"Fine…" Katja groaned. "Well help you."

"Very good slave." The mistress said. "Now, let us hurry and get to the temple without delay. As unlikely as it sounds the priest may eventually detect my magic, and realize something is wrong. Now, I assume you have some sort of a plan."

"Not really…" Katja said, pocking her head cautiously out the door of the ruined building. "I'm still working on one. Ok," she said, ducking back inside. "There are three cultists heading towards us. I don't think they know we've gotten free."

She backed up against the wall next to the door and gestured for Thrycia and the Mistress to do the same. A second later, a trio of young cultists entered the building. Behind their masks, the girls' eyes widened for a fraction of a second in surprise as they saw the captives were gone.

Nadia, controlled by the mistress, grinned and spoke a word of power. In an
instant, the three cultists fell to the ground, unconscious, like puppets with their strings cut. Katja hurried forward and quickly stripped the three unconscious women.

Beside their masks and kilts, the three had bronze short swords belted at their sides. One of them carried a small razor sharp obsidian dagger. Katja gulped, remembering what Nadia said about how sacrificial victims were silenced for the ritual. It seemed they'd escaped just in time.

"I see you haven't learned any manners since you left, slave." The mistress said, almost petulantly. Katja ignored her, putting on one of the kilts and belting the sword to her side. She was uncomfortably reminded that they hadn't escaped, only traded one horrifying fate for another, hopefully better one. Katja slipped on a mask painted to resemble a snarling panther.

Thrycia and the mistress also put on their disguises. As Katja was just wondering what to do with the three captives, the mistress mumbled something that was muffled by the demons-face mask she was wearing. Shadows enveloped the three cultists, who disappeared.

"What did you do with them?" Thrycia said. "Where did you send them?"

"Here." The mistress said, speaking through Nadia from her manor, hundreds of miles away. "You three won't be the only new slaves I'll get tonight. Now, let us hurry, before someone notices these three haven't delivered us to the temple."

Katja shrugged. The three of them hurried outside, into the rapidly growing shadows of dusk. Despite her worries and misgivings, none of the cultists hurrying about through the ruins gave the three of them a second glance, intent on their tasks. Everywhere, the cultists were shambling back and forth, silent,
compelled by an unseen will.

She saw men and women drilling with spears and wicker shields between the ruined columns of a long gone temple. Nearby, several pairs of female cultists, nude save for their masks, wrestled and fought with wooden training daggers.  Through the ruined doorway of an old stone storage building, a large, fat man wearing a mask like a bullfrog was tallying up sacks of grain and jars on a wet clay tablet.

Things were going so well, Katja was actually taken by surprise when a pair of cultists tried to stop them as they reached the steps of the pyramid. "Grah'tha!!! Jo Kai Nok Garu!" The man said, gesturing at the three of them. Katja had no idea what he was saying; he was speaking one of the local peasant tongues. Despite that, it was obvious from his gestures what he meant. They weren't allowed near the ziggurat.

Katja glanced over at the mistress. She shrugged and raised her hands apologetically. No magic here. Katja sighed. It looked like she'd have to do this the hard way. She glanced around. There didn't seem to be anyone looking. The bulk of the black pyramid concealed them from the rest of the cultists.

Katja spread her hands conciliatorily, stepping towards the man. All of a sudden, she sprang forwards and grabbed his head, yanking it down, hard. It met her knee on its way up. Before the man could even think of struggling, Katja had one arm around his neck. She held tight until he slumped to the ground.

To Katja's right, the man's partner began to fumble for her sword. It was caught in the cloth belt holding her kilt up. In a flash, Thrycia was behind her, holding her bronze short sword to the girl's throat. Katja saw the girl's eyes widen with fear. She babbled something hurriedly in her own tongue.

To Katja's surprise, Thrycia answered her in the same language. The elf glanced up. "She says not to kill her. She says she will do whatever we tell her to."

"Wait!" Katja said. "I didn't know you could speak their language. You could have talked out way out of this!"

"I was following your lead…" Thrycia said. "Besides, I doubt my command of the local language would have convinced them. The last time I came through here was several decades ago, so my knowledge of the local slang is somewhat out of date. It's close enough to communicate but…" she shrugged. "Now, I think it would be good to get inside the temple before someone sees us."

Katja glanced around, remembering suddenly they were still in the middle of the cultist's camp. Fortunately, no one had heard the short scuffle. Keeping her blade pressed against their captive's throat, Thrycia marched the girl up the stairs of the ziggurat and into a side entrance.  

A short ways into the black structure, they found a side chamber to hide their prisoner and slipped in. Thrycia conversed with the cultist in the strange language, while Katja walked over to the mistress. "What were you doing back there?" She said. 'We could have used a little magic."

"Not this close to the temple." The mistress replied. "I can sense the priest. He's here, very close. It's taking a fair bit of work to keep him from noticing me too. This kind of long range control spell is very hard to conceal from one with the sight."

Katja grimaced. "I thought we were here to stop the priest?" She said. "Why does it matter whether or not he knows you're here?"

"Because, slave," The mistress said. "He happens to have a small army at his command, in case you'd forgotten. I'd rather have the advantage of surprise and take him out before he can call for help. Or do you think you can hold off an entire army while I fight the priest."

"Fair enough." Katja said throwing up her arms. She turned to Thrycia. The elf had stripped off the girl's mask, revealing a pretty face framed with short, dirty blonde hair, eyes wide with fear. Thrycia had stripped the girl's kilt off and was cutting it into strips to bind and gag the girl with her sword.

"She says she was kidnapped from her home several months ago." Thrycia replied. "She and several other captives that were "rejected" for sacrifice were instead forced to join the cult. I believe she has some magic talent to her. The priest's magic hasn't affected her as much as the rest of the cultists."

"That's not the work of the priest." The mistress said. "Mind Control takes finesse. Something which an amateur like he wouldn't have." Katja frowned, remembering the "finesse" the mistress had used trying to brainwash her and Thrycia. "I'll have to come back for this little jewel, after we're done here of course. I've been in need of a new apprentice for some time. I'm afraid I had to send my last apprentice to the dungeons for letting you three steal one of my magic tomes. I should probably let her out soon…"

Katja ignored the mistress and turned back to Thrycia. "Anything else?" she asked.

"She says the priest is planning a ceremony deep in the ziggurat to take place at midnight." Thrycia replied, tying the girl's cleave gag on tight. The captive cultist groaned miserably into her gag, her moans barely a whisper. "She doesn't know what they're trying to do, but it involves 'opening' something."

"Great." Katja said. "Then we don't have much time to stop him, before he dooms the world…"

Leaving their struggling captive behind, the three women hurried deeper into the pyramid. The corridors twisted and turned almost at random. It reminded Katja almost of the Mistress' Manor. Despite the maze, the mistress hurried forward with surety, as if she knew the way by heart.

As they neared the center of the ziggurat, a dread began to grow inside Katja. She could feel the evil, malevolent presence of the pyramid inside her, getting stronger and stronger. The passage way suddenly opened up on either side of them, into a large chamber and…


Katja found herself standing on a long staircase near the top of a huge ziggurat towering over the houses of the nobles and the mud dwellings of the peasants and slaves far below. She was no longer wearing her old clothes, in fact, she had on no clothes at all, only the ceremonial markings daubed onto her naked skin with white clay. She realized her hands had been bound behind her back with rough rope, her legs hobbled to keep her from running.

She turned and looked down the side of the ziggurat. A long line of women, their hands bound, naked save for the markings of sacrifice, stood in a line behind her, stretching down the side of the pyramid and into the city, captives from another city-state captured in the long war that had plagued the land for two centuries as town after town fell to the undying one.

Across the top of the ziggurat, she could see another line of male sacrifices as well. Guards, male and female in their respective lines, stood at intervals along the lines of sacrifices, keeping them in line and moving.

She suddenly heard an anguished scream that suddenly cut off. Another, higher pitches scream followed it, and was also cut off suddenly. A moment later, a pair of female cultists stepped forward and grabbed the older woman in front of Katja from the line. The woman kicked and struggled as she was dragged forward roughly by the two cultists. Strange groans came out of the woman's mouth, she couldn't speak.

Katja grunted something in fright, her words garbled into a meaningless grunt. Katja groaned as she realized her tongue was gone. It had been cut out sometime ago. Her mouth felt oddly empty without it.    

At the top of the pyramid in front of Katja, a pair of black stone altars stood. On the one before her, the struggling female captive was stretched out over the altar, held down by a pair of naked female acolytes. Blood fountained up from the sacrifice's chest as the high priestess cut out the woman's heart. Blood flowed over the top of the pyramid, and down the sides, staining the stones a bright crimson.

Like her acolytes, the high priestess wore no clothes, save for a large golden mask, crafted in the likeness of one of the demons below. Blood covered over all three from the neck down in a hellish paint.

On the other side of the ziggurat, a man was having his heart cut out by the high priest and two male acolytes, garbed like the priestess in nothing but blood and golden masks. As Katja watched in horror, the high priest and priestess carried their, still faintly beating hearts, to the center of the pyramid, where on a high throne, sat the demon made flesh, the one who had defied death. The necromancer himself.

The priest and priestess knelt before their master who sat shrouded in darkness, chanting prayers loudly and lay the dead hearts at the base of the throne where they joined the pile of hearts already there. The dark one stretched forward one hand, drawing in the souls of the recently slain sacrifices, absorbing them into himself.  

As they did this, the acolytes lifted the body of the dead woman off the altar and handed it to a pair of apprentices. The young girls carried the body down the side of the pyramid to be thrown to the beasts of the deep, as two more apprentices took their place, ready for the next sacrifice.

The high priestess returned to the altar. She spoke something that Katja couldn't understand, and yet understood perfectly at the same time. "Bring forth the next sacrifice!"

The acolytes advanced to where Katja stood, trembling, and grabbed her arms and legs. She struggled as they carried her over to the altar. Behind her, the guards pushed the line of sacrifices forward another step. One step closer to their dooms.

Katja was laid across the altar, the acolytes on either end holding her shoulders and feet despite her struggles. She cried out, fearfully, as the acolytes pulled down, forcing Katja to arch her back, thrusting her chest up, ready to be cut open.

The high priestess walked over, chanting in words Katja again both understood and had never heard before. The priestess raised her blood stained stone knife high, ready to plunge it into the chest of the struggling, pleading girl beneath her.

The knife dropped…


…Katja sat up, gasping for breath, Her heart thudded within her chest, almost as if she had been stabbed. Sweat covered her body. Thrycia knelt over her. "Calm down, Katja!" The elf said, hurriedly. "Breath. That's it."

"I saw…visions…" Katja gasped. "I was on a temple about to be sacrificed. What was that?" She asked.

"A memory." Thrycia said. "This place has seen a lot of blood and suffering. And someone remembers."

"Where's Nadia?" Katja asked.

"The mistress went on ahead. The priest is nearby." Thrycia said.

Katja groaned, sitting up. The visions had seemed so real… She wondered what
would have happened if she hadn't woken up before she knife had struck. Part of her was glad she didn't know the answer to that question. The elf and woman hurried forward, clutching their short swords. Ahead of them, the sounds of an intense battle raged on…