I lay, half blind, completely deaf and sorely wishin' I was a few steps closer to dead.

  My fancy clothing recovered long before I did. The enchanted threats of my coat, shirt, and trousers stitched and cleaned itself as I was busy moanin' worse than any revenant ever had. It must've been hours, if not half a day, before I finally summoned the will, and the strength, to lift my face out of the pile of soot, dust and wood splinters.

  I coughed, and blood splattered from my lips.

  My body was a mess, the kind you see in an accident where someone was thrown from a horse. Or mauled by a mana bear. Actually, considerin' the state of my backside, which had absorbed most of the ward's blast, one might guess I'd been fed feet first into a thresher.

  And yet, as I stood and brushed glass and flakes of dried blood from my clothes, I couldn't help but notice that I still looked something handsome.

  As I blinked away the lingering afterimages burned into my eye balls I felt a strange, unfamiliar breeze rush through the small drawing room I had landed in.

  I swallowed.

  A moment of pure terror wrackin' my mind as I realized exactly why.

  Then I sensed the wrongness, truly understood the disturbance in my world.

  I'd lost my fuckin' hat.

  Now, the loss of a good hat is a terrible thing. It marks a man who has no sense of class, no dignity, and no understanding of proper decorum. A hatless man’s handshake is a lie, his invitation a prelude to theft or worse.

  To be hatless, was to be plain wrong.

  I'd rather have lost my godsdamned arms.

  Well, a second time I guess.

  I grabbed for my flask and took a swig, swishin' the taste of blood and broken teeth from my mouth. I spat, then ceased mournin' my beloved leather companion. Much as I'd like to dwell on such a tragedy, there was a other, more immediate concerns. I turned to look through the hole, rather, holes I'd made in the heavy brick walls of what was obviously a well appointed mansion.

  The fact that I hadn't been eatin' alive while I was out on the floor, and that the horde of undead outside wasn't pounding at the door or climbing in through the windows, told me the wards was still intact. And considerin' the blast I had set off, that meant good magic.

  The formerly fancy rugs, magelight sconces and the general feel of the place made me think I was in the mayor's manse. Or whatever jackboot Imperial held the equivalent station anyways.

  I stepped over the shattered bricks and gently smoldering remains of a fancy chair and moved into the second room, a prim little parlor, all done in white lace and pink flowers, but with the smell of rot thick on the air. My scattergun lay in the gap between that and the kitchen a few more paces away.

  Thankfully the arcane arm weathered the storm better than my more natural bits.

  I whistled, and the weapon lifted into the air, the heavy wooden stock settling into my re-gloved hand.

  I really would have to thank that tailor again, if I ever saw her, or anyone livin' again.

  I stepped into the kitchen, looked out the window and saw the horde, shamblin' and moaning as they searched for the wayward prey that had so cruelly eluded them. A thin, almost imperceptible barrier of blue hung in the space between me and the hungry rabble just a ten feet or so below.

  My mana fueling flight had taken me over the roofs of dozens of small houses and shops, and I guessed I was smack in the middle of Murkwater, not too far from the coast, or the processing plant I had been aimin' for.

  I raised a finger toward the barrier and then promptly yanked it back.

  Pop!

  A little spark of magic, and the tip of my glove started smokin'.

  "Don't touch the ward... got it." I said to myself. Then I sighed. Couldn't get out the way I came then, not that I'd wanted to.

  The next option was to find a different exit, and fast. Every minute I spent crying about hats and playin' possum on the drawing room floor was another that someone else out there might be dyin'.

  I didn't like that.

  One last check over my person, arms, ammo and all, and I was limping out the kitchen and into a wide hall.

  The scent of mold and must was thick, coming up from the damp carpet and oozing out the peeling floral wall paper that decorated the long space. I felt the boards give beneath my boots, but a small tug of mana and the sound hushed. Again, that tailor woman was a damned godsend.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I slipped down the hall, peeking in each doorway, looking for a sign of life, or the presence of death.

  The first few rooms were bedrooms, or study's. The small but comfortable kind a politician might afford to a vistin' merchant. Folk that might be important, but not too important. The growin' patches of dark mold that seemed to infest every inch of the estate told me it had been a while since anyone had been here. Then again, with the way mana affected things even as small as fungus it could've been a day, or a month since a servant had tended to the chambers.

  Eventually the hall ended in a sturdy oak door, the tarnished brass handles glinted feeble in the dim magelight. Something caught my eye around the frame, scratched ruins and a flicker of bluish vapor.

  Warded.

  But why?

  Wards outside made sense, thems were standard practice for keepin' folk like me, or folk I was I guess, out.

  But why have 'em in the interior of the building. In what felt like a guest wing no less?

  Well, there was only one way to find out.

  I leaned in close and focused on the magic, lettin' my neglected Skullduggery Ability take hold of my hands as my Arcane Eye did it's best to parse the symbols and sigils that writhed in the air. Without though I drew my knife and pressed it to the wood, scratchin' out a single rune at the top.

  Pop.

  The soft release of tension in the air was palpable, and the blue-white light flickered, faded, and went out.

  Damn. Suppose Raph was right, my first Ability had more merit than I thought.

  With the barrier gone, I took a deep breath I held my scattergun by the pistol grip in one hand and slowly turned the handle with the other.

  As it eased open, creaking on ungreased hinges I leveled my boomstick, ready to put holes on anything that moaned, staggered, or just looked a little to hungry. What I saw though, wasn't a freshly turned monster or a shamblin' corpse.

  Nope.

  I'd have taken that with a smile and 'thank you ma'am' over the tragedy that lay scattered in what was obviously the main hall of this gaudy mansion.

  Six women.

  All them ashen skinned. Pink eyes open and staring blindly at the heavy gilded chandelier fixed to the vaulted ceiling above.

  All of the dead. Throats slit from ear to ear, bellied opened and empty to the world. Each wore a matching dress, humble of make, but fine of weave. They were Outcast. Or had been. Now they were just meat for maggots and seedbeds for the rot all around.

  "Guess that's why the maids ain't been cleanin'" I said, covering my mouth with a hand, fighting down the murky mix of rage and sorrow and-

  Well, hell I couldn't even say what else.

  Even to my eyes it was very clear these women weren't no victim of monsters, but of men. A rusty stain joined them, formin' a complex circle. More runes, these jagged and violent, the kind of thing a wicked witch would've carved into a neighbor's tree to curse his cattle and sour his wife's milk.

  Entropic castin' the like that would send a Chantry Mother into fits.

  Blood Magic, or so the pigfuck farmer in me wanted to call it.

  My eyes flicked from the scene of sacrifice to the big double doors that ought to be the manors entrance.

  More wards.

  Then up the curved stair to the balcony and the hallway beyond.

  Nothing moved, but my achin' eye told me the mana was thick here, despite whatever dubious protections had been enacted. These women, these poor godsdamned girls, they wouldn't stay dead for very long. Much like the merchants I found on the road, they were just a matter of time and a lack of proper disposal.

  "Mother bless your souls..." I muttered, crossing my heart and clechin' my teeth til they creaked, til I tasted blood.

  Who had done this had better hope I never met them, or at the very least, hope the Lady Death came before I did. There was just enough evil in me to make what their maids suffered look like justice by compare. I was thinkin' a long rope, a consecrated fire, and a hungry pig.

  I stuffed down the dark thoughts, locked them in that little place where I kept my fear, and moved to do what needed done. My steps were silent as I crossed the wide hall and moved to ensure the first victim would rest. I half expected some necromancer or soul-traded warlock to burst from anyone of the half dozen doors all around and hex me to rot but as I moved forward and knelt to-

  Pop.

  The moment my knee met with the ruddy stain on the floor I heard, felt and saw dark power at work.

  "Fuck!"

  I leapt back, expectin' another blast of ward magic or worse.

  Instead, it was somethin' different.

  The blood, the stain, the mark, whatever it was, began to move, the liquid bubblin' and frothing and-

  Crawling. Those jagged runes skittered toward the center where bloomed evil I couldn't-

  "Oh shit!"

  A scream, a woman's, tore from nowhere and everywhere at once. As the complex runes that dominated the foyer lighted with dark red mana, blood began to ooze, then pour, the explode from the open mouths of the dead maids.

  I clapped my hands to my ears and staggered back, eyes wide in purest terror and dawning awe.

  The gore fell like rain, splashing across the hardwood floor, splatterin' the high ceiling in thick red before the power that summoned them seemed to focus, and whirl.

  The runes joined, dancing in space to the fell music of Entropy until they were drawn into the maelstrom of blood.

  The ripple of magic that resulted was so intense that I had to look away. Instinct screamed that what was being worked right before me would make the surreal insanity of a Mana Rush feel like a pleasant dream.

  This ritual, this red sacrifice, it weren't done to protect, or curse, or destroy.

  No.

  It was something far worse.

  It was a fuckin' summoning. A trap laid for who so ever was stupid enough to come a-callin' and it was set up by someone who knew far too much.

  "Aaaaaaaee!" Wailed the thing that clawed and bled from the rapidly flattening ripple in reality. I could only glimpse it from the edge of my Arcane Eye's blurry vision, but the image burned itself into my brain, searin' my soul and damn near sending me over the edge of madness.

  Yep.

  Fuck me with the fat side of a shovel, that was godsdamned demon.

  I should've just stayed home and drank.