"Breath of Hood... even Naz'kar sleeps now within the nightmare," said a voice—low, rasping, and cracked like old wood.
"Hound of Claudius, I'll ask you again—how much longer until the master of this dream-path shows itself?"
The man was a monstrosity, hovering high above the hall, shrouded in a swirling black fog composed of tens of thousands of clustered flies.
They writhed across his body like maggots on a rotting corpse, replacing his skin entirely, boiling with ceaseless motion. The mass of insects swelled and sagged in grotesque rhythm—bulging, hollowing, blistering like diseased flesh. Occasionally, whole chunks of flies would fall off his form, hitting the ground with a wet splatter—only to scatter, buzz back into the air, and return to the pulsing mass of his body.
A priest of Hood.
Only they still uttered that half-forgotten prayer to a god who had long since vanished from mortal memory.
How many ages had passed since the last Decay Season?
And how many new palaces had been built atop the ruins of Hood's fallen temples—palaces now owned by gluttonous nobles?
The blood once offered to divine spirits—spilled in Rome's coliseums—now wasted in parched gutters, ignored and forgotten?
No one cared. No one but them.
"I have a name, Priest of Hood. Come, repeat after me: O—li—ga," said the woman leaning against the wall.
"In return, I'll even call you by your name, won't I, Mr. Gascalo?"
She looked young—no more than her twenties—and stunningly beautiful. Her face bore the gentle contours of nobility, smooth and porcelain-like. Tall and graceful, with light blue eyes and sleek black hair cut just short enough to brush her ears—regrettably so. She spoke in pristine Latin, with a faint lilt and a trace of a curled accent. There was always a trace of a smile at the corner of her lips—a subtle mockery lacing her voice.
But her appearance… left something to be desired.
A stained tunic black with grime.
An overcoat reeking faintly of scorched fabric.
Pale gray trousers torn at the hem, revealing half a bare shin.
And her feet—completely bare—sank without care into a pile of swollen, festering corpses.
Around her, the great black hall lay blanketed with the wreckage of monsters:
A jet-black horse with a human face embedded in its neck.
A hunched old woman carrying a basket of severed hands.
A pale-skinned, faceless woman with hair cascading past her knees…
They were all the kind of horrors born only in nightmares—grotesque legends that defied the logic of ancient evolution.
And every single one of them had died horribly.
Some had been gnawed down to skin and bone.
Others split clean in half.
Still others had their skulls detonated or their bodies twisted into pulp by alien spells.
All of it rivaled the aftermath of a fresh gladiator match in the coliseum.
"We do not usually share names… Hound of Claudius," the priest said with mechanical detachment.
All the buzzing compound-eyes of the flies turned toward Olga in unison. The swarm droned ominously.
"You need only tell me—how long until the dream's master appears?"
"You're such a bore," Olga sighed. "Most hounds are boring. Most priests of Hood are boring. But you? You might be the most boring of them all."
She shrugged.
"Still, Gascalo is a nice name. I actually kinda like it. But fine, let's talk business."
Gascalo didn't answer, though the pitch of the buzzing subtly shifted.
At that moment, a half-dead, faceless soul-beast howled like an animal as it was dragged halfway through the stone wall into the chamber.
The upper torso vaguely resembled a woman, once.
Hundreds of shiny black beetles crawled in from every direction, gnawing away at her body and soul.
Immortal spirit-creatures bit and chewed through her incorporeal form like bread crusts.
They scurried over her like a living burial shroud—glinting, oily, and black.
Olga watched the dying wraith with the air of someone observing a farcical play.
"According to the believers' records, when the Blood Moon rises, the master of the dream-path—the Moon God—will appear here in the City of Torturers," she said in an operatic, almost singsong tone. "And after its brief descent and departure, the gateway connecting directly to the real world will also briefly open… to receive the new citizens the believers have prepared for it."
"How much longer?"
"Mm… about half a month? Give or take a little," Olga shifted back to a normal tone. "But honestly, I'm getting a little bored. I can't help wanting some entertainment, and this city only has lunatics—or nightmares that crawled out of those lunatics' heads..."
"Then I'll see you in half a month."
"Hey—"
Olga had just opened her mouth to speak again, but the priest of Hood had already vanished. The swarm of flies scattered with a wet snap, like a bottle of ink spilled into a rushing river. They surged out through cracks in doors and windows, disappearing completely.
And in the center—no shadow, no man. Nothing remained.
"Damnation on Hood's soles! These cursed priests are so boring…"
"Looks like your dream of chatting up a priest of Hood didn't go so well, Olga. Should I offer my condolences?"
The voice was male—thin as a reed stalk, laced with a barely-there sarcasm.
"Hey, I'm immune to your tone now, Tuska. Think about it—getting acquainted with a professional contact is perfectly normal. And this one just happened to be a mysterious priest of Hood." She shrugged, as if it were nothing. "The Year of the Severing's almost over, and I still don't know how the Empress caught the Shadow Temple's eye—much less Hood's."
"The fate of the Empire is beyond our pay grade, Olga. I don't concern myself with affairs outside my duty," the man replied. "What is important is that some Tenet Faith followers came in from the dungeon's direction. I suspect they've already set up camp in another House of Torment."
"You want me to scout?" She blinked innocently.
"You're very clever, Olga."
"Will I get a raise when I report back, boss?"
"I don't enjoy jokes."
"I'll file a formal complaint, Tuska."
Once the bickering ended, her body began to tremble. Her spine arched upward, her torso bending in a fluid, wave-like motion. Her bones twisted and curled as though made of soggy rubber. Her skin and clothing started to melt, muscles shifting inwards and outwards in a grotesque undulation—until she had compressed into a squat, leg-high ball.
Even that wasn't the end. The ball curled tighter, reshaping into an upside-down triangle...
And then—white feathers.
A snow-white owl.
The owl let out a shrill, half-human screech and launched itself toward Tuska's face.
He was cloaked in black from head to toe, even his face hidden in shadow. But a long, pale hand slipped free from his robes and swatted the owl's talons away.
"Olga, if you scratch my face again with those claws, you'll be drinking pig slop for the next three months."
"Just a joke."
The owl let out two soft hoots, flapped her wings in a lazy circle above his head, then darted through the hall and out the door.