Yellow Turbans

The stench of Gran-Devana’s sewers spread through narrow canals.

Daniel carried a thaumaturgic lantern as he walked beside Sallustia and Gupta. The gloomy environment made each breath feel heavier, every step echoing against the stone walls coated with slime.

Before descending into that foul darkness, Thanatos had departed back to Tinuso, seeking more information about Madame Umbra from the fortress administrator.

“Are you sure about this?” Gupta asked, wrinkling his nose as he nearly stepped into a puddle of filthy water teeming with rats. “Going into these tunnels without knowing how far they stretch?”

“There’s no choice” Daniel replied, his voice lower and heavier than usual. “The Crypt wasn’t built conventionally. It expanded, layer upon layer, like a scab beneath the city.”

Sallustia walked ahead. Sweat ran down her face, but she showed no fatigue — only constant vigilance.

The narrow tunnel suddenly opened into a subterranean hall, where irregular stone columns supported a ceiling so low it seemed ready to collapse. The smell changed: no longer just sewage, but incense and burnt flesh.

The contrast made Gupta cough and cover his mouth.

“They’re close” Daniel whispered, lowering the lantern further.

The walls were covered in runes half-erased by time. Some glowed faintly, flickering in a slow rhythm. Moisture hung in the air, and a steady dripping echoed like distorted whispers.

They pressed on through corridors branching into smooth stone passages. Daniel touched one of the walls, then immediately withdrew his hand: the surface was unnaturally cold, sending a violent shiver through him.

“This isn’t natural” he murmured. “Residual Thaumaturgy. Someone has been trading heat for power…”

Sallustia said nothing.

The passages soon opened into a subterranean square, perhaps once part of an ancient city swallowed by Gran-Devena’s foundations. Broken arches, stairways leading nowhere, and building facades covered in white fungus gave the impression of a petrified nightmare.

The sound of drums reverberated in the distance, muffled but steady.

“Do you hear that?” Daniel asked quietly.

Both nodded.

“What do you think the Swords want here?” Gupta whispered back. “The witch at the coliseum was already powerful without them risking this profane place.”

“I don’t know…”

They followed the sound until they reached a stone balcony overlooking a lower chamber. The scene below was grotesque —not for what was seen, but for the wrongness it stirred.

About a dozen men in ochre robes, yellow turbans wrapped around their heads, circled a crimson pattern painted on the floor. In the center, three people lay bound across the stone slabs.

No blood was visible.

What emanated from them was worse: a bizarre impression of dislocation, as if every word chanted by the occultists opened invisible fissures in the air.

Gupta clutched his chest, staggering.

“This… this isn’t… what the hell is happening?”

Sallustia covered her mouth with her hand.

“It isn’t… a song.”

Daniel kept his eyes fixed on the circle. The occultists chanted in unison, and each syllable echoed inside his skull, tangling thoughts, blending memories with sudden hallucinations.

For an instant, he swore he saw his sister’s face among the robes, smiling. The next moment, the vision dissolved.

The air was stagnant. At times, it burned, as if they had stepped into a furnace; moments later, it froze so sharply the bones ached. A metallic taste flooded their mouths, invasive, while the odor shifted every second: rot, ash, human sweat.

“They’re trying to open a channel” Daniel muttered, recalling the day he had first arrived in Ordinem Finis. “To… bring something through?”

Sallustia shook her head.

“To draw the attention of what’s on the other side.”

Gupta staggered back.

“And if that ‘other side’ answers?”

“Then we won’t leave this crypt alive” Grace answered without hesitation.

Sallustia didn’t wait.

She descended the steps two at a time, her footsteps echoing with the rhythm of the drums. The men in yellow turbans didn’t move immediately; instead, their voices rose, and reality seemed to shudder.

Daniel rushed after her, the lantern flickering wildly as though an invisible wind sought to snuff out its thaumaturgic light. The bound victims began convulsing, their limbs tugged by unseen force into unnatural, opposing angles.

Gupta hesitated, then followed, adjusting his alchemical preparations for the chaos to come.

The occultists were unarmed, yet when they raised their hands, they looked deadly. Every gesture left trails of greenish light in the air, shadows twisting into the shapes of writhing tendrils.

One advanced on Sallustia with a scream so shrill it forced her back a step. The old man’s skin was carved with deep furrows, as if time had clawed at his face with filthy nails. His eyes were milky, yet reflected a moist gleam — something alive inside a corpse.

The slave-paladin raised her right hand, the surrounding air distorting. Black chains materialized, binding a colossal blade etched with purple flames. When the form completed, she struck the occultist with a sweeping cut.

The black blade never met flesh. The figure before her dissolved like smoke on impact.

“Some have already been consumed!” Daniel shouted, forcing his voice against the deafening hum inside his head.

Another of the yellow turbans raised his hands, and Gupta was hurled against the wall by an invisible force. The impact echoed in a dull crack.

“I’m fine!” he shouted, though his tone betrayed the lie.

Daniel advanced toward the circle, the pressure mounting with every step — far stronger than anything Madame Umbra had conjured. He struck the stone with his cane, trying to disrupt the Focus. But the three prisoners screamed, expelling dark vapor from their mouths.

The men in turbans roared in unison, but the circle did not break. Sallustia took the chance to strike another down, smashing his head against the ground with the sword’s guard.

The ritual was not over.

Gupta began laughing uncontrollably.

The Turbans’ eyes, now motionless, showed neither ecstasy nor fear. The hall itself seemed larger, as though the walls had retreated by several meters.

It was absence. And a presence.

A latent horror.

Sallustia seized the alchemist by the arm, dragging him out of his stupor.

“Grace…” she said, never taking her eyes off the occultists. “What are we facing?”

He delayed his reply, his throat dry.

“Run!”

The ritual had left a trail that could guide worse things to the surface, but there was nothing they could do to stop it. Daniel glanced at the captives. They were still breathing.

He shut his eyes, thinking of those lives, so near to being lost in the dark. Then he ran.

The Crypt was watching. Daniel took the lead, Sallustia and Gupta at his heels.

They hurried up the steps. Behind them, the yellow turbans remained motionless, statues of flesh with eyes fixed on a horizon that didn’t exist.

When they crossed the subterranean square again, Daniel shivered. The air felt lighter.

And two figures suddenly blocked their path.