He was majestic, clad in armor forged from the coagulated lifeblood of ancient leviathans, compressed into plates of jagged, resinous crimson, a cape of shifting shadow flowing from his shoulders like liquid night.
A crown of living blood sat upon his brow, the crimson liquid roiling and reshaping itself. One moment a wreath of thorns, the next a circlet of jagged spikes, always changing, yet always retaining a brutal, regal geometry.
But it was his presence that filled the room, a suffocating aura of absolute dominion.
He wasn't alone. Floating before him was the Tome of Sanguination. In this time, it was Sanguis-Sarkomand, a construct of flesh-bound vellum and weeping ink, pulsing with a heartbeat that shook the room.
Vladar looked at the grimoire with disdain. "My followers graze on my power like cattle," he boomed. "They rally behind me, but in my absence, they are hollow. I cannot be the sole pillar of the Sangrathi forever."
The giant, sentient Tome rumbled a response, but Vladar raised a hand, silencing it.
"They take for granted what I have spent millennia building. The blood I spilled. The lost knowledge I tore from the void to craft you."
Vladar stepped down from his dais, pacing around the massive floating grimoire.
"Let us test them," Vladar declared, his eyes burning with cold ambition. "We shall see if the Sangrathi are predators or prey."
He stopped before the Tome, placing a hand on its heaving cover.
"I will bind my essence into you, and leave the Underworld to them. But..." Vladar leaned in, his voice dropping to a tone of command. "Watch them from the aether, Sanguis. Judge them. If they fail, and the light of our people flickers out... find a survivor."
He pressed his hand harder against the cover, pounding waves of crimson light bled from his palm into the leather.
"I entrust the seed of dominion to you. Carry it into the void. When you find a remnant worthy of the legacy, one with enough hate to endure the binding, grant it to them."
Vladar's voice dropped to a dangerous whisper.
"Sow a curse into their veins. Let it sleep within them. They will be immune, unaware of the weapon they have become. But the moment their heart stops... the moment they fall... let the seal break. Let the curse spill from their veins to infect those that would see us destroyed, turning them into empty vessels waiting for a master."
"This curse... it requires a will of iron to leash. If the survivor is weak... if they cannot bend it to their command... then let the plague consume them along with the rest."
Vladar straightened.
"If the Sangrathi cannot rule the Underworld, then I will ensure there is no realm left for our enemies to occupy. We rule, or we ruin."
The crimson mist swirled as Vladar poured his very essence into the grimoire.
"Hear this final command, Sanguis. You are bound to the blood. If the vessel is slain before the work is finished... if any hand but a Sangrathi dares to claim you..."
The giant Tome rumbled, its pages shivering.
"Then you will unmake yourself," Vladar commanded, his voice shaking the void. "Burn the knowledge. Shatter the bindings. Return to the aether. I will not have my life's work serve a scavenger."
The Tome dropped from the air like a dead weight after the mist vanished without warning. Caldreth lunged forward to catch it before it hit the ground.
Velcryn stared at the spot where the projection had faded, and his skeletal jaw went slack. The arrogance was gone, replaced by genuine surprise.
"Vladar... he vanished on purpose," the lich whispered, the concept bizarre to him. "He... stepped aside. All that power, the Underworld could have been his."
"To test the species," Myrrakhael rasped, turning his gaze toward Caldreth. The hunger in the lich's sockets had shifted into something sharper: appraisal. "He let his empire burn to ash just to see if anything would crawl out of the kiln. A brutal leader indeed."
Caldreth looked down at the Tome in his hands. The leather was warm, pulsing with a faint, rhythmic beat against his palm. The wound the Tome had torn open was still bleeding.
"A survivor," Caldreth whispered, realizing the cruelty of the vision. He ran his thumb over the spine of the Tome. The cover fell open to a blank page, where fresh crimson ink boiled to the surface, forming words that seared themselves into his mind.
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Covenant of Blood: Sealed
Anchor: Caldreth
Law: If the Vessel breaks, the knowledge burns. Death triggers the unmaking of the Tome of Sanguination.
He thought back to its first entry: To return is to become whole, seek Shatterdeep.
As the name crossed his mind, a sensation returned with a vengeance. It was a physical hook buried deep in his chest, tugging him east with a magnetic violence that nearly made him stumble. The destination wasn't just a place; it was a missing piece of his own soul screaming to be reattached.
He thought of the cursed and what Velcryn had said, that they had dug the liches out because they were desperate for a master, starving for direction.
"I can't control it," Caldreth murmured, his eyes widening in realization. "Not yet. The Tome hasn't given me that power because I haven't earned it."
"A second layer to the trial," Velcryn mused, drifting closer, his interest piqued. "He leaves an army, but locks the command behind a test of will. If you are weak, the curse consumes you. If you are strong..."
Caldreth looked at his hand again, clenching it into a fist.
"If I am strong," Caldreth finished, a cold confidence rising in his chest, "then I don't just survive them. I lead them."
Velcryn's sockets flared brighter. The Lich floated a circle around Caldreth, inspecting him not as a person, but as an anomaly.
"A curse," Velcryn whispered. "The fundamental law of curses is that they are tethered to their origin. If the curse flows from you, then it evolves with you. You wouldn't just be forcing your will upon them like a beast-tamer; you could fundamentally alter their nature. You could sharpen their claws, thicken their hides... create an infectious legion that grows deadlier with every breath you take."
The lich stopped in front of Caldreth, a greedy rasp escaping his throat. "That is... exquisite design."
Myrrakhael didn't just agree. He began to shake. A low, gurgling sound bubbled up from his chest, escalating into a cackle that bounced off the stone walls.
He threw his skeletal arms wide. The braziers roared into pillars of emerald flame, casting frantic, dancing shadows against the vaulted ceiling.
"Genius!" Myrrakhael howled, the sound bordering on religious ecstasy. "Do you see it, brother? He didn't just build a kingdom; he cultivated a garden! A self-sustaining ecosystem of war!"
The lich spun in the air, the green fire trailing like ribbons.
"To weaponize the very concept of plague, to turn a chaotic infection into a dormant army waiting for a king." Myrrakhael looked down at Caldreth, his sockets blazing with a fanatical reverence. "Vladar was not a mere conqueror. He was an artist! Truly the greatest Sanguimancer to ever walk the Underworld!"
Velcryn watched his brother's display with a cool, calculating patience, waiting for the flames to settle before turning back to Caldreth.
"My brother is enthusiastic," Velcryn noted, unamused. "But he is correct. The potential is limitless."
Caldreth met the lich's gaze. The hollow terror that had dogged him since the crypt was gone, incinerated by the vision of the throne room. In its place settled a cold, crystalline clarity. He felt the old instincts bleeding back in, the ruthless pragmatism of a species raised to rule the dark.
He assessed the liches not as monsters, but as pieces on a board that had just been reset.
"Limitless," Caldreth agreed, his voice steady. "Vladar left the weapon. He left the instructions. But a weapon needs a hand, and an army needs a general."
He looked between the two ancient undead, his red eyes narrowing in calculation.
"We all want something. We do not need to be enemies when we can be architects."
Velcryn stopped. The blue lights in his sockets narrowed.
"Architects?" Velcryn rasped, the word dripping with amusement. "You speak as if you are sitting at the table, boy. You are the meal, not the guest."
"We do not partner with meat," Myrrakhael giggled, drifting closer, his green fire flaring. "We utilize it. Why should we negotiate terms with a fledgling when we can shatter your legs, chain you in a crypt, and extract the secrets from your mind layer by layer?"
Caldreth stood his ground, his mind racing to find a counterargument to their brute force.
They are arrogant, Caldreth thought. They think they can take it.
"You could try," Caldreth said, his voice dropping to a dangerous calm. "But you cannot extract what is not there. Even I don't know this Tome's secrets yet. They have yet to be revealed."
Suddenly, the Tome at his side screamed.
A spike of agony that drove itself into Caldreth's side. He gasped, his composure cracking for a split second under the assault.
Fool, the voice in his head hissed. It sounded like tearing metal.
"I..." Caldreth gritted his teeth, forcing the pain down.
They are dead things, the Tome snarled, burning him again. They respect only leverage.
The pain was clarifying. It burned away the diplomatic veneer, leaving the ruthless core exposed. The Tome was right. He was trying to treat them like allies. He needed to treat them like hostages.
Tell them, the Tome commanded. You are the lock. And you are glass.
Caldreth straightened up, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his brow. The pain faded, leaving his mind razor-sharp.
He looked at Velcryn, and a cold, thin smile touched his lips.
"You could chain me," Caldreth said, his voice hollower now, resonating with the Tome's authority. "You could break my legs. But you heard the Law. If the Vessel breaks, the knowledge burns."
He grabbed the Tome and held it up, not as an offering, but as a threat.
"Torture me, and the mind snaps. The Tome vanishes. And you are left with an eternity of regret."
Velcryn hissed, the frost around him spiking. "You dare threaten us with your own fragility?"
"I dare to state the price," Caldreth countered, stepping closer to the freezing aura of the lich. "You want the curse. But you can't decode it. Only I can."
He gestured to the map of the Wastes on the table with a dismissive wave.
"So you have a choice. You can have a prisoner and nothing else. Or..."
He pointed a finger at the map.
"You can have a war."
Myrrakhael floated closer, green fire flickering with confusion. "War?"
"Shatterdeep," Caldreth declared. "It belongs to the Sangrathi, which means it belongs to me. I need the demons gone. Help me break the walls. You get the corpses of every demon we slaughter for your ranks, and when the secrets of the curse reveal themselves..."
Caldreth tightened his grip on the Tome, his eyes locking with Velcryn's.
"You will have your curse."
The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.
Velcryn stared at him, the glacial blue lights of his sockets contracting. He looked at the Tome, then at the man holding it. He seemed to sense the shift, the moment the fledgling stopped trying to be a diplomat and started negotiating like a Sangrathi.
"A deadlock," Velcryn rasped, the sound like a coffin lid sliding shut. "Vladar protects his secrets even from the grave."
The lich drifted back, the hostility cooling into a pragmatic calculation.
"Very well, survivor. We do not care for the fortress. We accept the offering of the dead."
"Then we have an accord?" Caldreth asked, his voice steady, expecting nothing less.
"We have a temporary alignment," Velcryn corrected. "We will clear your path to the throne of Shatterdeep. But know this... if you fail to unlock the secrets, or if you try to cheat us..."
"Then I die," Caldreth finished, the Tome's heat finally receding. "And the secrets burn. So it is in your best interest to keep me alive."
Myrrakhael let out a wet, gurgling cackle. "He learns fast, brother. I like him."
