes were seemingly ready for a day’s labour.

One of them still had enough energy to grasp the bars and look pleadingly at them with wet eyes.

Trudy was before him in moments, her hand on his as she whispered quickly but calmly. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out.”

“Thank the Spirits, they must have heard me,” the man nearly sobbed. “Please, you gotta get us out, they’re feeding us to the Malevolence, please, I don’t want to die like that!”

The magic word. Trudy, Paul, and Bao had no illusion about what that was referencing. They had felt it over and over since their first awakening, as miasma suffusing a dead fortress, and dreams and visions of seething illness. Malevolence.

“The Malevolence is here?” Trudy said.

Then Paul answered.

“Uh, Trudy, it’s right here.”

The woman swirled around, partially out of shock. She knew the itching of her teeth had meant something, but she had no idea–

Paul was looking up, as was Bao, and hesitantly, she followed their gaze.

The roof of the cave was radiant with a strange, fell light, filling the chamber with a dim violet glow, and it all emanated from what could only be described as a tumour, with sickly strands stretching out between the hanging stalactites.

The glow was so strong the torch in Trudy’s hand couldn’t even burn orange in response. She couldn’t even feel the heat. All they felt was… a connection. Like wires dangling down from above, invisible.

“Crap,” she agreed.

“You know – one can only tolerate the opinions and appellations of the ignorant for so long before they become exceptionally tiresome.”

It was a most peculiar, most sarcastic sight that intruded upon them next, forcing them to all look at the far end of the converted living space, where a man had been sitting on a table almost casually, amid his books. His pants and shirt and bookish vest made him seem almost unthreatening, had it not been the addition of a black sack he had worn over his head, eyeholes carved into the fabric that seemed almost absurd to be threatened by… but nonetheless seemed to do something to taint whatever humanity he possessed. It was as though an empty void now sat where a head should have been, illuminated only by a faint glimmer of something darker still.

“Malevolence,” the masked man spat in venomous derision. “Pah! That’s the term used by people who are afraid. Sycophants who spend every day of their lives depending on the Spirit energy this world breathes, and the Spirits that come from it. Malevolence – Astral energy – should be something to use, not fear.”

“Well, you’re doing a bang up job convincing us,” Paul sneered back. “I’m sure just chucking people into that big pimple up there or whatever you do is really going to advance research into it. Oh wait, sounds like bad science and ego-tripping, so you’re just an idiot.”

The insult seemed to have struck, given the way the eyes under the hood glowed a sickly purple for a second, before he slowly slid off the table and onto his feet, while he grabbed a staff next to him, which also throbbed with seething, glowing cracks.

“This is an important sample, and its longevity is more important than the lives of some vagrants wandering about.” Emphatically, the man slammed the butt of the staff on the floor, a dull echo reverberating off the walls of the chamber. “I can tell you have no respect for the price progress requires.”

“Well, feed yourself to it,” Paul shot back, slowly backing towards the cage full of captives. “I think we’re gonna do a little rescuing, and then leave. And if you try to stop us-”

“I think we're going to stop you.”

It was the sound of stereo footfalls that made Paul’s heart sink, as he turned to look at the ramp of the cave and saw a crowd of similarly masked men and women descend. They all looked so casual, like their spokesman. Simple dresses, and plain shirts. Yet whatever warmth they had above ground, it was shrouded in a sea of suffocating sackcloths, rendered ice-cold by their unflinching stares, hollow and fanatical.

One of them held up Paul’s escape line, now completely piled in a bundle in his arms.

“Liev was right,” the leader dryly observed. “There is something about you three that feels… elevated. It is true that, by whatever means, you may have a connection to this Astral -- but you clearly aren’t one of us. Whatever you have, it’ll be better served being fed to our little project above you.”

Paul could feel the adrenaline beginning to spike in his body as he saw the crowd arrayed before him, advancing with naked murderous intent. Next to him, he saw Trudy’s hands tighten around the torch, while Bao more blatantly called upon his “superpower” to bring out his beating stick.

Bao barked back, ever defiant. “Ah, screw you! We’ve dealt with worse!”

In response, the three could hear a symphony of drawn steel as weapons were let loose from sheaths, and all around them they felt the pressure of the Malevolence begin to warble and boil, as if deciding which side to choose.

The masked man laughed.

“Don’t worry, struggling helps.”